lo.260/ 


THE  LIFE   AND   WORDS  OF  CHRIST. 


THE 


LIFE    AND    WORDS 


OF 


CHE  I  ST. 


BY 

CUNNINGHAM    GEIKIE,    D.  D 

"  THE  LIFE  WAS  THE  LIGHT  OF  MEN." — JOHN  i.  4. 
REVISED  EDITION. 

TWO  VOLUMES  IN  ONE 


NEW    YORK: 
D.    APPLETON    AND    COMPANY. 

1897. 


10    MY   HONOURED    FRIEND 

THE    REV.    F.    W.    FARRAR,    D.D.,    F.R.S., 

LATE    FELLOW   OP   TRINITY   COLLEGE,   CAMBRIDGE, 
CANON   OF  WESTMINSTER, 

AND 
CHAPLAIN  IN  ORDINARY   TO  THE  QUEEN. 

1   WISH   IT   TO  STAND   GRATEFULLY   RECORDED 
WHILE   THIS   BOOK   SURVIVES, 

THAT 
AMIDST   MANY   OTHER  ACTS  OF   FRIENDSHIP   SHOWN   ME   BY  HIM, 

I  STAND   INDEBTED 

TO  HIS  SYMPATHY  WITH   LITERATURE, 

OF  WHICH   HE   IS   SO   GREAT   AN  ORNAMENT, 

AND   TO  THE   GENEROUS   WARMTH   OF  HIS  NATURE, 

FOR   THE   OFFER   OF  THE 

RECTORY   OF  ST.    MARY'S,    MALDON,   ESSEX  ; 

MY   FIRST  ECCLESIASTICAL   PREFERMENT   IN   ENGLAND; 

THOUGH,   TO   MY   SINCERE   REGRET, 

I   WAS  UNABLE   TO  ACCEPT   IT. 


2064S24 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  FAGES 

I.  INTRODUCTORY 1-13 

II.  THE  HOLT  LAND 14-22 

III.  PALESTINE  AT  THE  TIME  OF  CHRIST      .        .  23-39 

IV.  THE  REIGN  OP  HEROD 10-58 

V.  THE  JEWISH  WORLD  AT  THE  TIME  OF  CHRIST  59-68 

VI.  THE  RABBIS  AT  THE  TIME  OP  CHRIST,  AND 

THEIR  IDEAS  RESPECTING  THE  MESSIAH  .  69-78 

VII.  BIRTH  OF  JOHN  THE  BAPTIST        .        .       .  79-97 

VEIL  THE  ANNOUNCEMENT  TO  MART      .        .        .  98-107 

IX.  THE  BIRTH  OP  CHRIST 108-118 

X  AT  BETHLEHEM 119-128 

XL  THE  MAGI 129-146 

XII.  NAZARETH,  AND  THE  EARLT  DAYS  OF  JESUS  .  147-165 

XIII.  EARLT  BOTHOOD 166-188 

XIV.  SOCIAL  INFLUENCES 189-202 

XV.  THE  PASSOVER  VISIT  TO  JERUSALEM     .        .  203-218 

XVI.  EARLT  YEARS 219-230 

XVII.  LIFE  UNDER  THE  LAW 231-245 

XVIII.   JUDEA  UNDER  ARCHELAUS  AND   RoJIE     .           .  246-268 

XIX.  THE  ROMAN  PROCURATORS     ....  269-281 

XX.  HEROD  ANTIPAS  AND  CHRIST'S  OWN  COUKTRT  282-293 

XXI.  THE  GALILEANS  AND  THE  BORDER  LANDS    .  294-307 

XXII.  BEFORE  THE  DAWN        .        .        .     -   .        .  308-329 

XXIII.  THE  KINGDOM  OF  HEAVEN  is  AT  HAND        .  330-350 

XXIV.  THE  VOICE  IN  THE  WILDERNESS  .  357-366 


Vlll  CONTENTS. 

PAGES 

XXV.  THE  NEW  PROPHET  IN  THE  WILDERNESS     .  367-386 
XXVI.  THE  BAPTISM  OP  JESUS  AND  THE  DEATH  OF 

JOHN 387-410 

XXVII.  THE  TEMPTATION 411-426 

XXVni.  THE  BETUBN  PROM  THE  WILDERNESS    .        .  427-445 

XXIX.  THE  OPENING  OP  CHRIST'S  PUBLIC  MINISTRY  446-466 

XXX.  VISIT  TO  JERUSALEM 467-482 

XXXT.  FROM  JERUSALEM  TO  SAMARIA      .        .        .  483-505 

XXXII.  OPENING  OP  THE  MINISTRY  IN  GALILEE        .  506-518 

NOTES  TO  VOLUME  1 519-581 


PREFACE. 


NO  apology  is  needed  for  the  publication  of  another 
Life  of  Christ,  for  the  subject,  to  use  the  words 
of  Mr.  Carlyle,  is  "  of  quite  perennial,  infinite  charac- 
ter, and  its  significance  will  ever  demand  to  be  anew 
inquired  into,  and  anew  made  manifest." 

The  freshness  and  interest  of  the  name  of  Jesus, 
and  its  power  as  a  great  factor  in  the  spiritual  history 
of  the  world,  increase  with  each  generation.  The 
influence  of  His  life,  His  words,  and  His  death,  have, 
from  the  first,  been  like  leaven  cast  into  the  mass  of 
humanity.  He  made  religion  spiritual  instead  of 
ceremonial  and  external ;  universal,  instead  of  local. 
He  gave  us  the  magnificent  dowry  of  a  faith  in  One 
Common  Father  of  the  whole  human  race,  and,  thus, 
of  a  world-wide  brotherhood  of  all  mankind.  He  con- 
firmed the  doctrine  of  our  immortality,  and  scattered 
abroad  the  germs  of  a  heavenly  life  by  His  fundamental 
requirements  of  love  to  God  and  our  neighbour.  All 
reforms  of  individual  and  public  life  lie  veiled  in  these 
principles,  awaiting  the  advance  of  our  moral  sense, 
to  apprehend  and  apply  them.  They  have  already 
given  freedom  to  the  slave;  raised  woman;  purified 
morals ;  mitigated  war ;  created  liberty ;  and  made 
humanity  a  growing  force,  in  things  private,  civil,  and 
political.  All  that  love  to  our  fellow-man  can  prompt 


X  PKEFACE. 

finds  itself  only  a  copy  of  that  Life  which  was  spent 
in  continually  doing  good,  and  the  noblest  self-sacrifice 
for  others  finds  itself  anticipated  by  Calvary. 

To  the  individual  Christian,  JESUS  is  the  Divine 
Saviour,  to  believe  in  Whom  is  life  everlasting:  to 
know  Whom  is  to  have  peace  with  God.  Love  has 
no  diviner  emblem  than  the  Good  Shepherd :  Bene- 
ficence no  ideal  so  perfect,  as  that  "  it  is  more  blessed 
to  give  than  to  receive :  "  Fidelity  to  duty  no  loftier 
standard  than  a  life  laid  down  at  its  command :  Self- 
sacrifice  no  dream  so  perfect  as  the  record  of  His  death 
on  the  Cross. 

To  write  the  story  of  such  a  Life  is  no  easy  task, 
but  it  is  one  beyond  all  others  important  for  the  best 
interests  of  the  age.  It  is  impossible  to  describe  the 
infinite  dignity  of  His  person ;  but  His  words  and  acts 
are  His  legacy  to  us,  which  it  is  vital  to  study  and 
apply. 

I  have  tried  in  this  book  to  restore,  as  far  as  I  could, 
the  world  in  which  Jesus  moved ;  the  country  in  which 
He  lived ;  the  people  among  whom  He  grew  up  and 
ministered ;  the  religion  in  which  He  was  trained ; 
the  Temple  services  in  which  He  took  part ;  the 
ecclesiastical,  civil,  and  social  aspects  of  His  time ; 
the  parties  of  the  day,  their  opinions  and  their  spirit ; 
the  customs  that  ruled  ;  the  influences  that  prevailed  ; 
the  events,  social,  religious,  and  political,  not  mentioned 
in  the  Gospels,  that  formed  the  history  of  His  lifetime, 
so  far  as  they  can  be  recovered. 

In  this  picture,  He,  Himself,  is,  of  course,  the  central 
figure,  to  which  all  details  are  subordinate.  I  have 
tried  to  present  His  acts  and  words  as  they  would 
strike  those  who  first  saw  or  heard  them,  and  have 
added  only  as  much  elucidation  to  the  latter  as  seemed 


PKEFACE.  XI 

needed.  All  His  Sayings  and  Discourses  are  given  in 
full,  for  a  Life  in  which  He  is  not  His  own  interpreter, 
must  be  defective. 

No  one  can  feel  more  keenly  than  myself  how  open 
such  a  book  must  be  to  criticism.  Where  the  best 
and  wisest  have  differed,  I  could  not  expect  that  all 
will  agree  with  me,  and  I  cannot  hope  to  have  escaped 
oversights,  or  even  errors,  in  treating  a  subject  so 
extensive.  I  can  only  plead  my  honest  desire  for  truth 
and  correctness,  in  mitigation  of  judgment. 

I  trust,  however,  that  my  book,  as  a  whole,  presents 
a  reliable  picture  of  the  Life  of  Our  Lord  in  the  midst 
of  the  world  in  which  He  moved,  and  that  it  will  throw 
light  on  the  narratives  in  the  Gospels,  by  filling  up 
their  brief  outlines,  where  possible. 

For  the  various  sources  to  which  I  have  been  in- 
debted I  must  only  refer  to  the  books  named  at  the 
foot  of  each  page,  and  the  list  of  authorities  at  the 
beginning.  I  have  used  them  freely,  but  always,  so 
far  as  I  know,  with  due  acknowledgment. 

And,  now,  go  forth,  My  Book,  and  may  He  whose 
honour  thou  seekest,  bless  thee,  and  thy  Unknown 
Eeader ! 


LIST  OF  AUTHORITIES. 


The  following  are  some  of  the  authorities  used  in  this  look ;  many, 
however,  being  necessarily  omitted : — 


Andrews,   The  Life  of  Our  Lord 

upon  the  Earth.  London,  1863. 
Augusti's  Predigten  d.  Kirchen- 

vater.    2  vols.  Leipzig,  1838. 
Augusti  und  De  Wette's  Uebersetz- 

ung,   d.  Alt.   und  Neuen   Test. 

Heidelberg,  1814. 

Baring-Gould's    Heathenism    and 

Mosaism.  8vo.  London,  1869. 
Baring-Gould's  Christianity.  8vo. 

1870. 
Baring-Gould's      Post      Mediaeval 

Preachers.    London,  1865. 
Baumgarten's      Leidensgeschichte 

Jesu  Christi.    Halle,  1757. 
Baumgarten's      Geschichte    Jesu. 

Braunschweig,  1859. 
Baur's    (F.C.),    Die    Drei    Ersten 

Jahrhunderte.  Tubingen,  1863. 
Bengelii  Gnomon.  Londoni,  1855. 
Bertheau  (E.),  Die  Sieben  Gruppen 

Mosaischer  Gesetze.     Gottiugen, 

1840. 
Besser's     Bibelstunden.     2    vols. 

Halle,  1864. 
Brunet's  Les  Evangiles  Apocryphes. 

Paris,  1863. 
Bunsen    (Ernest),   Chronology    of 

the  Bible.    London,  1874. 
Bunsen's  Das  Leben  Jesu.   Leipzig, 

1865. 
Buxtorf's     Lexicon,     Chaldaicum, 

Talmudicum      et     Eabbinicum. 

Folio.    Basileas,  1639. 
Buxtorf's       Synagoga      Judaica. 

Basileae,  1680. 


Campbell  (Principal),  On  the  Four 

Gospels.    Aberdeen,  1803. 
Caspari,    Chronologiseh-geograph- 

ische  Einleitung,   etc.     Hamb., 

1869. 
Cohen's  Historisch   Krit.  Darstel- 

lung  d.  Jiidischen  Gottesdienstes. 

Leipzig,  1819. 
Curtis'      Wanderer       in       Syria. 

London,  1852. 


Davidson's  (Dr.  S.)  Tischendorf 's 

New  Test.    London,  1875. 
De    Wette's  Handbuch  z.   Neuen 

Test.    Leipzig,  1857. 
De  Wette's  Archaologie.    Leipzig, 

1830. 
Delitzsch's  Ein  Tag  in  Capernaum. 

Leipzig,  1873. 
Delitzsch's      Sehet      Welch      ein 

Mensch !     Leipzig,  1872. 
Delitzsch's  Durch  Kranklieit  zur 

Genesnng.     Leipzig,  1873. 
Delitzsch's  Jiidisches  Handwerker- 

leben  zur  Zeit  Jesu.    Erlangen, 

1869. 
Delitzsch's      Jesus     und      Hillel. 

Erlangen,  1867. 
Derenbourg's  Palestine  apres    les 

Talmuds,  etc.     Paris,  1867. 
Dillmann,      d.      Buch     Henoch. 

Leipzig,  1853. 
Dillmann,  d.  Buch  d.  Jubilaen,  in 

Ewald's  Jahrbuch,  1849-1851. 
Dolliuger's  The  Gentile   and    the 

Jew,  etc.,  2  vols.    London,  1862. 


xli 


LIST   OF  AUTHORITIES. 


Xlll 


Dollinger's      Christenthum      und 

Kirche.    Begensburg,  1868. 
Duke's    Rabbinische    Blumenlese. 

Leipzig,  1844. 
Dupanloup     (Eveque     d'Orleans), 

Histoire  de  N.  S.  Jesus  Christ. 

Paris,  1872. 

Ebrard's,     The    Gospel    History. 

Edinburgh,  1863. 
Ecce  Homo.    6th  edition.   London, 

1866. 
Eichhorn's    Einleitung    in    d.   N. 

Test.    Leipzig,  1820. 
Eisenmenger's  Entdecktes  Juden- 

thum.       2    vols.       Konigsberg, 

1711. 
Ellicott's       (Bishop)       Historical 

Lectures  on   the    Life    of    Our 

Lord    Jesus    Christ.      London, 

1808. 
Elsey's     Annotations.        3     vols. 

London,  1827. 
Ewald's  Geschichte.     Vols.  1  to  6. 

Gottingen,  1864. 
Ewald's  Alterthumer.    Gottingen, 

1866. 
Ewald's  Die  Drei    Ersten   Evan- 

gelien.       2     vols.       Gottiugen, 

1870-2. 
Eusebius,   Eccles.  Hist.    London, 

1857. 

Farrar's  Life  of  Christ.     2  vols. 

London,  1874. 
Fritzsche's  Libri  Apoc.  Vet.  Test. 

Graece.     Lipsiae,  1871. 
Furrer's       Wanderungen       durch 

Palastina.     Zurich,  1865. 
Fiirst's  Hebraisches  Haudworter- 

buch      2  vols.    Leipzig,  1863. 

Gesenius,  Thesaurus  Lingua 
Hebraeae  et  Chaldaeae.  4to. 
Lipsise,  1835. 

Gfrorer's  Das  Jahrhundert  d.  Heils. 
Stuttgardt,  1838 

Gieseler's  Eccles.  History.  5  vols. 
Edinburgh,  1846. 

Godet's  St.  Luke.  2  vols.  Edin- 
burgh, 1875. 

Godwyn's  Aaron  and  Moses. 
London,  16G7. 


Greswell's  Harmonia   Evangelica. 

Oxon.     1850. 
Grotii     Annotationes.       Londini, 

1727. 
Guillemard's     Greek    Testament. 

Hebraistic  Edition,  S.  Matthew. 

Cambridge,  1875. 


Hagenbach's      Kirchengeschichte. 

Vol.  1.    Leipzig,  1861. 
Hanna's  (Dr.)  Life  of  Our  Lord. 

4  vols.    Edinburgh,  1863. 
Harteman's  Leben  Jesu.  Stuttgart, 

1839. 

Hase's  Leben  Jesu.    Leipzig,  1865. 
Hausrath's  Neutestamentliche  Zeit- 

geschichte.  Vols.  1  and  2.  Heidel- 
berg, 1874. 
Herder's  Geist  des  Christenthums. 

Leipzig-,  1798. 
Herzog's   Real-Encyklopadie.      22 

vols.     Gotha,  1866. 
Hess  (J.  J.),  Leben  Jesu.     3  vols. 

Zurich,  1773. 
Hess  (M.),  Rom    und   Jerusalem. 

Leipzig,  1862. 
Hilgenfeld's  Die  Jiidische  Apokalyp- 

tik.    Jena,  1857. 
Hilgenfeld's     Messias     Judaeoram. 

Lipsiae,  1869. 
Hofmann's    Leben    Jesu    nach   d. 

Apokryphen.     Leipzig,  1857. 
Hug's  Einleitung.    Stuttgart,  1847. 
Hurwitz     (Heimann),     Sagen    der 

Ebraer.     Oettingen,  1828. 
Hutton  (R.  H.),  Essays  Theological 

and  Literary.     2  vols.    London, 

1871. 


Irving  (Edward),  John  the  Baptist. 

London,  1864. 
Irving  (Edward),  Our  Lord's  Temp- 

tation.    London,  1864. 


Jacox,  Secular  Annotations  on 
Scripture  Texts.  London,  1875. 

Jost's  Geschichte  des  Judenthums. 
Leipzig,  1857. 

Josepnus,  Opera  Omnia  (Bekker). 
Leipzig,  1856. 

Josephus,  Whiston's  Translation. 


XIV 


LIST   OF   AUTHOBITIES. 


Keim's  Geachichte  Christus. 
Zurich,  1866. 

Keim's  Jcsu  von  Nzaara.  3  vols. 
Zurich,  1867. 

Kitto's  Cyclopaedia  of  Biblical 
Literature.  3rd  edition.  Edin- 
burgh, 1860. 

Kuiuoel's  Novum  Test.  Libri 
Historic!.  3  vols.  London, 
1335. 

Kurzgefasstes  Exeg.  Hanclbuch 
zum  Al  ten  Test.  17  vols.  Leip- 
zig, 1811-18(34. 

Lange's  Life   of  Christ.      6  vols. 

Edinburgh,  1864. 
Lange's    Kommentar  —  Matthaus, 

Markus,    Johannes.      Bielefeld, 

1860. 
Langen's  Judenthum  in  Palastina, 

etc.    Freiburg,  1866. 
Lightfoot's  Horse  Hebraicae.   4  vols. 

Oxford,  1859. 
Liicke's  Kommentar  ii.  d.  Schriften 

Johannis.    Bonn,  1820. 
Luthardt's       Das       Johanneische 

Evangelium.     Niirnberg,  1852. 
Luthardt's  Fundamental  Truths  of 

Christianity.     Edinburgh,  1869. 
Lynch's  Exploration  of  the  Jordan 

and   Dead    Sea.      Philadelphia, 

1849. 

McClellan's       New       Testament. 

London,  1875. 
Martineau's  (Harriet)  Eastern  Life. 

Present    and    Past.       London, 

1850. 
Martensen's      Christian      Ethics. 

Edinburgh,  1873. 
Maundrell's      Journey.      London, 

1810. 
Melvill's   (H.)    Sermons.      6   vols. 

London. 
Merivale's      Conversion     of     the 

Koman  Empire.     London,  18G5. 
Merrill's  ("Rev.  Selah)  Ga  ilee  in  the 

Time   of    Christ.      Bib.   Sacra. 

Andover,  U.S.,  1874. 
Mever's  Kommentar  iiber  d.  Neu 

Test.     Gottingen,  1858. 
Michaelis'   Mosaisehes   Eecht.      3 

vols.     Frankfurt  a.  Mayn,  1775. 


Mill's  British  Jews.    London,  1853. 

,,     Nablous    and    the    Modern 

Samaritans.    London,  1864. 
Milmau's  History  of  Christianity. 

8vo.    New  York,  1861. 
Mommsen's  Bomische  Geschichtc. 

3  vols.     Berlin,  1868. 
Monod's  (Adolphe)   L'Enfance  do 

Jesus.    Paris,  1860. 

Neander's  Life  of  Christ.    London, 

1857. 
Newman's   (J.    H.)    Sermons.      10 

vols.    London,  1869. 
Nork's    Eabbinische    Quellen     a. 

Parallelen.     Leipzig,  1839. 
Nork's  Etymologisch  Keal-Worter- 

buch.    4  vols.     Stuttgart,  1845. 
Nugent's   (Lord)    Lands    Classical 

and  Sacred.    London. 

Oosterzee's  d.  Evan,  nach  Lukas. 
Bielefeld,  1867. 

Pagnini  Thesaurus  Linguae  Sanctae. 

Folio.     1577. 
Palestine    Exploration  Fund    Be- 

ports,  1870-76. 
Passcw's      Handworterbuch      der 

Griechischen   Sprache.    2  vols. 

Leipzig,  1831. 
Paulus,   das  Leben  Jesu.     3  yols. 

Heidelberg,  1828. 
Paulus,    Die   Drei   Ersten   Evan- 

gelien.  3  vols.  Heidelberg,  1842. 
Pressel,  Das  Leben  Jesu.    Eeut- 

lingen,  1857. 
Pressense's     Jesus     Christ,     His 

Tunes,  Life,  and  Work.   London, 

1858. 

Eecovery  of  Jerusalem  (The).   8vo. 

London,  1871. 
Eeland's       Autiquitates       Sacrae. 

Utrecht,  1712. 
Eenan — Vie  de  Jesus.   Paris,  1870. 

„         Les  Apotres.        ,,      18G6. 

„          Saint  Paul.  „      1869. 

„         L'Antechribt.       „      1873. 
Reynolds'  John  the  Baptist.    Lon- 
don,   1875. 
Eiggenbach's  Vorlesungen  iiber  das 

Leben  Jesu.    Basel,  1858. 


LIST   OF   AUTHOEITIES. 


XV 


Robertson's  (F.  W.)  Sermons.      3 

vols.    London,  1872. 
Robinson's    (Dr.   E.)   Biblical  Re- 
searches in  Syria  and  Palestine. 

3  vols.    London,  I860. 
Robinson's  (Dr.  E.)  Lexicon  of  the 

New  Test.    New  York,  1858. 
Robinson's   (Dr.    E.)  Harmony  of 

the  Gospels.     London. 
Rohr's  Palastina.     Zeitz,  1835. 
Roseniniiller's  (D.  J.  G.)  Scholia  in 

Novum  Testameritum.      Norim- 

bergaa,  1804. 
Rosenmiiller's  (E.  F.  K.)  Handbuch 

der  Biblischen  Alterthumskuncle. 

5  vols.    Leipzig,  1825. 

Scapulae  Lexicon  Graeeo-Latinum. 

Fol.     Oxonii,  1820. 
Schenkel,  Das  Charakterbild  Jesu. 

Wiesbaden,  1864. 
Schenkel's  Bibel-Lexicon.    5  vols. 

Leipzig,  1869. 
Schleiermacher's     Predigten.       4 

vols.    Berlin,  1844. 
Schleiermacher's      Leben       Jesu. 

Berlin,  1864. 
Schleusner's  Lexicon  in  Nov.  Test. 

2  vols.    Lipsise,  1819. 
Schneckenburger's       Vorlesungen 

iiber  Neutestamentliche  Zeitge- 

schichte.      Frankfurt- am-Main, 

1862. 
Schb'ttgen,  Horae  Hebraicae  et  Tal- 

mudicje.      Dresden  und  Leipzig, 

1733. 
Schrader's  Der  Apostel  Paulus.    5 

vols.    Leipzig,  1830. 
Schurer's    Lehrbuch    d.    Neutest. 

Zeitgeschichte.    Leipzig,  1874. 
Scrivener's   Nov.    Test.    Graecam. 

Cambridge,  1875. 
Schmidii     N.     T.    Concordantiaa. 

Glasguae,  1819. 
Sopp,   Das  Leben  Jesu.      6   vols. 

Regensburg,  1865. 
Sepp's  Jerusalem  u.d.HeiligeLand. 

2  vols.     Schaffhausen,  1873. 
Smith's  (Dr.)  Dictionary  of  Greek 

and  Roman  Biog.  and  Myth. 

vols.     London,  1853. 
Smith's  (Dr.)    Dictionary   of    the 

Bible.    3  vols.     London,  1860. 


Smith's  (Dr.)  Dictionary  of  Gieek 
and  Roman  Antiquities.  London, 
1869. 

Stanley's  Sinai  and  Palestine.  Lon- 
don, 1856. 

Stanley's  Jewish  History.  Lon- 
don, 1856. 

Stanley's  Sermons  on  the  Apostolic 
Age.  Oxford,  1847. 

Steinmeyer's  Miracles  of  our  Lord. 
Edinburgh,  1875. 

Stephen's  Incidents  of  Travel  in 
Egypt,  Arabia  Petraea,  and  the 
Holy  Land.  2  vols.  New  York, 
1838. 

Theile    and    Stiers'    Polyglotten- 

Bibel.     Bielefeld,  1863. 
Thomson's    The   Land    and    the 

Book.    London,  1863. 
Tholuck's     Bergpredigt     Christi. 

Hamburg,  1833. 
Tholuck's  Kommentar  z.  Evangelio 

Johannis.     Hamburg,  1837. 
Tholuck's    Sittliche    Charakter  d. 

Heidenthums.     Gotha,  1867. 
Tischendorf's  Pilati  circa  Christuin 

Judicio  quid  lucis   afferatur  ex 

Actis  Pilati.    Lipsise,  1855. 
Tobler(T.),  Bethlehem.    Gallenu. 

Berne,  1849. 

Tobler  (T.),  Nazareth.    Berne. 
Transactions  of  Society  of  Biblical 

Archaeology,  1872-76.     London. 
Trench's  (Archbishop)  Notes  on  the 

Parables.     London,  1860. 
Trench's   (Archbishop)    Notes    on 

the  Miracles.    London,  1856. 
Tristram's  Natural  History  of  the 

Bible.    London,  1873. 
Tristram,  the  Great  Sahara.    Lon- 
don, 1870. 
Tristram,     the     Land    of    Moab. 

London. 

Ullmann's  Die  Siindlosigkeit  Jesu. 

Gotha,  1863. 
Ullmann's    Historisch    oder    My- 

thisch  ?    Gotha,  1866. 

Von  der  Aim's  Urtheile  heidnischcr 
und  Jiidische  Schriftsteller  iibet 
Jesus.  Leipzig,  1864. 


XVI 


LIST   OF   AUTHORITIES. 


Webster    and    Wilkinson's  Greek 

Test.     2  vols.    London,  1855. 
Weidemann's     Darstelluugen     d. 

Lebena      Jesu,      etc.        Gotha, 

1864. 
Weil's  The  Bible,  the  Koran,  and 

the  Talmud,     London,  1846. 
Westcott's  Intro,  to  Study  of  the 

Gospels.    London,  1860. 
Wieseler's  Beitrage.     Gotha,  1869. 
Wieseler's  ChronoJogische  Synopse. 

Hamburg,  1843. 


Williams'  Commentary  on  the 
Gospel  Narrative.  6  vols.  Lon- 
don, 1869. 

Winer's  Eealworterbuch.  2  vols. 
3  Auf.  Leipzig.  No  date. 

Winer's  Grammatik  Neutnsta- 
mentlichen  Sprachidioms.  Sie- 
bente  Auf.  Leipzig,  1867. 

Zunz,  Die  Gottesdienstlichen  Vrr- 
triige  der  Juden,  etc.  Berlin, 
1832. 


CHAPTER  I. 
IN  TKODUCTOBY. 

THE  life  of  Jesus  Christ,  which  is  to  be  told  in  these  pages, 
must  ever  remain  the  noblest  and  most  fruitful  study 
for  all  men,  of  every  age.  It  is  admitted,  even  by  those  of 
other  faiths,  that  He  was  at  once  a  great  Teacher,  and  a  living 
illustration  of  the  truths  He  taught.  The  Mahometan  world 
gave  Him  the  high  title  of  the  Masih  (Messiah),  and  set  Him 
above  all  the  prophets.  The  Jews  confess  admiration  of  His 
character  and  words,  as  exhibited  in  the  Gospels.  Nor  is 
there  any  hesitation  among  the  great  intellects  of  different 
ages,  whatever  their  special  position  towards  Christianity; 
whether  its  humble  disciples,  or  openly  opposed  to  it,  or  care- 
lessly indifferent,  or  vaguely  latitudinarian. 

We  all  know  how  lowly  a  reverence  is  paid  to  Him  in 
passage  after  passage  by  Shakspere,  the  greatest  intellect 
known,  in  its  wide,  many-sided  splendour.  Men  like  Galileo, 
Kepler,  Bacon,  Newton,  and  Milton,  set  the  name  of  Jesus 
Christ  above  every  other.  To  show  that  no  other  subject  of 
study  can  claim  an  equal  interest,  Jean  Paul  Kichter  tells  us 
that  "  the  life  of  Christ  concerns  Him  who,  being  the  holiest 
among  the  mighty,  the  mightiest  among  the  holy,  lifted  with 
His  pierced  hand  empires  off  their  hinges,  and  turned  the 
stream  of  centuries  out  of  its  channel,  and  still  governs  the 
ages."1  Spinoza  calls  Christ  the  symbol  of  Divine  wisdom; 
Kant  and  Jacobi  hold  Him  up  as  the  symbol  of  ideal  perfec- 
tion, and  Schelling  and  Hegel  as  that  of  the  union  of  the 
divine  and  human.  "I  esteem  the  Gospels,"  says  Goethe,  "to 
be  thoroughly  genuine,  for  there  shines  forth  from  them  the 
reflected  splendour  of  a  sublimity,  proceeding  from  the  person 
of  Jesus  Christ,  of  so  divine  a  kind  as  only  the  Divine  could 

1  Ueber  den  Gott  in  der  Geschichte  und  im  Leben,  sammt.  Werke,  voL 
xxxiii.  p.  6. 

2 


2  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

ever  have  manifested  upon  earth."1  "How  petty  are  the 
books  of  the  philosophers,  with  all  their  pomp,"  says  Rousseau, 
"  compared  with  the  Gospels !  Can  it  be  that  writings  at 
once  so  sublime  and  so  simple  are  the  work  of  men  ?  Can 
He  whose  life  they  tell  be  Himself  no  more  than  a  mere  man  r 
Is  there  anything,  in  His  character,  of  the  enthusiast  or  the 
ambitious  sectary  ?  What  sweetness,  what  purity  in  His 
ways,  what  touching  grace  in  His  teachings  !  What  a  lofti- 
ness in  His  maxims,  what  profound  wisdom  in  His  words  ! 
What  presence  of  mind,  what  delicacy  and  aptness  in  His 
replies  !  What  an  empire  over  Hia  passions  !  Where  is  the 
man,  where  is  the  sage,  who  knows  how  to  act,  to  suffer,  and 
to  die  without  weakness  and  without  display  ?  My  friend, 
men  do  not  invent  like  this;  and  the  facts  respecting  Socrates, 
which  no  one  doubts,  are  not  so  well  attested  as  those  about 
Jesus  Christ.  These  Jews  could  never  have  struck  this  tone, 
or  thought  of  this  morality,  and  the  Gospel  has  characteristics 
of  truthfulness  so  grand,  so  striking,  so  perfectly  inimitable, 
that  their  inventors  would  be  even  more  wonderful  than  He 
whom  they  portray."  "  Yes,  if  the  death  of  Socrates  be  that 
of  a  sage,  the  life  and  death  of  Jesus  are  those  of  a  God."2 

Thomas  Carlyle  repeatedly  expresses  a  similar  reverence. 
"  Jesus  of  Nazareth,"  says  he,  "our  divinest  symbol !  Higher 
has  the  human  thought  not  yet  reached."  "A  symbol  of 
quite  perennial,  infinite  character,  whose  significance  will  ever 
demand  to  be  anew  inquired  into,  and  anew  made  manifest."3 
Dr.  Channing,  of  Boston,  the  foremost  man  in  his  day  among 
American  Unitarians,  is  equally  marked  in  his  words.1 
"  The  character  of  Jesus,"  says  he,  "  is  wholly  inexplicable  on 
human  principles."  Matthias  Claudius,  one  of  the  people's 
poets  of  Germany,  last  century,  writes  to  a  friend,5  "  No  one 
ever  thus  loved  [as  Christ  did],  nor  did  anything  so  truly 
great  and  good  as  the  Bible  tells  us  of  Him  ever  enter  into 
the  heart  of  man.  It  is  a  holy  form  which  rises  before  the 
poor  pilgrim  like  a  star  in  the  night,  and  satisfies  his  inner- 
most craving,  his  most  secret  yearnings  and  hopes."  "  Jesus 
Christ,"  says  the  exquisite  genius,  Herder,  "  is  in  the  noblest, 
and  most  perfect  sense,  the  realized  ideal  of  humanity."  6 

No  one  will  accuse  the  first  Napoleon  of  being  either  a 


1  Conversations  with  Eckermann,  vol.  iii.  p.  371. 

*  Emile,  I.  iv.  pp.  109-111.  3  Sartor  Kesartus,  pp.  137-140. 
4  Chamtiny's  Works  (one  vol.),  p.  211.     5  Brief e  an  Andres,  pt.  vi.  (J8, 

•  Art.  Herder,  Herzog's  Ency.,  vol.  v.  p.  751. 


NAPOLEON   ON   JESUS   CHRIST.  3 

pietist,  or  weak-minded.  He  strode  the  world  in  his  day  lika 
a  Colossus,  a  man  of  gigantic  intellect,  however  worthless  and 
depraved  in  moral  sense.  Conversing  one  day,  at  St.  Helena, 
as  his  custom  was,  about  the  great  men  of  antiquity,  and 
comparing  himself  with  them,  he  suddenly  turned  round  to 
one  of  his  suite  and  asked  him,  "  Can  you  tell  me  who  Jesus 
Christ  was  ?  "  The  officer  owned  that  he  had  not  yet  takeu 
much  thought  of  such  things.  "  Well,  then,"  said  Napoleon, 
"  I  will  tell  you."  He  then  compared  Christ  with  himself, 
and  with  the  heroes  of  antiquity,  and  showed  how  Jesus  far 
surpassed  them.  "  I  think  I  understand  somewhat  of  human 
nature,"  he  continued,  "  and  I  tell  you  all  these  were  men, 
and  I  am  a  man,  but  not  one  is  like  Him  ;  Jesus  Christ  was 
more  than  man.  Alexander,  Caesar,  Charlemagne,  and  myself 
founded  great  empires ;  but  upon  what  did  the  creations  of 
our  genius  depend  ?  Upon  force.  Jesus  alone  founded  His 
empire  upon  love,  and  to  this  very  day  millions  would  die  for 
Him."1  "The  Gospel  is  no  mere  book,"  said  he  at  another 
time,  "  but  a  living  creature,  with  a  vigour,  a  power,  which 
conquers  all  that  opposes  it.  Here  lies  the  Book  of  Books 
upon  the  table  [touching  it  reverently] ;  I  do  not  tire  of 
reading  it,  and  do  so  daily  with  equal  pleasure.  The  soul, 
charmed  with  the  beauty  of  the  Gospel,  is  no  longer  its  own : 
God  possesses  it  entirely  :  He  directs  its  thoughts  and  facul- 
ties ;  it  is  His.  What  a  proof  of  the  divinity  of  Jesus  Christ ! 
Yet  in  this  absolute  sovereignty  He  has  but  one  aim — the 
spiritual  perfection  of  the  individual,  the  purification  of  his 
conscience,  his  union  with  what  is  true,  the  salvation  of  his 
soul.  Men  wonder  at  the  conquests  of  Alexander,  but  here 
is  a  conqueror  who  draws  men  to  Himself  for  their  highest 
good ;  who  unites  to  Himself,  incorporates  into  Himself,  not 
a  nation,  but  the  whole  human  race  !  " 

I  might  multiply  such  testimonies  from  men  of  all  ages 
and  classes,  indefinitely ;  let  me  give  only  one  or  two  more. 

Among  all  the  Biblical  critics  of  Germany,  no  one  has  risen 
with  an  intellect  more  piercing,  a  learning  more  vast,  and 
a  freedom  and  fearlessness  more  unquestioned,  than  De  Wette. 
Yet,  listen  to  a  sentence  from  the  preface  to  his  Commentary 
on  the  Book  of  Revelation,  published  just  before  his  death,  in 
1849 :  2  "  This  only  I  know,  that  there  is  salvation  in  no  other 
name  than  in  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  Crucified,  and 

*  Bertrand^s  I\Ierr.oirs.    Paris,  1844. 
8  De  Wette's  Otfcnb.,  3rd  Auf.  p.  vL 


4  THE  LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

that  nothing  loftier  offers  itself  to  humanity  than  the  God- 
manhood  realized  in  Him,  and  the  kingdom  of  God  which  He 
founded — an  idea  and  problem  not  yet  rightly  understood  and 
incorporated  into  life,  even  of  those  who,  in  other  respects, 
justly  rank  as  the  most  zealous  and  the  warmest  Christians  ! 
Were  Christ  in  deed  and  in  truth  our  Life,  how  could  such 
a  falling  away  from  Him  be  possible  ?  Those  iu  whom  He 
lived  would  witness  so  mightily  for  Him,  through  their  whole 
life,  whether  spoken,  written,  or  acted,  that  unbelief  would 
be  forced  to  silence." 

Nor  is  the  incidental  testimony  to  Christ  of  those  who  have 
openly  acknowledged  their  supreme  devotion  to  Him  less 
striking.  There  have  been  martyrs  to  many  creeds,  but  what 
religion  ever  saw  an  army  of  martyrs  willingly  dying  for  the 
personal  love  they  bore  to  the  founder  of  their  faith  ?  Tet 
this  has  always  been  the  characteristic  of  the  martyrs  of 
Christianity,  from  the  days  when,  as  tradition  tells  us,  Peter 
was  led  to  crucifixion  with  the  words  ever  on  his  lips,  "  None 
but  Christ,  none  but  Christ,"  or  when  the  aged  Polycarp, — 
about  to  be  burned  alive  in  the  amphitheatre  at  Smyrna, — 
answered  the  governor,  who  sought  to  make  him  revile 
Christ1 — "  Eighty  and  six  years  have  I  served  Him,  and  He 
never  did  me  wrong;  and  how  can  I  now  blaspheme  my  King 
who  has  saved  me  ?  "  Nearly  seventeen  hundred  years  passed 
from  the  time  when  the  early  confessor  died  blessing  God 
that  he  was  counted  worthy  to  have  a  share  in  the  number  of 
martyrs  and  in  the  cup  of  Christ ;  and  a  man  of  high  culture 
and  intellect  lies  dying,  the  native  of  an  island  peopled  only 
by  outside  barbarians  in  the  days  of  Polycarp.  The  atten- 
dants, watching  his  last  moments,  see  his  lips  move,  and 
bending  over  him,  catch  the  faint  sounds,  "  Jesus  love ! — 
Jesus  love ! — the  same  thing," — the  last  words  uttered  before 
he  left  them.  It  was  the  death-bed  of  Sir  James  Macintosh. 
Thus  the  character  of  Christ  still  retains  the  supreme  charm 
by  which  it  drew  towards  it  the  deepest  affections  of  the 
heart  in  the  earliest  age  of  the  Church ;  and  such  a  character 
must  claim,  above  all  others,  our  reverent  and  thoughtful 
study. 

If  we  attempt  to  discover  what  it  is  in  the  personal  charac- 
ter of  Jesus  Christ,  as  shown  in  His  life,  that  thus  attracts 
such  permanent  admiration,  it  is  not  difficult  to  do  so. 

In  an  age  when  the  ideal  of  the  religious  life  was  realized 

1  EuscUus  If.  £.,  bk.  4,  c.  15. 


THE   UNSELFISHNESS   OF   CHRIST.  5 

in  the  Baptist's  withdrawing  from  men,  and  burying  himself 
in  the  ascetic  solitudes  of  the  desert,  Christ  came,  bringing 
religion  into  the  haunts  and  homes  and  every-day  life  of 
men.  For  the  mortifications  of  the  hermit  He  substituted 
the  labours  of  active  benevolence ;  for  the  fears  and  gloom 
which  shrank  from  men,  He  brought  the  light  of  a  cheerful 
piety,  which  made  every  act  of  daily  life  religious.  He  found 
the  domain  of  religion  fenced  off  as  something  distinct  from 
common  duties,  and  He  threw  down  the  wall  of  separation, 
and  consecrated  the  whole  sweep  of  existence.  He  lived,  a 
man  amongst  men,  sharing  alike  their  joys  and  their  sorrows, 
dignifying  the  humblest  details  of  life  by  making  them  sub- 
ordinate to  the  single  aim  of  His  Father's  glory.  Henceforth 
the  grand  revolution  was  inaugurated,  which  taught  that 
religion  does  not  lie  in  selfish  or  morbid  devotion  to  personal 
interests,  whether  in  the  desert  or  the  temple,  but  in  loving 
work  and  self-sacrifice  for  others. 

The  absolute  unselfishness  of  Christ's  character  is,  indeed, 
its  unique  charm.  His  own  life  is  self-denial  throughout,  and 
He  makes  a  similar  spirit  the  test  of  all  healthy  religious  life. 
It  is  He  who  said,  "It  is  more  blessed  to  give  than  to 
receive ; "  who  reminds  us  that  life,  like  the  wheat,  yields 
fruit  only  by  its  own  dying ;  who  gave  us  the  ideal  of  life  in 
His  own  absolute  self-oblivion.  We  feel  instinctively  that 
this  Gospel  of  Love  alone  is  divine,  and  that  we  cannot  with- 
hold our  homage  from  the  only  perfectly  Unselfish  Life  ever 
seen  on  earth. 

There  is  much,  besides,  to  which  I  can  only  allude  in  a 
word.  He  demands  repentance  from  all,  but  never  for  a 
moment  hints  at  any  need  of  it  for  Himself.  With  all  His 
matchless  lowliness,  He  advances  personal  claims  which,  in 
a  mere  man,  would  be  the  very  delirium  of  religious  pride. 
He  was  divinely  patient  under  every  form  of  suffering, — a 
homeless  life,  hunger  and  thirst,  craft  and  violence,  meanness 
and  pride,  the  taunts  of  enemies,  and  betrayals  of  friends, 
ending  in  an  ignominious  death.  Nothing  of  all  this  for  a 
moment  turned  Him  from  His  chosen  path  of  love  and  pity. 
His  last  words,  like  His  whole  life,  were  a  prayer  for  those 
who  returned  Him  evil  for  good.  His  absolute  superiority 
to  everything  narrow  or  local,  so  that  He,  a  Jew,  founds  a 
religion  in  which  all  mankind  are  a  common  brotherhood, 
equal  before  God ;  the  dignity,  calmness,  and  self-possession 
before  rulers,  priests,  and  governors,  which  sets  Him  im- 
measurably above  them;  His  freedom  from  superstition,  in 


6  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

an  age  which  was  superstitions  almost  beyond  example ;  His 
superiority  to  the  merely  external  and  ritual,  in  an  age  when 
rites  and  externals  were  the  sum  of  religion :  all  these  con- 
siderations, to  mention  no  others,  explain  the  mysterious 
attraction  of  His  character,  even  when  looked  at  only  as  that 
of  an  ideal  Man. 

When,  from  His  character,  we  turn  to  His  teachings,  the 
claims  of  His  Life  on  our  reverent  study  are  still  further 
strengthened.  To  Him  we  owe  the  expansion  of  whatever 
was  vital  in  Ancient  Judaism  from  the  creed  of  a  tribe  into 
a  religion  for  the  world.  The  Old  Testament  reveals  a  sub- 
lime and  touching  description  of  God  as  the  Creator  and  the 
All- wise  and  Almighty  Ruler  of  all  things ;  as  the  God,  in 
whose  hand  is  the  life  of  every  living  thing  and  the  breath  of 
all  mankind ; J  the  God  of  Providence,  on  whom  the  eyes  of 
all  creatures  wait,  and  who  gives  them  their  meat  in  due 
season  ;2  as  a  Being  of  infinite  majesty,  who  will  by  no  means 
clear  the  guilty,  but  yet  is  merciful  and  gracious,  longsuffer- 
ing,  and  abundant  in  goodness  and  truth ;  as  keeping  mercy 
for  thousands,  forgiving  iniquity  and  transgression  and  sin, 
and  as  pitying  them  that  fear  Him,  like  as  a  father  pitieth 
his  children.  But  it  was  reserved  for  Christ  to  bring  the 
character  of  God,  as  a  God  of  Love,  into  full  noon-day  light, 
in  His  so  loving  the  world  as  to  give  His  only-begotten  Son, 
that  whosoever  believeth  in  Him  might  not  perish,  but  have 
eternal  life.3  In  the  New  Testament  He  is  first  called  in  the 
widest  sense  the  Father  of  all  mankind.*  The  Old  Testament 
proclaimed  Him  the  God  of  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob — the 
Portion  of  Israel :  Christ  points  the  eyes  of  all  nations  to 
Him  as  the  God  of  the  whole  human  race. 

The  fundamental  principles  of  Christianity  are  as  new  and 
as  sublime  as  this  grand  conception  of  God,  and  spring 
directly  from  it.  The  highest  ideal  of  man  must  ever  be,  that 
his  soul  reflects  the  image  of  his  Creator,  and  this  image  can 
only  be  that  of  pure,  all-embracing  love,  to  God  and  man,  for 
God  is  love.  Outward  service,  alone,  is  of  no  value :  the  pure 
heart,  only,  loves  aright :  it,  only,  reflects  the  divine  likeness ; 
for  purity  and  love  are  the  same  in  the  Eternal.  A  religion 
resting  on  such  a  basis  bears  the  seal  of  heaven.  But  this 
divine  law-  constitutes  Christianity. 

The  morality  taught  by  Christ  is  in  keeping  with  such 

1  Job  xii.  10.  *  Ps.  cxlv.  15.  »  John  iii.  16. 

•  The  letters  in  the  text  refer  to  notes  at  the  end  of  the  volume. 


THE   NOVELTY   OP   CHEIST'S   TEACHING.  7 

fnndamental  demands.  Since  love  is  the  fulfilling  of  the  law, 
there  can  be  no  limitation  to  duty  but  that  of  power.  It  can 
only  be  bounded  by  our  possibilities  of  performance,  and  that 
not  in  the  letter,  but  in  spirit  and  in  truth,  both  towards  God 
and  our  neighbour.  The  perfect  holiness  of  God  can  alone  bo 
the  standard  of  our  aspiration  :  for  love  means  obedience,  and 
God  cannot  look  upon  sin.  To  be  a  perfect  Christian  is  to  be 
a  sinless  man — sinless  through  the  obedience  of  perfect  love. 
Such  a  morality  has  the  seal  of  the  living  God  011  its  forehead. 

It  is  to  be  remembered,  in  realizing  our  obligations  to 
Christ,  that  there  was  a  perfect  novelty  in  this  teaching. 
Antiquity,  outside  the  Jewish  world,  had  no  conception  of 
what  we  call  sin.  There  is  no  word  in  Greek  for  what  we 
mean  by  it :  the  expression  for  it  is  synonymous  with  physical 
evil.lb  There  was  either  no  guilt  in  an  action,  or  the  deity 
was  to  blame,  or  the  action  was  irresistible.  Priests  and 
people  had  no  aim  or  desire  in  sacrifices,  prayers,  or  festivals, 
beyond  the  removal  of  a  defilement,  not  considered  as  a  moral, 
but  a  physical  stain ;  and  they  attributed  a  magical  effect  to 
propitiatory  rites  through  which  they  thought  to  obtain  that 
removal;  this  effect  being  sure  to  follow  if  there  wera  no 
omission  in  the  rite,  even  though  the  will  remained  consciously 
inclined  to  evil.2 

The  Roman  was  as  free  from  having  any  conception  of  sin 
as  the  Greek.  Even  such  moralists  as  Seneca  had  only  a  blind 
spiritual  pride  which  confounded  God  and  nature,  and  re- 
garded man — the  crown  of  nature  and  its  most  perfect  work 
— as  God's  equal,  or  even  as  His  superior,  for  the  divine 
nature,  in  his  creed,  reaches  perfection  in  man  only.  Every 
man,  he  tells  us,  carries  God  about  with  him  in  his  bosom;  in 
one  aspect  of  his  being  he  is  God — virtue  is  only  the  follow- 
ing nature,  and  men's  vices  are  only  madness." 

Compare  Avith  this  the  vision  of  God — high  and  lifted  up — 
of  awful  holiness  but  of  infinite  love, — and  the  doctrine  of 
human  responsibility,  which  the  heart  itself  re-echoes — as 
taught  by  Christ ;  and  the  study  of  His  life  becomes  the 
loftiest  of  human  duties. 

We  owe  it  no  less  to  Christ  that  the  belief  in  a  future  life, 
with  its  light  or  shadow  depending  on  a  future  judgment,  is 
now  part  of  the  creed  of  the  world.  Judaism,  indeed,  in  its 
later  ages  at  least,  knew  these  revelations,  but  Judaism  could 

1  Dollinger.     The  Gentile  and  the  Jew,  etc.,  vol.  i.  p.  294. 
*  Ibid.,  vol.  i  p.  219. 


8  THE   LIFE   OF  CHRIST. 

never  have  become  the  religion  of  mankind.  Pagan  antiquity 
had  ceased  to  have  any  fixed  ideas  of  anything  beyond  this 
life.  Immortality  was  an  open  question ;  the  dream  of  poets 
rather  than  the  common  faith.  But  Christ  brought  life  and 
immortality  to  light  through  the  Gospel. 

Doctrines  such  as  these,  illustrated  by  such  a  Life,  and 
crowned  by  a  death  which  He  Himself  proclaimed  to  be 
a  voluntary  offering  "for  the  life  of  the  world,"1  could  not 
fail  to  have  a  mighty  influence. 

The  leaven  thus  cast  into  the  mass  of  humanity  has  already 
largely  transformed  society,  and  is  destined  to  affect  it  for 
good,  in  ever-increasing  measure,  in  all  directions.  The  one 
grand  doctrine  of  the  Brotherhood  of  Man,  as  man,  is  in, 
itself  the  pledge  of  infinite  results.  The  seminal  principle  01 
all  true  progress  must  ever  be  found  in  a  proper  sense  of  the 
inherent  dignity  of  manhood  ;  in  the  realization  of  the  truth 
that  the  whole  human  race  are  essentially  equal  in  their 
faculties,  nature,  and  inalienable  rights.  Such  an  idea  was 
•unknown  to  antiquity.  The  JEW,  speaking  in  the  Fourth 
Book  of  Esdras,2  addressed  God — "  On  our  account  Thou 
hast  created  the  world.  Other  nations,  sprung  from  Adam, 
Thou  hast  said  are  nothing,  and  are  like  spittle,  and  Thou 
hast  likened  their  multitude  to  the  droppings  from  a  cask 
But  we  are  Thy  people,  whom  Thou  hast  called  Thy  first- 
born, Thine  only- begotten,  Thy  well-beloved."  In  the  Book 
Sifri,  the  Rabbis  tell  us — "A  single  Israelite  is  of  more 
worth  in  the  sight  of  God  than  all  the  nations  of -the  world; 
every  Israelite  is  of  more  value  before  Him  than  all  the 
nations  who  have  been  or  will  be." 

To  the  GREEK,  the  word  "  humanity,"  as  a  term  for  the 
wide  brotherhood  of  all  races,  was  unknown.  All  races, 
except  his  own,  were  regarded  and  despised  as  "  barbarians." 
Even  the  Egyptians,  in  spite  of  their  ancient  traditions  and 
priestly  "wisdom,"  —  the  Carthaginians,  the  Phoenicians, 
Etruscans,  Macedonians,  and  Romans,  not  to  mention  out- 
lying and  uncivilized  peoples,  were  stigmatised  by  this  con- 
temptuous name.  The  Greek  fancied  himself  appointed  by 
the  gods  to  be  lord  over  all  other  races ;  and  Socrates  only 
gave  expression  to  the  general  feeling  of  his  countrymen 
when  he  thanked  the  gods  daily  for  being  man  and  not  beast, 
male  and  not  female,  Greek  and  not  barbarian. 

The  ROMAN,  in  common  with  antiquity  at  large,  considered 

1  John  vi.  51.  -  Chap.  vi.  65. 


THE   BKOTHEKHOOD   OF  HUMANITY.  9 

all  who  did  not  belong  to  his  own  State  as  hostes,  or  enemies; 
and  hence,  unless  there  were  a  special  league,  all  Romans 
held  that  the  only  law  between  them  and  those  who  were  not 
Romans  was  that  of  the  stronger,  by  which  they  were  entitled 
to  subjugate  such  races  if  they  could,  plunder  their  possessions, 
and  make  the  people  slaves.1  The  fact  that  a  tribe  lived  on 
the  bank  of  a  river  on  the  other  side  of  which  Romans  had 
settled,  made  its  members  "rivals,"  for  the  word  means  simply 
the  dwellers  on  opposite  sides  of  a  stream.  It  was  even 
objected  to  Christianity,  indeed,  that  its  folly  was  patent,  from 
its  seeking  to  introduce  one  religion  for  all  races.  "  The 
man,"  says  Celsus,  "  who  can  believe  it  possible  for  Greeks 
and  Barbarians,  in  Asia,  Europe,  and  Libya,  to  agree  in  one 
code  of  religious  laws,  must  be  utterly  devoid  of  sense." 2 
Antiquity  had  no  conception  of  a  religion  which,  by  readily 
uniting  with  everything  purely  human,  and  as  readily  attack- 
ing all  forms  of  evil,  could  be  destined  or  suited  to  the  wants  of 
all  humanity.  Nor  did  it  deign  to  think  that  the  aristocracy 
of  the  race  could  stoop  to  have  a  religion  in  common  with  the 
barbarian  to  whom  it  almost  refused  the  name  of  man. 

It  was  left  to  Christ  to  proclaim  the  brotherhood  of  all 
nations  by  revealing  God  as  their  common  Father  in  Heaven, 
filled  towards  them  with  a  father's  love ;  by  His  commission 
to  preach  the  Gospel  to  all ;  by  His  inviting  all,  without 
distinction,  who  laboured  and  were  heavy  laden,  to  come  to 
Him,  as  the  Saviour  sent  from  God,  for  rest ;  by  His  receiv- 
ing the  woman  of  Samaria  and  her  of  Canaan  as  graciously 
as  any  others  ;  by  His  making  Himself  the  friend  of  publi- 
cans and  sinners ;  by  the  tone  of  such  parables  as  that  of 
Dives  and  Lazarus  ;  by  His  equal  sympathy  with  the  slave, 
the  beggar,  and  the  ruler ;  by  the  whole  bearing  and  spirit  of 
His  life ;  and,  above  all,  by  His  picture  of  all  nations  gathered 
to  judgment  at  the  Great  Day,  with  no  distinction  of  race  or 
rank,  but  simply  as  men. 

In  this  great  principle  of  the  essential  equality  of  man,  and 
his  responsibility  to  God,  the  germs  lay  hid  of  grand  truths 
imperfectly  realized  even  yet. 

Thus,  it  is  to  this  we  owe  the  conception  of  the  rights  of 
individual  conscience  as  opposed  to  any  outward  authority. 
There  was  no  dream  of  such  a  thing  before  Christ  came. 

1  Mommsen's  Romische  Geschichte,  vol.  i.  p.  158. 

2  Neander's  Ch.  History,  vol.  i.  p.  123,  Torrey's  Translation.    Merivalo'S 
Conversion  of  the  Roman  Empire,  p.  135. 


10  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

The  play  of  individuality,  which  alone  secures  and  exempli- 
fies those  rights,  was  unknown  or  restricted.1  Among  the 
Greeks,  the  will  of  the  State  was  enforced  on  the  individual. 
Morality  and  goodness  were  limited  to  what  was  voted  by  the 
majority  as  expedient  for  the  well-being  of  the  community  at 
large.  When  a  man  had  paid  the  gods  the  traditional  sacri- 
fices and  ceremonies,  he  had  little  more  to  do  with  them. 
Not  only  could  he  not  act  for  himself  freely  in  social  or  private 
affairs;  his  conscience  had  no  liberty.  The  State  was  every- 
thing, the  man  nothing.  Rome  knew  as  little  of  responsibility 
to  higher  laws  than  its  own,  and  had  very  limited  ideas  even 
of  personal  freedom.  Christ's  words,  "  One  is  your  '  Teacher,' 
and  all  ye  are  brethren ;  "  "  One  is  your  '  Father,'  even  the 
Heavenly  ;  "  "  One  is  your  '  Guide,'  even  the  Christ,"  were 
the  inauguration  of  a  social  and  moral  revolution.2 

The  SLAVE,  before  Christ  came,  was  a  piece  of  property  of 
less  worth  than  land  or  cattle.  An  old  Roman  law  enacted 
a  penalty  of  death  for  him  who  killed  a  ploughing  ox ;  but 
the  murderer  of  a  slave  was  called  to  no  account  whatever. 
Crassus,  after  the  revolt  of  Spartacus,  crucified  10,000  slaves 
at  one  time.  Augustus,  in  violation  of  his  word,  delivered  to 
their  masters,  for  execution,  30,000  slaves  who  had  fought  for 
Sextus  Pompeius.  Trajan,  the  best  of  the  Romans  of  his  day, 
made  10,000  slaves  fight  at  one  time  in  the  amphitheatre,  for 
the  amusement  of  the  people,  and  prolonged  the  massacre 
123  days.3 

The  great  truth  of  man's  universal  brotherhood  was  the 
axe  laid  at  the  root  of  this  detestable  crime — the  sum  of  all 
villanies.  By  first  infusing  kindness  into  the  lot  of  the  slave, 
then  by  slowly  undermining  slavery  itself,  each  century  has 
seen  some  advance,  till  at  last  the  man-owner  is  unknown  in 
nearly  every  civilized  country,  and  even  Africa  itself,  the 
worst  victim  of  slavery  in  these  later  ages,  is  being  aided  by 
Christian  England  to  raise  its  slaves  into  freemen. 

AGGRESSIVE  WAR  is  no  less  distinctly  denounced  by  Chris- 
tianity, which,  in  teaching  the  brotherhood  of  man,  proclaims 
war  a  revolt,  abhorrent  to  nature,  of  brothers  against  brothel's. 
The  voice  of  Christ,  commanding  peace  on  earth,  has  echoed 
through  all  the  centuries  since  His  day,  and  has  been  at  least 
so  far  honoured  that  the  horrors  of  war  are  greatly  lessened, 

1  Hagenbach's  KirchenyescJiichte,  p.  10. 
8  Matt,  xxiii.  8-10.     The  literal  rendering. 
8  Hagenbach's  Kirchenr;eschichtet  vol.  i.  p.  18. 


THE   POOK  IN  ANTIQUITY.  11 

and  that  war  itself — no  longer  the  rnle,  but  the  exception — is 
much  rarer  in  Christian  nations  than  in  former  times. 

The  POOR,  in  antiquity,  were  in  almost  as  bad  a  plight  as 
the  slave.  "  How  can  you  possibly  let  yourself  down  so  low 
as  not  to  repel  a  poor  man  from  you  with  scorn " 1  is  the 
question  of  a  rhetorician  of  the  imperial  times  of  Rome,  to 
a  rich  man.  l$o  one  of  the  thousands  of  rich  men  living  in 
Rome  ever  conceived  the  notion  of  founding  an  asylum  for 
the  poor,  or  a  hospital  for  the  sick.  There  were  herds  of 
beggars.  Seneca  often  mentions  them,  and  observes  that 
most  men  fling  an  alms  to  a  beggar  with  repugnance,  and 
carefully  avoid  all  contact  with  him.2  Among  the  Jews,  the 
poor  were  thought  to  be  justly  bearing  the  penalty  of  some 
sin  of  their  own,  or  of  their  fathers.  But  we  know  the 
sayings  of  Christ — "  It  is  more  blessed  to  give  than  to  re- 
ceive : "  "I  was  an  hungred,  and  ye  gave  me  meat ;  I  was 
thirsty,  and  ye  gave  me  drink ;  I  was  a  stranger,  and  ye  took 
me  in ;  naked,  and  ye  clothed  me ;  I  was  sick,  and  ye  visited 
me ;  I  was  in  prison,  and  ye  came  unto  me :  "  "  Give  to  the 
poor."  The  abject  and  forlorn  received  a  charter  of  human 
rights  when  He  proclaimed  that  all  men  are  brethren:  sprung 
from  the  same  human  stock ;  sons  of  the  same  Almighty 
Father;  one  family  in  Himself,  the  Head  of  regenerated 
humanity. 

The  condition  of  WOMAN  in  antiquity  was  little  better  than 
that  of  the  slave.3  She  was  the  property  of  her  husband,  if 
married ;  if  unmarried,  she  was  the  plaything  or  slave  of 
man,  never  his  equal.  The  morality  of  married  life,  which  is 
the  strength  and  glory  of  any  people,  was  hardly  known. 
Pompey  and  Germanicus  were  singular  in  the  fidelity  that 
marked  their  marriage-relations,  on  both  sides,  and  were 
famous  through  the  singularity.  The  utter  impurity  of  the 
men  reacted  in  a  similar  self-degradation  of  the  other  sex. 
In  Romo,  marriages  became,  as  a  rule,  mere  temporary  con- 
nections. In  order  to  escape  the  punishments  inflicted  on 
adultery,  in  the  time  of  Tiberius,  married  women,  including 
even  women  of  illustrious  families,  enrolled  themselves  on  the 
official  lists  of  public  prostitutes.  St.  Paul  only  spoke  the 
language  which  every  one  who  knows  the  state  of  morals  of 
those  days  must  use,  when  he  wrote  the  well-known  verses  in 

1  Quintil.  Decl.,  301,  iii.  17.  *  De  Clem.,  v.  6. 

•  Tholuck,  d.  Sitt.  Char.  d.  Hcidenthums,  67.  Hansrath'i  Neatest, 
Zcitgeschichtc,  vol.  ii.  p.  3  Benan,  Les  Apotres,  p.  304  ff. 


12  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

the  opening  of  his  Epistle  to  the  Romans.  The  barbarians  of 
the  German  forests  alone,  of  the  heathen  world,  retained  a 
worthy  sense  of  the  true  dignity  of  woman.  "No  one  there 
laughs  at  vice,"  says  Tacitus,  "  nor  is  to  seduce  and  to  be 
seduced  called  the  fashion."  "  Happy  indeed,"  continues  the 
Roman,  thinking  of  the  state  of  things  around  him,  "  those 
states  in  which  only  virgins  marry,  and  where  the  vow  and 
heart  of  the  bride  go  together !  "  "  Infidelity  is  very  rare 
among  them." 1  The  traditions  of  a  purer  time  still  lingered 
beyond  the  Alps :  the  afterglow  of  light  that  had  set  else- 
where. 

These  traditions,  thus  honoured  in  the  forests  of  Germany, 
were  formulated  into  a  supreme  law  for  all  ages  and  countries 
by  Jesus  Christ.  Except  for  one  crime,  husband  and  wife, 
joined  by  God  in  marriage,  were  not  to  be  put  asunder. 
Woman  was  no  longer  to  be  the  toy  and  inferior  of  man. 
Polygamy,  the  fruitful  source  of  social  corruption,  was  for- 
bidden. Man  and  woman  were  to  meet  on  equal  terms  in 
lifelong  union :  each  honouring  the  other,  and  both  training 
their  children  amidst  the  sanctities  of  a  pure  family  life. 

The  enforcement  of  these  and  kindred  teachings,  destined 
to  regenerate  humanity,  required  lofty  sanctions.  That  these 
are  not  wanting,  in  the  amplest  fulness,  we  have  in  part  seen 
already,  and  shall  see  more  and  more  as  we  advance.  Mean- 
while, enough  has  been  said  to  show  why,  even  apart  from 
the  mysterious  dignity  of  His  divine  nature,  God  manifest  in 
the  flesh,  and  even  independently  of  His  being  the  Lamb  of 
God,  who  takes  away  the  sins  of  the  world,  Christ's  life  and 
sayings,  alike  unique  among  men,  deserve  the  reverent  study 
of 'all. 

"From  first  to  last,"  said  the  great  Napoleon,2  on  one 
occasion,  "  Jesus  is  the  same ;  always  the  same — majestic  and 
simple,  infinitely  severe  and  infinitely  gentle.  Throughout 
a  life  passed  under  the  public  eye,  He  never  gives  occasion 
to  find  fault.  The  prudence  of  His  conduct  compels  our 
admiration  by  its  union  of  force  and  gentleness.  Alike  in 
speech  and  action,  He  is  enlightened,  consistent,  and  calm. 
Sublimity  is  said  to  be  an  attribute  of  divinity :  what  name, 
then,  shall  we  give  Him  in  whose  character  were  united  every 
element  of  the  sublime  ? 


1  Germania,  p.  19. 

s  Sentiments  de  NapoUon  sur  le  Christianisme.     Par  lo  Chevalier  do 
Beauterne. 


CHEIST   THE   IDEAL   OP  HUMANITY.  13 

"I  know  men;  and  I  tell  you  that  Jesus  is  not  a  man. 
Everything  in  Him  amazes  me.  His  spirit  outreaches  mine, 
and  His  will  confounds  me.  Comparison  is  impossible  be- 
tween Him  and  any  other  being  in  the  world.  He  is  truly  a 
being  by  Himself.  His  ideas  and  His  sentiments ;  the  truth 
that  He  announces ;  His  manner  o£  convincing ;  are  all 
beyond  humanity  and  the  natural  order  of  things. 

"  His  birth,  and  the  story  of  His  life  ;  the  profoundness  of 
His  doctrine,  which  overturns  all  difficulties,  and  is  their 
most  complete  solution ;  His  Gospel,  the  singularity  of  His 
mysterious  being ;  His  appearance  ;  His  empire ;  His  progress 
through  all  centuries  and  kingdoms ; — all  this  is  to  me  a 
prodigy,  an  unfathomable  mystery. 

"  I  see  nothing  here  of  man.  Near  as  I  may  approach, 
closely  as  I  may  examine,  all  remains  above  my  comprehen- 
sion— great  with  a  greatness  that  crushes  me.  It  is  in  vain 
that  I  reflect — all  remains  unaccountable  ! 

"  I  defy  you  to  cite  another  life  like  that  of  Christ." 


CHAPTER  IL 
THE   HOLY  LAND. 

r  1 THE  contrast  between  the  influences  which  have  most 
-•-  affected  the  world,  and  the  centres  from  which  they  have 
sprung,  is  very  striking.  Greece,  the  mother  of  philosophy 
and  art,  for  all  time,  is  not  quite  half  the  size  of  Scotland ; 
Rom'?,  the  mighty  mistress  of  the  world,  was  only  a  city  of 
Italy ;  Palestine,  the  birthplace  of  our  Lord,  and  the  cradle 
of  revelation,  is  about  the  size  of  Wales.  From  Dan,1  on  the 
north,  to  Beersheba,  on  the  south,  is  a  distance  of  only  139 
miles;  and  the  paltry  breadth  of  twenty  miles,  from  the 
coast  to  the  Jordan,  on  the  north,  increases  slowly  to  only 
forty  between  the  shore  of  the  Mediterranean,  at  Gaza,  and 
the  Dead  Sea,  on  the  south. 

When  it  is  remembered  that  America  was  unknown  till 
within  the  last  four  centuries,  the  position  of  Palestine  on  the 
map  of  the  ancient  world  was  very  remarkable.  It  seemed 
the  very  centre  of  the  earth,  and  went  far  to  excuse  the  long- 
prevailing  belief  that  Jerusalem  was  the  precise  central  point.3 
On  the  extreme  western  limit  of  Asia,  it  looked  eastward, 
towards  the  great  empires  and  religions  of  that  mighty  con- 
tinent, and  westward,  over  the  Mediterranean,  to  the  promise 
of  European  civilization.  It  was  the  connecting  link  between 
Europe  and  Africa,  which  could  then  boast  of  Egypt  as  one 
of  the  great  centres  of  human  thought  and  culture ;  and  it 
had  the  dateless  past  of  the  East  for  its  background. 

Yet  its  position  towards  other  lands  was  not  less  striking 
than  its  real  or  apparent  isolation.  Separated  from.  Asia  by 
the  broad  and  impassable  desert,  it  was  saved  from  becoming 
a  purely  Eastern  country,  either  in  religion,  or  in  the  political 
decay  and  retrogression  which  have,  sooner  or  later,  marked 
all  Eastern  States.  Shut  in,  by  a  strip  of  desert,  from  Egypt, 

1  Near  the  modern  Banias. 

8  A  spot  is  still  marked  by  a  circle  of  marble  pavement,  and  a  short 
coiumn,  under  the  dome  of  the  Greek  Church  at  Jerusalem,  as  the  exact 
centre  of  the  world.  Handbook  of  Syria  and  Palestine,  vol.  ii.  p.  164. 


CENTRAL   POSITION   OF  PALESTINE.  15 

it  was  kept,  in  great  part,  from  the  contagion  of  the  gross 
morality  and  grosser  idolatry  of  that  land ;  and  its  western 
coasts  were  washed  by  the  "  Great  Sea,"  which,  for  ages,  was 
as  much  a  mystery  to  the  Jew,  as  the  Atlantic  to  our  ances- 
tors, before  the  era  of  Columbus.  There  could  have  been  no 
land  in  which  the  purpose  of  God  to  "separate"  a  nation 
"  from  among  all  the  people  of  the  earth,"  *  to  be  the  deposi- 
tary  of  divine  truth,  and  the  future  missionaries  of  the  world, 
could  have  been  so  perfectly  carried  out.  Nor  did  its  special 
fitness  as  a  centre  of  heavenly  light  amongst  mankind  pass 
away  till  the  whole  scheme  of  revelation  had  been  completed ; 
for  by  the  time  of  Christ's  death  the  Mediterranean  had 
become  the  highway  of  the  nations,  and  facilitated  the  diffu- 
sion of  the  Gospel  to  the  cities  and  nations  of  the  populous 
West,  by  the  easy  path  of  its  wide  waters.  The  long  seclusion 
of  ages  had  already  trained  the  Jew  in  religious  knowledge, 
when  forced  or  voluntary  dispersion  sent  him  abroad  to  all 
lands,  with  his  lofty  creed :  the  passing  away  of  that  seclusion 
opened  the  world  to  the  ready  dissemination  of  the  message 
of  the  Cross. 

It  is  an  additional  peculiarity  of  the  Holy  Land,  in  relation 
to  the  history  of  religion,  that  its  physical  features,  and  its 
position,  together,  brought  it,  from  the  earliest  ages,  in  con- 
tact with  the  widest  range  of  peoples  and  empires.  Egypt 
and  it  are  two  oases  in  wide-spreading  deserts,  and  as  such 
attracted  race  after  race.2  Vast  migrations  of  northern  tribes 
towards  the  richer  southern  countries  have  marked  all  ages ; 
and  Egypt,  as  the  type  of  fertility,  was  a  special  land  of 
wonder,  to  which  these  wandering  populations  ever  turned 
greedy  eyes.  In  a  less  degree,  the  Holy  Land  shared  this 
dangerous  admiration.  It  was  the  next  link  to  Egypt  in  the 
chain  of  attractive  conquests — Egypt  itself  being  the  last. 
As  in  later  times  the  Assyrian,  the  Chaldean,  the  Persian,  the 
Greek,  the  Roman,  and  the  Turk  successively  coveted  the 
valley  of  the  Nile,  and  took  possession  of  it,  so  in  the  very 
earliest  ages,  as  many  indications  prove,  wave  after  wave  of 
immigration  had  overflowed  it.  In  all  these  inroads  of  new 
nationalities,  the  Holy  Land,  as  the  highway  to  Egypt,  neces- 
sarily shared,  and  hence,  as  centuries  passed,  race  after  race 
was  brought  in  contact  with  the  Jew,  in  spite  of  his  isolation, 
and  the  Jew  into  contact  with  them.  Such  a  fact  was  of 
great  significance  in  the  religious  education  of  the  world.  It 

1  1  Kings  viii.  53.  *  Ewald's  Geschichte,  vol.  i.  p.  308  ft. 


16  THE   LITE   OF   CHEIST. 

leavened  widely  distant  nations,  more  or  less,  with  the  grand 
religious  truths  which  had  been  committed  to  the  keeping  ot 
the  Jew  alone ;  it  led  or  forced  him  abroad  to  distant  regions, 
to  learn,  as  well  as  to  communicate ;  and  it  reacted  to  ensure 
the  intense  religious  conservatism  to  which  the  Jew,  even  to- 
day, owes  his  continued  national  existence.  That  was  a  fitting 
scene,  moreover,  for  the  advent  of  the  Saviour  of  the  world, 
in  which,  small  though  its  bounds,  He  was  surrounded  not  by 
the  Jew  alone,  but  by  a  population  representing  a  wide  pro- 
portion of  the  tribes  and  nations  of  the  then-known  earth. 
The  inscription  on  the  cross,  in  Greek,  Latin,  and  Hebrew, 
was  the  symbol  of  the  relation  of  Christ's  life,  and  of  His 
death,  to  all  humanity. 

But  perhaps  the  most  striking  peculiarity  of  Palestine  as 
the  spot  chosen  by  God  for  His  revelations  of  religions  truth 
to  our  race,  and.  for  the  incarnation  of  the  Saviour  of  mankind, 
is  that  it  presents  within  its  narrow  bounds  the  characteristics 
of  climate  and  productions  scattered  elsewhere  over  all  the 
habitable  zones — from  the  snowy  north  to  the  tropics.  The 
literature  of  a  country  necessarily  takes  the  colour  of  its  local 
scenery  and  external  nature,  and  hence  a  book  written  in 
almost  any  land  is  unfitted  for  other  countries  in  which  life 
and  nature  are  different.  Thus  the  Koran,  written  in  Arabia, 
is  essentially  an  Eastern  book,  in  great  measure  unintelligible 
and  uninteresting  to  nations  living  in  countries  in  any  great 
degre^  different,  in  climate  and  modes  of  life,  from  Arabia 
itself.  The  sacred  books  of  other  religions  have  had  only  a 
local  reception.  The  Bible  alone  finds  a  welcome  among 
nations  of  every  region  over  the  earth.  It  is  the  one  book  in 
the  world  which  men  eveiy  where  receive  with  equal  interest 
and  reverence.  The  inhabitant  of  the  coldest  north  finds,  in 
its  imagery,  something  that  he  can  understand,  and  it  is  a 
household  book  in  multitudes  of  homes  in  the  sultriest  regions 
of  the  south. 

Intended  to  carry  the  Truth  to  all  nations,  it  was  essential 
that  the  Bible  should  have  this  cosmopolitan  attractiveness. 
Yet  it  could  not  have  had  it  but  that  such  a  country  as 
Palestine  was  chosen  to  produce  it.  Within  the  narrow 
limits  of  that  strip  of  coast,  as  we  might  call  it,  are  gathered 
the  features  of  countries  the  most  widely  apart.  The  peaks 
of  Lebanon  are  never  without  patches  of  snow,  even  in  the 
heat  of  summer.  Snow  falls  nearly  every  winter  along  the 
summits  of  the  central  ridge  of  Palestine,  and  over  the  table- 
land east  of  the  Jordan,  though  it  seldom  lies  moro  than  ono 


BOTANY   OF   PALESTINE.  17 

or  two  days.  On  the  other  hand,  in  the  valley  of  the  Jordan, 
summer  brings  the  heat  of  the  tropics,  and  the  different  sea- 
sons, in  different  parts,  according  to  the  elevation,  exhibit  a 
regnlar  gradation  between  these  extremes.  Thus,  within  the 
extent  of  a  single  landscape,  there  is  every  climate,  from  tho 
cold  of  northern  Europe  to  the  heat  of  India.  The  oak,  the 
pine,  the  walnut,  the  maple,  the  juniper,  the  alder,  the  poplar, 
the  willow,  the  ash,  the  ivy,  and  the  hawthorn,  grow  luxu- 
riantly on  the  heights  of  Hermon,  Bashan,  and  Galilee. 
Hence  the  traveller  from  the  more  northerly  temperate  lands 
finds  himself,  in  some  parts,  surrounded  by  the  trees  and 
vegetation  of  his  own  country.  He  sees  the  apple,  the  pear, 
and  the  plum,  and  rejoices  to  meet  the  familiar  wheat,  and 
barley,  and  peas,  and  potatoes,  and  cabbage,  carrots,  lettuce, 
endive,  and  mustard.  The  Englishman  is  delighted  to  find 
himself  surrounded  by  many  of  the  flowers  of  his  native  land ; 
for  out  of  the  2,000  or  2,500  flowers  of  Palestine,  perhaps  500 
are  British.  It  looks  like  home  to  see  the  ranunculus,  the 
yellow  water-lily,  the  tulip,  the  crocus,  the  hyacinth,  the 
anemone,  mignonette,  geraniums,  mallows,  the  common 
bramble,  the  dog-rose,  the  daisy,  the  well-known  groundsel, 
the  dandelion, — sage,  and  thyme,  and  sweet  marjoram,  blue 
and  white  pimpernel,  cyclamens,  vervain,  mint,  horehound, 
road- way  nettles,  and  thistles ;  and  ponds  with  the  wonted 
water-cress,  duck- weed,  and  rushes. 

The  traveller  from  more  southern  countries  is  no  less  at 
home;  for  from  whatever  part  he  come,  be  it  sunny  Spain  or 
Western  India,  he  will  recognise  well-known  forms  in  one  or 
other  of  such  a  list  as  the  carob,  the  oleander  and  willow, 
skirting  the  streams  and  water-courses;  the  sycamore,  the  fig, 
the  olive,  the  date-palm,  the  pride  of  India,  the  pistachio,  the 
tamerisk,  the  acacia,  and  the  tall  tropical  grasses  and  reeds ; 
or  in  such  fruits  as  the  date,  the  pomegranate,  the  vine,  the 
orange,  the  shaddock,  the  lime,  the  banana,  the  almond,  and 
the  prickly  pear.  The  sight  of  fields  of  cotton,  millet,  rice, 
sugar-cane,  maize,  or  even  of  Indian  indigo,  and  of  patches 
of  melons,  gourds,  pumpkins,  tobacco,  yam,  sweet  potato,  and 
other  southern  or  tropical  field  or  garden  crops,  will  carry  him 
back  in  thought  to  h's  home. 

Theie  can  be  no  more  vivid  illustration  of  the  climate  of 
any  land  than  the  vegetation  it  yields,  and  Palestine,  tried 
by  this  test,  reproduces  climates  and  zones  which,  in  other 
countries,  are  separated  by  many  hundred  miles. 

A  book  written  in  such  a  land  must  necessarily  be  a  reflcc- 
8 


18  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

tion,  in  its  imagery  and  modes  of  thought,  so  far  as  they  ai« 
affected  by  external  nature,  of  much  that  is  common  to  men 
all  ov^r  the  earth.  The  Scriptures  of  the  two  Testaments 
have  had  this  priceless  help  in  their  great  mission,  from  Pales- 
tine having  been  chosen  by  God  as  the  land  in  which  they 
were  written.  The  words  of  prophets  and  apostles,  and  of 
the  great  Master  Himself,  sound  familiar  to  all  mankind,  be- 
cause spoken  amidst  natural  images  and  experiences  common 
to  all  the  world. 

Thotgh  essentially  a  mountainous  country,  Palestine  has 
many  broad  and  fertile  plains.  It  is  a  highland  district, 
intersected  throughout,  and  bordered  on  the  western  side,  by 
rich,  wide-spreading  lowlands. 

The  plain  on  the  western  side  extends  from  above  Acre, 
with  an  interruption  by  Mount  Carmel,  along  the  whole 
coast,  under  the  respective  names  of  the  plain  of  Acre,  the 
plain  of  Sharon,  and  the  Shephelah,  or  low  country,  the  land 
of  the  Philistines  in  early  ages.*  From  this  border  plain  the 
country  rises,  throughout,  into  a  table-land  of  an  average 
height  of  from  1,500,  to  1,800  feet  above  the  Mediterranean  ; 
the  general  level  being  so  even,  and  the  hills  so  close  to- 
gether, that  the  whole  length  of  the  country,  seen  from  the 
coast,  looks  like  a  wall  rising  from  the  fertile  plain  at  its  foot. 
Yet  the  general  monotony  is  broken,  here  and  there,  by  higher 
elevations.  Thus,  to  begin  from  the  south,  Hebron  is  3,029 
feet  above  the  sea ;  Jerusalem  2,610 ;  the  Mount  of  Olives 
2,724;  Bethel  2,400;  Ebal  and  Gerizim  2,700;  Little  Hermon 
and  Tabor,  on  the  north  side  of  the  plain  of  Esdraelon,  1,900 ; 
Safed  2,775  ;  and  Jebel  Jermuk  4,000. 

This  long  sea  of  hills  is  full  of  valleys  running  east  and 
west,  which  form  so  many  arms  of  torrent  beds,  opening  into 
the  Jordan  valley  or  the  Mediterranean.  These  valleys,  on 
the  eastern  side  of  the  water-shed,  towards  Jordan,  are  ex- 
tremely steep  and  rugged ;  as,  for  instance,  the  precipitous 
descent  between  Mount  Olivet  and  Jericho,  which  sinks  over 
4,000  feet  in  a  distance  of  about  fifteen  miles.  The  great 
depression  of  the  Jordan  valley  makes  such  rugged  and  diffi- 
cult mountain  gorges  the  only  passes  to  the  upper  countiy 
from  the  east.  There  is  not  a  spot,  till  the  plain  of  Esdraelon 
joins  the  valley  of  the  Jordan,  open  enough  to  manoeuvre 
more  than  a  small  body  of  foot  soldiers.  The  western  valleys 
slope  more  gently,  but,  like  the  eastern,  are  the  only  means 
of  communication  with  the  plains,  and  offer  such  difficulties 
as  explain  the  security  of  Israel  in  ancient  times,  entrenched 


HILLS   OF   PALESTINE.  19 

among-  hills  "which,  at  the  best  could  be  reached  only  by  rongb 
mountain  passes.b  The  Jew  lived,  in  fact,  in  a  strong  moun- 
tain fastness  stretching  like  a  long  wall  behind  the  plain 
beneath. 

The  appearance  and  fertility  of  this  highland  region,  which, 
alone,  was  at  any  time  the  Holy  Land  of  the  Jews,  varies  in 
different  parts.  The  southern  district,  below  Hebron,  is  a 
gradual  transition  from  the  desert,  from  which  it  is  approached 
in  slow  ascent.  It  was  known  in  Bible  times  as  the  Negeb, 
or  south  country,  and  is  an  uninviting  tract  of  barren  uplands. 
As  we  pass  north  into  the  hills  of  Judah  and  Benjamin  there 
is  somewhat  more  fertility,  but  the  landscape  is  monotonous, 
bare,  and  uninviting  in  the  extreme,  for  most  of  the  year.  In 
spring,  even  the  bald  grey  rocks  which  make  up  the  view  are 
covered  with  verdure  and  bright  flowers,"  and  the  ravines 
are  filled  with  torrents  of  rushing  water,  but  in  summer  and 
autumn  the  look  of  the  country  from  Hebron  up  to  Bethel  is 
very  dreary  and  desolate.1  The  flowers  vanish  with  the  first 
fierce  rays  of  the  summer  sun  :  they  are  "  to-day  in  the  field, 
to-morrow  cast  into  the  oven."  The  little  upland  plains, 
which,  with  their  green  grass,  and  green  corn,  and  smooth 
surface,  relieve  the  monotony  of  the  mountain-tops  farther 
north,  are  not  found  in  Judea,  and  are  rare  in  Benjamin. 
The  soil,  alike  on  plain,  hill,  and  glen,  is  poor  and  scanty. 
Natural  wood  disappears,  and  a  few  small  bushes,  brambles, 
or  aromatic  shrubs,  alone  appear  on  the  hillsides.2  "Rounded 
hills,  chiefly  of  a  grey  colour,"  says  Dean  Stanley — "  grey 
partly  from  the  limestone  of  which  they  are  formed,  partly 
from  the  tufts  of  grey  shrub  with  which  their  sides  are 
thinly  clothed — their  sides  formed  into  concentric  rings  of 
rock,  which  must  have  served  in  ancient  times  as  supports  to 
the  terraces,  of  which  there  are  still  traces  to  the  very  sum- 
mits ;  valleys,  or  rather  the  meetings  of  those  grey  slopes 
with  the  beds  of  dry  water-courses  at  their  feet — long  sheets 
of  bare  rock  laid  like  flagstones,  side  by  side,  along  the  soil — 
these  are  the  chief  features  of  the  greater  part  of  the  scenery 
of  the  historical  parts  of  Palestine.  These  rounded  hills, 
occasionally  stretching  into  long  undulating  ranges,  are  for 
the  most  part  bare  of  wood.  Forest  and  large  timber  are 
not  known."  3  Fountains  are  rare  in  this  district;  and  wells, 

1  Diet.  ofBille,  Art.  Palestine. 

*  Porter,  in  Cyclo.  Bib.  Lit.,  Art.  Palestine. 

*  Sinai  and  Palestine,  p.  13C. 


20  THE   LIFE   OF   CHKIST. 

covered  cisterns,  and  tanks  cut  out  in  the  soft  white  lime- 
stone, take  their  place. 

Such  are  the  central  and  northern  highlands  of  Judea-  In 
the  west  and  north-western  parts,  which  the  sea-breezes 
reach,  the  vegetation  is  more  abundant.  Olives  abound,  and 
give  the  country  in  some  places  almost  a  wooded  appearance. 
The  terebinth,  with  its  dark  foliage,  is  frequent,  and  near 
the  site  of  Kirjath-jearim,  "  the  city  of  forests,"  there  are  some 
thickets  of  pine  and  laurel.1 

But  the  eastern  part  of  these  hills — a  tract  nine  or  ten 
miles  in  width  by  about  thirty-five  in  length — between  the 
centre  and  the  steep  descent  to  the  Dead  Sea — is,  and  must 
always  have  been,  in  the  truest  sense  a  desert.  Van  de 
Velde  well  describes  it  as  a  bare  arid  wilderness :  an  end- 
less succession  of  shapeless  yellow  and  ash-coloured  hills, 
without  grass  or  shrubs,  without  water,  and  almost  without 
life.2  Another  traveller  speaks  of  it  as  a  wilderness  of 
mountain-tops,  in  some  places  tossed  up  like  waves  of  mud, 
in  others  wrinkled  over  with  ravines,  like  models  made  of 
crumpled  brown  paper,  the  nearer  ones  whitish,  strewn  with 
rocks  and  bushes.3  Such  is  the  desert  or  wilderness  of 
Judeaj  the  scene  of  the  earlier  retirement  of  John  the 
Baptist  and  the  popularly  supposed  scene  of  the  Temptation 
of  our  Lord. 

•Though  thus  barren  and  uninviting  as  a  whole,  in  our 
day,  the  universal  presence  of  ruins  proves  that  Judah  and 
Benjamin  had  a  teeming  population  in  former  ages.  Terrace 
cultivation  utilized  the  whole  surface,  where  there  was  the 
least  soil ;  and  in  such  a  climate,  with  an  artificial  supply  of 
water,  luxuriant  fertility  might  be  secured  everywhere  ex- 
cept on  the  bare  rock.  The  destruction  of  these  terraces  has 
doubtless  allowed  much  soil  to  be  washed  into  the  valleys, 
and  lost,  and  the  cutting  down  of  the  natural  forests,  of  which 
there  are  still  traces,  must  have  greatly  diminished  the  supply 
of  water.  Even  in  the  now  utterly  barren  districts  of  "  the 
south  "  abundant  proofs  have  been  discovered  that  cultivation 
was  anciently  extensive.4  The  fact  that  there  are  no  peren- 
nial streams  in  the  western  wadys,  while  there  are  many  in 
those  trending  to  the  Jordan  on  both  sides,  where  the  forests 
or  thick  shrubberies  of  oleanders  and  other  flowering  trees 

1  Robinson's  Palestine,  vol.  ii.  p.  21. 

*  Syria  and  Palestine,  vol.  ii.  p.  39.  s  Seddon's  Memoir,  p.  204. 

*  The  Desert  of  the  Till,  by  E.  H.  Palmer,  passim.     Quarterly  State- 
ment of  Pal.  Ex.  'Fluid,  Jan.  1871. 


PLAINS   OF  PALESTINE.  23 

still  flourish,  speaks  volumes  as  to  the  cause  of  the  piesent 
sterility. 

Passing  northward  from  Judea,  the  country  gradually 
opens  and  is  more  inviting.  Rich  plains,  at  first  small,  but 
becoming  larger  as  we  get  north,  stretch  out  between  the 
hills,  till  at  last,  near  Nablous,  we  reach  one  a  mile  broad 
and  six  miles  long.  The  valleys  running  west  are  long, 
winding,  and  mostly  tillable  :  those  on  the  east  are  less  deep 
and  abrupt  than  farther  south,  and,  being  abundantly 
watered  by  numerous  fountains,  are  rich  in  orange  groves 
and  orchards.  Nablous  itself  is  surrounded  by  immense 
groves  of  olive-trees,  planted  on  all  the  hills  around.  No- 
where in  Palestine  are  there  nobler  brooks  of  water.1  The 
rich  uplands  produce  abundant  crops  of  grain  when  culti- 
vated ;  yet  it  is,  on  the  whole,  a  region  specially  adapted  for 
olives,  vineyards,  and  orchards.2  The  mountains,  though 
bare  of  wo'od,  and  but  partially  cultivated,  have  none  of  that 
arid,  worn  look  of  those  of  some  parts  farther  south. 

North-west  of  the  city  of  Nablous  the  mountains  gradually 
sink  down  into  a  wide  plain,  famous  as  that  of  Sharon, 
mostly  an  expanse  of  sloping  downs,  but  dotted  here  and 
there  with  huge  fields  of  corn  and  tracts  of  wood  recalling 
the  county  of  Kent,3  and  reaching  to  the  southern  slopes  of 
Carmel,  with  their  rich  woods,  and  park-like  scenery. 

Passing  still  northward,  from  Samaria  to  Galilee,  another 
wide  plain  of  great  fertility — that  of  Esdraelon — stretches 
out  from  the  northern  side  of  the  luxuriant  Carmel.  It 
might,  under  a  good  government,  yield  vast  crops,  but  the 
inhabitants  are  few  and  poor,  and  tillage  is  imperfect/1  The 
country  now  rapidly  improves.  Vegetation  is  much  more 
luxuriant  among  the  hills  of  Galilee  than  elsewhere  west  of 
the  Jordan.  Fountains  are  abundant  and  copious,  and  many 
of  the  torrent  beds  are  never  dry.  The  hills  become  more 
and  more  richly  wooded  with  oaks  and  terebinths,  while 
ravines  occur  here  and  there  thickly  clothed,  in  addition, 
with  the  maple,  arbutus,  sumach,  and  other  trees.  The  hills 
of  Judea  are  barren ;  those  of  Samaria  have  been  well  com- 
pared to  the  hilly  districts  south  of  Scotland ;  but  those  of 
Galilee  are  more  like  the  rich  hills  of  Surrey.  Tet  the  whole 
region  is  thinly  peopled.  This  highland  paradise  has  far 
fewer  inhabitants  than  even  the  bleak  mountains  of  Judea, 

1  Bob.  Pal.,  vol.  iii.  p.  302.  *  Sinai  and  Pal.,  p.  226. 

*  Lord  Lindsay,  p.  256. 


22  THE   LIFE   OF   CHK1ST. 

where  "  for  miles  and  miles,  there  is  often  no  appearance  oi 
life,  except  the  occasional  goat-herd  on  the  hill-side,  or  the 
gathering  of  women  at  the  wells."  l 

The  coast  of  the  Holy  Land,  as  has  been  said,  is  a  long 
plain.  This,  on  the  north,  is  a  mere  strip,  till  near  Acre, 
but  it  spreads  out  from  that  point,  into  a  flat,  rich,  loamy 
plain,  at  first  only  a  few  feet  above  the  sea  level.  Corn-fields 
and  pasture-lands  reach  several  miles  inland.  South  of 
Carmel  it  expands  into  the  plain  of  Sharon,  now  left  bare 
and  parched  in  many  parts  ;  its  ancient  forests  long  ago  de- 
stroyed, except  in  stray  spots,  and  cultivation  little  known. 
As  we  go  south,  the  soil  is  lighter  and  drier,  and  the  vegeta- 
tion is  scantier,  till  we  reach  the  Shephelah,8  or  "  low  country" 
of  the  Bible,  the  ancient  Philistia,  which  begins  in.  rolling 
downs,  and  passes  into  wide-spreading  corn-fields  and  vast 
expanses  of  loamy  soil  to  the  far  south. 

The  eastern  boundary  of  Palestine  is  the  deep  chasm  in 
which  the  Jordan  has  its  channel.  The  name  of  that  river 
indicates  its  course  :  it  means  "  the  descender." f  Rising  in 
the  mountains  of  Lebanon,  it  flows  south,  through  the  marshy 
Lake  Merom  and  the  Lake  of  Galilee,  to  the  Dead  Sea,  in  a 
course  of  about  150  miles.  From  the  Lake  of  Galilee,  its 
channel  is  a  deep  cleft  in  the  mountain  range,  from  north  to 
south,  and  so  broken  is  its  current  that  it  is  one  continued 
rapid.  Its  bed  is  so  crooked  that  it  has  hardly  half  a  mile 
straight ;  so  deep,  moreover,  is  it,  below  the  surface  of  the 
adjacent  country,  that  it  can  only  be  approached  by  de- 
scending one  of  the  steep  mountain  valleys,  and  it  is  invisible 
till  near  its  entrance  into  the  Dead  Sea,  at  a  level  of  1,317 
feet  below  that  of  the  Mediterranean.  There  is  no  town  on 
its  banks,  and  it  has  in  all  ages  been  crossed  at  the  same 
fords  ;  no  use  can  be  made  of  it  for  irrigation,  and  no  vessel 
can  sail  the  sea  into  which  it  pours  its  waters.  It  is  like  no 
other  river. 

1  Sinai  and  Pal.,  p.  117. 


CHAPTER  m. 
PALESTINE  AT  THE  TIME  OF  CHEIST. 

A  T  the  birth  of  Christ  the  striking  spectacle  presented 
•***  itself,  in  a  degree  unknown  before  or  since,  of  the 
world  united  under  one  sceptre.  From  the  Euphrates  to  the 
Atlantic ;  from  the  mouths  of  the  Rhine  to  the  slopes  of  the 
Atlas,  the  Roman  Emperor  was  the  sole  lord.  The  Mediter- 
ranean was,  in  the  truest  sense,  a  Roman  lake.  From  the 
pillars  of  Hercules  to  the  mouths  of  the  Nile,  on  its  southern 
shores ;  from  the  farthest  coast  of  Spain  to  Syria,  on  its 
northern ;  and  thence  round  to  the  Nile  again,  the  multitudes 
of  men  now  divided  into  separate  nations,  often  hostile, 
always  distinct,  reposed  in  peace  under  the  shadow  of  the 
Roman  eagles.  There  might  be  war  on  the  far  eastern 
frontier,  beyond  the  Euphrates,  or  with  the  rude  tribes  in 
the  German  forests  on  the  north,  but  the  vast  Roman  world 
enjoyed  the  peace  and  security  of  a  great  organic  whole. 
The  merchant  or  the  traveller  might  alike  pass  freely  from 
land  to  land ;  trading  vessels  might  bear  their  ventures  to 
any  port,  for  all  lands  and  all  coasts  were  under  the  same 
laws,  and  all  mankind,  for  the  time,  were  citizens  of  a  common 
State. 

At  the  head  of  this  stupendous  empire,  a  single  man, 
Octavianus  Caesar — now  better  known  by  his  imposing  title, 
Augustus — ruled  as  absolute  lord.  All  nations  bowed  be- 
fore him,  all  kingdoms  served  him.  It  is  impossible  for  us, 
in  the  altered  condition  of  things,  to  realize  adequately  the 
majesty  of  such  a  position.  Rome,  itself,  the  capital  of 
this  unique  empire,  was  itself  unique  in  those  ages.  It3 
population,  with  its  suburbs,  has  been  variously  estimated ; 
some  writers,  as  Lepsius,1  supposing  it  to  have  been  eight 
millions,  others,  like  De  Quincey,2  setting  it  down  as  not  less 
than  four  millions  at  the  very  least,  and  not  impossibly  half 
as  many  more.  On  the  other  hand,3  Merivale  gives  it  as  only 

1  Quoted  in  Diet,  of  Geog.  *  The  Ccesars,  p.  2. 

*  Rom.  Empire,  vol.  iv.  p.  525. 


24  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

half  a  million,  "while  others 1  make  it  two  millions  and  a  half, 
Gibbon  estimates  it  at  twelve  hundred  thousand,  and  is  sup- 
ported in  his  supposition  by  Dean  Milman.2  The  truth  lies 
probably  between  the  extremes.  But  the  unique  grandeur  of 
Rome  was  independent  of  any  question  as  to  its  size  or  popula- 
tion :  the  fact  that  arrested  all  minds  was  rather  that  a  mere 
city  should  be  the  resistless  mistress  of  the  habitable  world. 

Round  the  office  and  person  of  the  Csesar,  who  only,  of  all 
rulers,  before  or  since,  was  in  the  widest  sense  a  monarch  of 
the  whole  race  of  men, — that  is,  one  ruling  alone,  over  all 
nations — there  necessarily  gathered  peculiar  and  incommuni- 
cable attributes  of  grandeur.  Like  the  far-stretching  high- 
ways which  rayed  out  from  the  golden  milestone  in  the 
Roman  Forum  to  the  utmost  frontiers,  the  illimitable  majesty 
of  the  emperor  extended  to  all  lands.  On  the  shadowy,  re- 
sistless, uncertain,  but  ever- advancing  frontiers  of  a  dominion 
which  embraced  almost  the  whole  habitable  world,  as  then 
known,  the  commands  issued  from  the  imperial  city  were  as 
resistless  as  in  Italy.  There  were,  doubtless,  some  unknown 
or  despised  empires  or  tribes  outside  the  vast  circumference 
of  the  Roman  sway,  but  they  were  regarded,  at  the  best,  as 
Britain  looks  on  the  wandering  hordes  or  barbarous  and 
powerless  empires  beyond  the  limits  of  her  Indian  posses- 
sions. Gibbon  has  set  the  grandeur  of  Rome  in  a  vivid 
light,  by  describing  the  position  of  a  subject  who  should 
attempt  to  flee  from  the  wrath  of  a  Caesar.  "  The  empire  of 
the  Romans,"  says  he,  "filled  the  world,3  and  when  that 
empire  fell  into  the  hands  of  a  single  person,  the  world 
became  a  safe  and  dreary  prison  for  his  enemies.  The  slave 
of  imperial  despotism,  whether  he  was  condemned  to  drag 
his  gilded  chain  in  Rome  and  the  Senate,  or  to  wear  out  a 
life  of  exile  on  the  barren  rock  of  Seriphus,"  or  on  the  frozen 
banks  of  the  Danube,b  expected  his  fate  in  silent  despair. 
To  resist  was  fatal,  and  it  was  impossible  to  fly.  On  every 
side  he  was  encompassed  with  a  vast  extent  of  sea  and  land, 
which  he  could  never  hope  to  traverse  without  being  dis- 
covered, seized,  and  restored  to  his  irritated  master.  Beyond 
the  frontiers,  his  anxious  view  could  discover  nothing  except 
the  ocean,  inhospitable  deserts,  hostile  tribes  of  barbarians, 
of  fierce  manners  and  unknown  language,  or  dependent  kings, 

1  Hoeck,J?omi"sc7(«  Geschichte,  vol.  ii.  p.  131.     Conybeare  and  Howson'a 
St.  Paul,  vol.  ii.  p.  376.     Diet.  ofGcog.,  vol.  ii.  p.  716. 
a  Milman' s  Gilb'm,  vol.  iii.  p.  120. 
3  Decline  and  Fall,  vol.  i.  p.  133.    Ed.  1821. 


THE  WOELD  UNDEE  AUGUSTUS.         25 

who  would  gladly  purchase  the  emperor's  protection  by  the 
sacrifice  of  an  obnoxious  fugitive.  '  Wherever  you  are,'  said 
Cicero  to  the  exiled  Marcellus,  '  remember  that  you  are 
equally  within  the  power  of  the  conqueror.'  " 

At  the  birth  of  Christ  this  amazing  federation  of  the  world 
into  one  great  monarchy  had  been  finally  achieved.  Augustus, 
at  Rome,  was  the  sole  power  to  which  all  nations  looked. 
His  throne,  like  the  "  exceeding  high  mountain "  of  the 
Temptation,  showed  "  all  the  kingdoms  of  the  world  and  their 
glory,"  spread  out  around  it  far  beneath,  as  the  earth  lies  in 
the  light  of  the  sun.  No  prince,  no  king,  or  potentate  of  any 
name  could  break  the  calm  which  such  a  universal  dominion 
secured — "  a  calm,"  to  use  De  Quincey's  figure,  "  which, 
through  centuries,  continued  to  lave,  as  with  the  quiet  undu- 
lations of  summer  lakes,  the  sacred  footsteps  of  the  Csesarean 
throne."  l 

It  was  in  such  a  unique  era  that  Jesus  Christ  was  born. 
The  whole  earth  lay  hushed  in  profound  peace.  All  lands' 
lay  freely  open  to  the  message  of  mercy  and  love  which  He 
came  to  announce. 

Nor  was  the  social  and  moral  condition  of  the  world  at 
large,  at  the  birth  of  Christ,  less  fitting  for  His  advent  than 
the  political.  The  prize  of  universal  power  struggled  for 
through  sixty  years  of  plots  and  desolating  civil  wars,  had 
been  won  at  last,  by  Augustus.  Sulla  and  Marius,  Pompey 
and  Csesar,  had  led  their  legions  against  each  other,  alike  in 
Italy  and  the  Provinces,  and  had  drenched  the  earth  with 
blood.  Augustus  himself  had  reached  the  throne  only  after 
thirteen  years  of  war,  which  involved  regions  wide  apart. 
The  world  was  exhausted  by  the  prolonged  agony  of  such  a 
strife ;  it  sighed  for  repose,  and  perhaps  never  felt  a  more 
universal  joy  than  when  the  closing  of  the  Temple  of  Janus 
in  the  twenty-ninth  year  before  Christ  announced  that  at 
last  the  earth  was  at  peace. 

The  religions  of  antiquity  had  lost  their  vitality,  and 
become  effete  forms,  without  influence  on  the  heart."  Philo- 
sophy was  the  consolation  of  a  few — the  amusement  or 
fashion  of  others ;  but  of  no  weight  as  a  moral  force  among 
men  at  large.  On  its  best  side,  that  of  Stoicism,  it  had  much 
that  was  lofty,  but  its  highest  teaching  was  resignation  to 
fate,  and  it  offered  only  the  hurtful  consolation  of  pride  in 
virtue,  without  an  idea  of  humiliation  for  vice.  On  its  worst 

1  Wu rks,  vol.  ix.  p.  7. 


26  THE   LIFE    OF   CHBIST. 

side — that  of  Epicureanism — it  exalted  self-indulgence  as  the 
highest  end.  Faith  in  the  great  truths  of  natural  religion 
was  well-nigh  extinct.  Sixty-three  years  before  the  birth  of 
Christ,1  Julius  Caesar,  at  that  time  the  Chief  Pontiff  of  Rome, 
and,  as  such,  the  highest  functionary  of  the  state  religion, 
and  the  official  authority  in  religious  questions,  openly  pro- 
claimed in  his  speech  in  the  Senate,  in  reference  to  Catiline 
and  his  fellow-conspirators — that  there  was  no  such  thing  as 
a  future  life ;  no  immortality  of  the  soul.  He  opposed  the 
execution  of  the  accused  on  the  ground  that  their  crimes 
deserved  the  severest  punishments,  and  that,  therefore,  they 
should  be  kept  alive  to  endure  them,  since  death  was  in 
reality  an  escape  from  suffering,  not  an  evil.  "  Death,"  said 
he,  "  is  a  rest  from  troubles  to  those  in  grief  and  misery,  not 
a  punishment ;  it  ends  all  the  evils  of  life ;  for  there  is 
neither  care  nor  joy  beyond  it."  2 

Nor  was  there  any  one  to  condemn  such  a  sentiment  even 
from  such  lips.  Cato,  the  ideal  Roman,  a  man  whose  aim 
it  was  to  "  fulfil  all  righteousness,"  in  the  sense  in  which  he 
understood  it,  passed  it  over  with  a  few  words  of  light  banter  ; 
and  Cicero,  who  was  also  present,  did  not  care  to  give  either 
assent  or  dissent,  but  left  the  question  open  as  one  which 
might  be  decided  either  way,  at  pleasure.*1 

Morality  was  entirely  divorced  from  religion,  as  may  be 
readily  judged  by  the  fact  that  the  most  licentious  rites  had 
their  temples,  and  male  and  female  ministrants.  In  Juvenal's 
words,  "  the  Syrian  Orontes  had  flowed  into  the  Tiber,"  3 
and  it  brought  with  it  the  appalling  immorality  of  the  East. 
Doubtless,  here  and  there,  throughout  the  empire,  the  light 
of  holy  traditions  still  burned  on  the  altars  of  many  a  house- 
hold ;  4  but  it  availed  nothing  against  the  thick  moral  night 
that  had  settled  over  the  earth  at  large.  The  advent  of 
Christ  was  the  breaking  of  the  "  dayspring  from  on  high" 
through  a  gloom  that  had  been  gathering  for  ages ;  a  great 
light  dawning  on  a  world  which  lay  in  darkness,  and  in  the 
shadow  of  death. 

To  understand  the  condition  of  things  in  the  Holy  Land 
in  the  lifetime  of  Jesus,  it  is  necessary  to  notice  the  history 
of  the  reign  that  was  closing  at  His  birth,  for  religious  and 
political  affairs  acted  and  reacted  on  the  spirit  of  the  nation 
as  only  two  phases  of  the  same  thing. 

1  According  to  the  usual  reckoning.          2  Sallust,  Bell.  Cat.,  chap,  li, 

*  Sat.,  iii.  62. 

4  Eeuan,  Les  Apotres,  p.  306.    Plutarch,  Demosthenes,  p.  2. 


THE   ASMONEAN   KINGS.  27 

The  reign  of  Alexander  Jannaeus,1  of  the  Maccabaean  or 
Asmonean  line,  had  been  marked  by  the  bitterest  persecu- 
tions of  the  Pharisaic  party,  whose  insolence  and  arrogant 
claims  had  caused  the  king  to  throw  himself  into  the  hands 
of  their  Saddncean  rivals.  After  his  death  these  disputes 
continued  under  Queen  Alexandra,2  who  favoured  the  Phari- 
sees, but  the  disquiet  culminated,  after  her  death,  in  the  far 
worse  evil  of  a  civil  war  between  her  two  sons,  the  elder, 
Hyrcanus,  a  weak,  indolent  man ;  the  younger,  Aristobulus, 
on  the  other  hand,  bold  and  energetic.  Hyrcanus  had  been 
made  high  priest,  and  Aristobulus  had  been  kept  from  all 
power  during  Alexandra's  life — the  Pharisaic  party  them- 
selves holding  the  reins  of  government ;  but  she  was  hardly 
dead  before  Aristobulus  forced  his  brother  to  resign  the 
throne,  to  which  he  had  succeeded,  and  left  him  only  the 
high  priesthood.  Hyrcanus  would,  apparently,  have  quietly 
acquiesced  in  this  change,  but  the  evil  genius  of  Aristobulus 
and  of  the  nation  was  present  in  the  person  of  an  influential 
Edomite,"  Antipater,  who  had  gained  the  confidence  of. 
Hyrcanus.  Stirred  up  by  this  crafty  intriguer,  the  elder 
brother  re-claimed  the  throne — Arab  allies  were  called  in — 
Jerusalem  was  besieg  jd,  and  both  the  brothers  appealed 
to  the  Roman  generals  in  Syria  for  a  decision  between 
them/  As  the  result,  Pompey,  then  commanding  in  the 
East,  appeared  on  the  scene,  in  the  year  63  B.C. ;  got  posses- 
sion of  the  country  by  craft ;  stormed  the  Temple,  which 
held  out  for  Aristobulus,  and  inaugurated  a  new  era  in 
Palestine.  The  Pharisees  had  hoped  that  both  of  the 
brothers  would  be  put  aside,  and  the  theocracy,  which  meant 
their  own  rule,  restored ;  but  Pompey,  while  withholding  the 
name  of  king,  set  up  Hyrcanus  as  high  priest  and  ruler, 
under  the  title  of  ethnarch.  All  the  conquests  of  the 
Maccabseans  were  taken  from  him:  the  country  was  re- 
distributed in  arbitrary  political  divisions ;  the  defences  of 
Jerusalem  thrown  down,  and  the  nation  subjected  to  tribute 
to  Rome.  This  itself  would  have  been  enough  to  kindle  a 
deep  hatred  to  their  new  masters,  but  the  seeds  of  a  still 
more  profound  enmity  were  sown,  even  at  this  first  step  in 
Roman  occupation,  by  Pompey  and  his  staff  insisting  on 
entering  the  Holy  of  Holies,  and  thus  committing  what 
eeemed  to  the  Jew  the  direst  profanation  of  his  religion. 

Antipater  had  allied  himself  from  the  first  with  Rome, 

1  B.C.  105-78.  2  B.C.  78-69. 


28  THE   LIFE   OF   CHKIST. 

as  the  strongest,  and  was  now  the  object  of  furious  hatred. 
The  nation  had  supposed  that  Pompey  came  as  a  friend,  to 
heal  their  dissensions,  but  found  that  he  remained  as  their 
master.  Their  independence  was  lost,  and  Antipater  had 
been  the  cause  of  its  ruin.  It  is  perhaps  of  him  that  the 
author  of  the  Psalms  of  Solomon  speaks  when  he  says, 
"  Why  sittest  thou,  the  unclean  one,  in  the  Sanhedrim,  and 
thy  heart  is  far  from  the  Lord,  and  thou  stirrest  up  with  thy 
sins  the  God  of  Israel  ?  "  Treachery,  hypocrisy,  adultery, 
and  murder  are  charged  against  him,  and  he  is  compared  to 
a  biting  serpent.1  Yet  the  guilt  of  the  people,  it  is  owned, 
had  brought  these  calamities  on  them.  Through  this,  the 
ram  had  battered  the  holy  walls,  the  Holy  of  Holies  had 
been  profaned,  the  noblest  of  the  Sanhedrim  slain,  and  their 
sons  and  daughters  carried  off  captive  to  the  West,  to  grace 
Pompey's  triumph.  At  the  thought  of  this  the  Psalmist  is 
still  more  cast  down,  and  bumbles  himself  in  the  dust  before 
the  retributive  hand  of  Jehovah.2 

But  there  was  no  peace  for  Israel.  War  lingered  on  the 
southern  borders,  and  in  B.C.  57  Alexander,  the  son  of  Aristo- 
bulus,  once  more  overthrew  the  government  of  Hyrcanus 
and  Antipater,  but  the  Romans  forthwith  came  in  force,  and 
crushed  the  revolt  by  another  conquest  of  Jerusalem.  In 
this  campaign  a  cavalry  colonel,  Mark  Antony,  so  especially 
distinguished  himself,  that  the  keen-sighted  Antipater,  seeing 
he  had  a  great  future,  formed  friendly  relations  with  him, 
which  led  to  the  weightiest  results  in  later  years. 

Hyrcanus  and  his  favourite  were  now  again  in  power,  but 
they  had  a  troubled  life.  The  people  rose  again  and  again, 
only  to  be  as  constantly  crushed.  In  B.C.  56,  Aristobulus, 
who  had  escaped  from  Borne,  began  the  war  once  more,  and 
the  next  year,  his  son  Alexander  made  another  vain  revolt. 
In  B.C.  52,  when  the  Parthians  had  revenged  themselves  by 
Ihe  destruction  of  the  legions  of  Crassus — who,  in  time  of 
jjeaco,  had  plundered  the  Temple  to  fill  his  own  treasures — 
the  Jews  rose  still  once  more,  but  Cassius,  who  had  escaped 
witt  the  wreck  of  the  army  of  Crassus  from  the  Parthian 
horsemen,  soon  crushed  the  insurrection,  and  Antipater 
emerged  as,  at  last,  the  unfettered  lord  of  the  country.3 

The  civil  war  which  broke  out,  in  the  year  49,  between 
Pompey  and  Caesar,  for  a  time  promised  a  change.  Judea, 
like  all  the  East,  adhered  to  Pompey,  and  Ca?sar  therefore 

1  Ps.  Salom.,  iv.  *  Ps.  Salom.,  ii.  1,  2  ;  viii.  15,  18  ;  xvii.  14,  etc, 

»  Jos..  Ant.,  xiv.  7.  3. 


C2ESAB   IN   EGYPT.  29 

set  the  imprisoned  Aristobulus  free,  and  gave  him  two  legions 
to  clear  his  native  country  of  the  adherents  of  his  rival. 
Antipater  and  Hyrcanus  already  trembled  at  the  thought  of 
a  popular  revolt,  supported  by  Rome,  when  news  came  that 
Aristobulus  had  suddenly  died — no  doubt  of  poison — and 
that  Jiis  son  Alexander  had  been  beheaded,  in  Antioch.  by 
Pompey's  orders.1  Antipater  had  thus  managed  to  get  his 
enemies  out  of  the  way.  When  Pompey's  cause  was  finally 
crushed,  next  year,2  at  Pharsalia,  Hyrcanus  and  Antipater, 
like  the  princes  round  them,  were  in  a  false  position.  Six 
weeks  later,3  Pompey  lay  murdered  on  the  Egyptian  sands. 
Meanwhile,  Caesar,  who  had  landed  in  Egypt,  at  the  head  of 
hardly  4,000  men,  to  settle  the  disputes  for  the  throne  of 
that  country,  was  attacked  by  the  native  soldiery  and  the 
restless  population  of  Alexandria,  and  reduced  to  the  most 
desperate  straits.  At  this  moment  a  motley  army  of  Eastern 
vassals  came  to  his  relief,  anxious  to  efface  at  the  earliest 
opportunity  the  remembrance  of  their  relations  to  Pompey. 
It  included  hordes  of  Arabs  from  Damascus,  and  bands  of 
Itureans  from  beyond  Jordan,  but  its  strength  lay  in  3,000 
chosen  troops  brought  by  Antipater.  The  strange  host  was 
nominally  commanded  by  Mithridates  of  Pergamos,  a  bastard 
of  the  great  Mithridates,  but  Antipater  was  the  real  head. 
He  induced  the  Bedouin  leaders  on  the  opposite  side  to 
withdraw,  and  persuaded  the  Egyptian  Jews  to  supply  Caesar 
with  provisions.  After  fierce  fighting,  the  Roman  fortune 
triumphed,  and  Csesar,  now  enamoured  of  Cleopatra,  then 
one-and-twenty  years  of  age,  remained  conqueror.  Alexan- 
dria was  heavily  punished :  the  Egyptian  Jews  received 
extensive  privileges,4  but  the  affairs  of  Palestine  were  left  to 
be  settled  when  Caesar  came  back  from  Pontus,  in  Asia 
Minor,  to  which  he  had  been  summoned  to  repel  an  invasion 
from  Armenia. 

On  his  return  to  Syria,  in  the  autumn  of  the  year  47, 
Antipater  hastened  to  meet  him,  as  did  also  Antigonus,  a 
son  of  Aristobulus.  But  the  wounds  of  Antipater,  received 
in  rescuing  Caesar  from  destruction,  weighed  more  than  the 
hereditary  claims  of  Antigonus,  who,  feeling  this,  fled  to  the 
Parthians,  to  seek  the  aid  which  Rome  refused.  In  other 
rnspects,  the  Jews  were  treated  in  the  friendliest  way.  Those 
of  Lesser  Asia  were  confirmed  in  the  privilege  of  unchecked 

1  Jos.,  Ant.,  xiv.  7.  4.  *  Aug.  9,  B.C.  48. 

a  Sep.  28.  *  Bell.  Jud.,  ii.  18.  7.  0.  Apion,  ii.  J.  5. 


30  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

remittance  of  their  Temple  contributions  to  Jerusalevo. 
Their  synagogues  were  put  under  the  protection  of  the 
Temple  laws,  and  they  were  once  more  granted  immunity 
from  all  demands  for  public  service  on  the  Sabbath,  and  on 
the  preparation-day,  from  the  sixth  hour.1  In  Palestine, 
Hyrcanus  was  sanctioned  as  high  priest ;  the  five  divisions 
of  the  land  previously  made  were  put  aside,  and  the  whole 
united  under  Antipater,  as  procurator.2  The  Jews  in  all  the 
towns  of  Syria  and  Phenicia  were  put  on  the  same  favoured 
footing  as  those  of  the  Holy  Land  itself.  No  troops  were  to 
be  raised  in  Judea,  nor  any  Roman  garrisons  introduced. 
The  Temple  tax  and  the  Roman  dues  were  regulated  accord- 
ing to  Jewish  usage.  Hyrcanus,  as  high  priest,  received  the 
rank  of  a  Roman  senator,  and  was  made  hereditary  ethnarch, 
with  the  right  of  life  and  death,  and  of  legal  decision  on  all 
questions  of  ritual.  Still  more,  the  right  was  granted  to 
fortify  Jerusalem  again,  and  Antipater,  for  his  own  reward, 
was  made  a  Roman  citizen,  with  freedom  from  taxes  on  his 
property.  The  Idumean  dynasty  may  be  said  to  have  begun 
from  this  date,  as  the  procuratorship  granted  to  Antipater 
made  him  henceforth  independent  of  Hyrcanus.  All  these 
concessions  he  took  care  to  have  forthwith  confirmed  at 
Rome,  and  graven  on  plates  of  brass. 

These  diplomatic  successes,  however,  failed  to  make 
Antipater  popular.  He  assumed  some  of  the  public  duties 
of  Hyrcanus,  to  show  the  Sanhedrim  that  the  civil  power 
had  been  rightly  transferred  from  the  incapable  hands  of 
the  high  priest.  But  the  suspicion  sank  ever  deeper  in  the 
popular  mind,  that  the  final  setting  aside  of  the  Maccabaean 
family  was  designed,  and  it  was  even  said  that  the  Essene 
Menahem  had  told  Herod,  Antipater's  son,  years  before,  as 
he  met  him  on  the  street,  that  he  would  grow  up  to  be  the 
scourge  of  the  Maccabseans,  and  would  in  the  end  wear  the 
crown  of  David.3  Yet  Hyrcanus  could  not  shake  himself 
free,  even  had  he  had  the  energy  to  do  so,  for  he  needed  the 
help  of  the  alien  to  protect  him  against  his  own  family.  His 
daughter  Alexandra  had  lost,  on  his  account,  both  husband 
and  father-in-law,  by  foul  or  legal  murder.  His  nephew, 
Antigonus,  lived  in  a  foreign  land  as  a  claimant  of  the 
throne ;  his  grand- children  were  the  orphans  of  Alexander, 
who  had  fallen  under  the  axe  of  the  headsman.  The  house 

1  Ant.,  xvi.  6.  2 ;  xiv.  10.  6. 

9  Ant.,  xiv.  8.  3.     Hell.  Jud.,  i.  10.  3.     Mrpoiroy  e 

•  Ant.,  xv.  10.  5. 


HEROD  AND   THE    "  EOBBEBS."  31 

of  the  Idumean,  the  alien  in  Israel,  was  nearer  to  him  than 
his  own  flesh  and  blood. 

Antipater,  in  accordance  with  the  tradition  of  his  house, 
had  married  a  daughter  of  the  Bedouins — the  fair  Kypros — • 
to  preserve  the  connection  with  the  sheikhs  of  the  desert 
by  which  his  father  had  grown  rich.  She  bore  him  four 
sons,  Phasael,  Herod,  Joseph,  and  Pheroras,  and  a  daughter, 
Salome.  Of  these,  Antipater,  as  ruler  of  the  country,  named 
Phasael  governor  of  Jerusalem,  and  Herod — a  young  man 
of  twenty-five — he  sent  to  Galilee,  to  put  down  the  bands  of 
desperadoes,  who  thickly  infested  it,  half  robbers,  half  reli- 
gious zealots,  fighting  against  the  hated  Romans.  Herod 
was  well  qualified  to  maintain  the  honour  of  his  house.  He 
was  a  fearless  rider,  and  no  one  threw  the  spear  so  straight 
to  the  mark,  or  shot  his  arrow  so  constantly  into  the  centre. 
Even  in  later  years,  when  strength  and  agility  begin  to  fail 
in  most,  he  was  known  to  have  killed  forty  wild  beasts  in 
one  day's  hunting.  Herod  took  prisoner  Hezekiah,  the 
dreaded  leader  of  the  "  robbers,"  and  his  whole  band,  and 
put  them  all  to  death.  But  his  success  only  enraged  the 
patriots  of  Jerusalem.  In  violation  of  the  right  put  ex- 
clusively into  the  hands  of  Hyrcanus,  as  high  priest,  by 
Caesar,  he  had  slain  free  Jews — and  these,  men  fighting  for 
the  Law,  and  against  the  heathen  intruders  into  the  heritage 
of  Jehovah  ;  and  the  Sanhedrim — the  high  council — forced 
their  nominal  leader,  whose  legal  prerogative  had  been  thus 
invaded,  to  summon  the  offender  before  them.  Herod  obeyed, 
after  having  made  Galilee  safe,  but  appeared  with  a  powerful 
escort ;  and  at  the  same  time,  a  message  was  sent  by  the  pro- 
consul of  Syria  not  to  injure  him.  He  would,  however,  have 
been  sentenced  to  death,  had  not  Hyrcanus  left  the  chair,  and 
counselled  his  young  friend  to  leave  Jerusalem.  Gnashing 
his  teeth,  Herod  rode  off  to  Damascus,  to  the  proconsul, 
from  whom  he  shortly  after  bought  the  governorship  of 
Ccele- Syria  and  Samaria,  for  which,  as  a  Roman  citizen,  he 
was  qualified,  returning  soon  after,  with  a  strong  force  to 
Jerusalem,  to  avenge  the  insult  offered  him.  But,  at  the 
entreaty  of  his  father,  whom  his  boldness  confirmed  in 
authority,  he  withdrew,  without  violence. 

All  Palestine  was  now  in  the  hands  of  Herod's  house,  for 
Antipater  ruled  Judca,  and  Herod  himself  was  over  Samaiia 
and  Ocelc-Syria.  The  Roman  generals  were  uncertain  whom 
to  follow.  Caosar's  fortunes  seemed  waning  in  Africa.  Bassus, 
one  of  Pornpcy's  party,  seized  Tyre,  and  sought  to  scduco 


32  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

the  soldiers  of  Sextus  Caesar,  the  Syrian  proconsul.  Antipater 
sent  a  mixed  force,  and  Herod  led  the  cavalry  of  Samaria,  to 
the  proconsul's  help.  Bassus  was  beaten,  but  Sextus  Caesar 
himself  was  murdered  by  his  own  soldiers,  and  for  two  years 
Phasael  and  Herod  had  to  maintain  a  difficult  war.  At  last, 
in  the  year  44,  the  news  came,  when  all  were  expecting1 
Cassar  in  the  East,  that  he  was  murdered.  The  schemes  of 
Herod's  family  seemed  ruined. 

Things,  however,  soon  righted  themselves.  Antony  began 
to  play  a  leading  part  in  Rome,  and  had  all  the  edicts  of 
Caesar  confirmed,  to  prevent  hopeless  confusion.  Interest 
led  Antipater  for  the  time  to  join  Cassius,  Caesar's  murderer. 
Herod  won  favour  as  the  first  to  pay  him  the  war  tax  of 
about  £150,000,  levied  on  Galilee.1  Antipater  showed  equal 
zeal ;  but  when  the  people  were  too  poor  to  pay  the  enormous 
sum  demanded,  Cassius  sold  their  sons  and  daughters  as 
slaves,  to  make  it  up.  Feeling  Herod's  usefulness,  the 
republican  leader,  on  leaving  Judea,  named  him  procurator 
of  Coele-Syria,  and  gave  him.  also  military  power  over  all 
Judea,  promising  him  the  crown,  if  all  went  well.  The 
Idumean  family  were  still  on  the  top  of  the  tide.  But 
Antipater's  course  was  run.  Shortly  before  the  Feast  of 
Tabernacles,  in  the  year  43,  he  died  of  poison  given  him  in 
his  wine.  The  murderer  was  well  known — a  follower  of 
Hyrcanus,  Malichus  by  name — who  wished  to  excite  insur- 
rection in  the  Maccabaean's  favour,  against  the  Romans  and 
their  Idumean  viceroy.  Herod  and  his  brother,  with  well- 
acted  craft,  feigned  friendliness  with  him,  till,  a  year  later, 
they  got  him  into  their  power,  and  murdered  him,  in  turn, 
with  the  help  of  Cassius.  Hyrcanus  kissed  the  hands  of  his 
new  master,  and  cursed  the  murdered  man  as  the  enemy  of 
his  country  !  2 

The  year  43  closed  with  wild  troubles  all  over  the  land. 
The  son  of  Malichus  on  the  south,  and  Antigonus  on  the 
north,  invaded  the  land ;  but  Herod  overthrew  them  both. 
The  weak  Hyrcanus,  who  still  dreaded  the  house  of  Aristo- 
bulus,  received  the  conqueror  in  Jerusalem,  with  childish 
gratitude.  Herod  availed  himself  of  this  to  ask  Mariamne, 
daughter  of  Alexander,  whom  Pompey  had  beheaded,  and 
grand-daughter  of  Hyrcanus  himself,  in  marriage.  He  had 
already  one  wife,  Doris,  who  had  borne  him  a  son,  Antipater ; 
but  she  was  now  sent  away,  and  went  off  to  bring  up  her  son 

1  Bell.  Jud.,  i.  11.  2.  a  Bell.  Jud.t  i.  11.  8. 


ANTONY  AND   CLEOPATEA.  33 

in  deadly  hatred  of  the  Maccabaean  family,  who  had  taken 
her  young  husband  from  her. 

The  hopes  of  the  Jewish  patriots  revived  once  more  after 
the  battle  of  Philippi,  in  the  autumn  of  the  year  42.  It  was 
left  to  Antony  to  pay  the  soldiers,  after  the  battle,  what  had 
been  promised  them ;  and  to  raise  the  vast  sums  required, 
by  war  taxes  and  the  sale  of  titles,1  he  moved  towards  Asia , 
Here  a  deputation  of  Jews  protesting1  against  Herod  and 
Phasael's  government  waited  on  him ;  but  Herod  had  always 
been  friendly  to  the  Romans,  and  was  better  provided  with 
money  than  the  people.  Antony,  for  his  part,  hated  the 
Jews,  and  liked  Herod,  as  the  son  of  an  old  comrade,  with 
whom,  eighteen  years  before,  he  had  fought  against  the  very 
people  who  now  accused  his  son  before  him.  Hyrcanus  him- 
self appeared  in  Ephesus  on  behalf  of  the  two  brothers,  and 
they  themselves  played  their  part  so  well  that  they  were  not 
only  confirmed  in  their  own  positions,  but  received  substantial 
favours  besides. 

Antony  was  one  of  those  undisciplined  natures  which 
revolutionary  times  produce — a  man  of  powerful  but  neg- 
lected parts,  who  had  grown  up  in  the  shattered  and  utterly 
immoral  Roman  world;  unbridled  in  his  passions,  and, 
amidst  all  the  energy  of  his  will,  without  moral  restraint. 
When  in  Egypt,  as  colonel  of  horse,  he  had  for  the  first  time 
seen  Cleopatra,  then  fourteen  years  old,  but  already  flirting 
with  the  son  of  Pompey.  In  the  years  B.C.  46  to  44  she  was 
living  in  Caesar's  gardens  at  Rome  as  that  great  man's 
mistress,  and  there  Antony  had  been  amongst  the  most 
zealous  in  paying  her  honour.  After  Caesar's  death  he  had 
done  her  service,  and  tried  to  get  her  son  Caesarion  put  on 
the  list  of  Caesar's  heirs.  But,  like  Herod,  she  had  been 
forced  to  go  to  war  against  Antony,  because  the  camp  of 
Cassius  was  nearer  than  that  of  his  opponent.  For  this  she 
was  summoned  before  him,  and  made  her  appearance  at 
Tarsus,  in  Cilicia,  in  the  summer  of  41.  She  was  now  twenty- 
eight,  but  still  in  the  bloom  of  her  beauty,  and  displayed  her 
charms  so  effectively  that  Antony  was  forthwith  her  slave. 
His  worst  deeds  begin  from  the  time  he  met  her.  To  please 
her  he  caused  her  sister  to  be  dragged  out  of  a  temple  in 
Miletus  and  murdered,  and  he  put  to  death  all  she  chose  to 
denounce.  She  herself  hastened  to  Egypt,  whither  Antony 
panted  to  follow  her. 

1  Dio  Casshist,  ylr!ii.  24. 


34  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

In  Antioch,  in  Syria,  in  the  autumn  of  the  same  year,  he 
would  have  put  to  death  a  Jewish  deputation  sent  to  protest 
against  the  two  brothers,  had  not  Herod  prevented  him. 
The  two  were,  moreover,  appointed  tetrarchs,  with  all  for- 
mality. At  Tyre,  to  which  he  had  advanced,  thousands  of 
Jews  threw  themselves  in  his  way  with  loud,  persistent, 
fanatical  cries  that  he  should  depose  the  brothers.  Angry 
before,  he  was  now  furious,  and  set  his  troops  on  them  and 
hewed  them  down,  killing  even  the  prisoners  taken.  He  then 
moved  on  to  spend  the  winter  with  Cleopatra. 

Throughout  Judea  and  even  in  Egypt  the  deepest  des- 
pondency reigned  among  the  Jews.  The  advent  of  the 
Messiah  was  to  be  preceded  by  times  of  darkness  and  trouble, 
and  so  gloomy  seemed  the  state  of  things  then  prevailing 
that  it  appeared  as  if  the  long-expected  One  must  be  close 
at  hand.  The  belief  or,  at  least,  hope,  found  expression  in 
the  writings  of  the  day.  The  Jewish  Sibylline  Books,  com- 
posed in  Egypt  in  these  years,  predicted  that  "  when  Rome 
once  rules  over  Egypt,  then  will  the  greatest  of  the  king- 
doms, that  of  the  Immortal  King,  appear  among  men,  and 
a  Holy  Lord  shall  come,  who  will  rule  all  the  countries  of 
the  earth  through  all  ages,  as  time  flows  on." 1 

In  Palestine  there  was  great  excitement.  After  their 
bloody  inauguration  into  their  office  by  Antony,  the  two 
tetrarchs,  Phasael  and  Herod,  could  count  on  few  faithful 
subjects,  and  a  new  storm  soon  rose  from  the  East  which 
threatened  to  destroy  them.  Since  they  had  sold  themselves 
to  the  Romans,  the  exiled  Maccabsean  prince  had  conspired 
more  eagerly  with  the  Parthians,  and  had  been  supported 
in  his  appeal  by  Roman  exiles  of  the  party  of  Brutus  and 
Cassius.  The  Parthians  hesitated  long,  but  at  last  the 
rumour  came  that  they  were  preparing  for  war.  Jerusalem 
trembled,  for  the  Euphrates  was  undefended,  and  there  were 
still  garrisons  of  the  republicans,  which  could  not  be  trusted, 
all  through  Syria.  The  action  of  Antony  in  such  a  crisis  was 
impatiently  awaited ;  but  feasting  and  pleasures  reigned  in 
Alexandria.  The  queen  played  at  dice  with  the  Triumvir ; 
drank  and  hunted  with  him ;  wandered  through  the  streets 
by  raght  with  him,  playing  rough  tricks ;  she,  dressed  as  a 
servant- won^an,  he,  as  a  servant-man.  She  let  him  escape 
her  neither  by  night  nor  day.  Her  extravagance  vi  as  un- 
paralleled; at  a  dinner  she  drank  crashed  pearls,  that  the 

1  Sib.,  iii.  42-62.     Hilgenfeld,  Die  Judische  Apokalyptik,  p.  53  ff. 


THE   PAETHIANS  IN   PALESTINE.  35 

cost  of  a  meal  might  come  to  a  million  sestertii,1  as  slie  had 
wagered  it  would.  There  was  no  end  of  her  light  follies,  to 
amuse  him ;  she  had  foreign  pickled  fish  hung  by  divers  on 
his  hooks  as  he  fished,  and  induced  the  senator  Plancus 
to  dance  as  Glaucus,  naked,  at  one  of  her  banquets,  painted 
blue,  his  head  wreathed  with  sea- weed,  and  waving  a  tail 
behind  him,  as  he  went  gliding  on  all  fours.3  The  costliest 
meals  were  at  all  times  ready  in  the  castle,  for  the  cook  never 
knew  when  they  would  need  to  be  served  up. 

Sunk  in  this  sensual  indulgence,  Antony  left  it  to  the 
proconsul  of  Syria  to  defend  that  province,  till  forced,  in 
the  spring  of  the  year  40,  to  go  to  Greece,  to  manage  a  war 
which  his  wife  had  stirred  up,  to  draw  him  away  from 
Cleopatra.  Meanwhile,  Asia  Minor  was  overrun  by  the 
Parthians,  and  Phasael  and  Herod  saw  themselves  exposed 
to  an  early  inroad,  against  which  they  were  helpless. 

And  now,  to  use  the  fine  figure  of  Hausrath,8  there  rose 
again  before  Hyrcanus,  as  if  from  some  long-disused  church- 
yard, the  ghost  of  that  dynastic  question  which  for  thirty 
years  had  haunted  the  palace,  and  could  not  be  laid.  His 
nephew  Antigonus  came  from  Chalcis,8  where  he  had  been 
living  with  a  relative,  and  obtained  help  from  the  Parthian 
leader,  on  the  promise  of  giving  him  1,000  talents  4  and  500 
wives,  if  he  were  restored  to  the  throne.  At  Carmel,  Anti- 
gonus was  greeted  with  shouts,  as  king,  and  he  hastened  on 
to  Jerusalem,  where  part  of  the  people  joined  him.  The 
tetrarchs  succeeded  in  driving  him  and  his  adherents  into 
the  Temple,  and  shutting  them  up  in  it :  but  daily  fights 
took  place  in  the  streets,  and,  as  Pentecost  was  near,  and 
crowds  of  armed  and  half-armed  pilgrims  arrived  in  the  city, 
the  brothers  were,  in  their  turn,  shut  up  in  their  palace, 
from  which,  however,  their  soldiers  made  constant  sallies, 
butchering  the  crowds  like  sheep.  At  last  the  cup-bearer  of 
the  Parthian  prince  came  to  the  gate  with  500  cavalry,  ask- 
ing entrance  as  a  mediator  between  the  factions,  and  was 
admitted  by  Phasael,  who  was  even  weak  enough  to  let  him- 
self be  persuaded  to  set  out  for  the  Parthian  head-quarters, 
taking  Hyrcanus  with  him,  to  conclude  arrangements  for 
peace.  At  Ptolcmais  5  they  found  themselves  prisoners,  and 
were  soon  after  fettered  and  put  in  confinement.  Herod, 
meanwhile,  had  refused  to  listen  to  similar  treacherous  invi- 

1  About  £8,340.  *  Plut.,  Ant.,  29.     Vellci,  Pat.,  vol.  ii.  p.  83. 

8  Vol.  i.  p.  198.  «  £213,000  (Attic  talents).  5  Acre. 


36  THE   LIFE    OF   CHRIST. 

fcatioiia,  and  having  mounted  his  family  on  mules  by  night, 
set  off  with  them,  in  the  darkness,  towards  the  strong  for- 
tress Masada,  on  the  Dead  Sea,  where  his  brother  Joseph  had 
command,  reaching  it  only  after  terrible  fighting  in  the 
passes  of  the  hills.  Leaving  his  women  behind  in  safety,  and 
taking  his  men  with  him,  he  now  fled  towards  Edom ;  but 
as  he  had  no  money,  the  sheikhs  of  Mount  Seir  refused  to 
receive  him.1 

In  the  meantime  the  Parthians  had  thrown  off  the  mask  in 
Jerusalem,  had  plundered  the  city,2  and  were  sweeping  like 
a  devouring  fire  through  the  land,  proclaiming  Antigonus 
everywhere  as  king.  In  the  camp,  Hyrcanus  was  the  first 
to  do  homage  to  the  new  sovereign,  but  Antigonus  flew  at 
him,  and  with  his  own  teeth  bit  off  his  ears,  to  unfit  him  for 
ever  for  the  high  priesthood,  and  then  sent  him  beyond  the 
Euphrates  as  a  prisoner.  Phasael  escaped  further  insult  by 
a  voluntary  death.  Deprived  of  weapons,  he  beat  out  his 
brains  against  the  walls  of  his  dungeon.  Antigonus  now 
assumed  the  name  of  Mattathias,  from  the  founder  of  the 
Maccabaean  family, — and  the  titles  of  high  priest  and  king. 
But  his  position  was  insecure,  for  Masada  still  held  out,  and 
was  defended  by  Joseph,  Herod's  brother,  for  two  years,  till 
Herod  relieved  it.  The  barbarities  of  the  Parthians,  more- 
over, undermined  his  authority.  On  their  small  horses  of 
the  steppes  they  scoured  the  country  in  troops,  mangling  the 
men,  maltreating  the  women,  burning  down  whole  towns, 
and  torturing  even  the  defenceless.  No  wonder  that,  though 
a  Parthian  never  watered  his  horse  in  the  Jordan  after  the 
year  B.C.  38,  the  memory  of  these  mounted  hordes  lingered 
in  the  minds  of  the  people,  so  that  even  St.  John  introduces 
them  in  the  Apocalypse,  as  a  symbol  of  the  plagues  of  the 
final  judgment,  which  were  to  destroy  a  third  part  of  men.3 

Herod,  repelled  from  Idumea,  fled  to  Egypt,  which  Antony 
had  left  at  the  beginning  of  the  year  40.  Cleopatra,  how- 
ever, gave  him  a  friendly  and  even  distinguished  welcome, 
thinking  she  could  win  him  over  to  her  service,  and  use  him 
as  general  against  the  Parthians.  But  Herod  had  higher 
aims.  Braving  the  danger  of  autumn  storms,  he  set  sail  for 
Rome,  was  shipwrecked  off  Rhodes,  built  a  new  trireme  with 
borrowed  money,  reached  Italy  soon  after,  and  on  getting  to 
Rome  found  there  both  Octavian  and  Antony.  Before  them 
he  had  his  cause  pleaded  so  skilfully  that  the  Senate  unani- 

1  Joa.,  Ant.,  xiv.  13.  9.  *  B.C.  40.  8  Rev.  ix.  17  f. 


HEEOD  AND  THE   ASMONEANS.  37 

mously  appointed  him  King  of  Judea,1  and  he  was  formally 
installed  in  the  temple  of  Jupiter  Capitolinus,  with  the  usual 
heathen  sacrifices.  Seven  days  later  he  was  on  his  way  back 
to  Palestine,  and  the  cause  of  Antigonus  was  doomed.  This 
new  dignity,  however,  carried  in  its  bosom  the  seeds  of  all 
Herod's  future  misery.  Hyrcanus,  though  disqualified  for 
being  high  priest,  could  yet  be  ethnarch,  and  his  grand-child 
Aristobulns,  brother  to  Mariamne,  Herod's  betrothed,  was 
alive.  Herod's  kingship  was  a  wrongful  usurpation  of  the 
rights  of  both. 

Meanwhile,  the  position  of  Antigonus  was  getting  des- 
porate.  The  cruelties  of  the  Parthians,  the  failure  to  take 
Masada,  and  a  fresh  outbreak  on  a  great  scale,  in  Galilee 
and  on  the  lake  of  Gennesareth,  of  zeal  against  the  heathen 
oppressors  of  the  la.nd,  had  turned  the  Rabbis  and  the  San- 
hedrim, hitherto  his  supporters,  against  him.  Nor  were  the 
people  more  friendly.  As  he  left  the  Temple  on  the  Day  of 
Atonement,  accompanied  by  a  crowd,  to  conduct  him  to  his 
palace,  the  multitude  turned  away  to  follow  two  Rabbis  who 
chanced  to  pass.2  Yet  Herod  was  still,  in  the  eyes  of  the 
nation,  only  "  the  servant  of  the  Asmoneans."  3 

Herod  began  the  war  against  Antigonus  with  the  as- 
surance of  Roman  help,  but  Silo,  the  Roman  general,  let 
himself  be  bribed  by  Antigonus,  and  Herod  had  to  struggle 
single-handed.  The  Romans  only  plundered  Jericho,  and 
quartered  themselves  idly  on  the  nation  at  large.  Herod 
had  to  turn  against  the  zealots  of  Galilee,  since  he  could  get 
no  help  towards  more  serious  efforts ;  and  he  soon  extirpated 
them.  The  Parthians,  however,  by  this  time  had  been  driven 
out  of  Asia  Minor  and  Syria,  and  finally  crushed,  in  a  great 
battle  on  the  Euphrates.  Two  new  legions  were  now  free  to 
aid  Herod,  but  their  general,  like  Silo,  cared  only  for  making 
money,  and,  like  him,  took  a  bribe  from  Antigonus.  In  the 
meantime,  Joseph,  Herod's  brother,  fell  in  battle,  and  this 
roused  Herod,  who  was  always  faithful  to  his  family,  to  fury. 
With  only  a  nondescript  army  he  burst  on  Galilee  and  Judea, 
and  drove  the  Maccabseans  before  him  like  chaff.  Except 
Jerusalem,  the  whole  land  was  now  his,  and  he  set  himself  to 
the  task  of  taking  the  capital.  For  two  years,  with  only 
raw  recruits  who  knew  nothing,  veterans  who  had  forgotten 
everything,  Itureans  who  took  his  pay  and  did  as  little  as 

J  B.C.  40.  *  Jyma,  72. 

8  He  is  called  this  in  the  Talmud,  Sank.,  19  a.b.  Baba  Bathra,  3  b. 


38  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

possi  ble  for  it,  and  treacherous 1  allies,  lie  had  fought  against 
a  fanatical  people,  who  turned  every  hamlet  and  cavern  into 
a  fortress.  It  needed  a  genius  and  a  superhuman  energy 
like  his  to  triumph  in  such  a  war.  In  the  early  spring  of 
37  B.C.  he  proceeded  to  invest  Jerusalem,  but  thought  it 
politic,  before  the  siege  actually  began,  to  go  to  Samaria  and 
marry  Mariamne,  the  grand- daughter  of  Hyrcanus,  his  rival 
and  enemy.  The  Samaritans,  in  their  hatred  of  the  Macea- 
bsean  dynasty,  hadh  been  Herod's  devoted  supporters  in  the 
war ; 2  and  he  had  honoured  their  loyalty  by  placing  his 
bride,  and  the  rest  of  his  family,  in  their  keeping,  at  Samaria, 
when  it  first  broke  out.  He  was  no  sooner  married  than  the 
work  of  blood  once  more  began.  Jerusalem  was  besieged  by 
his  army  of  Samaritans,  friendly  Jews,  wild  Idumeans,  and 
mercenaries  from  Phenicia  and  Lebanon,3  and  fell  on  the 
10th  of  June,4  after  a  fierce  struggle,  which  was  followed  by 
wild  pillage  and  slaughter.  Antigonus  was  taken  prisoner, 
and  was  put  to  death  by  the  Roman  general,  at  Herod's  en- 
traty,  after  he  had  suffered  the  outrage,  hitherto  unknown 
towards  a  prince,  of  being  scourged  like  a  slave.  Thus 
another  Asmonean  was  out  of  the  way.  The  family  had 
reigned  126  years.  Herod  was  now  really  king.  A  great 
bribe  to  the  Roman  army  freed  the  country  of  the  burden  of 
the  Roman  support,  and  the  misery  of  its  lawlessness.  A 
bloody  proscription,  after  the  pattern  of  that  of  the  Roman 
triumvirate,  mowed  down  all  enemies  within  the  city,  the 
gates  of  which  were  closed  till  the  executions  were  ended. 
In  the  midst  of  this,  Antony,  once  more  beside  Cleopatra,  in 
Egypt,  and  needing  endless  wealth  for  their  mutual  prodi- 
galities, sent  a  demand  to  all  the  kingdoms  he  controlled, — 
Judea  amongst  others, — for  a  vast  sum  of  money.  Herod 
had  only  an  empty  treasury ;  a  country  strewn  with  ruins 
and  smoking  heaps  ;  and,  moreover,  it  was  the  Sabbath  year, 
in  which  the  laws  made  by  Ca?sar  prohibited  the  levying  any 
tax.5  The  proscription  had  therefore  to  be  made  a  means  of 
raising  funds,  as  had  been  done  by  Octavian  and  Antony,  at 
Rome.  Forty-five  of  his  richest  opponents  were  put  to 
death,  and  their  property  confiscated  so  ruthlessly,  that  even 
their  coffins  were  searched  at  the  city  gates  for  jewels  or 
money.  Many  were  glad  to  escape  death  by  giving  up  all 

1  Bell.  Jnd.,  i.  17.  1-3.     Ant.,  xiv.  15.  3,  4,  10.     *  Ant.,  xiv.  15.  4,  14 
»  Ant.,  xiv.  16.  1,  3,  4  ;  xv.  7.  10.     Bell.  Jud.,  i.  17.  6. 
4  B.C.  37.  •  Ant.,  xv.  1.  2. 


THE   PROSCRIPTION   BY  HEROD.  39 

they  had.  "  The  oppression  and  tyranny  had  no  limit,"  says 
Josephus.1  Herod,  however,  was  none  the  richer,  for  he  had 
to  send  off  the  whole  crown  treasures  of  the  Asmoneans  to 
Laodicea,  to  help  to  make  up  the  amount  demanded  from 
him. 

i  Ant.,  »?.  1,  2. 


CHAPTER  IV. 
THE   REIGN   OF   HEROD. 

rPHE  position  of  Herod  was  difficult  in  the  extreme.  He 
•*-  had  everything  to  reorganize.1  Galilee  lay  exhausted 
by  brigandage,  entire  towns  were  unpeopled,  as  Lydda, 
Thamna,  Gophna,  and  Emmaus,  whose  inhabitants  had  been 
sold  by  Cassius  as  slaves.3  Jericho  had  been  taken  and 
plundered  once  and  again  :  five  towns  round  it  lay  in  rubbish 
and  ashes  ;  Marissa  had  been  burned  down  by  the  Parthians ; 3 
and  in  the  midst  of  all,  the  bleeding  land  had  to  be  harried 
afresh,  to  satisfy  Cleopatra  and  her  slave,  Antony.  But  the 
genius  of  Herod  erelong  built  up  a  strong  government  out  of 
this  chaos,  surrounding  himself  with  his  old  friends,  and 
ruthlessly  crushing  his  enemies.  Filling  posts,  where  needful 
or  desirable,  with  foreigners  of  any  nation,  he  yet  strove  to 
keep  on  a  good  footing  with  the  Rabbis  and  the  Pharisee 
party  at  large,  but  gradually  took  from  their  Sanhedrim  and 
schools  the  legal  and  civil  powers  they  had  exercised,  leaving 
them  the  control  only  of  municipal  and  ecclesiastical  details. 
A  high  priest  was  appointed,  such  as  the  times  seemed  to 
demand.  No  native  could  be  trusted ;  Hyrcanus,  who  still 
survived  in  Babylon,  was  disqualified ;  Aristobulus,  the  king's 
brother-in-law,  was  too  young,  and  Herod  was  a  born  Idu- 
mean.  A  Rabbi  from  Babylon  was  therefore  selected,  as 
likely  to  give  no  trouble,  but  the  rule  was  introduced,  as  an 
extra  precaution,  that  the  office  should,  henceforth,  be  held, 
by  any  one,  only  for  a  short  time.  Hyrcanus  was  wiled  from 
the  East 4  that  Herod  might  have  him  in  his  own  power,  and 
prevent  his  being  played  off  against  him  in  case  of  another 
Parthian  war. 

But  Herod's  position  was  a  fatal  one.  Willing  to  treat  his 
subjects  well,  Rome,  to  whom  he  owed  his  crown,  forced  him 
to  oppress  them.  He  wished  to  reign  as  a  Jew,  but  he  had 

1  B.C.  37.  *  Bell.  Jud.,  i.  11.  2.     Ant.,  xiv.  11.  2. 

»  Dell.  Jud.,  i.  13.  9.     Ant.,  xiv.  15.  12.     Bell.  Jud.,  i.  15.  4. 
4  B.C.  36. 


HEROD  AND   MARIAMNE.  .        41 

made  a  thank-offering  in  the  temple  of  Jupiter  Capitolhms 
for  the  crown.  He  knew  that  he  could  be  popular  only  by 
observing  the  Law,  but  his  being  king  at  all  was  illegal.  He 
flattered  the  Rabbis,  but  they  were  his  deadliest  enemies. 
Yet  all  this  was  little  to  the  troubles  which  his  ambition  had 
prepared  for  him  in  his  own  household.  Had  he  founded  an 
entirely  new  dynasty,  his  relations  would  have  been  on  his 
side,  and  he  could  have  relied  on  a  party.  But  he  had  been 
unwise  enough  to  marry  into  the  family  he  had  overthrown, 
in  the  hope  of  gaining  a  colour  of  legitimacy  for  his  reign ; 
and  in  doing  so  he  had  at  once  failed  to  appease  the  injured, 
and  had  brought  his  mortal  enemies  round  him,  as  his  rela- 
tions. The  marriage  with  Mariainne,  by  which  he  hoped  to 
strengthen  his  title,  carried  with  it  his  keenest  indictment. 
In  Aristobulus,  liis  brother-in-law,  he  saw  only  a  rival,  and 
he  betook  himself  to  the  usual  remedy  of  tyrants — murder — 
to  make  himself  safe.  But  this  only  made  his  position  so  much 
the  worse,  for  his  best-loved  wife  knew  that  he  had  murdered 
her  brother,  and  their  very  children  had  more  right  to  the 
throne  than  himself.  His  suspicions  were  thus  roused  at  his 
every  step,  in  his  own  palace,  and  could  only  be  appeased  by 
fresh  crimes.  He  raged  against  his  own  flesh  and  blood,  and 
made  himself  wretched  as  a  man,  to  be  secure  as  a  king.1 

Towards  the  close  of  the  year 2  a  great  disaster  befell  the 
Triumvir,  Antony.  His  troops,  deserted  by  their  barbarous 
allies,  had  to  retreat  from  Media,  marching  for  twenty-seven  • 
days  through  a  wasted  country,  pursued  by  the  Parthians, 
and  often  in  want  of  food  or  water.  Twenty  thousand  foot, 
and  four  thousand  horse,  perished,  and  all  the  army  train  was 
lost,  before  he  reached  the  Araxes,  on  the  Caspian  Sea,  and 
eight  thousand  more  died  before  he  got  to  Sidon  on  the  sea- 
coast.  Here  he  waited  for  Cleopatra,  who  was  alarmed  at 
hearing  that  his  wife  Octavia  was  coming  to  meet  him,  and, 
pretending  that  she  would  die  if  he  deserted  her,  so  un- 
manned him  that  he  left  his  army  to  his  officers  and  went 
off  with  her  to  Egypt.3  He  was  now  entirely  in  her  hands, 
and  the  neighbouring  powers  soon  felt  the  results. 

Alexandra,  the  mother  of  Mariamne  and  Aristobulus,  was 
sorely  aggrieved  that  her  son  should  not  have  been  made 
high  priest,  as  was  his  right,  and  plotted  with  a  crafty  officer 
of  Antony's  suite,  then  at  Jerusalem,  to  get  Antony  to  help 
her  in  the  matter.  He  asked  and  got  the  portraits  of  both 

1  Hausrath,  vol.  i.  pp.  214,  215.        *  B.C.  36.        »  PI  ul arch,  Antony. 


42  THE  LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

brother  and  sister  to  send  to  his  master,  but  it  was  with  the 
design  of  getting  Antony  enamoured  of  Mariamne  and  of 
thus  raising  a  rival  to  Cleopatra,  and  his  scheme  succeeded. 
Antony  fell  in  love  with  the  Jewish  queen,  and  was  only 
kept  from  acting  on  his  passion  by  his  fear  of  the  jealousy  of 
his  Egyptian  mistress.  He  confined  himself  for  the  time  to 
asking  Herod  to  send  the  boy  to  him. 

Herod  was  alarmed,  and  induced  Antony  to  withdraw  his 
request,  which  he  said  would  lead  to  a  revolt  if  granted  :  but 
seeing  how  things  stood,  he  deposed  the  high  priest  and 
appointed  Aristobulus,  then  seventeen,  in  his  place.1  Un- 
fortunately for  the  lad,  the  Jews  hailed  his  elevation  with 
delight.  The  result  was,  that  Herod,  soon  after,  got  him  held 
under  the  water  in  a  bath,  at  Jericho,  till  he  was  drowned, 
and  pretended  it  was  an  accident. 

Alexandra  and  Mariamne,  knowing  the  truth,  thirsted  for 
revenge,  and  plotted  with  Cleopatra  to  obtain  it.  She  on 
her  part  was  anxious  to  get  hold  of  Judea,  and  only  used  the 
plotters  for  this  end.  Herod  was  summoned  before  Antony,2 
tut  he  ordered,  before  he  left,  that  should  he  not  return, 
Alexandra  should  be  put  to  death  as  a  punishment,  and 
Mariamne  also  killed,  to  prevent  her  falling  into  the  hands 
of  Antony.  Unfortunately  for  all,  this  was  told  them  in  his 
absence,  and  Mariamne,  roused  to  frenzy,  greeted  him,  on 
his  coming  back,  with  an  outburst  of  the  long  pent-up  hatred 
she  felt  at  his  crimes.  Alexandra  was  forthwith  thrown  into 
chains;  his  sister  Salome's  husband,  who  had  betrayed  the 
secret,  was  put  to  death ;  Mariamne,  whom  he  passionately 
loved,  was  spared  a  little  longer. 

Other  troubles,  from  outside,  now,  for  a  time,  thrust  the] 
domestic  miseries  into  the  background.  Herod  had  dis- 
covered Cleopatra's  designs,  which  were  to  get  all  the  country, 
from  Egypt  to  Syria,  for  herself.  Antony  was  to  be  per- 
suaded on  one  pretext  or  other,  to  dethrone  the  different 
rulers.  She  did  actually  get  him  to  put  Lysanias,  the  ruler 
of  the  Lebanon  district,  to  death,  on  pretence  of  his  being  in 
league  with  the  Parthians,  and  got  his  principality,  which 
ehe  presently  farmed  out.  Herod  was  now  between  her 
possessions,  on  both  north  and  south,  and  feared  lest  her 
influence  with  Antony  might  be  his  ruin. 

She  next  begged  and  got  part  of  the  Nabataan  kingdom :  * 

1  B.C.  35.  *  To  Laodicea.     B.C.  34. 

•  Veil.  Jud..  i.  20.  3.     Ant.,  xv.  4. 1. 


AMBITIOUS   SCHEMES   OF   CLEOPATBA.  43 

then  the  whole  sea-coast  of  Palestine  from  the  river  Eleu- 
thertis  to  Egypt — Tyre  and  Sidon  excepted — and,  finally, 
Herod  had  to  give  up  to  her  the  Oasis  of  Jericho  with  its 
balsam  plantations1 — the  richest  part  of  his  kingdom.2  The 
summons  to  Laodicea  and  the  taking  away  of  Jericho  seemed 
to  show  that  Herod's  influence  with  Antony  was  shaken,  and 
opposition  consequently  raised  itself  once  more.  Plots  were 
again  rife  on  every  side,  at  home  and  abroad.  Cleopatra  was 
his  constant  terror,  for  at  any  moment  she  might  spring 
some  new  mine  under  his  feet.  Even  the  Maccabseans  were 
once  more  raising  their  heads.  The  Rabbis,  whose  schools 
had  flourished  immensely  since  their  exclusion  from  politics, 
began  to  interfere  with  them  again.  Hillel  and  Shammai 
were,  respectively,  the  heads  of  the  more  liberal  and  the 
harsher  parties.  But  Herod  was  too  much  occupied  by  great 
affairs  to  trouble  himself  about  them. 

Things  were  rapidly  coming  to  a  crisis  in  the  Roman 
Empire.  The  object  of  the  Egyptian  queen  in  lavishing  her 
blandishments  on  Antony  became  more  and  more  apparent. 
She  had  entangled  him  in  her  snares  only  to  serve  herself, 
and  the  great  Samson  laid  his  head  unsuspiciously  on  her 
Delilah  lap.  She  dreamed  of  bringing  the  whole  Eastern 
empire  of  Rome,  through  him,  under  Egyptian  rule,  and  of 
becoming  the  empress  of  half  the  world ;  and  it  seemed  as  if 
he  were  willing  it  should  be  so.  He  gave  mortal  offence  at 
Rome  by  celebrating  his  triumphs,  not  there,  but  at  Alexan- 
dria. He  gave  Cleopatra  the  title  of  the  "  queen  of  kings." 
Their  two  sons,  Ptolemy  and  Alexander,  were  to  be  "  kings  of 
kings."  He  gave  Syria,  Phenicia,  and  Cilicia  to  the  former, 
and  Armenia  and  Media,  with  Parthia,  as  soon  as  it  should 
be  overcome,  to  the  latter;  while  to  their  daughter,  the 
young  Cleopatra,  he  handed  over  Cyrenaika.3  Cleopatra 
herself  was  made  Queen  of  Egypt,  Cyprus,  Libya,  and  Ccele- 
Syria,  her  son  Caasarion  sharing  them  with  her.  After  the 
example  of  the  Pharaohs  and  Ptolemies,  both  she  and  Antony 
assumed  divine  honours — Cleopatra  as  Isis,  he  as  Osiris 
— and  their  statues  were  set  up  in  sacred  places.4  Public 
feeling  at  Rome  was  outraged  and  alarmed.  The  popular 
poets  sent  verses  afloat  in  which  Antony  sought  to  make  the 
Jupiter  of  Rome  give  way  to  the  barking,  dog-headed  Anubis, 
threatened  the  galleys  of  Rome  with  being  outsailed  by  the 

1  B.C.  34.  *  Lightfoot's  Chorog.  Cent.,  95  I. 

»  B.C.  33.  «  Dio.,  1.  5.     Vdlei,  ii.  8. 


44  THE   LIFE   OF   CHKIST. 

boats  of  the  Nile,  and  would  fain  frighten  the  trumpets  of 
Rome  with  the  clattering  sistrum.1  Caesar  laid  the  facts 
before  the  Senate,  and  Antony,  in  return,  made  charges 
against  Caesar.  War — long  inevitable — at  last  broke  out, 
and  was  decided  in  the  sea-fight  at  Actium.2  Cleopatra  had 
persuaded  her  dupe  to  fight  on  the  water  rather  than  on 
land,  that  she  might  flee  to  Egypt  at  the  first  signs  of  defeat, 
and  she  did  this  in  the  midst  of  the  battle,  when  victory  was 
yet  entirely  doubtful.  Ever  his  ruin,  she  thus  completed 
her  fatal  triumph,  for  the  weak  man,  as  if  he  could  not  live 
without  her,  forthwith  deserted  his  forces,  though  his  ships 
were  still  fighting  stoutly,  and  he  had  100,000  foot,  and  12,000 
horse,  on  the  sea-shore,  who  had  never  fought  at  all.  It  was 
noticed  that  on  the  day  of  Actium  a  terrible  earthquake  took 
place  in  Palestine,  killing  10,000  persons -and  endless  cattle.3 
Herod,  seeing  Antony  fallen,  forthwith  made  peace  with 
Caesar.  Fresh  plots  of  Alexandra  had  been  discovered,  in 
which  Hyrcanus,  now  eighty  years  old,  was  to  be  played  off 
against  him  ;  but  they  only  led  to  the  revolting  sight  of  the 
last  of  the  Maccabaeans,  in  extreme  old  age,  being  beheaded 
by  his  son-in-law.4  Herod's  hands  were  getting  redder  and 
redder  with  the  blood  of  his  kindred.  With  Ceesar  he 
managed  things  well,  entertaining  him  royally  on  his  way 
through  Palestine  to  Egypt,  and  providing  supplies  for  his 
army  on  their  march,  with  equal  wisdom  and  munificence. 
Meanwhile  Antony  and  Cleopatra  spent  their  last  days  in 
feasting  and  revelry,  varied  with  ghastly  trials,  before  them, 
of  every  known  poison,  by  turns,  on  different  prisoners,  to 
see  which  caused  the  easiest  death.5  In  the  autumn  of  30  B.C. 
Antony  stabbed  himself  mortally,  and  Cleopatra  soon  after 
ended  her  life  by  poison,  leaving  Herod  to  breathe  freely  for 
the  first  time  in  long  years.6  Octavian  took  him  into  favour, 
for  he  needed  such  a  man  as  a  protection  on  the  eastern 
borders,  to  defend  them  against  the  Parthians.  Jericho  was 
given  back,  Samaria  was  incorporated  with  his  kingdom, 
with  various  coast  towns,  and  some  territory  beyond  the 
Jordan.  Cleopatra's  body-guard  of  400  Gauls  was  presented 
f  o  him  by  Octavian.  But  if  he  had  honour  and  rewards,  it 
wa.3  at  the  cost  of  an  expenditure,  to  do  honour  and  homage 
to  his  imperial  master,  that  seemed  to  have  overstrained  hia 
resources. 

1  Prop.,  Eleg.,  v.  a  Sep.  2,  B.C.  31. 

•  Ant.,  xv.  5.  2.     Bell.  Jud.,  i.  19.  3.  *  In  spring,  B.C.  30. 

8  B.C.  30.  *  Plutarch,  M.  Antonius. 


MURDER   OF  MARIAMNE.  45 

Once  more  safe  from  dangers  that  might  well  have  over- 
whelmed him,  Herod  found,  on  his  return  from  attendance 
on  Octavian,  such  troubles  at  home  as  darkened  his  whole 
future  life.  The  quarrels  of  his  seraglio  had  come  to  a  head. 
Alexandra  and  her  daughter  Mariamne  were  now  the  only 
two  left  of  the  old  royal  race,  and  were  so  much  the  more 
hated  by  the  kindred  of  Herod.  Mariamne — tall  and  noble 
in  person1 — had  the  pride  of  a  daughter  of  kings,  and  let 
Salome,  Herod's  sister,  feel  it.  In  Herod's  absence  she  dis- 
covered that,  for  the  second  time,  he  had  left  orders  to  kill 
her  and  her  mother  if  he  did  not  return ;  and  she  showed 
what  she  thought  of  this  when  he  did  come  back,  by  receiving 
him  with  undisguised  aversion.  Her  enemies  took  advantage 
of  this  to  fan  Herod's  anger  by  every  scandal  they  could 
invent  against  her,  till,  in  the  end,  he  believed  she  had  been 
unfaithful,  and  the  fair  queen,  deserted  and  betrayed  by  all, 
was  handed  over  to  the  headsman.2  Herod's  remorse,  when 
she  had  thus  actually  perished,  was  awful.  He  lost  his 
reason  for  a  time,  would  call  for  her,  lament  over  her,  kept 
his  servants  calling  her  as  if  she  were  still  alive,  gave  up  all 
business,  and  fled  to  Samaria,  where  he  had  married  her,  to 
seek  relief  from  his  thoughts  in  hunting.  At  last  he  fell 
into  violent  illness,  and  lay  seemingly  hopeless.  Alexandra, 
furious  at  her  daughter's  murder,  thought  this  the  right 
moment  to  attempt  to  set  Mariamne's  two  sons  on  the  throne, 
which  was  theirs  by  right,  more  than  their  father's.  A 
plague  had  broken  out,  and  this  the  Rabbis  construed  into 
divine  vengeance  for  the  queen's  death.  The  news  roused 
the  tyrant,  ill  as  he  was.  Alexandra  was  instantly  put  to 
death,  and  many  others  shared  her  fate  ;3  but  already  a  new 
suspicion  had  risen  to  torment  the  wretched  man.  Alex- 
andra's proclamation  of  his  sons  as  the  rightful  heirs  had 
made  them,  also,  his  fancied  enemies.  Among  the  people  the 
memory  of  Mariamne  was  sacred,  and  their  hopes  were  set 
on  her  sons. 

Octavian  was  now  sole  ruler  of  the  Roman  world,  under 
the  high  name  of  Augustus,  and  an  era  of  restoration  and 
refinement  took  the  place  of  destruction  and  tumult.  With 
the  widespread  peace,  trade  revived,  and  prosperity  returned 
to  Judea  among  other  countries.  The  patronage  of  literature 
and  art,  the  construction  of  public  works,  and  the  rebuilding 
and  beautifying  of  Rome  and  the  cities  and  towns  of  the 

1  Ant.,  xv.  2.  4.  J  B.C.  29.  »  B.C.  28. 


46  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

provinces,  were  now  the  fashion,  set  by  Augustus,  and 
slavishly  followed  by  vassal  kings.  In  imitation  of  him, 
Herod  patronized  men  whose  writings  could  shed  a  lustre  on 
his  court — notably  the  two  brothers,  Nicolaus  and  Ptolemy, 
of  Damascus,  both  able  and  faithful  public  servants.  Nicolaus 
was  a  voluminous  and  skilful  author  as  well.*  Other  Greeks 
and  half-Greeks  were  put  in  offices  of  trust  or  honour,  as 
members  of  the  government,  or  ambassadors,  or  as  tutois 
and  travelling  companions  to  his  sons.  Most  of  them  served 
Herod  honourably  to  the  last,  but  there  were  not  wanting 
some  of  the  Greek  sycophants  who  at  that  time  infested  all 
courts,  and  one  of  the  worst  of  these,  Eurykles  the  Lace- 
daemonian, who  amassed  wealth  by  espionage  and  false 
witnesses,  was  destined  to  be  the  bad  genius  of  Herod's  later 
years.  The  biting  wit  of  the  Rabbis  spoke  of  the  whole 
heathen  government  of  the  court  as  "  the  proselytes  of  the 
king's  table."1 

A  shrewd  and  able  man  like  Herod,  whose  leading  thought 
was  to  flatter  and  serve  Augustus,  so  as  to  secure  his 
permanent  favour,  was  of  great  use  in  a  disturbed  border 
country,  to  one  who,  like  Augustus,  was  as  much  disinclined 
as  unqualified  for  war.  When,  therefore,  Herod  determined 
in  the  year  B.C.  23"  to  send  Mariamne's  two  sons  to  Rome, 
Csesar  received  them  with  every  honour,  and  gave  the  lads 
every  facility  for  growing  up  in  the  midst  of  high  Roman 
life.  But  they  little  knew  in  how  dark  a  gloom  all  this 
early  splendour  would  set !  By  a  curious  coincidence  it  was 
their  tutor's  son,  with  whom  they  rose  to  manhood,  whom 
Virgil2  had  flattered  as  an  infant  by  applying  to  him,  in 
the  fourth  Eclogue,  the  Messianic  hope  of  the  Jews.  Of  this 
"  Messiah "  of  Virgil  they  were  now  the  youthful  friends. 
Herod  himself  took  his  sons  to  Rome,3  and  was  honoured  by 
a  gift  from  Augustus  of  the  district  of  Lebanon,  and  of  the 
lawless  territories  of  Iturea  and  Trachonitis,  with  the  fertile 
plains  of  the  Hauran.  The  former  swarmed  with  robbers, 
like  Galilee  in  Herod's  youth,  and  the  two  latter  were  filled 
with  wild  clans  of  borderers,  who  were  the  terror  of  the  land 
at  large.  But  on  his  return,  Herod  soon  reduced  them  so 
thoroughly  that  they  were  peaceful  even  under  his  successors. 
A  year  after,4  Herod  could  personally  report  his  success  to 
Cesar's  minister  Agrippa,  at  Mitylene,  to  which  he  went  to 

1  Gratz,  vol.  iii.  p.  308. 
'•  B.C.  70-19.  3  B.C.  23.  4  B.C.  22. 


GEEEK  CULTUBE  IN  PALESTINE.         47 

meet  him.  Two  years  later  Herod  received  from  Augustus,1 
in  person,  at  Antioch,  the  districts  of  Ulatha  and  Panias,  to 
round  off  his  kingdom  suitably.  He  now  reigned  over  a 
larger  kingdom  than  any  preceding  Jewish  monarch.  The 
glory  of  David  seemed  to  be  outshone.  From  Lebanon  to 
the  far  south,  and  from  the  edge  of  the  Desert  to  the  sea- 
coast,  was  Jewish  territory.  Nor  was  the  political  glory 
granted  to  Herod  less  than  the  material.  He  was  made  the 
representative  of  Agrippa  in  the  East,  and  it  was  required 
that  his  counsel  should  be  taken,  before  anything  of  moment 
was  done  by  consuls  or  governors.  Amidst  these  flatteries 
from  Augustus  it  was  necessary  to  do  something  to  conciliate 
the  Jews.  Hence,  in  the  year  24  Herod  had  married  a 
Jewish  maiden — Mariamne,  daughter  of  Boethos,  a  priest  of 
Alexandrian  origin,  who  was  raised  to  the  high  priesthood, 
to  dignify  the  alliance  with  "  the  fairest  woman  in  the  world  " 
— Jesus,  the  son  of  Phabi,  the  high  priest  at  the  time,  being 
set  aside  in  his  favour.  Boethos  was  a  great  accession  to 
the  small  body  of  the  Sadducean  dignitaries,  but,  in  politics, 
was,  of  course,  a  Herodian. 

So  much  intercourse  with  heathenism,  however,  and  the 
splendid  flatteries  by  which  Herod  sought  to  retain  and 
increase  the  power  of  his  master,  were  not  without  their 
effects  on  Judaism.  Even  in  the  days  of  the  Syrian  kings, 
Palestine  had  been  encircled  by  Greek  towns  and  cities,  and 
the  immigration  of  heathen  settlers  had,  in  Herod's  day, 
made  the  towns  of  the  Philistine  coast  and  of  the  Decapolis 
much  more  Greek  than  Jewish.  The  only  bounds  to  Herod's 
introduction  of  foreign  novelties  were  his  dread  of  national 
opposition.  Greek  had  become  the  court  dialect  of  the 
Empire,  as  French  was  that  of  Europe  in  the  days  of 
Louis  XIV.,  and  still  remains  to  a  great  extent ;  and  hence 
it  was  universally  favoured  and  spoken  by  the  upper  classes 
in  Herod's  dominions.  Samaria  received  a  Greek  name,2 
had  Greek  coins,  and  Greek  idolatry.  The  first  act  of 
Herod,  after  Augustus  had  aggrandised  him  so  greatly,  was 
to  build  a  temple  of  white  marble  to  his  patron,  at  Panias, 
the  future  Csesarea  Philippi,  lying  finely  on  one  of  the 
southern  spurs  of  Lebanon.  Before  long,  venturing  to  bring 
heathenism  nearer  the  centre  of  the  land,  he  built  another 
temple  to  Ceesar  in  Samaria,  and  surrounded  it  by  a  conse- 
crated approach,  a  furlong  and  a  half  in  circumference.  A 

1  B.C.  20.  *  Sebaste. 


48  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

grand  palace  was  also  begun  in  Jerusalem  itself,  in  the 
heathen  style,  with  wide  porticoes,  rows  of  pillars,  and  baths ; 
its  one  wing  receiving  the  name  of  Caesar,  the  other  that  of 
Agrippa.  Herodium,  which  he  built  on  the  hill,  at  the 
mouth  of  the  deep  gorge  leading  to  the  Dead  Sea,  where  he 
had  so  bravely  defended  himself  against  the  Parthians,  was 
planned  as  a  Roman  castle,  rising  over  an  Italian  town,  with 
public  buildings  and  stately  aqueducts.  His  grandest  under- 
taking, after  the  Temple,  was  the  creation  of  Caesarea,1  on 
the  coast.  The  name  was  another  flattery  of  the  Emperor  ; 
that  of  one  of  the  great  signal  towers  on  the  smaller  harbour 
was  Drusion,  after  Caasar's  son.  The  great  pier  was  adorned 
with  splendid  pillars.  Broad  quays,  magnificent  bazaars, 
spacious  basilicas,  for  the  courts  of  law  and  other  public 
uses,  and  huge  sailors'-homes,  invited  a  great  commerce ;  and 
on  an  eminence  above  rose  a  temple,  with  a  colossal  statue, 
visible  far  out  at  sea,  of  Augustus,  as  Jupiter  Olympus,  and 
another  of  Borne,  deified  as  Juno.  Theatres  and  amphi- 
theatres were  not  wanting.  A  grand  palace,  designed  for 
Herod  himself,  became  later  the  Praetorium  of  the  Roman 
procurators.  Temples  to  Jupiter,  Neptune,  Apollo,  Hercules, 
Bacchus,  Minerva,  Victory,  and  Astarte,  soon  adorned  the 
town,  and  showed  the  many-coloured  heathenism  of  its  popu- 
lation. It  was,  moreover,  provided  with  a  system  of  magni- 
ficent underground  sewers  in  the  Roman  manner.  Caesarea 
was  in  every  respect  a  foreign  city.  Its  population  was  more 
heathenish  than  Jewish,  and  their  mutual  hatred  often  led  to 
fierce  riots.2 

In  Jerusalem  itself  a  theatre  and  amphitheatre  were  erected. 
Countless  foreign  proselytes  and  numerous  heathens  had  set- 
tled in  the  city.  The  coins  bore  Greek  inscriptions.  Among 
the  troops  of  Herod  were  Thracian,  German,  and  Gallic  regi- 
ments.3 So  thoroughly,  indeed,  had  foreign  elements  gained 
a  footing,  even  in  the  fanatical  capital,  in  spite  of  the 
Rabbis,  that,  while  the  people  at  large  retained  their  native 
dialect,  many  Greek  words  had  been  permanently  incorporated 
with  it.4  The  very  Temple  displayed  proofs  of  the  irrepressi- 
ble influences  of  the  great  world  outside  Judea.  Its  outer 
court  was  thronged  by  heathens,  and  countless  gifts  presented 
by  heathen  princes  and  nobles  adorned  the  walls  of  the  court 
of  the  priests.5  The  Ptolemies  had  enriched  it  by  numerous 

1  B  c.  22-10. 

*  Ant.,  xx.  8.  7,  9.     Bell.  Jud.,  ii.  13.  7  ;  14.  4,  5  ;  18.  1. 

:*  Ant.,  xvii.  8.  3.  4  Schiirer,  p.  378.  6  Luke  xxi.  5. 


GREEK  HEATHENISM  IN   PALESTINE.  49 

costly  gifts.1  Sosius,  when  lie  took  Jerusalem,  in  concert 
with  Herod,  vowed  a  golden  crown.  Among  the  Temple 
vessels  were  wine  jars  which  had  been  presented  by  Augustus 
and  his  Empress.2  It  was,  indeed,  a  common  thing  for 
Romans  to  make  gifts  of  this  kind.3  They  very  often,  also, 
presented  offerings.  When  Pompey  had  taken  Jerusalem, 
his  first  care  was  to  provide  the  usual  sacrifices.4  Agrippa, 
the  friend  and  patron  of  Herod,  offered  a  hecatomb  on  his 
visit  to  Jerusalem  fifteen  years  before  Christ,  and  Augustus 
provided  that  sacrifices  should  be  offered  daily  at  his  expense 
to  the  Most  High  God ;  an  example  which  must  have  had 
countless  followers.5  All  the  hatred  between  Jews  and 
heathen  was  not  strong  enough  to  prevent  the  Temple  becom- 
ing, like  all  the  famous  sanctuaries  of  the  age,  a  gathering 
point  for  the  world  at  large. 

There  was,  clearly,  much  to  keep  a  fanatical  people  in  a 
constant  tension,  and  to  make  them  more  fanatical  still. 
Heathen  temples,  with  their  attendant  priests,  pompous 
ritual,  and  imposing  sacrifices,  abounded  in  the  land.  Gaza, 
in  the  south,  was  virtually  a  Greek  city,6  and  worshipped  a 
local  Jupiter  as  the  town  god,  "  who  sent  rain  and  fruitful- 
ness  on  the  earth,"  and  associated  with  him,  in  its  idolatry, 
another  Jupiter — the  Victory  Bringer — Apollo,  the  Sun,  and 
Hercules,  and  the  goddesses  Fortune,  lo,  Diana,  Juno,  and 
Venus.7  Ascalon  worshipped  Jupiter,  Neptune,  Apollo,  the 
Sun,  Minerva,  Mercury,  Castor  and  Pollux,  and  the  Syrian 
Moon  goddess  Astarte,  as  the  heavenly  Venus — the  warlike, 
spear-bearing,  Queen  of  Heaven.  On  the  rocks  at  Joppa,  the 
marks  of  the  chains  were  shown  which  had  been  forged  for 
Andromeda.  A  laurel-crowned  Jupiter  was  worshipped  at 
Dora,  north  of  Ceesarea.8  At  Ptolemais  the  favourite  divinity 
was  the  goddess  Fortune,  but  with  her,  Jupiter,  Apollo, 
Diana,  Venus,  Pluto  and  Persephone,  and  Perseus,  with  tho 
Egyptian  Serapis,  and  the  Phrygian  Cybele,  had  their  re- 
spective worshippers. 

In  Tyre,  the  old  worship  of  Baal  and  Astarte — the  Srm 
and  Moon — retained  their  pre-eminence,  with  a  Greek  col- 
ouring of  the  idolatry.  In  Damascus  Greek  heathenism 

1  Ant.,  xii.  2 ;  xiii.  3,  4.  8  c.  Apion,  ii.  5.    Bell.  Jud.,  vii.  3.  3. 

*  Ant.,  xiv.  16.  4  ;  4.  4.     Bell.  Jud.,  i.  7.  6. 
4  Bell.  Jud.,  i.  7.  6 ;  ii.  17.  3  ;  iv.  3.  10. 

8  Phil.  Lec/at.  ad.  Cai.,  §  23  ;  Ed.  Mang.,  vol.  ii.  p.  569.  Bell.  Jud.. 
ii.  17.  2-4. 

6  Bell.  Jud.,  ii.  6.  3.  7  Schurer.  p.  379.  B  Schurer,  p.  381, 

5 


50  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

was  in  the  ascendant.  Jupiter,  Hercules,  and  Bacchus, 
Diana,  Minerva,  Fortune,  and  Victory  had  their  temples,  and 
were  stamped  on  the  local  coins.  In  the  future  province  of 
Philip  heathenism  was  predominant.  In  Panias  or  Csesarea 
Philippi,  as  we  have  seen,  Herod  built  a  temple  for  the  wor- 
ship of  Augustus,  but  the  leading  divinity  was  the  god  Pan, 
&3  the  old  name  of  the  town — Panias — indicates ;  Jupiter, 
however,  and  Astarte,  with  a  horn  of  plenty,  Apollo,  and 
Diana,  had  also  their  votaries,  and  no  doubt  their  temples. 
Heathenism  nourished  in  Batansea,  Trachonitis,  and  Auranitis. 
Helios,  the  Sun,  was  the  great  object  of  worship,  and  so 
deep-rooted  was  this  idolatry  that  the  early  Christian  mis- 
sionaries knew  no  other  way  of  overthrowing  it  than  by 
changing  it  into  the  name  of  the  prophet  Elias,  and  turning 
the  temples  into  churches  dedicated  to  him.1  Round  this 
central  divinity,  however,  the  worship  of  Bacchus,  Saturn, 
Hercules,  Minerva,  Fortune,  Venus,  Victory,  Peace,  and 
other  divinities  flourished  more  or  less.  The  cities  of  the 
Decapolis  were  very  heathen. 

Thus,  all  round  the  central  district  of  Palestine,  and  to 
some  extent  even  within  its  limits,  heathenism  had  already 
in  Herod's  day,  and,  consequently,  in  Christ's,  its  temples, 
altars,  idols,  and  priests.  Jehovah  was  no  longer  the  sole 
God.  With  a  few  exceptions,  of  Syrian  or  Egyptian  divi- 
nities, Greek  names  and  rites  marked  the  source  of  the 
corruption,  though  we  have  given  the  Roman  names  as 
better  known.  Of  all  this  aggressive  heathenism  Herod,  so 
far  as  he  dared,  was  the  ostentatious  patron.  If  he  could 
hardly  venture  on  much  within  the  narrow  limits  of  Judea, 
cenotaphs,  mausolea,  and  other  monuments  offensive  to  a 
Jew  were  seen  along  all  the  leading  roads,  and  so  many 
places  were  called  by  new  Latin  names,  in  honour  of  the 
imperial  family,  that  a  traveller  might  think  he  was  in  Italy. 
Nor  was  the  King  ever  without  money  to  bestow  on  neighbour- 
ing heathen  cities,  as  a  mark  of  friendliness,  in  building 
gymnasia,  piazzas,  theatres,  and  aqueducts,  or  in  the  shape 
of  prizes  to  be  striven  for  in  the  circus.  It  seemed  as  if  the 
throne  of  David  existed  only  to  spread  heathenism.  It  was 
clear  to  the  Jews  that  Herod's  heathen  subjects  were  nearest 
his  heart,  since,  amidst  all  his  lavish  munificence  to  them,  he 
had  done  nothing  to  beautify  a  single  Jewish  town  except 
Jerusalem,  to  which  his  additions  were,  themselves,  heathen. 

1  Scliilrer,  p.  388. 


THE   TEMPLE   OF   HEROD.  51 

The  most  appalling  reports  respecting  him  spread  from 
mouth  to  mouth.  He  had  preserved  the  body  of  Mariamne 
for  seven  years  in  honey  for  the  most  hideous  ends  :  he  had 
strangled  all  the  great  Rabbis,  except  Baba-ben-Buta,  and 
him  he  had  blinded.1  The  most  intense  hatred  of  him 
prevailed. 

It  was  with  the  extremest  mistrust,  therefore,  that  the 
Rabbis  heard  in  the  year  B.C.  20  that  Herod  intended  re- 
placing the  humble  temple  of  the  Exile  by  one  unspeakably 
more  splendid.  It  is  said  that  Baba-ben-Buta  had  seen  a 
crack  in  the  old  structure,  and  counselled  Herod  to  build 
another  in  its  place,  as  an  expiation  for  the  murder  of  Mari- 
amne and  the  Rabbis,  and  to  conciliate  the  people  for  his 
favour  to  heathenism.2  The  prophecies  were  played  off  by 
him,  to  win  popular  sanction  to  his  undertaking,  for  Haggai 
had  foretold  that  a  new  temple  of  surpassing  glory  would 
one  day  be  built.3  But  so  great  was  the  distrust,  that  all 
the  materials  of  the  new  temple  needed  to  be  brought  to- 
gether before  a  stone  of  the  old  one  could  be  touched.  At 
last,  on  the  regnal  day  of  Herod,  in  the  year  B.C.  14,  the 
unfinished  structure  was  consecrated,  and  the  lowing  of  300 
oxen  at  the  Great  Altar  announced  to  Jerusalem  that  the 
first  sacrifice  in  it  was  about  to  be  offered.  But  scarcely  was 
the  consecration  over,  than  national  gratitude  was  turned 
into  indignation  by  his  setting  up  a  huge  golden  eagle — the 
emblem  of  heathen  Rome — over  the  great  gate,  in  expecta- 
tion of  a  visit  from  distinguished  strangers  from  the  imperial 
city.  The  nation  was  not  duped  as  the  king  had  expected. 
In  spite  of  his  having  begun  a  temple  so  magnificent  that 
even  a  Jewish  saying  owns  that  he  who  had  not  seen  it  had 
seen  nothing  worth  looking  at,  an  abyss  yawned  between  him 
and  them.4  He  had  burned  the  registers  of  Jerusalem  to 
destroy  the  pedigrees  of  which  the  people  boasted :  he  had 
tried  to  make  it  be  believed  that  he  was  the  descendant  of  a 
foreign  Jewish  family,  but  no  one  regarded  him  as  anything 
but  the  slave  of  their  kings.  All  felt  that  his  conduct  was 
as  little  Jewish  as  his  birth ;  and  that  he  was  rather  a  Roman 
proconsul  than  the  King  of  Israel.5  Even  the  worst  of  the 
Maccabsean  house  were  bound  to  the  national  faith  by  the 
functions  of  the  pontificate,  but  though  Herod  might  be 
made  King  of  Judea  by  the  favour  of  Rome,  no  earthly 

1  Derenbourg,  p.  151.          3  Derenbonrg,  p.  152.  »  Haggai  ii.  3,  9. 

4  Derenboitrtj,  p.  154.  6  Ant.,  xv.  9.  5 ;  xvi.  5.  4. 


power  could  make  him    a    descendant  of    Aaron,   without 
being  which  he  could  not  be  high  priest. 

In  vain  Herod  tried  to  make  himself  beloved.  He  had 
done  much  to  deserve  gratitude  in  these  later  years,1  and 
yet  the  nation  wrote  his  virtues  in  water,  and  his  faults  in 
brass.  A  dreadful  famine,  followed  by  pestilence,  had  spread 
misery  and  death  in  the  thirteenth  year  of  his  reign.3  No  rain 
had  fallen  at  the  required  times,  and  the  crops  utterly  failed, 
so  that  there  was  no  food  for  either  man  or  beast.  Men  said 
it  was  a  judgment  of  God  for  the  defilement  of  His  land  by 
their  king's  crimes  and  heathen  innovations,  for  Mariamne's 
blood,  now  four  years  shed,  still  seemed  to  cry  for  vengeance, 
and,  since  her  murder,  a  theatre  and  circus  had  profaned 
Jerusalem,  while  heathen  games,  in  which  men  fought  with 
men,  to  the  death,  had  been  set  on  foot  with  great  pomp. 
Samaria,  the  hated  rival  of  Jerusalem,  was  even  then,  more- 
over, being  rebuilt,3  with  a  heathen  temple  in  it,  in  which 
a  man — Augustus — was  to  be  worshipped.  Herod  felt  the 
peril  of  his  position,  and  acted,  from  policy,  as  others  might 
have  done  from  the  wisest  and  most  energetic  philanthropy. 
Selling  the  very  plate  in  his  palace,  and  emptying  his  trea- 
sury, he  sent  funds  to  Egypt  and  bought  corn,  which  he 
brought  home  and  distributed,  as  a  gift,  among  all  the  people, 
for  their  money  had  been  spent  for  the  merest  necessaries 
before  this  relief  came.  He  even  provided  clothing  for  the 
nation  in  the  winter,  where  it  was  wanted,  for  sheep 
and  goats  alike  had  been  killed  for  food,  and  he  supplied 
seed  corn  for  next  spring,  and  thus  the  evil  time  was  tided 
over.4  Eor  a  while  it  seemed  as  if  the  people  would  really 
become  loyal.  But  his  best  acts  of  one  moment  were  spoiled 
the  next.  The  bazaars  and  schools  muttered  treason  con- 
tinually. One  year  Herod  remitted  a  third  of  the  taxes,5 
but  tongues  went  against  him  none  the  less,  and  presently 
he  seemed  to  justify  their  bitterness  by  decreeing  that  all 
thieves  should  be  sold  as  slaves  to  other  countries,  where,  as 
the  people  said,  they  would  lose  the  blessing  of  Abraham, 
could  not  keep  the  Law,  and  would  be  lost  for  ever.6  Mean- 
while Agrippa  visited  Jerusalem  again,7  and  bore  himself  so 
wisely  that  thousands  escorted  him  to  the  sea-coast  when  ho 
left,  strewing  his  path  with  flowers.8  Next  year 9  Herod 

1  B.C.  25-24.  *  Ant.,  xv.  9.  1.  3  Begun  B.C.  27. 

4  Ant.,  xv.  9.  2.  *  B.C.  20.  •  Havsrath,  vol.  i.  p.  233. 

1  B.C.  15.  •  Ant.,  xvi.  2.  1.  »  B.C.  14. 


THE    SONS   OF   MARIAMNE.  53 

returned  the  visit  at  Sinope,  lavishing  bounty  on  heathen 
and.  Jewish  communities  alike,  on  his  journey  out  and 
back.  The  Jews  of  each  city  of  Asia  Minor  seized  the 
opportunity  of  his  passing,  to  complain,  through  him,  to 
Agrippa,  that  the  privileges  granted  them  by  Caesar  were  not 
observed.  The  Greeks,  on  the  other  hand,  reviled  them  as 
bloodsuckers  and  cancers  of  the  community,  who  refused  to 
honour  the  gods,  and  hence  had  no  right  to  such  favour,  but 
Herod  prevailed  with  Agrippa  on  behalf  of  the  Jews.  For 
once,  Jerusalem  received  its  king  heartily  when  he  returned ; 
he,  on  his  side,  acknowledging  the  feeling  by  a  remittance  of 
a  quarter  of  the  taxes  of  the  year.1 

The  dismal  shadow  that  had  rested  over  the  palace  in  past 
times  had  been  in  part  forgotten  while  the  two  sons  of  the 
murdered  Mariamne  were  in  Rome.  In  the  year  B.C.  17, 
however,  the  old  troubles  had  begun  again, — to  darken  at 
last  into  the  blackest  misery.  Herod  had  recalled  his  sons 
from  Home.  Alexander,  the  elder,  was  eighteen ;  Aristo- 
bulus,  the  younger,  about  seventeen.  They  had  grown  tall, 
taking  after  their  mother  and  her  race.  In  Italy  and  Judea 
alike,  their  birth  and  position,  amidst  so  many  snares,  won 
them  universal  sympathy.  Roman  education  had  given  them 
an  open,  straightforward  way,  however,  that  was  ill-fitted  to 
hold  its  own  with  their  crafty  fawning  Idumean  connections, 
in  Jerusalem.  Their  morals  had,  moreover,  suffered  by  their 
residence  in  Rome,  so  that  Alexander,  at  least,  appears  to 
have  exposed  himself  to  charges  against  which  Jewish 
ecclesiastical  law  denounced  death.2  In  any  case  they  were 
heirs  to  the  hatred  that  had  been  borne  towards  their 
mother.  Her  fate  doubtless  affected  their  bearing  towards 
their  father,  and  it  was  said  that  they  wished  to  get  the 
process  against  Mariamne  reversed,  and  her  accusers 
punished.  Their  ruin  was  doubtless  determined  from  the 
first ;  and  their  unsuspicious  frankness,  which  showed  their 
aversion  to  the  other  members  of  the  family,  gave  materials 
for  slander,  and  aided  in  their  destruction.  Herod  sought: 
to  reconcile  the  strife  by  the  course  usual  at  the  time,  and 
married  Aristobulus  to  his  sister  Salome's  daughter  Berenice, 
who  was,  unfortunately,  still,  entirely  under  the  hostile 
influence  of  her  mother,3  though  she  afterwards  grew  to  be 
a  worthy  woman.  Alexander,  as  became  the  heir  to  the 
throne,  was  married  to  a  king's  daughter,  Glaphyra,  of  the 

»  Haiisrath,  voL  i.  p.  255.          *  Bdl.  Jud.,  i.  24.  7         8  Ant.,  xvL  7.  a 


54  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

fainily  of  Archelaus,  king  of  Cappadocia — a  daughter  of. a 
prostitute  of  the  temple  of  Venus  in  Corinth,1  whom.  Archp- 
laus  had  married.  The  bride  might  be  fair,  but  she  was  not 
prudent,  and  filled  the  palace  in  Jerusalem  with  stories  of 
her  contempt  for  Herod's  family  as  compared  with  her  own.3 
Whatever  Aristobulus  said  to  his  wife  was  carried  to  Salomo, 
and  spies  were  set  on  the  two  young  men,  to  report  what 
they  could.  The  quarrels  of  the  women  grew  fiercer  daily, 
and  involved  the  two  brothers  fatally.  Nothing  else  was 
spoken  of  in  the  city  but  the  strife  in  the  palace.  Another 
element  of  mischief  was  soon  added.  Herod's  youngest 
brother,  Pheroras,  joined  the  party  of  Salome.  He  had 
married  a  slave  girl,  who  was  so  devoted  to  the  Pharisees 
that  she  got  her  husband  to  pay  for  them  the  penalties  Herod 
had  imposed,  for  their  having  refused  to  take  the  oath  of 
allegiance.  Pheroras,  who  was  a  true  Edomite  in  his  fickle 
faithlessness,  was  a  born  conspirator.  He  had  plotted  already 
against  Herod,  and  resolved,  in  revenge  for  Glaphyra's  loose 
tongue  about  his  low  marriage,  to  join  Salome,  and  hunt  the 
two  youths  to  death. 

On  Herod's  return  from  his  visit  to  •  Agrippa  in  Asia 
Minor,  in  the  winter  of  B.C.  14,  he  found  the  palace  in  a 
ferment,  and  heard  for  the  first  time  that  the  youths  intended 
to  apply  to  Augustus  to  have  the  process  against  Mariamne 
reversed.  In  his  rage,  he  resolved  to  recall  Antipater,  his 
eldest  son,  who,  with  his  mother,  had  been  banished  from  the 
court  on  account  of  Mariamne,  and  who  was  thus  a  deadly 
enemy  of  her  sons.  This  step  was  the  ruin  of  Herod's  peace. 
Antipater  instantly  joined  Salome's  party:  watched  every 
step  and  caught  every  word  of  the  unsuspecting  youths ; 
never  himself  accused  them  to  his  father,  but  played  the  part 
of  lago  consummately,  in  exciting  the  suspicions  to  which 
Herod's  guilty  conscience  was  only  too  prone.  The  presence 
of  an  elder  brother  not  having  sufficed  to  humble  the  two, 
Antipater's  mother,  Doris,  was  also  recalled  to  court ;  thut 
they  might  see  how  their  hopes  of  the  throne  were  vanishing. 
Their  enemies,  moreover,  did  their  best  to  stir  them  up 
against  each  other,3  to  work  more  harm  to  both. 

Antipater,  erelong,  got  himself  named  as  heir,  and  was 
gent,  as  such,  to  Rome,  in  the  year  B.C.  13,  but  even  from 
Italy  he  managed  to  deepen  his  father's  suspicions  so  much, 
that  Herod  himself  went  to  Rome,4  taking  the  two  young 

>  Strabo.  xii.  3.     '  Bell.  Jiul.,  L  24.  2.     3  Ant ,  xvi.  7.  4.      4  B.C.  10. 


FAMILY   PLOTS  AGAINST  HEBOD.  55 

men  with  him,  to  have  them  tried  before  Caesar  for  intended 
parricide.  They  defended  themselves  so  well,  however,  that 
an  outward  reconciliation  followed,  and  Herod  returned  to 
Jerusalem  with  them,  as  joint  heirs,  with  Antipater,  of  his 
dominions. 

But  the  quiet  was  soon  disturbed.  The  mutual  hatred  of 
the  women,  and  the  plots  of  Pheroras  and  Antipater,  though 
for  a  time  fruitless,  made  progress  in  the  end.  The  slaves 
of  the  youths  were  tortured,  at  their  suggestion,  and  accused 
Alexander  of  conspiracy ;  and  he,  weary  of  life,  and  furious 
at  the  toil  laid  for  him,  was  foolish  enough  to  say  that  he  was 
guilty,  but  only  in  common  with  all  Herod's  relations,  except 
Antipater.  The  unfortunate  young  man  made  an  exception 
in  his  case  as  a  special  and  trusted  friend !  The  whole  of 
Herod's  connections  were  now  unanimous  for  his  death,  but 
it  was  not  to  happen  yet.  His  father-in-law  found  means  to 
appease  Herod  once  more,  which  was  the  easier,  as  Herod 
had  discovered  the  deceit  of  Pheroras,  and  had  found  his 
sister  Salome  carrying  on  intrigues  which  he  did  not 
approve. 

He  was  indeed  to  be  pitied.  The  family  quarrels  embit- 
tered his  existence,  and  his  suspicions  had  been  so  excited 
that  he  trusted  nobody.  Every  one  was  suspected,  and  could 
only  defend  himself  by  raising  suspicions  against  others.1  A 
Greek  at  court  determined  to  profit  by  the  position  of  affairs 
and  bring  it  to  a  final  crisis.  Trusting  to  get  money  from 
Antipater,  Herod,  and  Archelaus  alike,  if  he  ended  the 
matter,  he  laid  his  plans  to  bring  about  the  death  of  the 
young  men.  Forging  documents  and  inventing  acts,  he  made 
Herod  believe  that  his  sons  were  really  plotting  his  death. 
The  tyrant  forthwith  had  them  thrown  into  chains,  and  their 
slaves  put  to  torture,  stoning  those  who  confessed  any  guilt. 
Nothing  kept  him  from  putting  the  princes  to  death  but  fear 
of  offending  Augustus, for  even  Salome  tormented  him  day  and 
night  to  kill  them,  though  one  was  her  son-in-law.  At  last 2 
Herod  sent  to  Rome  for  permission  from  Augustus  to  put 
them  to  death.  The  request  cost  him  the  crown  of  Arabia, 
Augustus  declaring  that  the  man  who  could  not  keep  his 
house  in  order  was  unfit  to  be  trusted  with  additional  king- 
doms. Yet  he  gave  him  permission  to  do  as  he  thought  fit 
with  his  sons.  A  court,  one-half  of  Romans,  one-half  of 
Jews,  was  now  held  at  Berytus,  and  Herod  appeared  as 

1  Bell.  Jud.,  i.  26.  2.    Ant.,  xvi.  8.  2.  B.C.  8. 


56  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

prosecutor.  In  vain  the  Roman  proconsul  brought  his  three 
sons  with  him  to  excite  the  grey-headed  despot's  fatherly 
feelings.  He  acted  like  a  madman:  detailed  his  injuries 
with  the  utmost  passion,  and  supplied  the  want  of  proof  by 
bursts  of  fury.  The  sentence  was  given  as  he  desired,  and 
he  had  the  satisfaction  of  having  pursued  his  own  sons  to 
the  death.  In  the  year  B.C.  7,  the  princes  were  strangled  at 
Samaria,  where  Herod  had  married  their  mother. 

If  the  hoary  murderer  hoped  for  peace  by  this  new  crime 
he  was  deceived.1  Antipater  lived  with  his  two  brothers, 
Archelaus  and  Philip,  at  Rome,  and,  there,  first  excited  them 
against  his  father,  and  then  betrayed  them  to  him.  Phe- 
roras,  Herod's  brother,  he  sought  to  make  his  tool  in  killing 
Herod.  He  was  afraid  that  if  he  did  not  destroy  his  father 
soon  his  own  infinite  villainy  in  the  past  would  be  discovered. 
Pheroras  was,  in  fact,  in  a  false  position.  His  wife  and  her 
relations  were  strongly  on  the  side  of  the  Pharisees,  who 
wished  above  everything  to  destroy  Herod,  and  put  Pheroras, 
as  their  friend,  on  the  throne.  Prophecies  were  circulated 
by  them,  that  it  was  the  will  of  God  that  Herod  and  his 
sons  should  lose  the  kingdom,  and  that  Pheroras  and  his  wife 
should  inherit  it.  Their  tool,  Herod's  eunuch,  Bagoas,  was 
to  have  a  son  who  would  be  the  Messiah.11  Many  were  won 
over  in  the  palace,  but  the  plot  was  discovered,  and  many 
Rabbis  and  others  put  to  death.  Herod  demanded  that 
Pheroras  should  divorce  his  wife,  but  he  preferred  to  leave 
the  court  and  go  to  Perea  with  her,  rather  than  forsake  her.3 
Here  he  soon  after  suddenly  died,3  report  said,  by  poison. 
Herod,  however,  had  his  body  brought  to  Jerusalem,  and 
appointed  a  great  national  mourning  on  his  account. 

Inquiry  respecting  his  death  at  last  brought  to  light  the 
whole  secret  history  of  years.  He  had  died  by  taking 
poison,  sent  by  Antipater  to  kill  Herod.  The  plot  was  found 
to  have  wide  ramifications  where  least  suspected.  Even  the 
second  Mariamne  was  proved  to  have  been  privy  to  it,  and 
her  son  Herod  was  on  this  account  blotted  out  of  his  father's 
will.4  Thus,  as  Josephus  says,  did  the  ghosts  of  Alexander 
and  Aristobulus  go  round  all  the  palace,  and  bring  the  most 
dimply  hidden  secrets  to  light,  summoning  to  the  judgment 
Boat  those  who  seemed  freest  from  suspicion.5 

Antipater  was  now  unmasked,  and  Herod  saw  the  kind  of 

Herod's  age,  about  64.  8  Bell.  Jud  ,  i.  29.  4.  *  B.C.  5. 

B.C.  5.  6  Bell  Jud.,  i.  30.  7. 


LAST  DATS   OF  HEROD.  57 

man  for  whom  he  had  sacrificed  his  wife  and  his  son 
With  pretended  friendliness  he  sent  for  him  from  Rome  nor 
did  any  one  warn  him  of  his  danger,  though  proceedings 
had  gone  on  many  months  against  his  mother,  ending  in  her 
divorce.  Perhaps  says  Josephus,  the  spirits  of  his  murdered 
brothers  had  closed  the  mouths  of  those  who  might  have  put 
him  on  his  guard.i  His  first  hint  of  danger  was  given  by  no 
one  being  at  Caasarea  to  receive  him,  when  he  landed,  but  he 
could  not  now  go  back,  and  determined  to  put  a  bold  face  on 
it.  As  he  rode  up  to  Jerusalem,  however,  he  saw  that  his 
escort  was  taken  from  him,  and  he  now  felt  that  he  was 
ruir.ed.  Herod  received  him  as  he  deserved,  and  handed 
him  over  for  trial  to  the  Syrian  proconsul.  All  hastened  to 
give  witness  against  one  so  universally  hated.  It  was  proved 
that  he  had  sought  to  poison  his  father.  A  criminal  who 
was  forced  to  drmk  what  Antipater  had  gent  for  Herod 

presently  fell  dead.     Antipater  was  led  away  in  chains 

The  strong  nature  of  Herod  at  last  gave  way  under  such 
revelations  which  he  forthwith  communicated  to  his  master 
at  Rome.    A  deadly  illness  seized  him,  and  word  ran  through 
Jerusalem  that  he  could  not  recover.^     The  Eabbis  could  no 
longer  repress  their  hatred  of    him,  and    of    the   Romans. 
1  heir  teachings  through  long  years  were  about  to  bear  fruit 
Iwo  were  especially  popular,  Judas,  the  son  of  Sariphai,  and 
Matthias,  the  son  of  Margolouth,  round  whom  a  whole  army 
of  young  men   gathered  daily,  drinking  in  from  them  the 
spirit  of  revolution.3     All  that  had  happened  was  traced  to 
the  anger  of  Jehovah  at  Herod's  desecration  of  the  Temple 
and  city  and  violations  of  the  Law  during  his  whole  reign. 
To  win  back  the  divine  favour  to  the  nation,  the  heathen 
profanations  erected  by  Herod  in  the  Temple  must  be  pulled 
down,  especially    the    golden    eagle    over    the    great   gate 
Living  or  dying,  they  would  have  eternal  rewards  for  this 
fidelity  to  the  laws   of  their  fathers.*     Such  counsels  from 
venerated  teachers  were  like  fire  to  the  inflammable  passions 
of  youth.     In  the  middle  of  the  day  a  vast  crowd  of  students 
of  the  Law  rushed  to  the  Temple  ;  let  themselves  down  with 
ropes  from  the  top  of  the  great  gate,  tore  down  the  hated 
symbol   of  Rome   and  idolatry,  and  hacked  it  to  pieces   in 
tue  streets.*     Mobs  rose  in  other  parts  of  the  city,  also,  to 
tlirow  down  other  objects  of  popular  hatred,  but  the  troops 

1  Bell.  Jud.,  i.  31.  2.  3  B-C.  4>  3  BeUm  Jud    j  33  g 

*  Ant.,  xvii.  6.  2.  *  Bell.  J«,7.,  i.  33. 


58  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

were  turned  out,  and  the  unarmed  rioters  were  scattered, 
leaving  forty  young  Pharisees  in  the  hands  of  the  military. 
Brought  before  Herod  and  asked  who  had  counselled  them 
to  act  as  they  had  done,  they  answered,  touching! y,  that  they 
did  it  in.  obedience  to  the  Law.  In  vain  he  tried  to  alarm 
them  by  saying  they  must  die :  they  only  replied  that  their 
eternal  reward  would  be  so  much  the  greater.  The  two 
Rabbis  and  the  young  men  were  sent  to  Jericho  for  trial 
before  Herod,  and  the  Rabbis  and  the  ringleaders  woi« 
burned  alive,  the  others  being  beheaded.  On  the  night  after 
they  suffered  there  was  an  eclipse  of  the  moon,  which  fixes 
the  date  as  the  llth  of  March,  B.C.  4. 

Death  was  now  busy  with  Herod  himself.  His  life  had 
been  a  splendid  failure.  He  had  a  wide  kingdom,  but  his 
life  had  been  a  long  struggle  with  public  enemies  or  with 
domestic  troubles,  and  in  his  old  age  he  found  that  all  this 
misery,  which  had  made  him  the  murderer  of  his  wife,  her 
mother,  and  his  two  sons,  not  to  speak  of  other  relations  and 
connections,  had  been  planned  for  selfish  ends  by  those  whom 
he  had  trusted.  The  curse  had  come  back  on  him  to  the  full, 
for  his  eldest  son  had  sought  to  murder  him.  His  govern- 
ment had  been  no  less  signal  a  failure,  for  revolt  had  burst 
into  flames  at  the  mere  report  of  his  death.  The  strong  man 
was  bowed  to  the  dust  at  last.  A  loathsome  disease  pros- 
trated him,  and  he  suffered  such  agonies  that  men  said  it  was 
a  punishment  for  his  countless  iniquities.1  Carried  across  the 
Dead  Sea  to  the  sulphur  baths  of  Callirhoe,  he  faint'- d  and 
almost  died  under  the  treatment.  All  round  hit*  were 
alarmed  lest  he  should  do  so  before  ordering  the  execution  of 
Antipater,  but  an  attempt  on  the  part  of  the  prisoner  to 
bribe  his  gaoler  was  fatal  to  him.  Augustus  had  granted 
permission  for  his  execution,  with  the  caustic  irony,  that  it 
was  better  to  be  Herod's  sow  than  his  son.20  Five  days 
after  Antipater  had  fallen  Herod  himself  expired.3  He  was 
in  his  seventy- first  or  seventy-second  year  when  he  died. 

1  Ant.,  xvii.  6.  5.         2  Macrob.  Saturn.,  ii.  4.         3  March  16,  B.C.  4. 

Authorities  for  Chapters  HI.  and  IV. : — Jos.,  Ant.,  xv.,  xvi.,  xvii, 
1-  8.  Bell  Jud.,  i.  13-33.  Eabbinical  Traditions  in  Dercnbourg,  pp.  149- 
165.  Ewnld,  Geschichte,  vol.  iv.  pp.  543-585.  Schneckenburger,  Zeit- 
(leschichte,  pp.  175-200.  Hausrath,  Zeitgeschichte,  vol.  i.  pp.  218-284. 
Winer,  Reahcorterbuch,  vol.  i.  pp.  481-483.  Herzog's  Real  Ency.,  >ol.  vi. 
pp.  8-14.  Keim,  Geschichte  Jesu,  vol.  i.  pp.  173-189.  Scbenkel's  Bibel 
Lex.,  vol.  iii.  pp.  27-38.  Menke's  Bible  Atlas,  sheets  4  and  5.  Srhiirer'g 
Zcitgeschichte,  pp.  173-223.  Diet,  of  Mythology  and  Biog.  :  Arts  Herodtx{ 
Hyrcamm,  Antoiiius,  Cleopatra. 


CHAPTER  V. 
THE  JEWISH  WOELD  AT  THE  TIME  OP  CHEIST. 

^  ?8  C^uf\of  Babylon  by  Darius  and  Cyrns  '• 
0.  f          .tran/fertred  .the  f^e  of  the  Jews,  then  in  captivity 


k        >  '  *        leaden,  stimu- 

lated by  the  assurances  of  the  prophets  then  living  or  of 
earher  date,  felt  sure  of  his  victory,  and  of  the  speedy^eHver- 
ance  of  their  nation  from  their  hated  oppressors  ThLloriou. 

CnToT^  'p6  ]fter  <?lpterS  °f  Isaiab'  and  the  exulSn  of 
tTon?  f  fl  f  S  °f  ^  I?eri°d'  are  d™btless  only  illustra- 
tions of  the  intense  spiritual  excitement  that  prevaHed  in  the 
Jewlsh  community  throughout  the  lands  of  their  exile,  during 
the  years  immediately  preceding  the  fall  of  Babylon.  All 
GSm  TOUSed  to  an  enthusiasm 


ever  toe      Th'     f.'         ™>      nceor, 
never  to  die      The  spirit  of  intense  nationality,  fed  by  zeal 
for  their  relig^n  as  the  true  faith-confided  to  them  Txclt 
6   favotirites   of    Heaven-had   been   gradual  v 


re  nor 

retnrn  to  their  own  country,  that  they  might  be  free  to  fulfil 
ts  requirements      Men  of  the  purest  and  warmest  Zeal  for 
the  honour  and  the  historic  rights  of  their  race  had  nerer 
been  wanting  during  the  captivity,  as  the  natural  leaden,  of 
brethren,  and  now  took  advantage  of  the  character  and 
circumstances  of  Cyrus  to  obtain  from  him  a  favourable  decree 
JOT  the  restoration  of  Jerusalem,  and  the  free  return  to  it  of 
their  people.     In  the  year  536  before  Christ,  such  as  were 

1  B.C.  538.  2  Ewald's  Gcschichtc,  vol.  iv.  p.  54. 


60  THE   LIFE   OF  CHRIST. 

most  zealous  for  their  religion,  and  most  devoted  to  their 
country  and  race,  were  thns  enabled  once  more  to  settle  in 
the  land  of  their  fathers,  under  the  protection  of  the  Persian 
empire,  of  which  they  continued  subjects  for  two  hundred 
years,  till  Alexander  the  Great,  in  B.C.  333,  overthrew  the 
Persian  power. 

The  new  community,  which  was  to  found  the  Jewish  nation 
for  a  second  time,  was  by  no  means  numerous,  for  we  still 
know  with  certainty  that  the  whole  number  of  these  Pilgrim 
Fathers,  who  gathered  together  amidst  the  ruins  of  Jerusalem, 
and  the  other  cities  which  were  open  to  them,  did  not  amount 
to  more  than  42,360  men,  with  7,337  servants  of  both  sexes.1 
The  dangers  and  difficulties  before  those  who  might  return 
had  winnowed  the  wheat  from  the  chaff:  the  faint-hearted 
and  indifferent  had  lingered  behind,  and  only  the  zealots  and 
puritans  of  the  captivity  had  followed  Zerubbabel,  the  leader 
of  the  new  Exodus  .2b 

The  rock  on  which  Jewish  nationality  had  foundered  in 
former  times  had  been  too  frank  an  intercourse  with  other 
nations;  too  great  a  readiness  to  adopt  their  customs,  and 
even  their  heathenism ;  too  slight  a  regard  to  the  distinctively 
Jewish  code  of  social  and  political  law ;  and,  with  these,  too 
wide  a  corruption  of  morals.  The  very  existence  of  the  nation 
had  been  imperilled,  and,  now,  the  one  fixed  thought,  of  leader 
and  people  alike,  was  to  make  it  safe  for  the  future. 

Their  manners,  and  their  whole  system  of  civil  and  re- 
ligious laws,  offered  a  ready  and  effectual  means  to  aid  them 
in  this  supreme  object.  It  was  only  necessary  to  secure  an 
intensely  conservative  spirit  which  should  exclude  all  change, 
and  Israel  would  henceforth  have  an  abiding  vitality  as  a 
separate  people.  Nor  was  this  difficult,  for  the  ancient  frame- 
work of  their  social  polity  largely  provided  for  it.  The  spirit 
of  Judaism,  as  embodied  in  its  sacred  law,  directly  commanded, 
or  indirectly  implied,  all  that  was  needed.  Intercourse  with 
other  nations,  as  far  as  possible,  must  be  prevented ;  the  in- 
troduction of  foreign  culture  shut  out ;  the  youth  of  the 
nation  trained  on  a  fixed  model ;  and,  finally,  no  gap  must  be 
left  by  which  new  opinions  might  possibly  rise  from  within 
the  people  themselves.3  For  this  last  end  some  studies  must 
be  entirely  prohibited,  and  others  rewarded  with  supreme 
honour  and  advantage.  Finally,  some  caste  or  class  must 

1  Ezra  ii.  64.  *  Derenboury,  Essai,  p.  20. 

3  Jost,  Jndcnthum,  vol.  i.  p.  94. 


JEWISH  ISOLATION  AND  EXCLUSIVENESS.  61 

make  it  their  special  care  to  see  that  this  great  aim  of  national 
isolation  be  steadily  carried  out-a  castfwhich^houW  itsetf 
to  alTST  f  abld1??  ™^a^bleness,  by  clinging  fanatically 
o  all  that  was  old  and  traditional,  and  shrmkuU  from  any 
contact  with  whatever  was  foreign  or  new 

to  fvl^Sa-C  /aWS  tad  alread^  inclined  the  Jew  to  a  dislike 

erew  to  /fi     r°T  6  Tth  ,°ther  nations>  and  to  Deling 
grew  to  a  fixed  contempt  and  aversion  towards  the  rest  of 
mankind,  after  the  return,  as  Judaism  deepened  into  a  hau?hty 
bitterness  of  soul,  under  the  influence  of  national  suffermgs 
and  weakened  spiritual  life.     Tacitus  describes  the  SSS 

M%L  a\trae  ^°  each  other  and  read7  ^th  help,  but  filled 
with  bitter  hatred  towards  all  other  men;  eati^dmS 
mg   only  among   themselves;    a   people  marked  by 
assns 


y  s 
s  but  indulging  them  onlyVithin  their  own  rac 

ds  Jair^  °n  t0  f0selytes'  Sa7s  te,  is  to  despise  the 
"* 


or 
or 


' 
them  as  refusing  to  point  out 

to  lead 


dissdto  s7tUS,    ?e     a11  °ther  men  ™ld  be  Kttle 
disposed  to  sit  at  the  feet  of  any  people  as  scholars.     Pre- 

judice, strengthened   by  express  laws,  shut  out  all  foreign 
culture.     A  curse  was  denounced  against  any  Jew  who  kept 

4  No  °ne 


i  ,-       e  c°- 

ernal  life  who  read  the  books  of  other  nations.*     Josephus 
with  true  Jewish  pride,  and  smooth  hypocrisy,  tells  us  that 

n  t  dOW\°n  th°Se  Wh°  "-^^-ffljyi! 
f  i10nS>  SUCh  aU  accomPli«lnnent  being  common  not 
free-born  men,  but  to  any  slave  who  fancied  it.  He 

±nTed   W1S^  ^f^^'   am°^  the  Je-«'  ^o  Is 

In  the  dvfnf  WT  anf  %ble  ^  6Xplain  the  SaCred  ^tings.6 
in  tne  days  of  our  Lord,  when  advancement  could  be  obtai  ed 
only  by  a  knowledge  of  Greek  and  of  Greckn  culture  pride 


l      w  i         ?ermitted  that  «»  hated  Gentile  should 
the  Hebrew  language  or  read  the  Law.     St.  Jerome 

1  A.D.  61-120.  j  -rr- 

'slntdrin  Bab.  90.  \  **3&£$f£  ^  "'  P"  35°' 

continuation  of  the  passage  of  Josephus  above  quoted. 


62  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

expatiates  on  the  trouble  and  cost  lie  had  at  Jerusalem  and 
Bethlehem  to  get  a  Jew  to  help  him  in  his  Hebrew  studies. 
His  teacher  "feared  the  Jews,  like  a  second  Nicodemus."1 
"  He  who  teaches  infidels  the  Law,"  said  the  Rabbis,  "  trans- 
gresses the  express  words  of  the  command;  for  God  made 
Jacob  "  (the  Jews,  not  the  heathen)  "  to  know  the  Law." 

But  though  thus  jealous  of  others,  the  greatest  care  was 
taken  by  the  Jew  to  teach  his  own  people  the  sacred  books. 
Josephus  boasts  that  "  if  any  one  asked  one  of  his  nation  a 
question  respecting  their  Law,  he  could  answer  it  more 
readily  than  give  his  own  name ;  for  he  learns  every  part  of 
it  from  the  first  dawn  of  intelligence,  till  it  is  graven  into 
his  very  soul."  2  That  every  Jewish  child  should  be  taught 
to  read,  was  held  a  religious  duty ;  and  every  boy  was 
required  to  learn  the  Law.  There  was  no  Jew  who  did  not 
know  thoroughly  the  duties  and  rites  of  his  religion,  and  the 
great  deeds  of  his  fathers ;  the  misfortune  was,  that  they 
were  kept  utterly  ignorant  of  any  other  history  than  their 
own. 

The  exact  knowledge  of  the  contents  of  the  Books  of  the 
Law  was,  thus,  within  the  reach  of  all ;  but  much  more  was 
needed  than  the  mere  learning  by  heart  the  five  Books  of 
Moses,  to  gain  the  repute  of  a  finished  legal  knowledge.  The 
almost  endless  comments  of  the  Rabbis  must  be  mastered, 
by  years  of  slavish  labour,  before  one  was  recognised  as  a 
really  educated  man.  Hence  the  nation  was  divided  into 
two  great  classes  of  learned  and  unlearned,  between  whom 
there  lay  a  wide  gulf.  Puffed  up  with  boundless  pride  at 
their  attainments,  the  former  frankly  denounced  their  less 
scholarly  countrymen  as  "  cursed  countrymen  "  or  boors.8 

The  first  trace  of  a  distinct  caste  of  professional  legalists, 
if  I  may  call  them  so,  is  found  in  the  days  of  Ezra  and 
Nehemiah,  some  eighty  years  after  the  return  from  Babylon. 
Jewish  tradition  speaks  of  these  early  Rabbis  as  the  "  men  of 
the  Great  Synagogue,"  d  and  adds  that  they  trod  in  the  foot- 
steps of  the  prophets — that  is,  that  they  were  their  virtual 
successors.  From  the  first  they  had  great  influence  in  the 
State.  To  secure  a  far  more  strict  observance  of  the  Law 
than  had  been  known  before,  they  gradually  formed  what 
they  called  a  hedge  round  it — that  is,  they  added  endless 
refinements  and  subtleties  to  every  command,  that  by  the 
observance  of  such  external  rites  and  precepts,  the  command 

.  Opera,  Edit.  Vallarsii,  vol.  i.  p.  524.  *  c.  Apion,  ii.  19t 


THE  PHAEISEES. 


63 


of 


> 

been  brought  back  in 
These  were  adopted  by  the 

^o 


ret,™ 


tte  germ  of  the  sect  a 
The  orthodox  leaders,  on 

of  the  party  afterwards     n 
they  who  put  the  l(h         „ 

insisted  on  standing  by  the 
alone      The  one  were^he 


midstj  in  a 

wn,  which 
caP«vity. 

were  ^ 
be  traced 

Sad^ceeS. 
beginning 
.e    It  wa| 

the  Sadducees 
ee  Ch  ^  °f  Mose* 

a  very  small  body.  the  Sadducees  were  always 

soo^elrorT  SriJS?3  °f  ^  ^  ^  of  the  people 
of  mouldfng  the  ^CT»tS  "7  "  ^  P°Iitical  S 
under  the  rule  of  their  part?  The  T^P6^6^  ^eocracy, 
them,  with  their  thousand  aditionsw^  ™  fxP0^^  by 
civJ  as  well  as  religious  life  in  T'  T-tO  rale  suPreme,  in 
well  as  thOSe  of  the  Mvidual  ^^  °f  the  natio^  as 


nation.  The  priests  had  preVi?S^  ^f 
head  m  the  peraOn  of  the  highest  1  U 
Maccabeus.  But  his  grandso 
histor  of  the  house  ° 


^ 

orthodox  party,  led  by  the  Pha  1  Wa 
growing  corruption,  which  ended  bvTlf' 
supreme  authority  in  Judea  wth 
Asked  to  be  arbiters,  they  S 
macy  of  the  Pharisees,  who  had 
Pop^ar  cause,  was  no,' 


gave  the 

™  the 
State  a 
r°tller  of  Jndas 
'  and  the  future 
of 


Persecutions. 
S*OU%res^*ed  the 
Romans  assuming 
&  VESSal 


1  B.C.  140. 


64  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

selves  as  a  great  power  in  the  State,  and  maintained  this 
position  till  the  fall  of  the  nation.  Under  Herod  and  the 
Romans,  they  were  the  soul  of  the  great  national  party, 
which  only  sullenly  submitted  to  Herod  and  his  family,  or 
to  the  Roman  power,  as,  alike,  foreign  oppressors,  whom  they 
could  not  shake  off,  foes  accursed  of  God,  as  usurpers  of  His 
heritage.  To  them  may  be  traced  the  restless  turbulence 
of  the  nation,  which  neither  terror  nor  flattery  could  appease 
— a  turbulence  which  made  Judea,  to  Herod  and  the  Roman 
emperors,  what  Ireland  at  one  time  was  to  England,  and 
Poland  to  Russia — the  seat  of  chronic  revolt,  which  knew  no 
considerations  of  odds  against  success,  and  seemed  to  take 
counsel  of  despair. 

At  the  time  of  our  Lord  the  Pharisees  were  at  the  height 
of  their  power.  Josephus  tells  us  that  they  numbered  above 
6,000  men  in  Judea,  in  the  days  of  Herod  the  Great;  that 
the  women,  as  especially  given  to  religious  enthusiasm,  were 
on  their  side,  and  that  they  even  had  power  enough,  at  times, 
to  defy  the  king.1  He  describes  them  by  name  as  a  party 
among  the  Jews  who  prided  themselves  greatly  on  their 
knowledge  of  the  Law,  and  made  men  believe  they  were  holier 
than  their  neighbours,  and  especially  in  favour  with  God,  and 
relates  how  they  plotted  with  some  of  the  ladies  of  Herod's 
family f  to  put  Herod  to  death.  They  thwarted  and  opposed 
the  king,  he  says,  on  every  hand,  refusing  to  own  his  authority 
or  that  of  Rome,  or  to  swear  allegiance  either  to  him  or  the 
Emperor,  when  all  the  nation  was  called  on  to  do  so,  and, 
with  the  exception  of  them,  consented.  They  even  claimed 
the  gift  of  prophecy,  through  the  inspiration  of  God,  asserting 
that  He  had  decreed  that  Herod  should  die,  and  that  the 
kingdom  would  pass  to  those  who  had  shown  them  favour. 
The  Sadducees  had  shrunk  to  a  party  few  in  number,  though 
high  in  position,  and  had  become  so  unpopular  that  when 
appointed  to  any  office,  they  accepted  it  sorely  against  their 
will,  and  were  forced  to  carry  out  the  views  of  their  rivals — 
the  Pharisees — for  fear  of  the  popular  fury.2 

The  political  schemes  of  this  great  party  were  not  confined 
to  Judea.  Its  members  were  numerous  in  every  part  of  the 
Roman  empire,  and  were  all  closely  bound  to  each  other. 
Without  a  formal  organization  or  a  recognised  head,  they 
were  yet,  in  effect,  a  disciplined  army,  by  implicit  and  uni- 
versal assent  to  the  same  opinions.  The  same  spirit  and  aim 


1  Ant.,  xvii.  2.  4.  *  Jos.,  Ant.,  xviii.  1.  4.     See  p. 


56. 


THE   GEEAT   PHAEISEE   PAETY.  65 

inspired  all  alike :  teacher  and  follower,  over  the  world,  were 
but  mutual  echoes.  They  were,  in  effect,  the  democratic 
party  of  their  nation,1  the  true  representatives  of  the  people, 
with  the  Maccabeean  creed  that  "  God  has  given  to  all,  alike, 
the  kingdom,  priesthood,  and  holiness." 2  They  considered 
themselves  the  guardians  of  the  Law  and  of  the  ancestral 
customs,  and  trusted  implicitly  that  He  who  selected  their 
nation  to  be  His  peculiar  people  would  protect  them  and 
their  country  from  all  dangers,  believing  that,  as  long  as  they 
were  faithful  to  God,  no  earthly  power  would  in  the  end  be 
permitted  to  rule  over  them.  They  repudiated  the  time- 
serving policy  of  the  Herodian  Sadducees,  who  maintained 
that  a  man's  destiny  was  in  his  own  hands,  and  that  human 
policy  ought  to  dictate  political  action.  Their  noble  motto 
was  that  "  everything  depends  upon  God  but  a  man's  piety."  3 
The  misfortune  was  that,  to  a  large  extent,  they  divorced 
religion  from  morality,  laying  stress  on  the  exact  performance 
of  outward  rites,  rather  than  on  the  duties  of  the  heart  and 
life,  so  that  it  was  possible,  as  has  been  said  of  the  Indian 
Brahmins,  for  the  worst  men  among  them  to  be,  in  their 
sense,  the  most  religious. 

The  one  thought  of  this  great  party,  in  every  land,  was 
nothing  less  than  the  founding  of  a  grand  hierarchy,  perhaps 
under  the  Messiah,4  in  which  the  Jews  should  reign  over  the 
whole  world,  and  Jerusalem  become  the  metropolis  of  the 
earth.  They  did  not  confine  themselves  to  the  spread  of 
superstition  and  fanaticism  amongst  their  own  race,  but  sought 
proselytes  in  every  country,  especially  among  the  rich  and 
among  women.  In  Rome  itself,  sunk  as  it  was,  like  all  the 
Gentile  world  of  that  age,  in  the  dreariness  of  worn-out 
religions,  they  made  many  female  ccnverts  among  the  great, 
even  in  the  palace  of  the  Caesars.  Their  kindness  to  their 
poor,  their  loving  family  life,  their  pure  morals,  compared  to 
the  abominations  of  the  times,  their  view  of  death  as  a  sleep, 
their  hope  of  resting  with  the  just,  and  rising  with  them  to 
immortal  happiness,  had  special  charms  in  such  an  age.5  The 
Great  Synagogue  of  Ezra's  day,  according  to  their  traditions, 
had  left  them  a  solemn  charge — "  to  make  many  scholars ;  " ( 

1  Geiger,  Urschrift,  p.  102  ff.  s  2  Maccab.  ii.  17. 

3  Ginsburg,  Art.  Pharisees  in  Kitto's  Cyclopedia. 
*  Scbrader's  Paulus,  (Leben)  vol.  ii.  p.  23. 
s  Benan,  St.  Paul,  p.  106. 

«  Jost  understands  this  of  multiplying  schools  of  the  Eabbis,  vol.  L 
p.  96. 

6 


66  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

and  they  compassed  sea  and  land,  in  furtherance  of  this  com- 
mand, to  make  one  proselyte,  though  their  worthless  depen- 
dence, in  too  many  cases,  on  mere  outward  religiousness,  often 
made  him,  when  won,  "  twofold  more  the  child  of  hell  than 
themselves." l  The  vast  numbers  thus  gained  to  Judaism 
are  shown  in  the  multitudes  from  all  countries  present  at  the 
Passover  immediately  after  our  Lord's  death,2  and  from  many 
passages  in  heathen  writers. 

The  Pharisees,  or,  as  I  may  call  them,  the  Rabbis,8  had 
thrown  the  hereditary  priestly  body  of  the  nation  quite  into 
the  shade  in  the  days  of  Christ.  A  priest  gained  his  position 
by  birth ;  a  Rabbi  owed  his  to  himself.  The  Temple  service, 
and  the  vast  sums  of  money  received  from  Jews  in  all  parts 
of  the  world,  as  a  yearly  tax  in  support  of  their  religion,  gave 
the  priests  great  influence,  and  opened,  to  the  higher  grades, 
the  control  of  the  greatest  ecclesiastical  offices  in  the  nation, 
which  still  survived.  But  the  influence  of  the  Pharisees  was 
so  overwhelming  that  even  the  high  priests  were  glad  to 
respect  their  opinions,  to  secure  public  favour.  "  A  priest," 
says  the  Mischna,  "  has  precedence  of  a  Levite,b  a  Levite  of 
other  Israelites,  a  common  Israelite  of  a  bastard,  a  bastard  of 
one  of  the  Nethinim,1  a  Nethin  of  a  foreign  proselyte,  a  foreign 
proselyte  of  a  freed  slave.  This  is  the  law  when  these 
persons  are  equal  in  other  respects ;  but  if  a  bastard  be  a 
Rabbi  (a  scholar  of  the  wise),  and  the  high  priest  not  a  Rabbi 
(and,  therefore,  one  of  "  the  ignorant  country  people "  who 
are  "  cursed  "  for  not  knowing  the  Pharisaic  traditions,  and 
requirements),  such  a  bastard  takes  a  higher  place  than  such 
a  high  priest.k  The  multitudinous  rites  and  ceremonies  of 
the  Mosaic  Law,  with  the  vast  additions  of  the  Pharisaic 
"  hedge,"  and  the  corrupting  influence  of  power  and  general 
flattery,  had  the  worst  effects  on  the  Pharisees  as  a  body. 
They  gave  themselves  up  largely  to  formalism,  outward 
religiousness,  self-complacency,  immeasurable  spiritual  pride, 
love  of  praise,  superstition,3  and  deceit,  till  at  last,  after  the 
destruction  of  the  Temple,4  they  themselves  laid  the  name  of 
Pharisee  aside,  from  its  having  become  the  symbol  of  mingled 
fanaticism  and  hypocrisy.5  How  thoroughly  does  this 
vindicate  the  language  often  used  respecting  them  in  tho 
Gospols ! 

1  Matt,  xxiii.  15.  3  Acts  ii.  9. 

1  Jost,  Jiid.  Gcsch.,  vol.  iv.  p.  76.     Li<jhtfoot,  on  Mntt.  iii.  7. 

4  A.D.  70.  5  Gfrorcr's  Jahrhundcrt  dcs  Hcils,  vol.  i.  p.  140. 


CLASSES  OF   PHAEISEES.  67 

Yet  it  mnst  not  be  thought  that  there  were  no  good  men 
in  thsir  number.  Though  the  Talmud  names  six  classes  of 
them,  which  it  denounces,  it  has  a  seventh — the  Pharisee 
from  Love,  who  obeys  God  because  he  loves  Him  with  all  his 
heart.  But  the  six  classes,1  *  doubtless  marked  the  character- 
istics of  too  large  a  proportion.  Among  the  many  figures 
whom  our  Lord  passed  in  the  streets  of  Jerusalem,  and  else* 
where,  He  must  often  have  met  those  to  whom  the  by-name 
was  given  of  Shechemite  Pharisees — who  kept  the  Law  only 
for  interest,  as  Shechem  submitted  to  circumcision  simply  to 
obtain  Dinah;  or  the  Tumbling  Pharisee,  who,  to  appear 
humble  before  men,  always  hung  down  his  head,  and  shuffled 
with  his  feet  on  the  ground,  so  that  he  constantly  stumbled; 
or  the  Bleeding  Pharisee,  who,  to  keep  himself  from  seeing  a 
woman,  walked  with  his  eyes  shut,  and,  so,  often  bled  his 
head  against  posts ;  or  the  Mortar  Pharisee,  with  a  cap  like 
a  mortar  over  his  eyes,  to  shut  out  all  that  might  shock  his 
pure  nature;  or  the  What-more-can-I-do  Pharisee,  who 
claimed  to  have  kept  the  whole  Law,  and  wished  to  know 
something  new,  that  he  might  do  it  also ;  or  the  Pharisee 
from  Fear,  who  kept  the  Law  only  for  fear  of  the  judgment 
to  come.  But  He  would  also  see  Pharisees  such  as  Hillel, 
the  greatest  of  the  Rabbis,  the  second  Ezra,  who  was,  perhaps, 
still  alive  when  Christ  was  born — who  taught  his  school  of 
a  thousand  pupils  such  precepts  2  as  "  to  be  gentle,  and  show 
all  meekness  to  all  men,"  "  when  reviled  not  to  revile  again," 
to  "  Love  peace  and  pursue  it,  be  kindly  affectionate  to  all  men, 
and  thus  commend  the  law  of  God,"  or  "  Whatsoever  thou 
wouldst  not  that  a  man  should  do  to  thee,  do  not  thou  to 
him," — or  like  just  Simeon,  who  was  a  Pharisee,  or  Zacharias, 
the  father  of  the  Baptist,  or  Gamaliel,  the  teacher  of  Paul,  or 
like  Paul  himself,  for  all  these  were  Pharisees,  and  must  have 
been  types  of  many  more.3 

The  Pharisees  had,  however,  as  a  whole,  outlived  their  true 
usefulness  in  the  days  of  Christ,  and  had  become  largely  a 
hollow  pretence  and  hyprocrisy,  as  the  monks  and  friars  of 
Luther's  day,  or  earlier,  had  outlived  the  earnest  sincerity 
aud  real  worth  of  the  days  of  their  founders.  They  had  done 


1  Buxtorf,  Lex.  Heb.  Chal.  Tal.,  p.  1852.  Godwyn's  Aaron  and  Moses, 
p  45. 

*  Hillel  died  A.D.  12,  according  to  Pressel.  RabUnismus.  Henog., 
vol.  xii.  p.  471. 

1  See  Langen's  Judcnthum  in  Palastina,  p.  189. 


68  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

good  service  in  former  times,  in  keeping  alive  the  faith  of 
their  nation  in  the  Messiah,  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven,  the  im- 
mortality of  the  sonl,  and  the  judgment  to  come,  but  they 
were  now  fast  sinking  into  the  deep  corruption  which,  in  a 
generation  after  Christ's  death,  made  them  drop  the  very 
name  of  their  party.1  „ 

1  Pharisaism  died  with  Gamaliel,  the  teacher  of  St.  Paul.    Jost,  vol.  L 
>.283. 


CHAPTER  VL 

THE  EABBIS  AT  THE  TIME  OP  CHRIST,  AND  THEIB  IDEAS 
RESPECTING  THE  MESSIAH. 

TF  the  most  important  figures  in  the  society  of  Christ's  day 
-*-  were  the  Pharisees,  it  was  because  they  were  the  Rabbia 
or  teachers  of  the  Law.  As  such  they  received  superstitious 
honour,  which  was,  indeed,  the  great  motive,  with  many,  to 
court  the  title,  or  join  the  party. 

The  Rabbis  were  classed  with  Moses,  the  patriarchs,  and  the 
prophets,  and  claimed  equal  reverence.  Jacob  and  Joseph 
were  both  said  to  have  been  Rabbis.  The  Targum  of  Jonathan 
substitutes  Rabbis,  or  Scribes,  for  the  word  "  prophets," 
where  it  occurs.  Josephus  speaks  of  the  prophets  of  Saul's 
day  as  Rabbis.  In  the  Jerusalem  Targum  all  the  patriarchs 
are  learned  Rabbis :  Isaac  learned  in  the  school  of  Seth ; 
Jacob  attended  the  school  of  Eber ;  and,  hence,  no  wonder 
that  Rabbis  are  a  delight  to  God  like  the  incense  burned 
before  Him  !  They  were  to  be  dearer  to  Israel  than  father 
or  mother,  because  parents  avail  only  in  this  world,  but  the 
Rabbi  for  ever.  They  were  set  above  kings,  for  is  it  not 
written,  "  Through  me  kings  reign  "  ?  Their  entrance  into  a 
house  brought  a  blessing ;  to  live  or  to  eat  with  them  was  the 
highest  good  fortune.  To  dine  with  a  Rabbi  was  as  if  to 
enjoy  the  splendour  of  heavenly  majesty,  for  it  is  written, 
"  Then  came  Aaron  and  all  the  elders  in  Israel,  to  eat  bread 
with  Moses'  father-in-law  before  God."  l 

To  learn  a  single  verse,  or  even  a  single  letter,  from  a 
Rabbi  could  be  repaid  only  by  the  profoundest  respect,  for 
did  not  tradition  say  that  David  learned  only  two  words  from 
Ahithophel,  and  yet,  simply  for  this,  David  made  him  his 
teacher,  counsellor,  and  friend,  as  it  is  written,  "  Thou  art 
a  man  mine  equal,  my  guide,  and  mine  acquaintance  ?  " 

1  Eisenmenger's  Judenthum  Entdecktes,  2  vols.  4to.  Konigsberg,  1711. 
Vol.  i.  p.  337. 

a.  Eiaenmengcr,  vol.  i.  p.  337. 


70  THE   LIFE   OF  CHEIST. 

The  table  of  the  Rabbi  was  nobler  than  that  of  kings ;  and 
his  crown  more  glorious  than  theirs. 

The  Rabbis  went  even  farther  than  this  in  exalting  their 
order.  The  Mischna  declares  that  it  is  a  greater  crime  to 
speak  anything  to  their  discredit  than  to  speak  against  the 
words  of  the  Law.1  The  words  of  the  Rabbis  are  to  be  held 
as  worth  more  than  the  words  of  the  prophets;  for  tho 
prophet  is  like  a  king's  legate  who  is  to  be  owned  on  showing 
his  master's  signet,  bnt  the  Rabbis  need  no  such  witness, 
since  it  is  written  of  them,  "  Thou  shalt  do  according  to  the 
sentence  which  they  shall  show  thee ;  "  2  whereas  it  is  said  of 
the  prophets,  "  If  he  giveth  thee  a  sign  or  a  wonder." 5 
Miracles  are  related  which  happened  to  confirm  the  sayings 
of  Rabbis.  One  cried  out,  when  his  opinion  was  disputed, 
"  May  this  tree  prove  that  I  am  right !  "  and  forthwith  the 
tree  was  torn  np  by  the  roots,  and  hurled  a  hundred  ells  off. 
But  his  opponents  declared  that  a  tree  could  prove  nothing. 
"  May  this  stream,  then,  witness  for  me  !  "  cried  Eliezer,  and 
at  once  it  flowed  the  opposite  way.  Still,  his  opponents  urged 
that  water  could  prove  nothing.  "  Now,"  said  Eliezer,  "  if 
truth  be  on  my  side,  may  the  walls  of  the  school  confirm  it !  '* 
He  had  scarcely  spoken  when  the  walls  began  to  bow  inwards. 
The  Rabbi  Joshua  threatened  them :  "  What  is  it  to  you  if 
the  sons  of  the  wise  dispute  ?  you  shall  not  fall ; "  and,  to 
honour  Rabbi  Joshua,  the  walls  did  not  fall  wholly  together ; 
but  neither  did  they  go  back  to  their  places,  but  remain  slant- 
ing to  this  day,  that  the  honour  of  Rabbi  Eliezer  might  not 
suffer.  At  last  Eliezer  called  for  the  decision  of  heaven :  "  If 
I  am  right,  let  heaven  witness."  Then  came  a  voice  from 
heaven,4  and  said,  "  Why  dispute  ye  with  Rabbi  Eliezer  ?  he 
is  always  right !  "  ° 

Inordinate  pride,  one  might  think,  could  hardly  go  farther 
than  this,  but  the  bigoted  vanity  of  the  Rabbis  Christ  had 
daily  to  meet,  was  capable  even  of  blasphemy  in  its  claims. 
The  Talmud  tells  us  that  there  are  schools  of  the  heavenly 
Rabbis  above,  as  well  as  those  of  the  earthly  Rabbis  here, 
and  relates  that  there  once  rose  in  the  great  Rabbi's  school 
of  heaven  a  dispute  respecting  the  law  of  the  leper.  The 
Almighty,  who  is  the  Chief  Rabbi  of  the  skies,  pronounced 
a  certain  case,  detailed  in  the  text,  as  clean.  But  all  the 
angels  thought  differently — for  the  angels  are  the  scholars  in 

1  Eisenmtntier,  vol.  i.  p.  330.         *  Dent.  xvii.  10.  8  Dent.  xiii.  1. 

4  The  daughter  of  the  voice  (the  Bath  Kol).  •  Bava  Mczia,  59,  b. 


THE   EABBIS.  71 

this  great  academy.  Then  said  they,  "Who  shall  decide  in 
this  matter  between  us  ?  "  It  was  agreed  on  both  sides — God 
and  the  angels — to  summon  Ravah,  the  son  of  Nachman, 
since  he  was  wont  to  say  of  himself,  "  No  one  is  eqnal  to  me 
in  questions  respecting  leprosy."  Thereupon  the  Angel  of 
Death  was  sent  to  him,  and  caused  him  to  die,  and  brought 
his  soul  up  to  heaven,  where  Ravah,  when  brought  before 
the  heavenly  academy,  confirmed  the  opinion  of  God,  which 
gave  God  no  little  delight.  Then  heavenly  voices,  which 
sounded  down  even  to  the  earth,  exalted  the  name  of  Ravah 
greatly,  and  miracles  were  wrought  at  his  grave.1 

Such  a  story  illustrates  better  than  any  words  the  auda- 
cious claims  and  blasphemous  spiritual  pride  with  which 
our 'Lord  had  to  contend,  and  which  He  often  rebukes  in  the 
Pharisees  of  His  day.  Even  the  Talmud  itself,  in  other  parts, 
is  forced  to  reprove  it.  The  only  palliation  of  it  lies  in  the 
fact  that  the  Law  itself  was  written  in  a  language  which  the 
people  had  long  ceased  to  speak,  so  that  it  was  left  to  the 
Rabbis  to  explain  and  apply  it.  The  heads  and  leaders  of 
the  nation,  they  kept  it  in  their  leading-strings.  It  had  come 
into  their  hands  thus,  and  they  were  determined  to  keep  it  in 
the  same  state.  Heresy,  which  would  be  fatal  to  the  blind 
unanimity  which  was  their  political  strength,  could  only  be 
excluded  by  rigidly  denouncing  the  least  departure  from  their 
precepts.  The  Law  and  the  Prophets  must,  therefore,  be 
understood  only  in  the  sense  of  their  traditions.  The  reading 
of  the  Scriptures  was  hence  discouraged,2  lest  it  should  win 
their  hearts,  and  they  should  cease  to  reverence  the  words  of 
the  Rabbis.  One  hour  was  to  be  spent  on  the  Scriptures  in 
the  schools :  two  on  the  traditions.  The  study  of  the  Talmud' 
alone  won  honour  from  God  as  from  man.  That  vast  mass 
of  traditions,  which  now  fills  twelve  folio  volumes,  was,  in 
reality,  the  Bible  of  the  Rabbis  and  of  their  scholars. 

Yet,  in  form,  the  Law  received  boundless  honour.  Every 
saying  of  the  Rabbis  had  to  be  based  on  some  words  of  it, 
which  were,  however,  explained  in  their  own  way.  The  spirit 
of  the  times,  the  wild  fanaticism  of  the  people,  and  their  own 
bias,  tended,  alike,  to  make  them  set  value  only  on  ceremonies 
and  worthless  externalisms,  to  the  utter  neglect  of  the  spirit 
of  the  sacred  writings.  Still,  it  was  owned  that  the  Law 

1  Bava  Mezia,  86,  a ;  quoted  by  Eisenmenger,  vol.  i.  p.  13.     Gfrorer, 
vol.  i.  p.  H8. 

2  Berachoth,  Balyl.  28,  b ;  quoted  by  Gfrorer,  vol.  i.  p.  150. 


72  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

needed  no  confirmation,  while  the  words  of  the  Rabbis 
did. 

So  far  as  the  Roman  authority  under  which  they  lived  left 
them  free,  the  Jews  willingly  put  all  power  in  the  hands  of 
the  Rabbis.  They  or  their  nominees  filled  every  office,  from 
the  highest  in  the  priesthood  to  the  lowest  in  the  community. 
They  were  the  casuists,  the  teachers,  the  priests,  the  judges, 
the  magistrates,  and  the  physicians  of  the  nation.  But  their 
authority  went  still  further,  for,  by  the  Rabbinical  laws, 
nearly  everything  in  daily  life  needed  their  counsel  and  aid.1 
No  one  could  be  born,  circumcised,  brought  up,  educated, 
betrothed,  married,  or  buried — no  one  could  celebrate  the 
Sabbath  or  other  feasts,  or  begin  a  business,  or  make  a  con- 
tract, or  kill  a  beast  for  food,  or  even  bake  bread,  without  the 
advice  or  presence  of  a  Rabbi.  The  words  of  Christ  respecting 
binding  and  loosing  2  were  a  Rabbinical  proverb  :  they  bound 
and  they  loosed  as  they  thought  fit.  What  they  loosed  was 
permitted — what  they  bound  was  forbidden.  They  were  the 
brain,  the  eyes,  the  ears,  the  nerves,  the  muscles  of  the  people, 
who  were  mere  children  apart  from  them.3 

This  amazing  power,  which  has  lasted  for  two  thousand 
years,  owed  its  vitality  to  the  fact  that  no  Rabbi  could  take 
money  for  any  official  duty.  They  might  enslave  the  minds 
of  the  people,  but  they  never  abused  their  despotism  to  make 
gain  of  them.  The  great  Rabbi  Hillel  says,  '"*  He  who  makes 
gain  of  the  words  of  the  Law,  his  life  will  be  taken  from  the 
world."4  No  teacher,  preacher,  judge,  or  other  Rabbinical 
official,  could  receive  money  for  his  services.  In  practice  this 
grand  law  was  somewhat  modified,  but  not  to  any  great  extent. 
A  Rabbi  might  receive  a  moderate  sum  for  his  duties,  not 
as  payment,  but  only  to  make  good  the  loss  of  time  which  he 
might  have  used  for  his  profit.  Even  now  it  is  a  Jewish 
proverb  that  a  fat  Rabbi  is  little  worth,  and  such  a  feeling 
must  have  checked  those  who,  if  they  could,  would  have 
turned  their  position  to  pecuniary  advantage. 

How,  then,  did  the  Rabbis  live  ?  A  child  destined  for  this 
dignity  began  his  training  at  five  years  of  age,5  and  gradually 
shrank,  in  most  cases,  into  a  mere  pedant,  with  no  desire  in 
life  beyond  the  few  wants  needed  to  enable  him  to  continue 


1  Hausrath,  N.  T.  Zeitgesch.,  vol.  i.  p.  89. 

*  Matt.  xvi.  19.     Jos.,  Bell.  Jud.,  i.  5.  2. 

3  These  are  Gfrorer's  words,  Jahrhundcrt  det  Heils,  vol.  i.  p.  155. 

'  Schiirer,  Lehrbuch,  p.  443.  *  Gf rarer,  vol.  i.  p.  161. 


THE   SOCIAL   POSITION   OF   THE   EABBIS.  73 

liis  endless  study.  It  was,  moreover,  required  that  every 
Rabbi  should  learn  a  trade  by  which  to  support  himself. 
"  He  who  does  not  teach  his  son  a  trade,"  says  Rabbi  Jehuda, 
"  is  much  the  same  as  if  he  taught  him  to  be  a  thief." 

In  accordance  with  this  rule,  the  greatest  Rabbis  maintair  ed 
themselves  by  trades.1  The  most  famous  of  them  all,  Rabbi 
Ilillel,  senior,  supported  himself  by  the  labour  of  his  hands. 
One  Ilabbi  was  a  needle-maker,  another  a  smith,  another  a 
shoemaker,  and  another,  like  St.  Paul,  who  also  was  a  Rabbi, 
was  a  tent-cover  weaver.  Rabbis  who  taught  in  schools 
received  small  presents  from  the  children. 

But  there  were  ways  by  which  even  Rabbis  could  get 
wealth.  To  marry  the  daughter  of  one  was  to  advance  one's- 
self  in  heaven ;  to  get  a  Rabbi  for  a  son-in-law,  and  provide 
for  him,  was  to  secure  a  blessing.  They  could  thus  marry 
into  the  richest  families,  and  they  often  did  it.  They  could, 
besides,  become  partners  in  prosperous  commercial  houses.2 

The  office  of  a  Rabbi  was  open  to  all,  and  this  of  itself 
secured  the  favour  of  the  nation  to  the  order,  just  as  the 
same  democratic  feeling  strengthened  the  Romish  Church  in 
the  middle  ages.  The  humblest  Jewish  boy  could  be  a  master 
of  the  Law,  as  the  humblest  Christian,  in  after-times,  could 
in  the  same  way  be  a  monk  or  priest ;  and  the  learned  son  of 
a  labourer  might,  in  both  cases,  look  down  with  a  kind  of 
contempt  on  the  proudest  noble. 

Such,  then,  were  the  Rabbis  in  the  days  of  our  Lord.  They 
were  Pharisees  as  to  their  party,  and  Rabbis  in  their  relations 
to  the  Law.  That  one  who  came,  not  indeed  to  destroy  the 
Law  and  the  Prophets,  but  to  free  them  from  the  perversions 
of  Rabbinical  theology,  should  have  been  met  by  the  bitterest 
hatred  and  a  cruel  death,  was  only  an  illustration  of  the  sad 
truth,  to  which  every  age  has  borne  witness,  that  ecclesiastical 
bodies  which  have  the  power  to  persecute,  identify  even  the 
abuses  of  their  system  with  the  defence  of  religion,  and  are 
capable  of  any  crime  in  their  blind  intolerance. 

The  central  and  dominant  characteristic  of  the  teaching 
of  the  Rabbis  was  the  certain  advent  of  a  great  national 
Deliverer — the  Messiah,  or  Anointed  of  God,  or  in  the  Greek 
translation  of  the  title,  the  Christ.  In  no  other  nation  than 
the  Jews  has  such  a  conception  ever  taken  such  root,  or 
shown  such  vitality.  From  the  times  of  their  great  national 

*  Dclitzsch,  Lehrstand  u.  Handwerk.,  passim. 

•  Schiirer,  p.  444      Gfrorer,  vol.  i.  p.  162. 


74  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

troubles,  under  their  later  kings,  the  words  of  Moses,  David, 
and  the  prophets  had,  alike,  been  cited  as  divine  promises  of 
a  mighty  Prince,  who  should  "  restore  the  kingdom  to  Israel." 
The  Captivity  only  deepened  the  faith  in  His  duly  appearing, 
by  increasing  the  need  of  it.  Their  fathers  in  far-distant 
times  of  distraction  and  trouble,  had  clamoured  for  a  King, 
who  should  be  their  Messiah,  the  viceroy  of  God,  anointed  by 
prophets.  They  had  had  kings,  but  had  found  only  a  partial 
good  from  them.  As  ages  passed,  the  fascination  of  the 
grand  Messianic  hope  grew  ever  more  hallowed,  and  became 
the  deepest  passion  in  the  hearts  of  all,  burning  and  glowing 
henceforth,  unquenchably,  more  and  more,  and  irrevocably 
determining  the  whole  future  of  the  nation. 

For  a  time,  Cyrus  appeared  to  realize  the  promised 
Deliverer,  or  at  least  to  be  the  chosen  instrument  to  prepare 
the  way  for  Him.  Zerubbabel,  in  his  turn,  became  the  centre 
of  Messianic  hopes.  Simon  Maccabaeus  was  made  high-priest- 
king  only  "until  a  faithful  prophet — the  Messiah — should 
arise."  As  the  glory  of  their  brief  independence  passed 
away,  and  the  Roman  succeeded  the  hated  Syrian  as  ruler 
and  oppressor,  the  hope  in  the  Star  which  was  to  come  out 
of  Jacob  grew  brighter,  the  darker  the  night.  Deep  gloom 
filled  every  heart,  but  it  was  pierced  by  the  beam  of  this 
heavenly  confidence.  Having  no  present,  Israel  threw  itself 
on  the  future.  Literature,  education,  politics,  began  and 
ended  with  the  great  thought  of  the  Messiah.  When  would 
He  come  ?  What  manner  of  kingdom  would  He  raise  ?  The 
national  mind  had  become  so  inflammable,  long  before  Christ's 
day,  by  constant  brooding  on  this  one  theme,  that  any  bold 
spirit,  rising  in  revolt  against  the  Roman  power,  could  find 
an  army  of  fierce  disciples  who  trusted  that  it  should  be  he 
who  would  redeem  Israel. 

"  That  the  testimony  of  Jesus  was  the  spirit  of  prophecy,"1 
was  but  the  Christian  utterance  of  a  universal  Jewish  belief 
respecting  the  Christ.  "All  the  prophets,"  says  R.  Chaja, 
"  have  prophesied  only  of  the  blessedness  of  the  days  of  tho 
Messiah."  But  it  was  to  Daniel  especially,  with  his  seeming 
exactness  of  dates,  that  the  chief  regard  was  paid.  It  was 
generally  believed  that  "  the  times  "  of  that  prophet  pointed 
to  the  twentieth  year  of  Herod  the  Great,  and,  when  that 
was  past,  not  to  mention  other  dates,  the  year  67  of  our 
reckoning  was  thought  the  period,  and  then  the  year  135; 

1  Eev.  six.  10. 


THE   HOPE   OF  THE   MESSIAH.  75 

the  war  which  ended  in  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  rising 
from  the  one  calculation,  and  the  tremendous  insurrectiou 
under  Hadrian  from  the  other. 

With  a  few,  the  conception  of  the  Messiah's  kingdom  was 
pure  and  lofty.  The  hearts  of  such  as  Zacharias,  Elisabeth, 
Mary,  Anna,  Simeon,  and  John  the  Baptist,  realized,  more  or 
less,  the  need  of  a  redemption  of  the  nation  from  its  spiritual 
corruption,  as  the  first  necessity.  This  grander  conception 
had  been  slowly  forming  in  the  minds  of  the  more  religious. 
Before  the  days  of  the  Maccabees,  the  conception  of  the 
Messiah  had  been  that  of  a  "  Son  of  David," l  who  should 
restore  the  splendour  of  the  Jewish  throne ;  and  this,  indeed, 
continued  always  the  general  belief.  But  neither  in  the 
Book  of  Daniel  nor  in  the  later  religious  writings  of  the 
Jews  before  Christ,  is  the  Messiah  thus  named,  nor  is  there 
any  stress  laid  on  His  origin  or  birthplace.  Daniel,  and  all 
who  wrote  after  him,  paint  the  Expected  One  as  a  heavenly 
being.  He  was  the  Messenger,  the  Elect  of  God,  appointed 
from  eternity,  to  appear  in  due  time,  and  redeem  His  people. 
The  world  was  committed  to  Him  as  its  Judge :  all  heathen 
kings  and  lords  were  destined  to  sink  in  the  dust  before  Him, 
and  the  idols  to  perish  utterly,  that  the  holy  people,  the 
chosen  of  God,  under  Him,  might  reign  for  ever.  He  was 
the  Son  of  Man,  but,  though  thus  man,  had  been  hidden  from 
eternity,  in  the  all-glorious  splendour  of  heaven,  and,  indeed, 
was  no  other  than  the  SON  OF  GOD,  sitting  at  the  right  hand 
of  the  Majesty  of  His  Father.  He  was  the  Archetypal  Man 
— the  ideal  of  pure  and  heavenly  Manhood,  in  contrast  to  the 
fallen  Adam.  Two  centuries  before  our  era,  He  was  spoken 
of  as  "  the  Word  of  God,"  or  as  "  the  Word,"  and  as  "Wisdom," 
and  as,  in  this  way,  the  Incarnation  of  the  Godhead.2 

Such  were,  in  effect,  the  conceptions  gradually  matured  of 
the  Messiah — the  Immortal  and  Eternal  King,  clothed  with 
divine  power,  and  yet  a  man — which  had  been  drawn  from 
the  earliest,  as  well  as  the  latest,  sacred  or  religious  writings 
of  the  nation.  But  very  few  realized  that  a  heavenly  King 
must  imply  a  holy  kingdom ;  that  His  true  reign  must  be  in 
the  purified  souls  of  men.  Few  realized  that  the  true  pre- 
paration for  His  coming  was  not  vain-glorious  pride,  but 
humiliation  for  sin. 

The  prevailing  idea  of  the  Rabbis  and  the  people  alike,  in 
Christ's  day,  was,  that  the  Messiah  would  be  simply  a  great 

1  Derenbourg,  Essai,  p.  21.  8  Sec  the  Boob  of  Enoch,  passim. 


76  THE  LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

prince,  who  should  found  a  kingdom  of  matchless  splendour. 
Nor  was  the  idea  of  His  heavenly  origin  by  any  means  uni- 
versal: almost  all  fancied  He  would  be  only  a  human  hero, 
who  should  lead  them  to  victory. 

It  was  agreed  among  the  Rabbis  that  His  birthplace  must 
be  Bethlehem,  and  that  He  must  rise  from  the  tribe  of  Judah.1 
Ifc  was  believed  that  He  would  not  know  that  He  was  the 
Messiah  till  Elias  came,  accompanied  by  other  prophets,  and 
anointed  Him.  Till  then  He  would  be  hidden  from  the 
people,  living  unknown  among  them.  The  better  Rabbis 
taught  that  the  sins  of  the  nation  had  kept  Him  from  appear- 
ing, and  that  "  if  the  Jews  repented  for  one  day,  He  would 
come."  2  He  was  first  to  appear  in  Galilee ;  for,  as  the  ten 
tribes  had  first  suffered,  they  should  first  be  visited.  He  was 
to  free  Israel  by  force  of  arms,  and  subdue  the  world  under 
it.  "How  beautiful,"  says  the  Jerusalem  Targum,b  "is  the 
King  Messiah,  who  springs  from  the  house  of  Judah !  He 
girds  His  loins,  and  descends,  and  orders  the  battle  against 
His  enemies,  and  slays  their 'kings  and  their  chief  captains; 
there  is  no  one  so  mighty  as  to  stand  before  Him.  He  makes 
the  mountains  red  with  the  blood  of  His  slaughtered  foes ; 
His  robes,  dyed  in  their  blood,  are  like  the  skins  of  the  purple 
grapes."  "  The  beasts  of  the  field  will  feed  for  twelve  months 
on  the  flesh  of  the  slain,  and  the  birds  of  the  air  will  feed  on 
them  for  seven  years." 3  °  "  The  Lord,"  says  the  Targum, 
"  will  revenge  us  on  the  bands  of  Gog.  At  that  hour  will 
the  power  of  the  nations  be  broken;  they  will  be  like  a  ship 
whose  tackling  is  torn  away,  and  whose  mast  is  sprung,  so 
that  the  sail  can  no  longer  be  set  on  it.  Then  will  Israel 
divide  the  treasures  of  the  nations  among  them — a  great  store 
of  booty  and  riches,  so  that,  if  there  be  the  lame  and  blind 
among  them,  even  they  will  have  their  share."  The  heathen 
will  then  turn  to  the  Lord,  and  walk  in  His  light. 

The  universal  kingdom  thus  founded  was  to  be  an  earthly 
paradise  for  the  Jew.4  In  that  day,  say  the  Rabbis,  there 
will  be  a  handful  of  corn  on  the  top  of  the  mountains,5  and 
the  stalks  will  be  like  palm-trees  or  pillars.  Nor  will  it  be 

1  Targum  Jerusal.  on  Gen.  xlix.  11.  Jonathan  Ben  Uzziel,  on  Zech.  x. 
8  4 ;  Isa.  xi.  1 ;  Micah  v.  2. 

J  Taanith,  Jerusal.  Sect.  Maimathai.     Eisenmenger,  vol.  ii.  p.  747. 
1  Sohar,  Levit.  p.  169. 

4  The  texts  quoted  below  are  those  on  which  the  Kabbis  found  the 
different  opinions  quoted. 

5  Ps.  Ixxii.  16. 


THE   KINGDOM   OF   THE   MESSIAH.  77 

any  trouble  to  reap  it,  for  God  will  send  a  wind  from  His 
chambers,  which,  will  blow  down  the  white  flour  from  the 
ears.1  One  corn  of  wheat  will  be  as  large  as  the  two  kidneys 
of  the  hugest  ox.  All  the  trees  will  bear  continually.  A 
single  grape  will  load  a  waggon  or  a  ship,  and  when  it  is 
brought  to  the  house  they  will  draw  wine  from  it  as  from  a 
cask.2 

A  great  king  must  have  a  great  capital,  and  hence  Jerusalem, 
the  capital  of  the  Messiah's  kingdom,  will  be  yery  glorious. 
In  the  days  to  come,  say  the  Rabbis,  God  will  bring  together 
Sinai,  Tabor,  and  Carmel,  and  set  Jerusalem  upon  them.3  It 
will  be  so  great  that  it  will  cover  as  much  ground  as  a  horse 
can  run  over  from  the  early  morning  till  its  shadow  is  below 
it  at  noon.4  It  will  reach  to  the  gates  of  Damascus.5  Some 
of  them  even  tell  us  that  its  houses  will  be  built  three  miles 
in  height.6  Its  gates  will  be  of  precious  stones  and  pearls, 
thirty  ells  long  and  as  broad,  hollowed  out.7  The  country 
round  will  be  full  of  pearls  and  precious  stones,  so  that  Jews 
from  all  parts  may  come  and  take  of  them  as  they  like.8 

In  this  splendid  city  the  Messiah  is  to  reign  over  a  people 
who  shall  all  be  prophets.9  A  fruitful  stream  will  break 
forth  from  the  Temple  and  water  the  land,10  its  banks  shaded 
by  trees  laden  with  the  richest  fruits.  No  sickness  or  defect 
will  be  known.  There  will  be  no  such  thing  as  a  lame  man, 
or  any  blind  or  leprous ;  the  dumb  will  speak  and  the  deaf 
hear.11  It  will  be  a  triumphal  millennium  of  national  pride, 
glory,  and  enjoyment.*1 

It  was  to  a  people  drunk  with  the  vision  of  such  outward 
felicity  and  political  greatness,  under  a  world-conquering 
Messiah,  that  Jesus  Christ  came,  with  His  utterly  opposite 
doctrines  of  the  aim  and  nature  of  the  Messiah  and  His 
kingdom.  Only  here  and  there  was  there  a  soul  with  any 
higher  or  purer  thoughts  than  such  gross,  material,  and 
narrow  dreams. 

1  Ps.  Ixxii.  16.      8  Deut.  xxxii.  14.        *  Isa.  ii.  2.        <  Zech.  xiv.  20, 

•  Zech.  ix.  1.        6  Zech.  xiv.  10.  1  Isa.  liv.  12 

I  Eisenmenger,  vol.  ii.  pp.  839,  841,  842,  844,  845. 

•  Joel  iii.  1.         10  Ezek.  xlvii.  12. 

II  Isa.  xxxv.  6,  6.  Exod.  xix.  8;  xx.  18;  xix.  17. 


CHAPTER  VH. 
BIRTH  OF  JOHN  THE  BAPTIST. 

rTlHE  time  had  at  last  come,  when  "the  mystery  •which 
-•-  had  been  hid  from  ages  and  from  generations  " l — the 
high  purpose  of  God  in  the  two  thousand  years'  history  of 
Israel — was  to  be  revealed.  The  true  relations  of  man  to  his 
Maker  and  Heavenly  King  had  been,  throughout,  the  grand 
truth  to  be  taught  to  mankind,  in  all  future  ages,  from  the 
education  and  example  of  the  Jewish  race,  and  this  truth 
was  now  to  be  revealed  directly  by  God  Himself,  all  lower 
agencies  and  means  having  proved  inadequate. 

The  people  of  Israel  had  been  set  apart  by  God,  while  yet 
only  a  family,  as  specially  His  own.  Brought  at  last,  after 
centuries,  through  the  discipline  of  the  household,  the  bondage 
of  Egypt,  and  the  life  of  the  wilderness,  to  a  settled  home,  as 
a  nation,  in  Canaan,  they  were  still  more  distinctly  proclaimed 
by  Him  as  "  His  people,"  3  "  the  portion  of  Jehovah  " — the 
"lot  of  His  inheritance."3  The  Lord  their  God  was  their 
only  King,4  and  they  were  declared  to  be  a  "  people  holy  to 
Him,"  chosen  as  peculiarly  His,  "  above  all  other  nations."  5 
In  them,  as  a  nation,  if  they  faithfully  observed  the  "  cove- 
nant "  which  they  had  made  with  Him,  was  to  be  exhibited 
the  spectacle  of  a  visible  kingdom  of  God  amongst  men — its 
obligations  on  the  side  of  man,  its  high  privileges  on  that  of 
Heaven. 

As  centuries  passed,  however,  it  was  clear  that  Israel  failed 
to  realize  the  ideal  of  a  "  people  of  Jehovah,"  with  Him  as 
its  direct  and  supreme  Ruler.  The  anarchy  of  the  days 
of  the  Judges — a  period  not  unlike  our  own  early  history 
— showed  too  clearly  that  the  nation,  as  such,  was  far  from 
illustrating  the  true  relations  of  man  to  God. 

1  Col.  i.  26. 

3  Exod.  xv.  16.     1  Sam.  ii.  24.     2  Sam.  i.  12  ;  vi.  21.     2  Kings  ix.  6. 

3  Deut.  xxxii.  9.  4  1  Sam.  xii.  12. 

*  Peut.  via.  6  ;  xiv.  2,  21 ;  xxvi.  19. 


THE   HISTOET  OF  THE   KINGDOM   OF   GOD.  79 

The  Kingdom  of  God  on  earth,  in  the  simplest  form  of  His 
direct  rule,  with  no  human  intervention,  having  proved  too 
lofty  and  spiritual  a  conception,  the  second  step  in  its  de- 
velopment was  introduced,  by  the  appointment  of  a  supreme 
magistrate  as  His  representative  and  viceroy,  He  remaining 
the  actual  Sovereign.  The  king  of  Israel  stood,  thus,  before 
the  people,  simply  as  the  deputy  of  its  invisible  King,  and 
was  as  much  His  servant,  bound  in  all  things  to  carry  out 
only  His  will,  as  any  of  his  own  subjects.  Yet  his  office,  as 
the  vicegerent  of  God,  had  an  awful  dignity.  He  was  "  the 
Lord's  Anointed  " — his  Messiah l — consecrated  to  the  dignity 
by  the  holy  oil,  which  had,  till  then,  been  used  only  for 
priests. 

But  the  ideal  sought  was  as  far  from  being  attained  as 
ever.  The  history  of  Israel  was  very  soon  only  that  of  other 
kingdoms  round  it.  Instead  of  being  holy  to  Jehovah,  it 
turned  from  Him  to  serve  other  gods,  and  grew  corrupt  in 
morals  as  well  as  creed.  The  order  of  prophets  strove  to 
restore  the  sinking  State,  and  recall  the  nation  to  its  faith ; 
and  good  kings  from  time  to  time  listened  to  them,  and 
sought  to  carry  out  their  counsels.  But  the  people  them 
selves  were  degenerate,  and  many  of  the  kings  found  it  easy 
to  lead  them  into  still  greater  sin  and  apostasy.  The  pro- 
phets— at  once  the  mouthpieces  of  God  and  the  tribunes 
of  the  people — nobly  resisted,  but  only  to  become  martyrs 
to  their  fidelity.  The  inevitable  result  came,  in  the  end, 
in  the  ruin  of  the  State,  and  the  exile  in  Assyria  and 
Babylon. 

The  third  step  was  no  less  a  failure.  On  the  return  from 
captivity,  a  zeal  for  Jehovah  as  the  only  King  of  Israel 
became  the  deep  and  abiding  passion  of  all  Jews.  Hence- 
forward, it  was  determined  that  what  we  might  call  the 
"  Church  "  should  act  as  His  vicegerent.  By  turns,  priests, 
priest-kings,  and  other  ecclesiastical  or  religious  leaders,  led 
the  nation;  but  only  as  temporary  substitutes  for  a  great 
expected  King* — the  Messiah,  before  whose  glory  even  that 
of  David  or  Solomon,  their  most  famous  monarchs,  would  be 
as  nothing.  But  they  were  as  insensible  as  ever  to  the 
liighest  characteristics  of  a  true  Prince  of  the  "people  of 
God,"  ruler  or  subject,  alike,  looking  only  to  outward  power 
and  splendour,  and  political  ambition,  and  forgetful  of  the 
grand  fact  that  the  kingdom  of  God  must,  first,  of  necessity, 

1  1  Sam.  xvi.  6. 


80  THE   LIFE   OP   CHEIST. 

be  the  reign  of  holiness  and  truth,  in  both.  Religion  became 
a  thing  of  outward  observances,  with  which  the  heart  and 
life  had  no  necessary  connection.  The  Messianic  hopes  of 
the  centuries  immediately  before  Christ  degenerated  into  a 
standing  conspiracy  of  the  nation  against  their  actual  rulers, 
and  a  vain  confidence  that  God  would  raise  up  some  deliverer, 
who  would  "restore  the  kingdom  to  Israel"  in  a  meiely 
political  sense. 

Thus  the  true  conception  of  the  kingdom  of  God  had  been 
woll-nigh  lost.  A  few  of  the  Rabbis,  indeed,  with  a  finer 
spiritual  sense,  taught  that  the  condition  of  the  coming  of 
the  Messiah  must  be  sincere  repentance  for  their  sins,  on  the 
part  of  the  nation,  and  a  return  to  a  purer  state.1  But  such 
counsels  had  little  weight  with  the  community.  Blindly 
self-righteous,  and  yet  wedded  to  evil,  everything  tended  to 
a  speedy  extinction  of  Judaism  by  its  inveterate  corruption. 

It  was  at  this  time  that  the  first  direct  steps  were  taken 
by  God  towards  the  advent  of  the  true  Messiah,  who  should 
finally  erect,  once  for  all,  His,  the  true,  divine,  kingdom,  on 
earth,  all  the  dreams  of  which  had  hitherto  been  such  dis- 
astrous failures.  He  would  thus  save  Judaism  from  itself, 
by  perpetuating  that  which  was  permanent  in  it,  under  Hia 
holy  and  spiritual  reign.  Discarding  all  tLat  was  merely 
temporary  and  accidental,  and  bringing  into  lasting  pro- 
minence whatever  of  everlasting  truth  the  older  dispensation 
contained,  He  would  found  the  only  true  kingdom  of  God 
possible  on  earth :  one  in  which  the  perfect  holiness  of  the 
Anointed  Head  should  stimulate  a  like  holiness  in  all,  and, 
indeed,  demand  it.  The  Messianic  hope  was  to  be  realized 
in  a  grander  and  loftier  sense  than  man  had  dreamed,  but 
the  very  grandeur  and  loftiness  of  the  realization  would  attest 
its  divine  authority  and  source.2 

The  priests  among  the  Jews  had  been  divided,  since  the 
time  of  David,  that  is,  for  about  a  thousand  years,  into  twenty- 
four  courses,3  known  also  as  "  houses  "  and  "  families. "b  Of 
the  original  courses,  however,  only  four,*  each  numbering 
about  a  thousand  members,  had  returned  from  Babylon  after 
the  captivity ;  but  out  of  these  the  old  twenty- four  courses 
•\vere  reconstituted,  with  the  same  names  as  before,"  that  the 

1  Gfrorer's  Jahrhundert  des  Heils,  vol.  ii.  p.  224.  Eisenmenger's  Jud. 
Entdecktes,  vol.  ii.  pp.  670,  671,  673. 

3  See  on  this  whole  subject  the  finely  philosophical  chapters  of  Ewald'i 
Geschichte,  vol.  v.  pp.  125-170. 

»  1  Chrou.  xxiv.  1-18.  4  Ezra  ii.  36-39. 


THE   LATEE  PEIESTHOOD.  81 

original  organization  might  be  perpetuated  as  far  as  pos- 
sible. The  priesthood  of  the  second  Temple,  however,  never 
took  the  same  rank  as  that  of  the  first.  The  diminished 
glory  of  the  sanctuary  in  which  it  ministered,  compared  with 
that  of  Solomon,  alone,  made  this  inevitable,  for  the  second 
Temple  had  no  longer  the  sacred  ark,  with  its  mercy  seat  and 
the  overshadowing  cherubim,  nor  the  holy  fire,1  kindled  at 
first  from  heaven,  nor  the  mysterious  Shechina,  or  Glory  of 
God,  in  the  Holy  of  Holies,  nor  the  tables  of  stone  written, 
by  the  finger  of  God,  nor  the  ancient  Book  of  the  Law, 
handed  down  from  the  great  lawgiver,  Moses.  The  spirit  of 
prophecy  was  no  longer  granted ;  the  Urim  and  Thummim 
no  longer  shone  out  mysterious  oracles  from  the  breast  of 
the  high  priest,  and  the  holy  anointing  oil,  that  had  been 
handed  down,  as  the  Rabbis  taught,  from  the  days  of  Aaron, 
had  been  lost.  There  could  thus  be  no  consecration  of  the 
high  priest,  or  his  humbler  brethren,  by  that  symbol  which 
above  all  others  had  been  most  sacred — the  priestly  anoint- 
ing. The  priests  were  now  set  apart  to  their  office  only 
by  solemnly  clothing  them  with  their  official  robes,  though 
the  subordinate  acts  of  sacrifice  and  offering  were  no  doubt 
continued.  The  rise  of  the  Synagogue,  and  the  supreme  im- 
portance attached  to  the  study  of  the  Law,  tended  also  to 
throw  the  office  of  the  priest  into  the  back-ground.2  In  the 
centuries  after  the  Return,  the  Rabbi  became  the  foremost 
figure  in  Jewish  history.  Yet  the  priest  was  a  necessary 
appendage  to  the  Temple,  and  even  the  traditions  of  the  past 
lent  his  office  dignity. 

The  services  at  the  Temple  in  Jerusalem,  where  alone  sac- 
rifices could  be  offered,  were  entrusted  to  the  care  of  each 
course  in  rotation,3  for  a  week  of  six  days  and  two  Sabbaths, 
and,  hence,  the  members  of  each,  whose  ministrations  might 
be  required,  had  to  go  up  to  Jerusalem  twice  a-year. 

As  the  office  was  hereditary,  the  number  of  the  priesthood 
had  become  very  great  in  the  days  of  our  Lord,  so  that 
according  to  the  Talmud,  in  addition  to  those  who  lived  in 
the  country,  and  came  up  to  take  their  turn  in  the  Templo 
services,  there  were  no  fewer  than  24,000  settled  in  Jeru- 
salem, and  half  that  number  in  Jericho.  This,  however,  is 
no  doubt  an  exaggeration.  Josephus  is  more  likely  correct 
in  estimating  the  whole  number  at  somewhat  over  20,000.' 

1  Lev.  ix.  24.  *  Jost,  vol.  i.  p.  134. 

3  2  Kings  xi.  9.     2  Cbron.  xxui,  8.  •  c.  Apion,  ii.  8. 

7 


82  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

But  even  this  was  an  enormous  proportion  of  clergy  to  the 
population  of  a  country  like  Judea,  as  the  name  was  then 
applied,  —  a  district  of  about  100  miles  in  length,  and  sixty 
in  breadth,1  or  as  nearly  as  possible  of  the  same  number  of 
square  miles  as  Yorkshire.  They  must  have  been  a  more 
familiar  sight  in  the  streets  of  Jerusalem,  and  of  the  towns 
and  villages,  than  the  seemingly  countless  ecclesiastics  in 
the  towns  and  cities  of  Spain  or  Italy  at  this  time.d 

The  social  position,  as  well  as  official  standing,  of  such  a 
large  order  necessarily  varied  greatly.  First  in  consideration, 
after  the  high  priest,  came  his  acting  deputy,  or  assistant  —  • 
the  ISagan  —  and  those  who  had  filled  that  office,  and  the  heads 
or  presidents  of  the  twenty-four  courses  —  collectively,  the 
"  high  priests,"  or  "  chief  priests,"  2  of  Josephus  and  the  New 
Testament  ;  and  next,  the  large  body  of  officiating  priests, 
the  counterpart  of  our  working  clergy.  But  there  were,  be- 
sides, large  numbers,  like  the  lower  priests  of  Russia  or  Italy, 
uneducated,  who  were  the  object  of  contempt,  from  their 
ignorance  of  the  Law,  in  the  Rabbinical  sense.  The  countless 
sacrifices  and  offerings,  with  the  multiplied  forms  to  be 
observed  in  connection  with  them,  which  were  settled  by  the 
strictest  rules,  required  a  knowledge  at  once  minute  and 
extensive,  which  could  only  be  attained  by  assiduous  and 
long-continued  labour.  Hence,  it  is  no  wonder  that  there 
were  many  priests  who  knew  little  beyond  the  rites  in  which 
they  had  to  take  part.  The  priesthood  was  thus  divided 
into  "  the  learned  "  e  —  or  those  who  knew  and  observed  the 
countless  laws  of  ceremonial  cleanness,  and  the  endless  ritual 
enforced  —  and  "common  priests."3  There  were  others, 
doubtless  in  large  numbers,  whom  some  physical  defect,  or 
other  cause,  disqualified  from  public  ministrations,  though 
they  retained  a  right  to  their  share  of  the  offerings.4  * 

The  great  mass  of  the  order  must  have  been  poor  in  the 
days  of  Christ,  which  were  certainly  in  no  way  higher  in  tone 
than  those  of  Malachi,  when  blind,  and  torn,  and  lame,  and 
sick  beasts  were  offered  for  sacrifice,  so  that  the  priest  as 
well  as  the  altar  suffered  ;  and  "  the  whole  nation  "  withhold 
their  tithes  and  offerings.6  The  higher  ranks  of  the  priest- 
hood —  rich  and  haughty  —  contributed  to  the  degradation  of 
their  poorer  brethren,  whom  they  despised,  oppressed,  asd 


•  Lewis,  Heb.  Repub.,  vol.  i.  p.  2. 

•  Jost,  Judcnthiim,  vol.  i.  p.  156.  *  Hid.,  p.  155. 

•  Mai.  i.  8,  14  ;  iii   P. 


CORKTJPTION   OP  THE   PBIESTHOOD.  83 

plundered.  Nor  was  the  general  character  of  the  priesthood 
unaffected  by  the  corruption  of  the  times ;  as  a  class,  they 
were  blind  guides  of  the  blind.  Not  a  few,  however,  in  so 
numerous  a  body,  must  have  retained  more  or  less  religious 
sensibility,  for  we  find  that  many  even  of  the  members  of  tho 
Jerusalem  Council1  were  so  alive  to  the  corruption  of  th& 
hierarchy  at  large,  that  they  believed  on  Christ,  its  great 
antagonist,  and  a  large  number  of  priests,  shortly  after  His 
crucifixion,  openly  joined  His  disciples.*  But  the  evil  was 
deep-rooted,  and  widely  spread,  and  the  corruption  and  de- 
moralization of  the  order,  especially  in  its  higher  ranks,  grew 
more  and  more  complete.  The  high  society  of  Jerusalem  was 
mainly  comprised  in  a  circle  of  governing  priestly  families, 
and  their  example  tainted  the  whole  priesthood. 

The  pride,  the  violence,  irreligion,  and  luxury  of  this 
ecclesiastical  aristocracy  already,  at  the  beginning  of  our  era, 
pointed  to  the  excesses  they  erelong  reached.  After  the 
banishment  of  Archelaus,  in  the  early  childhood  of  our  Lord, 
the  government  became  an  aristocracy — the  high  priests 
virtually  ruling  the  nation — under  the  Romans.  Under 
Herod  and  his  son,  they  had  been  mere  puppets,  elevated  to 
their  dignity  for  their  proved  subserviency  to  their  royal 
masters.-  tinder  Agrippa  II.,h  ladies  bought  the  high  priest- 
hood for  their  husbands  for  so  much  money.  Martha, 
daughter  of  Boethus,  one  of  these  simoniacs,  when  she  went 
to  see  her  husband,  spread  carpets  from  her  door  to  the  gate 
of  the  Temple.  The  high  priests  themselves  were  ashamed 
of  their  most  sacred  functions.  The  having  to  preside  over 
the  sacrifices  was  thought  by  some  so  repulsive  and  degrading, 
that  they  wore  silk  gloves  when  officiating,  to  keep  their 
hands  from  touching  the  victims.  Given  to  gluttony — the 
special  vice  of  their  Roman  masters — they  also,  like  them, 
abandoned  themselves  to  luxury,  and  oppressed  the  poor,  to 
obtain  the  means  for  indulgence.  Thoroughly  heathen  in 
feeling,  they  courted  the  favour  of  the  Romans,  who  repaid 
them  by  rich  places  for  their  sons,  and  they  openly  robbed 
and  oppressed  the  poor  priests  supported  by  the  people,  going 
the  length  of  violence  in  doing  so.3  Josephus  tells  us  that 
they  even  sent  their  servants  to  the  threshing-floors,  and  took 
away  by  force  the  tithes  that  belonged  to  the  priests,  beating 
those  who  resisted,  and  that  thus  not  a  few  poorer  priests 
died  for  want.4 

1  Meyer's  Kommentar.     John  xii.  42.     Acts  vi.  7.        *  Ant.,  xx.  10.  1. 
•  Reuan,  L'Anteclirist,  p.  18.  *  Ant.,  xx.  8.  8;  9.  2. 


84  THE   LIFE   OF  CHEIST. 

Yet  the  office  of  the  priest,  in  itself,  was  the  highest  in 
Jewish  society,  and  the  whole  order  formed  a  national  aristo- 
cracy,1 however  poor  and  degraded  many  of  its  members 
might  be.  Every  priest  was  the  lineal  descendant  of  a  priestly 
ancestry  running  back  to  Aaron,  and  as  the  wives  of  the  ordor 
were  generally  chosen  from  within  its  families,  this  lofi-y 
pedigree  in  many  cases  marked  both  parents. 

The  law  fixed  no  certain  age  at  which  the  yonng  priest 
should  enter  on  his  office,  though  the  Rabbis  maintain  that 
he  needed  to  be  at  least  twenty,  since  David  had  appointed 
that  age  for  the  Levites.1  As  in  corrupt  ages  of  the  Church, 
however,  this  wholesome  rule  was  not  always  observed,  for 
Josephus 3  tells  us  that  Herod  made  Aristobulus  high  priest 
when  he  was  seventeen,  and  we  read  of  common  priests  whose 
beaids  were  only  beginning  to  grow.3 

The  special  consecration  of  the  young  priest  began  while 
he  was  yet  only  a  lad.  As  soon  as  the  down  appeared  on  his 
cheek  he  had  to  appear  before  the  council  of  the  Temple,  that 
his  genealogy  might  be  inspected.4  If  it  proved  faulty,  he  left 
the  Temple  clad  in  black,  and  had  to  seek  another  calling : 
if  it  satisfied  the  council,  a  further  ordeal  awaited  him.  There 
were  140  bodily  defects,k  any  one  of  which  would  incapacitate 
him  from  sacred  duties,  and  he  was  now  carefully  inspected 
to  discover  if  he  were  free  from  them.  If  he  had  no  blemish 
of  any  kind,  the  white  tunic  of  a  priest  was  given  him,  and 
he  began  his  official  life  in  its  humbler  duties,  as  a  training 
for  higher  responsibilities  in  after  years.5 

Ordination,  or  rather  the  formal  consecration,  followed, 
when  the  priest  attained  the  legal  age.  For  this,  much  more 
was  necessary,  in  theory,  than  freedom  from  bodily  blemish. 
The  candidate  must  be  of  blameless-  character,  though,  in 
such  an  age,  this,  no  doubt,  was  little  considered. 

The  ceremony,  as  originally  prescribed,  was  imposing. 
The  neophyte  was  first  washed  before  the  sanctuary,  as  a 
typical  cleansing,  and  then  clothed  in  his  robe.  His  head 
was  next  anointed  with  holy  oil,6  and  then  his  priestly  turban 
was  put  on  him.  A  young  ox  was  now  slain  as  a  sin-offering, 
the  priest  putting  his  hands  upon  its  head ;  then  a  ram  fol- 

1  Chron.  xxiii.  24.  *  Ant.,  xv.  3.  3. 

Mischna  Joma,  vol.  i.  p.  7  ;  quoted  by  Winer. 
c.  Apion,  i.  7.    Jost,  vol.  i.  p.  154. 

Lightfoot's  Temple  Service ;  quoted  in  Diet,  of  BilU :  Art.  Prifst. 
Lev.  iv.   3,  16  ;   vi.  20.     Exod.    xxix..  1-37 ;   xxviii.  41 ;   xi.  13-15, 
Lev.  xxi.  10. 


ORDINATION  AND  DEESS   OF  PEIESTS.  85 

lowed,  as  a  whole  burnt  offering,  and  after  that,  a  second  ram 
as  an  offering  of  consecration,  and  this  was  the  crowning 
feature  in  the  rite.  Some  of  the  warm  blood  of  the  victim 
was  put  on  the  right  ear,  the  right  thumb,  and  the  right  great 
toe  of  the  candidate,  to  show  his  complete  consecration  to  the 
service  of  Jehovah.  He  was  then  sprinkled  with  the  blood 
flowing  from  the  altar,  and  with  the  holy  oil,  as  if  to  convey 
to  him  their  purifying  virtues,  and  transform  him  into  another 
man.  This  sprinkling  was  the  sign  of  completed  consecration ; 
he  was  now  a  priest.  The  pieces  of  the  ram  for  the  altar, 
with  the  meat-offering  that  accompanied  them,  were  put  into 
his  hands,  to  show  that  he  could,  henceforth,  himself  prepare 
what  was  needed  for  the  altar  services.  Having  laid  them 
on  the  altar,  other  ceremonies  followed.  The  pieces  of  the 
sacrifice  usually  given  to  the  priest  were  consumed  as  a 
special  sin-offering,  and  with  their  burning  on  the  altar  the 
installation  into  office  ended.  The  first  day,  however,  did  not 
close  the  ceremonies.  The  same  sacrifices  offered  on  this  day 
were  required  to  be  repeated  on  each  of  the  seven  days  fol- 
lowing, that  the  solemnity  of  the  act  might  be  felt  by  all.  It 
had  been  thus  in  the  early  and  glorious  days  of  the  priesthood, 
but  how  many  of  these  ceremonies  were  observed  under  the 
second  Temple  is  not  known.1 

The  official  dress  of  a  priest,  like  that  of  the  priests  of 
ancient  Egypt,  was  of  white  linen.  On  his  head  he  wore  a 
kind  of  turban  in  his  ministrations,  reverence  demanding 
that  he  should  not  enter  the  presence  of  Jehovah  uncovered, 
and  for  the  same  reason  his  feet  were  left  bare,  the  ground 
on  which  he  stood,  in  the  near  vision  of  the  Almighty,  being 
holy.1  The  full  official  dress  was  worn  only  in  the  Temple, 
and  was  kept  there  by  a  special  guardian,  when  the  minis- 
trations ended  for  the  time.2  In  private  life  a  simpler  dress 
was  worn,3  but  whether  in  his  service  at  the  Temple  or  at  his 
house,  he  was  still  a  priest,  even  to  the  eye.  The  richly 
ornamented  dress  of  the  high  priest — the  "  golden  vestment," 
as  it  was  called  by  the  Rabbis  4 — was,  of  course,  much  more 
costly  than  that  of  his  brethren,  and  passed  down  from  one 
high  priest  to  another.  It  marks  the  character  of  the  times 
that,  under  the  Romans,  it  was  kept  in  their  hands,  and  only 
given  out  to  the  high  priest,  for  use,  when  needed.5  m 

1  Exod.  iii.  5.        *  Mischna  Scliekal,  v.  1.        *  Bell.  Jud.,  v.  5.  7. 

*  Godwyn's  Aaron  and  Moses,  p.  15*     Jost,  Tol.  i.  p.  150. 

*  Jos.,  Ant.,  xviii.  4.  3  ;  xx.  1.  1. 


66  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

The  duties  of  the  priests  were  many  and  various.  It  was 
their  awful  and  peculiar  honour  to  "  come  near  the  Lord."  * 
None  but  they  could  minister  before  Him,  in  the  Holy  Place 
where  He  manifested  His  presence :  none  others  could  "  come 
nigh  the  vessels  of  the  sanctuary  or  the  altar."  It  was  death 
for  any  one  not  a  priest  to  usurp  these  sacred  prerogatives. 
They  offered  the  morning  and  evening  incense ;  trimmed  the 
lamps  of  the  golden  candlestick,  and  filled  them  with  oil ;  set 
out  the  shewbread  weekly ;  kept  up  the  fire  on  the  great  altar 
in  front  of  the  Temple ;  removed  the  ashes  of  the  sacrifices  ; 
took  part  in  the  slaying  and  cutting  up  of  victims,  and 
especially  in  the  sprinkling  of  their  blood;  and  laid  the 
offerings  of  all  kinds  on  the  altar.  They  also  announced  the 
new  moons,  which  were  sacred"  days,  like  the  Sabbaths,  by 
the  blowing  of  trumpets.  But  this  was  a  small  part  of  their 
duties.  They  had  to  examine  all  cases  of  ceremonial  unclean- 
ness,  especially  leprosy,  clearing  those  who  were  pure,  and 
pronouncing  others  unclean ;  3  to  estimate,  for  commutation, 
the  value  of  the  countless  offerings  vowed  to  the  Temple,3 
and  to  watch  the  interior  of  the  Temple  by  night.4  They  were 
required,  moreover,  to  instruct  the  people  in  the  niceties  of 
the  Law,5  and  to  give  decisions  on  many  points 6  reserved, 
among  us,  to  magistrates.  The  priests,  in  fact,  were,  within 
certain  limits,  the  judges  and  magistrates  of  the  land,-  though 
the  Sanhedrim,  which  was  the  supreme  court  in  later  Jewish 
history,  was  composed  of  chief  priests,  laymen,  and  scribes,  or 
Rabbis,  in  apparently  equal  numbers.8  ° 

It  was  necessary  that  an  officiating  priest  should  be  in 
every  point  ceremonially  "  clean  "  during  his  period  of  duty, 
for  a  priest  who  was  not  "clean"  could  not  enter  the  Temple.9 
A  wise  law  prohibited  his  tasting  wine  or  strong  drink  daring 
the  term  of  his  service.  The  demonstrations  of  grief  common 
to  the  nation  were  unlawful  in  him ;  he  must  not  rend  his 
garments,  or  cut  himself,  or  shave  his  beard  or  head,  what- 
ever befell  him  or  his.10p  Contact  with  the  dead  was  to  be 
carefully  shunned  as  a  defilement.11 

1  Exod.  xix.  22.  Num.  xvi.  5 ;  xviii.  3. 

*  Matt.  viii.  4.     Mark  i.  44.    Luke  v.  14.  8  Lev.  xxvii. 

4  Mischna  Middoth,  i.  1 ;  quoted  by  Winer.  *  Mai.  ii.  7. 

6  Deut.  xvii.  82.  '<  Jos.,  c.  Apion,  ii.  22. 

8  Dr.  Ginsburg  :  Art.  Sanhedrim,  in  Kitto's  Cydo.  Schurer's  LeJirbuch, 
p.  410.  Schneckenburger's  Vorlesungcn,  p.  129.  Hausrath's  Zeitge- 
gchichte,  p.  69. 

8  Jos.,  Bell.  Jud.,  v.  5.  7.        w  Lev.  x.  6  ;  xxi.  5.        "  Lev.  xxi.  I, 


SUPPORT   OF   THE   PRIESTHOOD.  87 

The  same  ideal  purity,  as  of  one  holy  to  the  Lord,  marked 
the  laws  of  the  priest's  marriage,  for  he  could  only  marry  a 
virgin,  or  a  widow  who  had  not  been  divorced,  and  she  must 
be  a  pure  Israelite  lawfully  born.1  q  The  daughters  of  priests 
were  hold  in  special  honour,  and  marriage  of  priests  with 
them  was  in  high  favour.  A  priest,  says  Josephus,  must 
marry  a  wife  of  his  own  nation,  without  having  any  regard 
to  money,  or  other  dignities  ;  but  he  is  to  make  a  scrutiny, 
and  take  his  wife's  genealogy  from  the  ancient  records,  and 
procure  many  witnesses  to  it,3  just  as  his  own  had  been  care- 
fully tested  before  his  consecration.  An  order  thus  guarded 
by  countless  special  laws  must  have  been  as  sacred  in  the 
eyes  of  the  multitude  as  the  almost  similarly  exclusive  Brah- 
mins of  India.  Josephus  could  make  no  boast  of  which  he 
felt  so  proud  as  that  he  belonged  to  such  a  sacerdotal 
nobility.3 

Thirteen  towns,  mostly  near  Jerusalem,  and  thus  affording 
easy  access  to  it,  when  their  duties  called  them  to  the  Temple, 
were  assigned  to  the  priests.4  During  their  term  of  service 
they  lived  in  rooms  in  the  Temple  buildings,  but  they  came 
there  alone,  leaving  their  households  behind  them. 

For  the  support  of  the  order,  provision  had  been  made  from 
the  earliest  times,  by  assigning  them  part  of  the  various 
tithes  paid  by  the  people;5  fees  for  the  redemption  of  the 
first-born  of  man  or  beast,  and  in  commutation  of  vows,  and 
what  may  be  called  the  perquisites  of  their  office — the  shew- 
bread,  heave-offerings,  parts  of  the  sacrifices,  the  first-fruits 
of  corn,  wine,  and  oil,  and  other  things  of  the  same  kind.6 
Officiating  priests  were  thus  secured  in  moderate  comfort,  if 
they  received  a  fair  proportion  of  their  dues,  and  the  whole 
order  had,  besides,  the  great  advantage  of  freedom  from  any 
tax,7  and  from  military  service. 

Among  the  members  of  this  sacred  caste  ministering  in  the 
Temple,  in  the  autumn  of  the  sixth  year'  before  that  with 
which  the  Christian  era,  as  commonly  reckoned,  commences, 
was  one  who  had  come  up,  apparently,  from  Hebron.'  Ho 
was  now  an  elderly  man,  and  had  left  behind  him,  at  hornet 

1  Ezra  x.  18.    Lev.  xxi.  7.  *  c.  Apion,  i.  7. 

»  Vit.,  i.  *  Josh.  xxi.  1-42.    Luke  x.  81. 

6  Lev.  ii.  14 ;  ch.  xxvii.  Num.  xviii.  14-19,  26-28 ;  xxxi.  25-47. 
Deut.  xiv.  28  ;  xxvi.  12. 

s  Lev.  vii.  31,  33 ;  ii.  3,  10 ;  vii.  10 ;  x.  13,  14 ;  xxiv.  9,  etc.  Matt, 
xii.  4. 

'•  Ezra  vii.  24.     Ant.,  xii.  3.  3. 


88  THE   LIFE   OE  CHRIST. 

a  childless  wife — Elisabeth  by  name* — like  himself,  advanced 
in  years.  The  two  were  in  the  fullest  sense  "  Israelites  in- 
deed :  "  their  family  records  had  established  their  common 
descent  from  Aaron,  and  their  lives  proved  their  lofty  reali- 
zation of  the  national  faith,  for  "  they  were,  both,  righteous 
before  God,  walking  in  all  the  commandments  and  ordi- 
nances n  of  the  Lord  blameless."  1 

But,  notwithstanding  all  the  satisfaction  and  inward  peaco 
of  innocent  and  godly  lives,  in  spite  of  the  natural  pride  they, 
doubtless,  felt  in  the  consideration  that  must  have  been  shown 
them,  as  born  of  a  priestly  ancestry,  stretching  back  through 
fifteen  hundred  years,  and  though  they  must  have  had  around 
them  the  comforts  of  a  modest  competency,  there  was  a  secret 
grief  in  the  heart  of  both.  Elisabeth  had  no  child,  and  what 
this  meant  to  a  Hebrew  wife  it  is  hard  for  us  to  fancy. 
Rachel's  words,  "  Give  me  children,  or  else  I  die,"  2  were  the 
burden  of  every  childless  woman's  heart  in  Israel.  The  birth 
of  a  child  was  the  removal  of  a  reproach.3  Hannah's  prayer* 
for  a  son  was  that  of  all  Jewish  wives  in  the  same  position. 
To  have  no  child  was  regarded  as  a  heavy  punishment  from 
the  hand  of  God.6  How  bitter  the  thought  that  his  name 
should  perish  was  for  a  Jew  to  bear,  is  seen  in  the  law  which 
required  that  a  childless  widow  should  be,  forthwith,  married 
by  a  dead  husband's  brother,  that  children  might  be  raised 
up  to  preserve  the  memory  of  the  childless  man,  by  being 
accounted  his.6  Nor  was  it  enough  that  one  brother  of  a 
number  acted  thus :  in  the  imaginary  instance  given  by  ih* 
Sadducees  to  our  Lord,  seven  brothers,7  in  succession,  took  a 
dead  brother's  wife  for  this  object.  The  birth  of  a  child  was 
therefore  a  special  blessing,8  as  a  security  that  the  name  of 
his  father  "  should  not  be  cut  off  from  among  his  brethren, 
and  from  the  gate  of  his  place,"  and  that  it  should  not  be 
"  put  out  of  Israel."  9  Ancient  nations,  generally,  seem  to 
have  had  this  feeling,10  and  it  is  still  so  strong  among 
Orientals,  that  after  the  birth  of  a  first-born  son,  a  father 
and  a  mother  are  no  longer  known  by  their  own  names,  but 
as  the  father  and  mother  of  the  child.*  There  was,  besides, 
a  higher  thought  of  possible  relations,  however  distant,  to 

1  Luke  i.  6.  2  Gen.  xxx.  1. 

•  Gen.  xxx.  2,  3.     Job  xxiv.  21.  *  1  Sam.  i.  11. 

•  Gen.  xx.  18.     Hos.  ix.  14.     Jer.  xxix.  32  ;  xxxv.  19. 

•  Matt.  xxii.  23.  ?  Matt.  xxii.  23.    Deut.  xxv.  5,  6.    Ruth  iv.  10 
8  Ps.  cxxvii.  3.     1  Sara.  iv.  20.  9  Deut.  xxv.  6.     Ruth  iv.  10. 

10  Herod.,  vol.  i.  p.  136.     Strabo,  vol.  xv.  p.  504. 


THE   TEMPLE.  89 

the  great  expected  Messiah,  by  the  birth  of  children;  but 
Zacharias  and  Elisabeth  had  reason  enough  to  sorrow  at  their 
childless  home,  even  on  the  humbler  ground  of  natural  senti- 
ments. They  had  grieved  over  their  misfortune,  and  had 
made  it  the  burden  of  many  prayers,  but  years  passed,  and 
they  had  both  grown  elderly,  and  yet  no  child  had  been 
vouchsafed  them. 

The  autumn  service  of  the  course  of  Abia  had  taken 
Zacharias  to  Jerusalem,  and  his  week  of  Temple  duty  was 
passing.  As  a  ministering  priest  he  had  a  chamber  in  the 
cloisters  that  ran  along  the  sides  of  the  outer  Temple  court. 
His  office  took  him  day  by  day,  in  his  white  official  robes,  to 
the  fourth  and  inmost  space,  immediately  beside  the  sanctuary 
itself,  a  part  into  which  none  could  enter  but  priests  wearing 
their  sacred  garments.  This  court  rose  above  three  other 
spaces,  all,  in  succession,  lower1 — the  cottrt  of  the  men, 
that  of  the  women,  and  that  of  foreigners  who  had  become 
Jews  2 — each,  separated  from  the  other  by  marble  walls  or 
balustrades,  and  approached  only  by  great  gates,  famous 
throughout  the  world  for  their  magnificence.  Above,  in 
the  central  space,  stood  the  sanctuary,  springing  from  a  level 
fifteen  steps  higher  than  the  court  of  the  Israelites,  next, 
below  it,  and  thus  visible  from  all  parts,  as  the  crown  and 
glory  of  the  whole  terraced  structure.  It  was  built  of  blocks 
of  fine  white  marble,  each  about  37  feet7  in  length,  12  in 
height,  and  18  in  breadth,3  the  courses  which  formed  the 
foundations  measuring,  in  some  cases,  the  still  huger  size  of 
70  feet  in  length,  9  in  width,  and  8  in  height.4  The  whole 
area  enclosed  within  the  Temple  bounds  formed  a  square  of 
600  or  900  f eet,z  and  over  the  highest  level  of  this  rose  the 
gilded  walls  of  the  sanctuary,  a  building,  perhaps,  about  150 
feet  long  by  90  broad,5  with  two  wings  or  shoulders  of  30 
feet  each,  on  a  line  with  the  facade,  the  whole  surmounted 
by  a  roof  glittering  with  gilded  spikes,  to  prevent  pollution 
from  above  by  unclean  birds  alighting  on  it."* 

When  it  is  remembered  that  the  natural  surface  of  (he hill 
on  which  these  amazing  structures  were  built  was  altogether 
too  contracted  and  steep  to  supply  the  level  space  needed, 
the  grandeur  of  the  architecture  as  a  whole  will  be  even  more 


1  Jos.,  Bett.Jud.,  v.  5.  2.  *  Jos.,  c.  Apion,  ii.  8. 

»  Jos.,  Ant.,  xv.  11.  3.  *  Bell.  Jud.,  v.  5.  6. 

•  Mr.  James  Fergusson  in  Diet,  of  Bible:  Art.  Temple.    Merx  in  Her 
tog,  xv.  514  ff. 


90  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

apparent.  The  plateau  of  the  successive  courts  was  only 
secured  by  building  up  a  wall  from  the  valley  beneath,  to  the 
height  required,  and  this,  on  the  south  side,  required  a  solid 
mass  of  masonry  about  600  feet  in  length,  and  almost  equal  in 
height  to  the  tallest  of  our  church  spires,  while  on  the  top  of 
an  erection  so  unequalled,  rose  the  magnificent  Royal  Porch, 
a  building  longer  and  higher  than  York  Cathedral.1  No  won- 
der Josephus  calls  such  a  wall  "  the  most  prodigious  work  ever 
heard  of,"  nor  that  its  surpassing  magnificence,  in  these  years, 
when  its  dazzling  whiteness  shone  fresh  from  the  mason's 
hands,  should  have  gone  abroad  to  all  countries.2 

The  sanctuary  itself  was  divided  into  two  unequal  parts — 
the  Holy  and  the  Holy  of  Holies.bb  Before  the  porch  stood 
the  great  altar  for  burnt  offerings,  with  rows  of  rings, — to 
which  the  beasts  for  sacrifice  were  tied, — sunk  in  the  pave- 
ment, near, — while  a  line  of  cedar  beams,  resting  on  eight 
low  pillars,  gave  the  priests  the  means  of  hanging  up  the 
slaughtered  victims,  to  dress  them  for  the  altar.  The  Holy 
of  Holies,  the  inmost  division  of  the  sanctuary,  was  left  an 
awful  solitude  throughout  the  year,  except  on  the  great  Day 
of  Atonement,  on  which  the  high  priest  entered  it  alone.  In 
the  Temple  standing  in  Christ's  day  it  was  entirely  empty,3 
unless,  indeed,  the  tradition  of  the  Mischna  4  be  correct,  that 
a  stone  stood  in  it,  instead  of  the  long-lost  Ark  of  the  Cove- 
nant, as  a  spot  on  which  the  high  priest  could  rest  his  censer. 
Great  gates,00  plated  with  gold,  shut  in  this  awful  chamber, 
and  a  thick  veil  of  Babylonian  tapestry,  in  which  blue  and 
scarlet  and  purple  were  woven  into  a  fabric  of  matchless 
beauty  and  enormous  value — the  veil  that  was  afterwards 
rent  in  twain  at  the  time  of  the  crucifixion  ° — hung  before  it, 
dividing  it  from  the  Holy  Place,  and  shutting  out  all  light 
from  its  mysterious  depths.dd 

The  entrance  to  the  Holy  Place  was  by  two  doors,  of  vast 
height  and  breadth,  covered  with  plates  of  gold,6  as  was  the 
whole  front  on  each  side  of  them,  over  a  breadth  of  thirty 
feet,  and  a  height  of  fully  a  hundred  and  thirty.7  The  upper 
part,  over  the  gates,  which  remained  always  open,  was  covered 
by  an  ornamentation  of  great  golden  vines,68  from  which  hung 
clusters  of  grapes  the  length  of  a  man's  stature.  No  wonder 
Josephus  adds  that  such  a  front  wanted  nothing  that  could 

1  The  Recovery  of  Jerusalem,  p.  9.  2  Jos.,  Ant.,  xv.  11.  3. 

'  Hell.  Jud.,  v.  5.  5.        *  Mischna  Joma,  v.  2.        6  Matt,  xxvii.  51. 
e  Jos.,  BclLJud.,  v.  5.  5.  1  J0s.,  Bell.  Jud.,  v.  5.  4. 


THE   TEMPLE   SEEVICE.  91 

give  an  idea  of  splendour,  since  the  plates  of  gold,  of  great 
weight,  as  he  adds,  reflected  the  rays  of  the  morning  sun  with 
a  dazzling  brightness,  from  which  the  eyes  turned  away 
overpowered.1  When  the  gates  of  the  Holy  Place  were 
opened,  all  was  seen  as  far  as  the  inner  veil,  and  all  glittered 
with  a  surface  of  beaten  gold. 

In  the  Holy  Place  stood  only  three  things :  the  golden 
candlestick  with  its  seven  lamps,  in  allusion  to  the  seven 
planets;3  the  table  of  shewbread;  and  between  them,  the 
altar  of  incense.  In  the  entrance,  which  was  merely  the  open 
fore-half  of  the  sanctuary,  and,  like  the  rest  of  the  front,  was 
covered  with  plates  of  gold,  stood  two  tables,  one  of  marble, 
the  other  of  gold,  on  which  the  priests,  at  their  entering  or 
coming  out  of  the  Holy  Place,  laid  the  old  shewbread  and  the 
new.3  Before  the  entrance,  in  the  court  of  the  priests,  siood 
the  great  altar  of  burnt  offering,  of  unhewn  stone,  which  no 
tool  had  touched,  and  the  brazen  laver,4  in  which  the  priests 
washed  their  hands  and  feet  before  beginning  their  ministra- 
tions. 

"  In  the  morning,"  says  Josephus,5  "  at  the  opening  of  the 
inner  temple,"  that  is,  of  the  court  of  the  priests,  "  those  who 
are  to  officiate,  receive  the  sacrifices,  as  they  do  again  at  noon. 
It  is  not  lawful  to  carry  any  vessel  into  the  holy  house. 
When  the  days  are  over  in  which  a  course  of  priests  officiates, 
other  priests  succeed  in  the  performance  of  the  sacrifices,  and 
assemble  together  at  mid-day  and  receive  the  keys  of  the 
Temple,  and  the  vessels."  Among  the  various  priestly  duties 
none  was  of  such  esteem  as  the  offering  of  incense.  The  heat 
of  eastern  and  southern  countries,  by  its  nnpleasant  physical 
effects,  doubtless  first  led  to  the  practice  of  burning  odorous 
substances,  though  luxury  and  mere  indulgence  soon  adopted 
it.  Ultimately,  not  only  chambers,  clothes,6  and  furniture 
were  thus  perfumed,  but  the  beards  and  whole  persons  of 
guests,  in  great  houses,  at  their  coming  and  leaving.7  Buin- 
ing  censers  were  waved  before  princes,  and  altars,  on  which 
incense  was  burned,  were  raised  before  them  in  the  streets, 
when  they  entered  towns  or  cities.8  .  Thus  esteemed  a  mark 
of  the  highest  honour,  the  custom  was  early  transferred  to 

1  Jos.,  Bell.  Jud.,  v.  6.  6;  c.  Apion,  ii.  8.  2  Ant.,  Hi.  6.  7. 

•  Bell.  Jud.,  v.  5.  6.  *  Exod.  xxx.  18.         *  c.  Apion,  ii.  8. 

•  Song  of  Sol.  iii.  6. 

7  Harmer's  Observations,  vol.  ii.  p.  83.  Eosenmuller,  Morgenl.,  vol.  iv. 
rp.  157,  195. 

•  Curt.,  v.  1.  20. 


92  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

religious  worship,  in  the  "belief  that  the  Deity  delighted  in  the 
odours  thus  offered.  Hence  it  became  a  part  of  the  recognised 
worship  of  Jehovah,1  the  Mosaic  law  requiring  incense  to  be 
burnt  on  the  altar  with  many  offerings.2  A  daily  incense 
offering  morning  and  evening,  on  a  special  altar,  in  the  Holy 
Place,  at  the  times  of  trimming  and  kindling  the  sacred 
lamps,3  was  also  ordained,  and  another  yearly,  in  the  Holy  of 
Holies,  by  the  high  priest,  on  the  great  Day  of  Atonement.* 

The  daily  incense  offering  required  the  ministration  of  two 
priests,ff  one  of  whom  bore  the  incense  in  a  special  vessel ;  the 
other,  glowing  embers  in  a  golden  fire-pan,  from  the  altar  of 
burnt  sacrifice  before  the  entrance  of  the  Holy  Place,5  and 
these  he  spread  on  an  altar  within.  The  first  priest  then 
spriakled  the  incense  on  the  burning  coals,  an  office  held  so 
honourable 6  that  no  one  was  allowed  to  perform  it  twice,8* 
since  it  brought  the  offering  priest  nearer  the  Divine  Presence 
in  the  Holy  of  Holies  than  any  other  priestly  act,  and 
carried  with  it  the  richest  blessing  from  on  high,  which  all 
ought  to  have  a  chance  of  thus  obtaining.  Like  the  rest  of 
the  sacred  functions,  it  was  determined  daily  by  lot.hh 

During  the  burning  of  the  incense,  each  morning  and  night, 
the  worshippers  in  the  different  courts  remained  in  silent 
prayer,  their  faces  towards  the  holy  spot  where  the  symbol  of 
their  devotions  was  ascending  in  fragrant  clouds  towards 
heaven :  their  fondest  hope  being  that  their  prayer  might 
rise  up,7  odorous  and  well-pleasing  like  it,  towards  Jehovah. 
While  the  priests  entered,  morning  and  evening,  into  the 
Holy  Place,  with  its  seven  lamps  burning  night  and  day  for 
ever,  the  memento  of  the  awful  presence  in  the  pillar  of  fire 
that  had  guarded  them  of  old,u  and  its  table  of  "  continual 
bread  "  tt  of  the  presence — a  male  lamb,  with  the  due  fruit  and 
drink-offering  connected  with  such  a  sacrifice,  was  ready  to 
be  offered  on  the  great  altar  of  burnt  offering  outside.8  The 
atoning  sacrifice,  and  the  clouds  of  incense,  the  outward 
symbol  of  the  prayers  of  the  people,  were  thus  indissolubly 
associated,  and  so  holy  were  they  in  all  eyes,  that  the  hoars 
sacred  to  them  were  known  as  those  of  the  morning  and  the 
evening  sacrifice.9  They  served,  still  further,  to  set  a  time, 


1  Deut.  xxxiii.  10.  «  Lev.  ii.  1  ff. ;  vi.  15.  8  Exod.  xl.  27. 

4  Lev.  xvi.  12.  •  See  Isa.  vi.  6.  •  Jos.,  Ant.,  xiii.  10.  3. 

1  Ps.  cxli.  2. 

•  Two  lambs  were  offered  on  Sabbaths,  Num.  xxviii.  9,  10. 

»  1  Kings  xviii.  29.  36. 


ZACHARIAS   IN   THE   HOLT  PLACE.  93 

throughout  the  Jewish  world,  for  the  morning  and  evening 
prayers  of  all  Israel,  and  thns,  when  the  priest  stood  by  the 
incense  altar,  and  the  flame  of  the  burnt  offering,  outside, 
ascended,  the  prayers  offered  in  the  Temple  courts  were 
repeated  all  over  the  land,  and  even  in  every  region,  however 
distant,  to  which  a  godly  Jew  had  wandered. 

On  the  day  when  our  narrative  opens,  the  lot  for  the  daily 
incense  offering  had  fallen  on  Zacharias.  In  his  white  sacer- 
dotal robes,  with  covered  head  and  naked  feet,  at  the  tinkling 
of  the  bell  which  announced  that  the  morning  or  evening 
sacrifice  was  about  to  be  laid  on  the  great  altar,  he  entered 
the  Holy  Place,  that  the  clouds  of  the  incense,  which  sym- 
bolized Israel's  prayers,  might  herald  the  way  for  the  smoke 
of  the  victim  presently  to  be  burned  in  their  stead.11  In  a 
place  so  sacred,  separated  only  by  a  veil  from  the  Holy  of 
Holies,  the  awful  presence  chamber  of  the  Almighty — a  place 
where  God  had  already  shown  that  He  was  near,  by  human 
words  to  the  officiating  priest  mm — at  a  moment  so  solemn, 
when  it  had  fallen  to  him  to  enjoy  an  awful  honour  which 
most  of  his  brethren  could  not  expect  to  obtain,  and  which 
could  never  be  repeated,  he  must  have  been  well-nigh  over- 
powered with  emotion.  At  the  tinkling  of  the  bell  all  the 
priests  and  Levites  took  their  stations  through  the  Temple 
courts,  and  he  and  his  helper  began  their  ministrations. 

And  now  the  coals  are  laid  on  the  altar,  the  helping  priest 
retires,  and  Zacharias  is  left  alone  with  the  mysterious,  ever- 
burning lamps,  and  the  glow  of  the  altar  which  was  believed 
to  have  been  kindled,  at  first,  from  the  pillar  of  fire  in  the 
desert,  and  to  have  been  kept  unquenched,  by  miracle,  since 
then.1^  He  pours  the  incense  on  the  flames,  and  its  fragrance 
rises  in  clouds,  which  are  the  symbol  of  the  prayers  of  Israel, 
now  rising  over  all  the  earth.  As  the  intercessor  for  his 
people,  for  the  time,  he,  too,  joins  his  supplications. 

We  need  not  question  what  the  burden  of  that  prayer 
must  have  been,  with  one,  who,  like  him,  "  waited  for  the 
Consolation  of  Israel,"  and  "  looked  for  Redemption."  1  It 
was,  doubtless,  that  the  sins  of  the  nation,  his  own  sins,  and 
the  sins  of  his  household,2  might  be  forgiven ;  that  Jehovah 
would  accept  the  atonement  of  the  lamb  presently  to  burn 
on  the  great  altar  in  their  stead ;  and  that  the  long-expected 
Hope  of  Israel,  the  Messiah  foretold  by  prophets,  might  soon 
appear. 

1  Luke  ii.  25,  38.  *  Lev.  xvi.  17. 


94  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

While  lie  prays,  there  stands  a  mysterious  Presence  before 
him,  on  the  right  side  of  the  altar,  the  side  of  good  omen,  as 
the  angels,  afterwards,  appeared  at  the  right  side,  in  the  Holy 
Sepulchre,1  and  as  Christ  was  seen,  by  the  martyr  Stephen, 
standing  on  the  Right  Hand  of  God.2  No  wonder  he  was 
alarmed  at  such  a  sight,  in  such  a  place.  Fear  of  the  super- 
natural is  instinctive.  In  the  history  of  his  own  nation, 
which  Zacharias,  like  every  Jew,  knew  so  well,  Jacob  had  held 
it  a  wonder  that  he  had,  as  he  believed,  seen  God  face  to  face, 
and  that  his  life  was  preserved  ;  3  Jehovah  Himself  nad  hid- 
den Moses  in  a  cleft  of  the  rock,  that  he  might  see  the  divine 
glory  only  after  it  had  passed  by,  "  For  no  man,"  He  had 
said,  "  shall  see  Me  and  live."4  The  stout-hearted  Gideon 
had  trembled  at  the  sight  of  an  angel ; 5  Manoah  had  expected 
to  die  after  a  similar  vision ;  6  and  when  Daniel  saw  the  very 
angel7  now  before  Zacharias  "there  remained  no  strength 
in  him." 

But  Gabriel  had  come  on  a  mission  befitting  the  world 
from  which  he  had  been  sent.  The  hour  had  arrived  when 
the  prayer  which  Zacharias,  and  those  like  him,  had  so  long 
raised,  should  be  heard.  The  Messiah  was  about  to  be  revealed, 
and  the  faithful  priest  who  had  so  longed  for  His  appearing 
would  be  honoured  by  a  relationship  to  Him.  He  had  for 
many  a  year  desired  a  son :  not  only  would  his  wish  be  granted, 
at  last,  but  the  son  to  be  born  would  be  the  prophet,  long 
announced,  to  go  before  the  Expected  One,  to  prepare  His 
way.8  He  need  not  fear:  he  who  speaks  is  Gabriel,  the 
archangel,  who  stands  in  the  presence  of  God,  and  as  one  who 
thus  always  beholds  the  face  of  the  Great  Father  in  heaven, 
he  has  a  tender  love  to  His  children  on  earth.  Had  Zacharias 
thought  how  the  skies  rejoice  at  a  sinner's  repenting ; 9  how 
the  angels  are  always  near  us  when  we  pray ; 10  how  they  bear 
our  prayers  into  the  presence  of  God  ;  n  and  how,  at  last,  they 
guide  the  souls  of  the  just  to  everlasting  joy  ;12  he  would  have 
rejoiced  even  while  he  trembled. 

But  the  heart  is  slow  to  receive  the  access  of  any  sudden 
joy,  and  to  lay  aside  disappointment.  The  thought  rises  in 
the  heart  of  Zacharias  that  the  glad  tidings  of  the  birth  of 
the  Messiah  may  well  be  true ;  but,  as  to  the  son  promised  to 


1  Mark  svi.  5.  •  Acts  vii.  55.     8  Gen.  xxxii.  30.     *  Exod.  xsxiii.  20. 

»  Jud.  vi.  22.  6  Jud.  xiii.  22.               ^  Dan.  viii.  16 ;  ix.  21 ;  x.  8. 

•  Luke  i.  76.  9  Luke  xv.  10.        10  1  Cor.  xi.  10.          "  Rev.  viii.  3. 
"  Luke  xvi.  22. 


THE  GREAT  DAY  OF  ATONEMENT.        95 

his  wife,  stricken  in  years  as  she  now  is,  can  it  be  possible  ? 
A  sudden  dumbness,  imposed  at  the  angel's  word,  at  once 
rebukes  his  doubt,  and  confirms  his  faith. 

Meanwhile,  the  multitude,  without,  wondered  at  the  delay 
in  his  re-appearance,  to  bless  and  dismiss  them.  The  priest's 
coming  out  of  the  sanctuary  was  the  signal  for  the  lamb 
being  laid  on  the  altar,  and  was  a  moment  of  passing  interest 
in  Jewish  worship.  A  passage  in  that  noble  relic  of  pre» 
Christian  Jewish  literature,  Ecclesiasticus,1  respecting  the 
great  patriot  high  priest,  Simon  the  Just,00  brings  a  similar 
scene,  though  on  a  far  grander  scale,  on  the  great  Day  of 
Atonement,  vividly  before  us.  The  crowds  now  around 
marked  some  other  than  a  common  day,pp  and  we  need  only 
tone  down  the  picture  to  suit  it  to  the  present  case;  for 
Zacharias,  as  a  faithful  priest,  engaged  on  such  a  service, 
was,  for  the  time,  an  object  of  almost  sacred  reverence. 

"  How  glorious  was  he,"  says  the  Son  of  Sirach,  "  before 
the  multitude qq  of  the  people,  in  his  coming  forth  from  within 
the  veil !  ™  He  was  as  the  morning  star  in  the  midst  of  a 
cloud,  and  as  the  moon  when  its  days  are  full ;  as  the  sun 
shining  upon  the  temple  of  the  Most  High,  and  as  the  rain- 
tow  that  glitters  on  the  bright  clouds,  and  as  the  flower  of 
roses  in  the  spring  of  the  year;"*  as  lilies  by  the  rivers  of 
waters,  and  as  the  branches  of  the  frankincense  tree  in  the 
time  of  summer.  .  .  . 

"  When  he  put  on  the  robes  of  state,  and  was  arrayed  in 
all  his  ornaments,  when  he  went  up  to  the  holy  altar,  he 
adorned  the  fore- court  of  the  Sanctuary.  But  when  he 
received  the  pieces  of  the  sacrifice  from  the  hands  of  the 
priests,  and  stood  at  the  side  of  the  altar,  a  crown  of  brethren 
round  him,  then  was  he  like  the  young  cedar  on  Lebanon, 
and  they  were  round  him  like  palm-trees,  and  all  the  sons  of 
Aaron  were  in  their  splendid  robes,  and  the  gifts  for  the 
Lord  in  their  hands,  from  the  whole  congregation  of  Israel. 
And,  when  he  had  finished  the  service  at  the  altars,  that  he 
might  do  honour  to  the  offering  of  the  Most  High,  Almighty, 
he  stretched  forth  his  hand  over  the  sacrifice,  and  poured 
out  the  blood  of  grapes ;  he  poured  it  out  at  the  foot  of  the 
altar,  as  a  sweet-smelling  savour  unto  the  Most  High,  the 
King  of  all.  Then  shouted  the  sons  of  Aaron;  with  the 
silver  trumpets  of  wondrous  workmanship  did  they  sound, 
and  made  a  great  noise  to  be  heard,  for  a  remembrance 

»  Chap.  1.  5-8,  11-21. 


THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

before  the  Most  High."  Then  all  the  people,  together,  hasted, 
and  fell  down  to  the  earth,  upon  their  faces,  to  worship  God, 
the  Lord  _  Almighty,  the  Most  High.  The  singers  also  sang 
praises  with  their  voices ;  with  great  variety  of  sounds  was 
there  made  sweet  melody.  And  the  people  besought  the 
Lord,  the  Most  High,  by  prayer  before  Him  that  is  merciful, 
till  the  glorious  exalting uu  of  the  Lord  was  ended,  and  His 
worship  was  finished. 

"  Then  he  came  down,  and  lifted  up  his  hands  over  the 
whole  congregation  of  the  children  of  Israel,  to  give  the 
blessing  of  the  Lord  with  his  lips,  and  to  glorify  His  name. 
And  they  bowed  themselves  down  to  worship  the  second 
time,  that  they  might  receive  a  blessing  from  the  Most 
High."" 

Fear  lest  any  calamity  might  have  befallen  Zacharias 
added  to  the  rising  excitement.  He  might  have  been  cere- 
monially unclean,  and  the  divine  anger  at  the  Holy  Place 
being  thus  polluted,  might  have  struck  him  down.  The 
offering  priest  never  remained  longer  than  was  necessary  in 
so  august  a  Presence.1  His  appearance,  at  last,  however, 
explained  all.  They  could  receive  no  blessing  that  day,  and 
Zacharias  could  no  longer  minister  in  his  course,  for  he  was 
speechless ; 2  all  he  could  do  was  to  tell  them  by  signs  what 
had  happened.  Had  they  known  it,  his  silence  for  the  time 
was  but  the  prelude  to  the  lasting  silence  of  the  Law,  of  which 
he  was  a  minister,  now  that  Christ  was  about  to  come.yy 

Having  no  more  to  detain  him  at  Jerusalem,  Zacharias 
returned  home,  we  presume,  to  Hebron.3  His  journey,  if 
it  was  in  October,  as  seems  likely,  would  lead  him  through 
the  cheerful  scenes  of  the  grape  harvest— a  great  event,  even 
yet,  in  the  Hebron  district.  Had  it  been  in  April,  at  the 
spring  service,  the  stony  hills,  and  deep  red  or  yellow  soil  of 
the  valleys  through  which  he  had  to  pass,  would  have  been 
ablaze  with  bright  colours;  shrubs,  grass,  gay  weeds,  and 
wild-flowers,  over  all  the  uplands,  and  thickets,  of  varied 
blossom,  sprinkled  with  sheets  of  white  briar  roses,  in  the 
hollows ;  the  beautiful  cyclamen  peeping  from  under  the 
gnarled  roots  of  great  trees,  and  from  amidst  the  roadside 
stones.  Towns  of  stone  houses,  of  which  the  ruins  still 

1  Lightfoot,  Horce  Heb.t  vol.  iii.  p.  23. 

8  A  dumb  priest  could  not  minister.     Lightfoot,  Horoe  Eel). ,  vol  iii. 

P.    2>d. 

3  Ewald.  Kelm  Othon.  Lex.  Ealbin.,  p.  324. 


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CHAPTER 
THE  ANNOUNCEMENT  TO  MART. 

WHILE  Zacharias  and  Elisabeth  were  rejoicing  at  their 
promised  blessing,  in  their  quiet  home  in  the  south, 
there  lived  in  the  village  of  Nazareth  or  Nazara,  over  a 
hundred  miles  to  the  north  of  them,  a  Jew  of  the  name  of 
Joseph,  and  a  simple  maiden  named  Mary,  who  was  betrothed 
to  him  as  his  future  wife.  Though  humble  enough  in  position 
— for  he  was  by  trade  a  carpenter — Joseph  was,  in  reality, 
of  the  noblest  blood  of  his  race,  for  he  could  claim  descent 
from  the  ancient  kings  of  his  nation,  and  was  the  legal  heir 
to  the  throne  of  David  and  Solomon. 

It  needs  not  surprise  us  that  the  representative  of  such  an 
illustrious  ancestry  should  be  found  in  a  station  so  obscure. 
In  the  book  of  Judges,1  we  find  a  grandson  of  Moses  reduced 
to  engage  himself  as  family  priest,  in  Mount  Ephraim,  for  a 
yearly  wage  of  "ten  shekels,  a  suit  of  apparel,  and  his 
victuals."  a  At  the  present  day,  the  green  turban  which  marks 
descent  from  Mahomet  is  often  worn  in  the  East  by  the  very 
poor,  and  even  by  beggars.  In  our  own  history,  the  glory 
of  the  once  illustrious  Plantagenets  so  completely  waned,  that 
the  direct  representative  of  Margaret  Plantagenet,  daughter 
and  heiress  of  George  Duke  of  Clarence,  followed  the  trade 
of  a  cobbler  in  Newport,  Shropshire,  in  1637.  Among  the 
lineal  descendants  of  Edmund  of  Woodstock,  sixth  son  of 
Edward  I.,  and  entitled  to  quarter  the  royal  arms,  were  a 
village  butcher,  and  a  keeper  of  a  turnpike  gate,  and  among 
the  descendants  of  Thomas  Plantagenet,  Duke  of  Gloucester, 
fifth  son  of  Edward  III.,  was  included  the  late  sexton  of  a 
London  church.2  The  vicissitudes  of  the  Jewish  nation  for 
century  after  century ;  its  deportation  to  Babylon,  and  long 
suspension  of  national  life;  its  succession  of  high-priestly 
rulers,  after  the  return ;  its  transition  to  the  Asmonean  line, 

1  Chap,  xviii.  30 ;  xvii.  10.          3  Burke's  Anecdotes  of  The  Peerage. 


HEBEEW  BETEOTHAL.  99 

and,  finally,  the  reign  of  the  Idumean  honse  of  Herod,  with 
all  the  storm  and  turmoil  which  marked  so  many  changes, 
had  left,  to  use  the  figure  of  Isaiah,1  only  a  root  in  a  dry 
{{round,  a  humble  citizen  of  Nazareth,  as  the  heir  of  its 
ancient  royalty .b 

In  the  same  city  lived  a  family,  which,  like  that  of  Joseph, 
seems  to  have  been  long  settled  there.  The  names  of  the 
parents  we  do  not  know,  but  they  had  three  daughters,0  one 
of  whom,  Mary,  was  betrothed  to  Joseph.  The  relation  thus 
created  was  familiar  to  our  own  ancestors  as  late  as  the  time 
of  Shakespere,2  and  was  equivalent  to  a  civil  contract  of 
marriage,  to  be  duly  followed  by  the  religious  rite.  Among 
the  Jews  of  Mary's  day,  it  was  even  more  of  an  actual  engage- 
ment. The  betrothal  was  formally  made,  with  rejoicings,  in 
the  house  of  the  bride,  under  a  tent  or  slight  canopy  raised 
for  the  purpose.3  It  was  called  the  "  making  sacred,"d  as  the 
bride,  thenceforth,  was  sacred  to  her  husband,  in  the  strictest 
sense.  To  make  it  legal,  the  bridegroom  gave  his  betrothed 
a  piece  of  money,6  or  the  worth  of  it,  before  witnesses,  with 
the  words,  "  Lo,  thou  art  betrothed  unto  me,"  or  by  a  formal 
writing,  in  which  similar  words,  and  the  maiden's  name, 
were  given,  and  this,  in  the  same  way,  was  handed  to  her 
before  witnesses.  Betrothals  were  commonly  arranged  by 
the  fathers,  or  in  case  of  their  being  dead,  by  the  mothers, 
or  guardians,  and  the  consent  of  any  brothers  the  maiden 
might  have  was  required.4  In  the  earlier  ages,  verbal 
agreements,  sometimes  confirmed  by  oath,5  before  witnesses, 
were  most  in  use,  but  after  the  Return,  written  forms  became 
the  rule. 

Though  betrothal  was  virtually  marriage,  and  could  only 
be  broken  off  by  a  formal  "bill  of  divorcement,"  the  be- 
trothed did  not  at  once  go  to  her  husband's  house.  To  give 
her  time  for  preparation,  and  to  soften  the  pain  of  parting 
from  her  friends,  or,  perhaps,  in  part,  to  let  them  get  a  longer 
benefit  of  her  household  services,  an  interval  elapsed  beforo 
the  final  ceremony ;  it  might  be  so  many  weeks,  or  months, 
or  even  a  whole  year.* 

It  was  now  the  sixth  month  from  the  appearance  of  Gabriel 
to  Zacharias,  and  Mary's  time  of  betrothal  was  passing 


1  Chap.  liii.  2. 

2  William  Slialcespere :  A  Biography.     By  Charles  Knight,  p.  214. 

•  Alluded  to  in  Ps.  xix.  4,  5.  4  Gen.  xxiv.  50  ;  xxxiv.  11. 

6  Mai.  ii.  14. 


100  THE   LIFE   OF  CHRIST. 

quickly  away  in  her  family  home  at  Nazareth.  The  future 
Herald  had  been  pointed  out,  and  now  the  advent  of  the 
Messiah  Himself  was  to  be  announced,  as  silently,  and  with 
as  little  notice  from  men ;  for  Christ,  like  the  sun,  rose  in 
noiseless  stillness. 

A  heart  like  that  of  Mary,  full  of  religious  thoughtfulness 
and  emotion,  must  have  been  doubly  earnest  in  the  daily 
devotions  which  no  Jew  or  Jewess  neglected.1  Like  all  her 
people,  the  time  of  the  morning  offering,  the  hour  of  noon, 
and  the  time  of  the  evening  sacrifice,8  would  find  her  in  her 
private  chamber  in  lowly  prayer.  At  some  such  moment, 
the  great  event  took  place  of  which  the  narrative  of  St. 
Luke  3  informs  us. 

In  the  sixth  month,  we  are  told,  after  the  visit  to  Zacha- 
rias,  Gabrielh  was  sent  from  God  to  Mary,  and  having  entered 
her  chamber,  where  the  presence  of  a  man  must  have  been 
startling  at  any  time,  but  then  especially, — stood  before  her 
with  the  usual  salutation,  to  which  he  added  the  mysterious 
words,  that  she  was  highly  favoured,  and  that  the  Lord  was 
with  her.1  Naturally  troubled  by  such  an  interruption  and 
such  words,  she  shows  a  characteristic  of  her  calm,  self- 
collected  nature  in  being  able  to  think  and  reason,  as  if  un- 
disturbed, what  the  salutation  might  mean.  Whatever  fear 
she  has,  speedily  passes,  before  the  soothing  words  of  her 
visitor.  He  bids  her  lay  aside  her  alarm ;  he  has  come  to 
tell  her  that  she  has  found  favour,  above  all  other  women, 
with  God,  by  being  chosen  as  the  future  mother  of  the  long- 
expected  Messiah,  who  was  to  have  the  name  of  JESUS.* 
"  The  Holy  Ghost,"  he  says,  "  shall  come  upon  thee,  and 
the  power  of  the  Highest  shall  overshadow  thee ;  therefore 
thy  son  shall  be  called  the  Son  of  God ;  and  the  Lord 
God  shall  give  unto  Him  the  throne  of  His  father  David ; 1 
and  He  shall  reign  over  the  house  of  Jacob  for  ever ;  and  of 
His  kingdom  there  shall  be  no  end."3  It  would  have  been  no 
more  than  human  weakness,  if  doubts  had  risen  at  such  an 
announcement,  but  these  he  sets  to  rest,  if  they  were  spring- 
ing, by  telling  her  that  a  miracle,  no  less  wonderful  than  that 
which  would  happen  with  herself,  had  already  been  wrought 
upon  her  relative  m  Elisabeth.  Mary's  answer  is  the  ideal  of 
dignified  humility,  and  meek  and  reverend  innocence :— - 

1  Isa.  i.  15.     Dan.  vi.  11.     Ps.  Iv,  17.     Acts  ii.  16  ;  Hi.  1;  x.  9;  x.30 
Dan.  ix.  21. 

2  Chap.  i.  26.  *  Luke  i.  32,  33,  35. 


THE   MIRACULOUS   CONCEPTION.  101 

"  Behold  the  handmaid  of  the  Lord ;  be  it  unto  me  according 
to  thy  word."     And  presently  she  was  alone. 

Had  the  narrative  of  the  miraculous  conception  occurred 
in  the  literature  of  a  heathen  nation,  it  would  justly  have 
raised  doubts.  But  in  the  sober  verses  of  the  Gospels, 
written  by  Jews,  it  takes  a  far  different  character.  The  idea 
was  altogether  foreign  to  the  Jewish  mind.  The  Hebrew 
doctrine  of  the  Unity  of  God,  and  of  the  infinite  elevation  of 
the  Divine  Being  above  man,  the  profound  regard  of  the 
Jews  for  the  married  state,  and  their  abhorrence  of  unwed- 
ded  life,  make  it  impossible  to  imagine  how  such  a  thought 
could  ever  have  risen  among  them. l  The  improbability  of 
its  being  invented  by  a  Jew  is  heightened  by  the  fact  that, 
though  lofty  thoughts  of  the  nature  of  the  Messiah  were  not 
wanting  in  some  Israelites,  the  almost  universal  belief  was 
that  He  was  to  be  simply  a  man,  who  would  receive 
miraculous  endowments,  on  His  formal  consecration  as 
Messiah. 

What  best  to  do  in  a  position  so  mysterious  may  well  have 
troubled  Mary's  heart.  The  angel  had  told  her  that  her 
relative  Elisabeth,  as  well  as  herself,  had  been  favoured  of 
God  in  connection  with  the  expected  Messiah,  and  it  is  a 
natural  trait,  in  one  whose  strength  of  mind,  and  calm  de- 
cision of  character,  had  shown  itself  even  in  he"r  Visitation, 
that  she  now  determined  to  go  to  her  kinswoman  and  confer 
with  her,  though  the  distance  between  them  was  over  a 
hundred  miles. 

What  were  the  thoughts  of  Mary  in  her  solitary  journey — 
for  solitary  she  must  have  been,  with  such  a  secret  in  her 
heart,  even  if  she  travelled  with  a  company?  She  likely 
went  on  foot,  for  it  was  the  custom  of  her  people,  and,  more- 
over, she  was  poor.  The  intimation  made  to  her  was  one 
which  she  could  hardly  grasp  in  its  full  significance.  Her 
Son  was  to  sit  upon  the  throne  of  His  father  David,  and 
reign  over  the  house  of  Jacob,  founding  a  kingdom  which 
should  endure  for  ever.  But  this  was  only  what  she  had 
expected  as  a  Jewess,  for,  like  all  her  nation,  she  thought  of 
*.he  Messiah  as  a  Jewish  king  who  should  restore  the  long- 
lost  glories  of  her  race,  and  make  Israel  triumphant  over  all 
th^  heathen.  She  had  been  told  as  well,  however,  that  her 
child,  from  its  birth,  should  be  called  the  Son  of  the  Highest, 
and  the  Son  of  God.  The  human  mind  is  slow  to  grasp 

1  Neander's  Life  of  Christ,  p.  14.    Milman's  Christianity,  p.  54. 


102  THE   LIFE   OF  CHEIST. 

great  truths,  and  needs  to  grow  into  a  comprehension  of 
their  meaning :  it  cannot  receive  them  in  their  fulness  till  it 
has  been  educated,  step  by  step,  to  understand  them.  Long 
years  after  this  she  only  partially  realized  the  import  of  such 
words.  In  her  Son's  youth  she  was  perplexed  to  know  what 
was  meant  by  His  answer,1  when  He  stayed  behind  in  the 
Temple,  and  years  after  that  she  failed,  once  again,  to 
realize  her  true  relations  to  Him.2  Nor  does  she  seem  to 
have  risen  to  the  full  sublimity  of  her  position,  and  of  His, 
while  He  lived,3  though  the  deathless  love  of  a  mother  for 
her  child  brought  her  to  the  foot  of  the  Cross.4  But  in  such 
slowness  to  believe,5  and  such  abidingly  imperfect  concep- 
tions, she  was  only  on  a  footing  with  those  who  enjoyed 
habitual  intercourse  with  Him,  hearing  His  words,  and  see- 
ing His  miracles,  day  by  day  ;  for  even  the  disciples  remained 
to  the  end  Jewish  peasants,  in  their  ideas  respecting  Him, 
thinking  that  He  was  only  a  political  deliverer  of  the  nation.6 
Preoccupation  of  the  mind  by  fixed  opinions,  leads  to  a 
wrong  reading  of  any  evidence.  We  unconsciously  distort 
facts,  or  invent  them,  to  support  our  favourite  theories,  and 
see  everything  through  their  medium,7  like  the  musician, 
who  held  that  God  worked  six  days,  and  rested  on  the 
seventh,  because  there  are  seven  notes  in  music ;  or  as  in  the 
instance  fancied  by  Helvetius,  where  a  loving  couple  had  no 
doubt  that  two  objects,  visible  on  the  disc  of  the  moon,  were 
two  lovers  bending  towards  each  other,  while  a  clergyman 
had  as  little,  that  they  were  the  two  steeples  of  a  cathedral. 
Our  conclusions  are  determined  largely  by  our  predisposi- 
tions, and  our  prejudices,  or  prejudgments,  in  great  measure 
monopolize  our  faculties.*  We  are  not  so  much  ignorant 
as  perverted.  We  see  truth  through  a  prism.  We  are  so 
entirely  the  creatures  of  education,  of  the  opinions  of  our 
neighbours  and  of  our  family,  and  of  the  thousand  influences 
of  life,  that  the  only  way  we  can  hope  to  see  truth  in  its  own 
white  and  unbroken  light  is,  as  Christ  tells  us,  by  our  becom- 
ing little  children.  With  Mary  and  the  disciples  this  came 
in  the  end,  but  not  till  then.  The  influence  expressed  in 
Seneca's  apophthegm — Sordet  cognita  veritas — blinded  their 
eyes,  in  part,  while  our  Lord  was  still  with  them  ;  but  He  rose 
to  His  divine  grandeur  as  He  left  them.  In  the  Acts  and 

1  Luke  ii.  50.  3  John  ii  4.  8  Mark  iii.  21.     John  vii.  5. 

*  John  xix.  25.  R  Luke  xxiv.  25.  6  Luke  xxiv.  21. 

'  Sir  W.  Hamilton's  Philosophy,  vol.  i.  p.  75  ff. 


THE   MAGNIFICAT.  103 

the  Epistles  the  disciples  breathe  a  far  loftier  spirituality,  in 
their  conception  of  the  work  and  Person  of  Christ,  than  in 
the  Gospels,  and  Mary,  beyond  question,  was  not  behind  men 
with  whose  lot  she  from  that  time  cast  in  her  own." 

Her  meeting  with  Elisabeth  was  naturally  marked  by  the 
deep  emotion  of  both,  and  we  owe  to  it  the  earliest  and 
grandest  of  our  hymns,  the  Magnificat.  Greeted  by  Elisabeth 
as  the  future  mother  of  her  Lord,  Mary  breaks  out,  with  the 
poetical  fervour  of  Eastern  nature,  in  a  strain  of  exalted 
feeling.  The  rhythmical  expression  into  which  she  falls  was 
only  what  might  have  been  expected  from  one  imbued,  as  all 
Jewish  minds  were,  with  the  style  and  imagery  of  the  Old 
Testament.  Like  Miriam,  Deborah,  Hannah,  or  Judith,  she 
utters  a  song  of  joy : — 

My  soul  doth  magnify  the  Lord,1 

And  my  spirit  hath  rejoiced  in  God  my  Saviour  ; 9 

For  He  hath  regarded   the  low   estate   of   His   hand- 
maiden ; 

For,  behold,  from  henceforth  all  generations  shall  call 
me  blessed. 3 

For  He  that  is  mighty  hath  done  to  me  great  things  : 4 
And  Holy  is  His  name.  5 

And  His  mercy  is  on  them  that  fear  Him,  from  genera- 
tion to  generation. 6 

He  hath  showed  strength  with  His  arm ; 7 

He  hath  scattered  the  proud  in  the  imagination  of  their 
hearts. 8 

He  hath  put  down  the  mighty  from  their  seats ; 

And  exalted  them  of  low  degree. 9 

He  hath  filled  the  hungry  with  good  things ; 10 

And  the  rich  He  hath  sent  empty  away. 

He  hath  holpen  His  servant  Israel  u 

In  remembrance  of  His  mercy  ; 12 

As  He  spake  to  our  fathers, 13 

To  Abraham  and  to  his  seed,  for  ever. 

The  whole  hymn  is  a  mosaic  of  Old  Testament  imagery 
and  language,  and  shows  a  mind  so  coloured  by  the  sacred 
writings  of  her  people  that  her  whole  utterance  becomes, 

I  Ps.  xxxiv.  3.  *  1  Sam.  ii.  1.     Ps.  xxxv.  9.          8  Gen.  xxx.  13. 
4  Ps.  Ixxi.  19 ;  cxxvi.  2,  3.  6  Ps.  cxi.  9.  6  Ps.  ciii.  17. 

7  Ps.  xcviii.  1 ;  Ixxxix.  10 ;  cxviii.  15,  16.     8  Exod.  xv.  16.   1  Sam.  ii.  4. 
•  1  Sam.  ii.  8.     Ps.  cxiii.  7.  10  1  Sam.  ii.  5. 

II  Isa.  xli.  8.  12  Ps.  xxx.  4 ;  xcvii.  12.  u  Mic.  vii.  20. 


104  THE   LIFE   OP   CHKIST. 

spontaneously,  as  by  a  second  nature,  an  echo  of  that  of 
prophets  and  saints.  It  is  such  as  we  might  have  expected 
from  the  lips  of  some  ideal  Puritan  maiden,  in  those  days  in 
our  own  history,  when  men  were  so  deeply  read  in  the  oracles 
of  God,  that  their  ordinary  conversation  fell  into  Scriptural 
phrases  and  allusions,  and  their  whole  life  was  coloured  by 
the  daily  contemplation  of  superior  beings  and  eternal  in- 
terests. l  Mary,  like  them,  must  have  lived  in  a  constant 
realization  of  the  presence  and  special  providence  of  One 
with  whose  gracious  communications  to  her  people  she  had 
thus  filled  her  whole  thoughts.  A  Jewish  puritanism,  of  the 
loftiest  and  most  spiritual  type,  must  have  been  the  very 
atmosphere  in  which  she  moved,  and  in  which  her  child  was 
hereafter  to  be  trained. 

The  high  intellectual  emotion  and  eloquence  of  the  Magni- 
ficat reveal  a  nature  of  no  common  mould,  as  its  intense 
religious  fervour  shows  spiritual  characteristics  of  the 
noblest  type.  But  the  strain  throughout  is  strictly  limited 
to  what  we  might  have  expected  in  a  Jewish  maiden.  It  is 
intensely  national  when  it  is  not  personal.  She  rejoices  in 
God,  and  magnifies  His  name,  for  having  honoured  her  so 
greatly,  notwithstanding  her  low  estate.  He  has  done  great 
things  for  her,  which  will  make  all  generations  pronounce 
her  blessed.  He  has  thus  favoured  her  because  she  feared 
Him,  for  His  mercy  is  on  such,  from  generation  to  generation. 
As  of  old,  when  He  showed  strength  with  His  arm,  and  scat- 
tered the  proud,  and  put  down  the  mighty  from  their  thrones, 
to  deliver  or  exalt  His  weak  and  lowly  people,  so,  now,  He 
has  exalted  her,  and  disappointed  the  hopes  of  the  great  ones ; 
He  has  filled  her,  who  was  like  the  hungry,  with  good  things, 
and  has  sent  away  empty  the  rich,  who  expected  His  favours. 
Through  her  He  has  holpen  Israel,  in  remembrance  of  His 
promise  to  her  fathers,  to  Abraham,  and  to  his  seed,  for  ever, 
that  He  would  be  their  God.2  Her  son  was  to  be  the  Anoin- 
ted who  should  redeem  Israel  out  of  all  its  troubles.30  As  a 
descendant  of  David,  she  doubtless  thinks  of  Herod,  sitting, 
as  an  Edoinite  intruder,  on  the  throne  rightfully  due  to  her 
own  race,  yet,  as  an  Israelite  in  the  best  sense,  the  redemp- 
tion of  her  people  goes  beyond  the  merely  patriotic  and 
political,  to  the  restoration  of  that  primitive  loyalty  to  the 
God  of  their  fathers  which  she  cherished  in  her  own  breast, 

1  Macaulay's  Description  of  the  Puritans      Essay  on  Hilton,  23. 
8  Gen.  xvii.  7.  3  Ps.  xxv.  22. 


THE   HUSBAND   OF   MAEY.  105 

but  the  spirit  of  which  her  people  had  well-nigh  lost,  amidst 
all  their  steadfastness  in  the  outer  forms. 

It  is  easy  to  understand  how  willingly  Mary  lingered  in 
Hebron,  and  that  she  was  loth  to  return  to  Nazareth  sooner 
than  was  necessary.  Elisabeth  knew  her  great  secret  and 
her  innocence,  but  at  Nazareth  she  would  be  among  her 
neighbours,  who  might  not  credit  her  assurances ;  and  she 
must  some  day,  as  late  as  possible,  break  the  matter  to  her 
betrothed.  It  is  no  wonder  to  find  that  three  months 
passed,  before  she  could  venture  to  turn  her  face  homeward 
once  more. 

Her  position  on  her  return,  indeed,  exposed  her  to  a  trial, 
great  above  all  others  to  a  virtuous  woman.  Conscious  of 
perfect  purity,  she  is  suspected  of  the  reverse  by  him  to 
whom  her  troth  is  plighted ;  but  He  who  tempers  the  wind 
to  the  shorn  lamb  relieved  her  from  her  troubles  by  making 
known  to  Joseph  the  mysterious  truth.  As  a  just  man — 
which  was  a  current  expression  of  the  time  for  a  strict 
observer  of  the  Law 1 — and  yet  unwilling  to  expose  her  to 
public  shame,  he  had  made  up  his  mind  to  divorce  her 
formally,  by  a  written  "  bill,"  duly  attested  by  witnesses,2 
but  being  divinely  instructed  that  his  fears  were  groundless, 
he  freed  her  from  all  future  trouble  by  taking  her  home  as 
his  wife. 

Legend,  as  might  have  been  expected,  was  early  busy  with 
the  story  of  Mary  and  Joseph. 

We  are  told  that  Joseph,  though  a  carpenter,  was  made  a 
priest  in  the  Temple,  because  of  his  knowledge  of  the  Law, 
and  his  fame  for  holiness.3  Mary  was  his  second  wife,  and 
found  herself,  on  her  coming  home,  in  a  circle  of  four  sons 
and  two  daughters,  left  by  her  predecessor — the  family  known 
in  the  Gospels  as  the  brethren  and  sisters  of  our  Lord.  Mary, 
as  has  been  said,  was  the  daughter  of  Joachim  and  Anna.4 
On  her  father's  side  she  came  from  Nazareth ;  on  her 
mother's,  from  Bethlehem.  Joachim  was  a  simple,  God-fear- 
ing man,  a  shepherd,  of  the  tribe  of  Judah,  and  married  Anna 
when  he  was  twenty  years  of  age.  Twenty  years  passed, 
however,  without  their  having  a  child,  and  both  Joachim  and 
Anna  grieved  sorely  at  their  loneliness.  At  the  Temple, 
Joachim  found  himself  ordered  away  from  among  those  who 

1  Maeknight's  Har.  of  Gospel,  in  loc. 

*  Deut.  xxiv.  1.     Talmud,  Tract.  Gittin.  '  Hist.  JosrpJi,  cap.  ii, 

4  Ev.  de  Nat.  Mar.,  c.  i.  2 ;  Hist,  de  Nat.  Zlar.,  c.  i.  2.     Protev.,  c.  i. 


106  THE   LIFE   OF   CHKIST. 

had  children,  and  his  offerings  refused,  and  Anna,  also,  had 
to  bear  reproach  from  the  women  of  her  people. 

Then  "  Anna  wept  sore,  and  prayed  to  God.  And  when 
the  great  day  of  the  Lord  came,  Judith,  her  maid,  said  to 
her,  How  long  will  thy  soul  mourn  ?  It  becomes  thee  not  to 
be  sad,  for  the  great  day  of  the  Lord  has  come.  Take  thy 
head-dress,  which  the  needlewoman  gave  me;  it  is  not  al- 
lowed me  to  put  it  on  thee,  because  I  am  thy  maid,  and  thon 
comest  of  Icings."  *  Then  was  Anna  much  troubled,  and  laid 
aside  her  mourning,  and  adorned  her  head,  and  put  on  her 
bridal  robes,  and  went  into  the  garden  about  the  ninth  hour.2 
There  she  saw  a  laurel-tree,  and  sat  down  beneath  it,  and 
prayed  thus  to  God : — "  God  of  my  fathers,  bless  me  and  hear 
my  cry,  as  Thou  heardest  Sarah,  and  blessedst  her  by  giving 
her  a  son,  Isaac."  While,  now,  she  was  looking  up  to 
heaven,  she  saw  the  nest  of  a  sparrow  in  the  laurel-tree,  and 
she  sighed  and  said,  "  Woe  is  me,  woe  is  me,  who  have  no 
child  !  Why  was  I  born  that  I  should  have  become  accursed 
before  the  children  of  Israel,  and  despised,  and  scorned,  and 
driven  away  from  the  temple  of  the  Lord  my  God  ?  Woe 
is  me,  to  what  can  I  liken  myself  ?  Not  to  the  birds  of  the 
heavens,  for  they  have  young;  not  to  the  senseless  beasts, 
for  they  are  fruitful  before  Thee,  O  Lord ;  not  to  the  crea- 
tures of  the  waters,  for  they  have  young ;  not  to  the  earth, 
for  it  brings  forth  fruits  in  their  seasons,  and  blesses  Thee, 
O  Lord."" 

Then  an  angel  came  and  told  her  she  should  have  a  child. 
And  Anna  said,  "As  the  Lord  God  liveth,  be  it  male  or 
female  that  I  bear,  I  vow  it  to  the  Lord,  and  it  shall  serve 
Him  all  the  days  of  its  life."  And  Anna  bore  a  daughter, 
and  called  it  Mary,  as  the  angel  had  commanded. 

When  six  months  had  passed,  Anna  put  Mary  on  the 
ground,  and  found  that  she  could  totter  a  few  steps.3  Then 
she  said,  "  As  the  Lord  liveth,  thou  shalt  never  put  thy  foot 
on  the  earth  again  till  I  have  led  thee  into  the  Temple  of  the 
Lord.  At  the  end  of  the  first  year,  Joachim  made  a  great 
feast,  and  called  to  it  the  priests  and  scribes,  and  the  elders, 
and  many  friends.  And  he  brought  the  maiden  to  the  priests, 
and  they  blessed  her,  and  said,  "  God  of  our  fathers,  bless  this 
child,  and  give  her  a  name  which  shall  be  known  through  all 
generations.  And  all  the  people  said,  Amen." 

1  Protev.,  c.  ii.  3,  4.         .  *  The  time  of  the  evening  sacrifice. 

*  Prote.v.,  c.  i.  7. 


THE  VIRGIN'S  CHILDHOOD.  107 

We  are  then  told  that  Mary  was  taken  to  the  Temple 
when  she  was  three  years  old,  having  lived  till  then  in  a 
sanctuary  made  for  her  in  her  father's  house.  And  while 
Joachim  and  Anna  were  at  the  foot  of  the  fifteen  steps  that 
led  up  to  the  Temple  courts,  and  were  changing  their  soiled 
travelling  raiment  for  clean  and  fitting  dress,  as  the  custom 
was,  Mary  climbed  the  steps  alone,  and  never  looked  back, 
but  kept  her  face  towards  the  altar.  And  she  was  left  in  the 
Temple,  that  she  might  grow  up  with  the  other  virgins. 

From  this  time  till  she  was  twelve  years  old,  it  is  said,  she 
lived  in  the  Temple,5  her  graces  keeping  pace  with  her  years. 
From  the  morning  till  the  third  hour,  she  remained  in  prayer, 
and  from  that  till  the  ninth  she  was  busied  with  spinning/ 
Then  she  betook  herself  once  more  to  prayer,  till  an  angel  each 
day  came  with  food  for  her.  Her  betrothal  to  Joseph  is  re- 
lated in  great  detail,  but  we  forbear  to  quote  it. 

Tradition,  to  which  we  owe  these  beautiful  legends,  has 
delighted  to  speak  of  the  Virgin's  appearance  and  character. 
She  was  more  given  to  prayer,  we  read,  than  any  round  her, 
blighter  in  the  knowledge  of  God's  law,  and  perfectly  humble  ; 
she  delighted  to  sing  the  Psalms  of  David  with  a  melodious 
voice,  and  all  loved  her  for  her  kindness  and  modesty. 

It  is  impossible  to  trust  to  the  descriptions  of  Mary's  person, 
but  it  is  interesting  to  know  how  remote  generations  imagined 
her.  She  was  in  all  things  serious  and  earnest,  says  one  old 
tradition,1  spoke  little,  and  only  what  was  to  the  purpose; 
she  was  very  gentle,  and  showed  respect  and  honour  to  all. 
She  was  of  middle  height,  though  some  say  she  was  rather 
above  it.  She  spoke  to  all  with  a  prudent  frankness,  soberly, 
without  confusion,  and  always  pleasantly.  She  had  a  fair 
complexion,  blonde  hair,  and  bright  hazel  eyes.  Her  eyebrows 
were  arched  and  dark,  her  nose  well  proportioned,  her  lips 
ruddy  and  full  of  kindness  when  she  spoke.  Her  face  was 
long  rather  than  round,  and  her  hands  and  fingers  were  finely 
shaped.  She  had  no  pride,  but  was  simple,  and  wholly  free 
from  deceit.  Without  effeminacy,  she  was  far  from  forward- 
ness. In  her  clothes,  which  she  herself  made,  she  was  content 
with  the  natural  colours. 

1  Niceph.,1tt>.  ii.  23, 


CHAPTER  IX. 
THE  BIBTH  OF  CHEIST. 

TT  might  have  been  expected  that  Mary's  child  would  have 
-*-  been  born  in  the  city1  of  Nazareth,  where  Joseph  and 
Mary  lived,  but  circumstances  over  which  they  had  no  con- 
trol made  a  distant  village  the  birthplace. 

The  Jewish  nation  had  paid  tribute  to  Borne,  through 
their  rulers,  since  the  days  of  Pompey  ;a  and  the  methodical 
Augustus,  who  now  reigned,  and  had  to  restore  order  and 
soundness  to  the  finances  of  the  empire,  after  the  confusion 
and  exhaustion  of  the  civil  wars,  took  good  care  that  this 
obligation  should  neither  be  forgotten  nor  evaded.  He  was 
accustomed  to  require  a  census  to  be  taken  periodically  in 
every  province  of  his  vast  dominions,  that  he  might  know  the 
number  of  soldiers  he  could  levy  in  each,  and  the  amount  of 
taxes  due  to  the  treasury.  So  exact  was  he,  that  he  wrote 
out  with  his  own  hand  a  summary  of  statistics  of  the  whole 
empire,  including  the  citizens  and  allies  in  arms,  in  all  the 
kingdoms  and  provinces,  with  their  tributes  and  taxes.b 
Three  separate  surveys  of  the  empire  for  such  fiscal  and 
military  ends  are  recorded  as  ordered — in  the  726th,  746th, 
and  767th  2  years  of  the  city  of  Rome,  respectively :  the  first, 
long  before  the  birth  of  Christ ;  the  third,  in  our  Lord's  youth  ; 
but  the  second,  very  near  the  time  when  He  must  have  been 
born. 

In  an  empire  embracing  the  then  known  world,  such  a 
census  could  hardly  have  been  made  simultaneously,  or  in 
any  short  or  fixed  time ;  more  probably  it  was  the  work  of 
years,  in  successive  provinces  or  kingdoms.3  Sooner  or  later, 
however,  oven  the  dominions  of  vassal  kings  like  Herod  had 
to  furnish  the  statistics  demanded  by  their  master,*  He  had 

1  Matt.  ii.  23. 

9  Caspari's  Chronolngisch  Geoyraphische  Einlcitung,  etc.,  p.  32. 

*  Grotii  Annot.,  in  loc.     Kohler,  Herzog,  vol.  xiii.  p.  466. 


THE  JOUENEY   TO   BETHLEHEM.  109 

received  Ms  kingdom  on  the  footing  of  a  subject,1  and  grew 
more  entirely  dependent  on  Augustus  as  years  passed,2  asking 
his  sanction  at  every  turn  for  steps  he  proposed  to  take. 
He  would,  thus,  be  only  too  ready  to  meet  his  wish,  by 
obtaining  the  statistics  he  sought,  as  may  be  judged  from  the 
foct  that  in  one  of  the  last  years  of  his  life,  just  before  Christ's 
birth,  he  made  the  whole  Jewish  nation  take  a  solemn  oath  of 
allegiance  to  the  Emperor  as  well  as  to  himself.3  d 

It  is  quite  probable  that  the  mode  of  taking  the  required 
statistics  was  left  very  much  to  Herod,  at  once  to  show  respect 
to  him  before  his  people,  and  from  the  known  opposition  of 
the  Jews  to  anything  like  a  general  numeration,8  even  apart 
from  the  taxation  to  which  it  was  designed  to  lead.  At  the 
time  to  which  the  narrative  refers,  a  simple  registration  seems 
to  have  been  made,  on  the  old  Hebrew  plan  of  enrolling  by 
families  in  their  ancestral  districts,4  of  course  for  future  use  ; 
and  thus  it  passed  over  quietly.*  The  very  different  results, 
when  it  was  followed  by  a  general  taxation,  some  years  later, 
will  hereafter  be  seen.* 

The  proclamation  having  been  made  through  the  land, 
Joseph  had  no  choice  but  to  go  to  Bethlehem,  the  city  of 
David,  the  place  in  which  his  family  descent,  from  the  house 
and  lineage  of  David,h  required  him  to  be  inscribed.  It  must, 
apparently,  have  been  near  the  close  of  the  year  749  of  Rome, 
or  at  the  opening  of  750 ;  but  winter  in  Palestine  is  not 
necessarily  severe,  for  the  flowers  spring  up  after  the  November 
rains,  and  flocks  are  often  driven  out  to  the  pastures,5  as  St. 
Luke  tells  us  was  the  case  at  the  time  of  Christ's  birth.1 
Unwilling  to  leave  her  behind  in  a  home  so  new  to  her,  Joseph 
took  Mary  with  him :  the  two  journeying  most  likely,  as 
tradition  has  painted — Joseph  afoot,  with  Mary  on  an  ass  at 
his  side.  There  were  by-paths  interlacing  and  crossing,  all 
over  the  country,  and  they  may  have  chosen  some  of  these, 
but  if  they  kept  to  the  travelled  road,  which  it  is  most  likely 
they  did,  both  for  safety  and  company,  we  can  follow  their 
progress  even  now. 

Passing  down  the  little  valley  of  Nazareth,  they  would  find 
themselves  crossing  the  rich  plain  of  Esdraelon,  not  then,  as 
now,  half  tilled  and  well-nigh  unpeopled,  but  covered  with 
cities  and  villages,  full  of  teeming  life  and  human  activities. 

1  Jos.,  Ant.,  xvi.  9.  3.  *  Ewald's  Geschichte,  vol.  v.  p.  206. 

'  Jos.,  Ant.,  iii.  16.  10,  11.  «  Ewald's  Geschichte,  vol.  v.  p.  206. 

*  Rauwolf,  quoted  by  Oosterzee. 


110  THE   LIFE   OF  CHEIST. 

Galilee,  according  to  Josephus,  contained  in  those  days  two 
hundred  and  four  cities  and  villages,  the  smallest  of  which 
numbered  above  fifteen  thousand  inhabitants.1  It  is  calcu- 
lated, indeed,2  that  it  had  a  population  of  about  fifteen  hundred 
to  the  square  mile,  which  is  a  third  more  than  the  n  amber  in 
Lancashire,  crowded  as  it  is  with  large  and  densely  peopled 
towns.k  Speaking  of  the  district  just  north  of  Galilee,  Captain 
Burton  tells  us  that,  to  one  standing  on  a  peak  of  Lebanon, 
overlooking  it,  "  the  land  must,  in  many  places,  have  appeared 
to  be  one  continuous  town  ;  "  3  and  in  the  highlands  of  Syria, 
still  north  of  this,  in  the  region  of  Hamah,  there  are  the  ruins 
of  three  hundred  and  sixty-five  towns,  so  that  Mr.  Drake  had 
good  ground  for  thinking  the  Arabs  right  in  saying,  "  that  a 
man  might  formerly  have  travelled  for  a  year  in  this  district, 
and  never  have  slept  twice  in  the  same  village." 

Leaving,  on  the  left,  the  rounded  height  of  Tabor,  and  the 
villages  of  Nain  and  Endor,  up  among  the  hills,  the  road 
stretched  directly  south  to  Jezreel,  once  Ahab's  capital,  on  a 
gentle  swell  of  the  rich  plain  of  Esdraelon.  On  their  way 
they  would  pass  through  a  landscape  of  busy  cities  and  towns, 
varied  by  orchards,  vineyards,  gardens,  and  fields,  for  every 
available  spot  was  cultivated,  to  the  very  tops  of  the  hills.4 
The  mountains  of  Gilboa,  where  Saul  perished,  lay  a  little 
east  of  Jezreel  as  they  went  on,  and  then  came  Engannim, 
with  its  spring,  on  the  edge  of  the  hill- country  of  Samaria. 
Dothan,  with  its  rich  pastures,  where  Joseph  had  found  his 
brethren  so  many  ages  before,  would  soon  be  seen  on  their 
right ;  and,  before  long,  their  winding  road,  rising  and  falling 
among  continuous  hills,  would  bring  them  to  Samaria  itself, 
then  just  rebuilt  by  Herod,  with  such  magnificence,  that 
he  had  given  it  the  name  of  Sebaste,  the  Greek  equivalent 
of  Augusta,  in  honour  of  his  imperial  master.  Sychar  or 
Shechem,  with  its  lovely  neighbourhood,  would  be  their  rest- 
ing-place on  the  second  day,  for  it  is  nearly  midway  between 
Judea  and  Galilee ;  and  though  the  distance  between  the  two 
was  often  reckoned  as  only  a  three  days'  journey,  it  was  not 
uncommon  to  lengthen  it  to  four.  As  the  chief  town  of  the 
Samaritans,  Sychar  would  hardly  offer  hospitality  to  travel- 
lers with  their  faces  towards  the  hated  Jerusalem.  Joseph 


»  Jos.,  Vit.,  45 ;  Bell.  Jud.,  iii.  3.  2. 

*  Merrill's  Galilee  in  the  Time  of  Christ,  in  Bib.  Sacra,  Jan.,  1874. 

8  Burton  and  Drake's  Unexplored  Syria,  vol.  i.  p.  74  ;  vol.  ii.  p.  160. 

*  Joa.,  Bell.  Jud.,  iii.  3.  2. 


DESCBIPTION   OP   BETHLEHEM.  Ill 

and  Mary,  as  was  the  custom  with.  Jews  passing  through, 
would,  therefore,  avoid  the  town,  and  pass  the  night  in  what 
shelter  they  could  find  at  Jacob's  springs, — or  Jacob's  well, 
as  our  version  has  it, — not  far  off,  eating  provisions  they 
had  brought  with  them,  to  avoid  tasting  food  defiled  by  the 
touch  of  a  Samaritan,1  and  drinking  only  the  water  from  the 
springs.  The  beauty  of  the  valley,  with  its  swelling  heights 
of  Ebal  and  Gerizim,  separated  only  by  a  few  hundred  paces, 
and  its  rich  upland  glens,  opening  on  each  side  beyond — the 
crown  and  water-shed  of  Central  Palestine — would  have 
little  interest  to  them,  for  it  was  Samaritan  ground.  They 
would  breathe  freely  only  when  they  had  passed  the  heights 
of  Akrabbim,  the  border  ridge  between  Samaria  and  Judea, 
and  had  set  foot  again  on  the  holy  soil  of  Israel. 

Once  in  Judea,  its  bleak  and  bare  hills  were  hallowed,  at 
each  opening  of  the  landscape,  by  the  sight  of  spots  sacred  to 
every  Jew.  Shiloh  would  greet  them  first,  where  Hannah 
came  to  pray  before  the  Lord ; l  then  Gilgal,  where  her  son 
sat  to  judge  Israel.2  Their  way  would  next  pass  through 
the  valley  of  Baca,  of  which  the  Psalmist  had  sung,  "  Pass- 
ing through  the  valley  of  tears,  they  make  it  rich  in  springs ; 
and  the  latter  rain  covers  it  with  blessings." 3  The  road 
winds  on  from  this,  through  the  district  town  Gophna,  past 
the  venerable  Bethel,  with  all  its  memories,  and  past  B.amah,m 
in  Benjamin,  where  Jeremiah  had  pictured  Rachel  weeping 
for  her  children,  slain  or  carried  off  by  the  Babylonian  con- 
queror. Over  against  it  rose  Gibeon,  high  on  its  hill,  where 
Solomon  worshipped;  and  an  hour  later  they  would  pass 
Mizpeh,  on  its  lonely  height,  where  Samuel  raised  his  memo- 
rial stone  Ebenezer.  And  then,  at  last,  after  having  passed 
from  one  holy  place  to  another,  their  feet  would  stand  within 
the  gates  of  Jerusalem. 

Bethlehem,  the  end  of  their  journey,  lay  about  six  miles 
south  of  Jerusalem,  on  the  east  of  the  main  road  to  Hebron. 
It  covered  the  upper  slope,  and  part  of  the  top,  of  a  narrow 
ridge  of  grey  Jura  limestone,  about  a  mile  in  length — one 
of  the  countless  heights,  seamed  by  narrow  valleys,  which 
make  up  the  hill  country  of  Judea.  Its  narrow,  steep  streets 
lay  no  less  than  2,538  Paris  feet 4  above  the  Mediterranean, 
and  looked  out  over  a  sea  of  hills,  bare  and  rocky, — one  of 
them,  about  three  miles  to  the  east,  the  peak  of  the  Frank 

1  1  Sam.  i.  3.  a  1  Sam.  x.  8  ;  vii.  16. 

s  Ps.  Ixxxiv.,  correct  transl.          4  A  Paris  foot  is  12-798  English  inches. 


112  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

mountain,  Jebel  Fureidis,  now  bare,  but  then  covei-ed  with 
the  new  fortifications  of  Herodium,  in  the  circuit  of  which 
the  hated  tyrant  Herod  was  soon  to  find  his  tomb.  On  the 
east,  the  mountains  of  Moab  rose  against  the  horizon  like  a 
purple  wall,  the  barren  and  desolate  uplands  of  the  wilderness 
of  Judea  lying  between,  and  stretching  far  to  the  sonth. 
The  ridge  of  Bethlehem  itself  is  still  covered,  on  its  northern 
side,  as  all  the  hills  around  must  have  been  in  Mary's  day, 
with  bold,  sweeping  lines  of  terraces,  which  descend,  like 
gigantic  steps,  to  the  lower  valleys,  and  bear  tier  on  tier  of 
fig-trees,  olives,  pomegranates,  and  vines ;  the  vines  over- 
hanging the  terrace  banks,  and  relieving  the  eye  from  the 
dazzling  glare  of  the  white  limestone  rocks  and  soil.  The 
ridge,  as  a  whole,  breaks  down,  abruptly,  into  deep  valleys, 
on  the  north,  south,  and  east,  passing  into  gorges,  which 
descend,  in  the  distance,  to  the  Dead  Sea  on  the  east,  and  to 
the  coast  lowlands  on  the  west.  In  a  little  plain  close  under 
the  town,  to  the  eastward,  are  some  vineyards  and  barley- 
fields,  in  which  Ruth  came  to  glean  in  the  early  days  of 
Israel,  beside  a  gentle  brook  which  still  murmurs  through 
them. 

It  was  to  Bethlehem  that  Joseph  and  Mary  were  coming, 
the  town  of  Ruth  and  Boaz,  and  the  early  home  of  their  own 
great  forefather  David.  As  they  approached  it  from  Jeru- 
salem, they  would  pass,  at  the  last  mile,  a  spot  sacred  to 
Jewish  memory,  where  the  light  of  Jacob's  life  went  out, 
when  his  first  love,  Rachel,  died,  and  was  buried,  as  her 
tomb  still  shows,  "  in  the  way  to  Ephrath,  which  is  Beth- 
lehem." ! 

The  ascent  to  the  town,  over  the  dusty  glare  of  the  grey 
limestone  hills,  was  the  last  of  the  journey,  and  it  is  well  if 
Mary  did  not  find  it,  in  parts,  as  other  travellers  have  found 
it,  before  and  since,  so  slippery  as  to  make  it  seem  safer  to 
alight  and  go  up  on  foot.  A  quarter  of  a  mile  to  the  north 
of  the  town-gate  she  would  pass  the  well,  from  which,  as  she 
had  heard  from  infancy,  her  ancestor  David  had  so  longed  to 
drink.3  Presently,  passing  through  the  low  gate,  she  and 
Joseph  were  in  the  mountain  town  or  village  of  Bethlehem." 

Travelling  in  the  East  has  always  been  very  different  from 
Western  ideas.  As  in  all  thinly-settled  countries,  private 
hospitality,  in  early  times,  supplied  the  want  of  inns,  but  it 
was  the  peculiarity  of  the  East  that  this  friendly  custom  con- 

1  Gen.  xxxv.  19.  *  1  Chron.  xi.  17. 


HOSPITALITY  IN   PALESTINE.  113 

tinned  through  a  long  'series  of  ages.  On  the  great  roads 
through  barren  or  uninhabited  parts,  the  need  of  shelter  led, 
very  early,  to  the  erection  of  rude  and  simple  buildings,  of 
varying  size,  known  as  khans,  which  offered  the  wayfarer  the 
protection  of  walls  and  a  roof,  and  water,  but  little  more. 
The  smaller  structures  consisted  of  sometimes  only  a  single 
empty  room,  on  the  floor  of  which  the  traveller  might  spread 
his  carpet  for  sleep  ;  the  larger  ones,  always  built  in  a  holloiv 
square,  enclosing  a  court  for  the  beasts,  with  water  in  it  for 
them  and  their  masters.  From  immemorial  antiquity  it 
has  been  a  favourite  mode  of  benevolence  to  raise  such  places 
of  shelter,  as  we  see  so  far  back  as  the  times  of  David,  when 
Chimham  built  a  great  khan  °  near  Bethlehem,  on  the  caravan 
road  to  Egypt. 

But  while  it  has  long  been  thus,  in  special  circumstances, 
the  Eastern  sense  of  the  sacredness  of  hospitality,  which  was 
felt  deeply  by  the  Jews,  made  inns,  in  our  sense,  or  even 
khans,  where  travellers  provided  for  themselves,  unnecessary 
in  any  peopled  place.  The  simplicity  of  Eastern  life,  which 
has  fewer  wants  than  the  Western  mind  can  well  realize, 
aided  by  universal  hospitality,  opened  private  houses  every- 
where to  the  traveller.  The  ancient  Jew,  like  the  modern 
Arab,  held  it  a  reflection  on  a  community  if  a  passing  way- 
farer was  not  made  some  one's  guest.1  To  bring  water  at 
once,  to  wash  the  traveller's  feet,  dusty  with  the  Eastern 
sandals,2  was  an  act  of  courtesy  which  it  showed  a  churlish 
spirit  to  omit.  Food  and  lodging,  for  himself  and  his  beasts, 
if  he  had  any,  were  provided,  and  he  was  regarded  as  under 
the  sacred  protection  of  his  host.3  At  the  time  of  Christ  this 
primitive  simplicity  still  continued.  The  Rabbis  constantly 
urge  the  religious  merit  of  hospitality,  promising  Paradise  as 
its  reward,  and  ranking  the  kindly  reception  of  strangers 
higher  than  to  have  been  honoured  by  an  appearance  of  the 
Shechinahp  itself.  Its  universal  recognition  as  a  natural 
duty,  in  His  age,  is  often  found  even  in  the  discourses  of  our 
Lord.* 

We  may  feel  sure,  therefore,  that  it  was  not  an  "  inn  " 
where  Joseph  and  Mary  found  shelter  after  their  journey, 
though  that  word  is  used  in  our  English  version.  In  the 

1  Jud.  xix.  15.    Job  xxxi.  32.  s  Luke  vii.  44.     1  Tim.  v.  10. 

8  Gen.  xviii.  2  ;  xix.  1,  5 ;  xxiv.  25.      Exod.  ii.  20.      Jud.  vi.  18  ;   xiiL 
15;  xix.  20,  23.     Josh.  ii.  1. 
4  Matt.  xxv.  35,  43  ;  x.  40.     Luke  xiv.  13 ;  vii.  44. 

9 


114  THE  LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

only  two  other  places  in  which  it  occurs,  it  refers  to  a  friendly 
"  guest-chamber "  l  in  a  private  honse.q  At  such  a  time, 
however,  when  strangers  had  arrived  from  every  part,  the 
household  to  which  they  looked  for  entertainment  had  already 
opened  their  guest-chamber  to  earlier  comers,  and  the  only 
accommodation  that  could  be  offered  was  a  place,  half 
kitchen  and  half  stable,  which  was  simply  one  of  the  count- 
loss  natural  hollows  or  caves  in  the  hill-side,  against  which 
the  house  had  been  built,  as  is  still  seen  frequently  in 
Palestine.' 

How  long  Joseph  and  Mary  had  been  in  Bethlehem  before 
Jesus  was  born  is  impossible  to  say,  for  time  is  of  no  value 
to  Orientals,  and  a  stay  of  a  few  weeks  more  or  less  would 
be  little  regarded.  St.  Luke  merely  tells  us  that  while 
they  were  there  Mary  gave  birth  to  the  Saviour.  Milton, 
following  the  immemorial  tradition  of  the  Church,  sings : 

"  It  was  the  winter  wild  2 

While  the  heaven-born  child, 
All  meanly  wrapt,  in  the  rude  manger  lies ; 

Nature,  in  awe  to  him, 

Had  doff'd  her  gaudy  trim, 
With  her  great  Master  so  to  sympathize ; 

It  was  no  season  then  for  her 

To  wanton  with  the  sun." 

But  the  poet's  fancy  alone  creates  the  bleak  wintryness  of 
the  time,  for  the  outlying  shepherds  on  the  hills  around  were 
living  witnesses  of  the  reverse.  Yet  it  seems  most  probable 
that  the  great  event  took  place  between  December,  749,  of 
Rome,  and  February,  750;  and  the  only  reason  why  there 
can  be  any  hesitation  in  supposing  December  25th  to  have 
been  the  very  day  is  the  natural  doubt  whether  the  date 
could  have  been  handed  down  so  exactly,  and  the  fear  lest 
the  wish  to  associate  the  birth  of  the  Redeemer  with  the 
return  of  the  sun,  which  made  Christmas  be  early  spoken  of 
as  the  "  day  of  the  triumphant  sun,"  may  have  led  to  its 
having  been  chosen.1 

The  simplicity  of  St.  Luke's  narrative  is  very  striking. 
An  event,  compared  with  which  all  others  in  human  history 
are  insignificant,  is  recorded  in  a  few  words,  without  any 
attempt  at  exaggeration  or  embellishment.  The  Apocryphal 
Gospels,  on  the  contrary,  abound  in  miraculous  details,  for 
the  most  part  trifling  and  childish.  Some  features  in  their 

1  Mark  xiv.  14.     Luke  xxii.  11.        •  Hymn  -n  the  Nativity. 


THE   BERTH  OP  CHRIST.  115 

narratives,  however,  are  not  wanting  in  naturalness  or  even 
sublimity,  and,  at  the  least,  they  have  the  merit  of  showing 
how  the  early  Church  painted  for  itself  the  scene  of  the 
Nativity.  "  It  happened,"  says  these  old  legends,1  "  as  Mary 
and  Joseph  were  going  np  towards  Bethlehem,  that  the  time 
came  when  Jesus  should  be  born,  and  Mary  said  to  Joseph, 
'  Take  me  down  from  my  ass,'  and  he  took  her  down  from 
her  ass,  and  said  to  her,  '  Where  shall  I  take  thee,  for  there 
is  no  inn  here  ?  '  Then  he  found  a  cave  near  the  grave  of 
Rachel,  the  wife  of  the  patriarch  Jacob — the  mother  of 
Joseph  and  Benjamin ;  and  light  never  entered  the  cave,  but 
it  was  always  filled  with  darkness.  And  the  sun  was  then 
just  going  down.  Into  this  he  led  her,  and  left  his  two  sons 
beside  her,'  and  went  out  towards  Bethlehem  to  seek  help. 
But  when  Mary  entered  the  cave  it  was  presently  filled  with 
light,  and  beams,  as  if  of  the  sun,  shone  around;  and  thus  it 
continued,  day  and  night,  while  she  remained  in  it. 

"  In  this  cave  the  child  was  born,  and  the  angels  were 
round  Him  at  His  birth,  and  worshipped  the  New-born,  and 
said,  '  Glory  to  God  in  the  highest,  and  peace  on  earth  and 
goodwill  to  men.'  Meanwhile  Joseph  was  wandering  about, 
seeking  help.  And  when  he  looked  up  to  heaven,  he  saw  that 
the  pole  of  the  heavens  stood  still,  and  the  birds  of  the  air 
stopped  in  the  midst  of  their  flight,  and  the  sky  was  dark- 
ened. And  looking  on  the  earth  he  saw  a  dish  full  of  food, 
prepared,  and  workmen,  resting  round  it,  with  their  hands  in 
the  dish  to  eat,  and  those  who  were  stretching  out  their 
hands  did  not  take  any  of  the  food,  and  those  who  were 
lifting  their  hands  to  their  mouths  did  not  do  so,  but  the  faces 
of  all  were  turned  upwards.  And  he  saw  sheep  which  wore 
being  driven  along,  and  the  sheep  stood  still,  and  the  shepherd 
lifted  his  hand  to  strike  them,  but  it  remained  uplifted.  And 
he  came  to  a  spring,  and  saw  the  goats  with  their  mouths 
touching  the  water,  but  they  did  not  drink,  but  were  under 
a  spell,  for  all  things  at  that  moment  were  turned  from  their 
course."  u 

But  if  wonders  such  as  these  were  wanting,  the  birth  of 
the  Saviour  was  not  without  attestations  of  His  divine  glory. 
If  His  birth  was  mean  on  earth  below,  it  was  celebrated  with 
hallelujahs  by  the  heavenly  host  in  the  air  above.2  The  few 
fields  in  the  valley  below  Bethlehem  have,  likely,  been  alw 

1  Prot'V.,  c.  17-20.     Hist,  de  Nat.  Mar.,  c.  13.     Hist.  Jr- 

*  McLaurin's  Glorying  in  the  Cross  of  Christ. 


116  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

too  valuable  to  be  used  for  pasture,  but  tlie  slopes  and  heights 
of  the  hills  around  were  then,  as  they  had  been  in  David's 
time,  and  are  still,  the  resort  of  shepherds,  with  their 
numerous  flocks,  which  supplied  the  requirements  of  the 
neighbouring  Temple.  The  "  Onomasticon,"  of  Eusebius  l  * 
informs  us  that  about  "  a  thousand  paces  from  Bethlehem 
stands  a  tower  called  Eder  2 — that  is,  the  tower  of  the  shep- 
herds y — a  name  which  foreshadowed  the  angelic  appearance 
to  the  shepherds,  at  the  birth  of  our  Lord."  Jewish  tradition 
has  preserved  the  record  of  a  tower  of  this  name,  in  this 
locality,  where  the  flocks  of  sheep  for  the  Temple  sacrifices 
were  pastured ;  and  there  still  remain,  at  the  given  distance, 
eastwards  from  Bethlehem,  the  ruins  of  a  church  which 
Helena,  the  mother  of  Constantino,  caused  to  be  built  on  the 
spot  believed  to  have  been  that  at  which  the  heavenly  vision 
was  seen. 

On  the  night  of  the  birth  of  Christ,  a  group  of  shepherds 
lay  out,  with  their  flocks,  on  the  hill-side,  in  the  neighbour- 
hood of  this  ancient  watch-tower.  Some  of  them  were 
keeping  their  turn  of  watching  while  the  others  slept,  for 
shepherds  relieved  each  other  by  watches,  as  our  sailors  do, 
at  fixed  hours.1  St.  Luke  expressly  tells  us  that  they  were 
"  watching  the  watches  of  the  night."  To  have  received  such 
surpassing  honour  from  above,  they  must  have  been  members, 
though  poor  and  humble,  of  that  true  Israel  which  included 
Mary  and  Joseph,  Zacharias  and  Elisabeth,  Simeon  and  Anna 
— the  representatives,  in  those  dark  days,  of  the  saints  of 
their  nation  in  its  brighter  past.  They  must  have  been  men 
looking  out,  in  their  simple  way,  towards  the  invisible  and 
eternal,  and  seeking  that  kingdom  of  God  for  themselves 
which  was  one  day,  as  they  believed,  to  be  revealed  in  their 
nation  at  large.  Only  that  mind  which  has  sympathy  with 
external  nature  can  receive  in  their  true  significance  the  im- 
pressions it  is  fitted  to  convey,  and  only  the  heart  which  has 
sympathy  with  spiritual  things  can  recognise  their  full  mean- 
ing. Poetic  sensibility  is  required  in  the  one  case,  and  reli- 
gious in  the  other.  In  each  it  is  the  condition  of  sincere 
emotion.  The  stillness  over  hill  and  valley,  broken  only  by 
the  bleating  of  the  sheep ;  the  unclouded  brightness  of  the 
Syrian  sky,  with  its  innumerable  stars ;  and  the  associations 
of  these  mountain  pastures,  dear  to  every  Jew,  as  the  scene 
of  David's  yotith,  were  over  and  around  them.  And  now,  to 

1  Quoted  by  Caspari,  p.  56.  8  T\JO,  a  flock. 


THE  SHEPHEBDS  AT  BETHLEHEM.       117 

quote  the  beautiful  narrative  of  St.  Luke,  "  lo,  an  **  angel  of 
the  Lord  came  upon  them,  and  the  glory  of  the  Lord  bb  shone 
round  about  them,  and  they  were  sore  afraid.  And  the  angel 
said  unto  them,  '  Fear  not,  for,  behold,  I  bring  you  good 
tidings  of  great  joy,  which  shall  be  unto  all  the  people.60  For 
unto  you  is  born,  this  day,  in  the  City  of  David,  a  Saviour, 
who  is  Christ  the  Lord.  And  this  shall  be  the  sign  unto  you : 
ye  shall  find  a  babedd  wrapped  in  swaddling  clothes,  lying  in 
a  manger.'  And  suddenly  there  was  with  the  angel  a  multi- 
tude of  the  Heavenly  Host,  praising  God  and  saying — 

'  Glory  to  God  in  the  highest, 
And  on  earth  peace, 
Goodwill  toward  men.'  "  *• 

With  this  ever-memorable  anthem — the  first  and  last  melody 
of  heaven  ever  heard  by  mortal  ears — the  light  faded  from 
the  hills,  as  the  angels  went  away  into  heaven,  and  left  earth 
once  more  in  the  shadow  of  night,0  knowing  and  thinking 
nothing  of  that  which  so  supremely  interested  distant  worlds. 
Wondering  at  such  a  vision,  and  full  of  simple  trust,  the 
shepherds  had  only  one  thought — to  see  the  babe  and  its 
mother  for  themselves.  Climbing  the  hill,  therefore,  with 
eager  haste,  they  hurried  to  Bethlehem,  and  there  found 
Mary  and  Joseph,  and  the  babe  lying  in  a  manger,8*  as  had 
been  told  them. 

No  details  are  given :  no  heightening  of  the  picture  of  this 
first  act  of  reverence  to  the  new-born  Saviour.  Nor  are  they 
needed.  The  lowliness  of  the  visitors,  the  pure  image  of  the 
Virgin  Mother  and  her  Child,  are  better  left  in  their  own 
simplicity.  Infancy  is  for  ever  dignified  by  the  manger  of 
Bethlehem :  womanhood  is  ennobled  to  its  purest  ideal  in 
Mary :  man,  as  such,  receives  abiding  honour,  in  the  earliest 
accepted  homage  to  her  Son  being  that  of  the  simple  poor. 

A  great  teacher  has  pointed  some  striking  lessons l  on  the 
•way  in  which  the  whole  incident  was  received,  as  St.  Luke 
relates,  by  those  immediately  concerned.  The  shepherds 
Bpread  abroad  the  story,  with  hearts  full  of  grateful  adora- 
tion ;  the  hearers  wonder  at  it,  but  Mary  ponders  in  her 
heart  all  that  had  been  told  her.  "  There  were  more  virgins 
in  Israel,  more  even  of  the  tribe  of  David,  than  she,"  says  the 
great  preacher ;  "  but  she  was  the  Chosen  of  God.  It  was 

1  Schleiermacher's  Predigten,  vol.  ii.  p.  329. 


118  THE   LIFE   OF  CHRIST. 

natural,  and  it  is  easy  to  understand,  that  when  a  second 
appearance  of  angels,  like  that  which  she  had  already  herself 
experienced,  was  seen,  she  should  ponder  in  her  heart  their 
words,  which  concerned  her  so  nearly.  But,  if  we  ask  our- 
selves— was  this  pondering  the  words  in  her  heart  already 
the  true  faith  that  carries  the  blessing, — the  fruitful  seed  of 
a  personal  relation  to  the  Saviour  ? — did  Mary  already  believe, 
firmly  and  immovably,  that  the  Saviour  of  the  world  should 
see  the  light  of  life  through  her  ? — the  Gospels  leave  us  too 
clearly  to  think  the  opposite.  There  was  a  time,  long  after 
this,  when  Christ  was  already  a  Teacher,  when  she  wavered 
between  Him  and  His  brethren  who  did  not  believe  in  Him  ; 
when  she  went  out  with  them  to  draw  Him  away  from  His 
course,  and  bring  Him  back  to  her  narrower  circle  of  home 
life,  as  one  who  was  hardly  in  His  right  mind.  Firm,  un- 
wavering trust,  that  knows  no  passing  cloud,  is  a  work  of 
time  with  all  who  have  an  inner  personal  nearness  to  the 
Saviour;  and  it  was  so  with  Mary.  She  reached  it  only, 
like  us  all,  through  manifold  doubts  and  struggles  of  heart, 
by  that  grace  from  above  which  roused  her,  ever,  anew,  and 
led  her  on  from  step  to  step." 


CHAPTER  X. 
AT    BETHLEHEM. 

E  first  two  months  of  the  life  of  Christ,  if  not  a  longer 
time,  were  spent  quietly  in  Bethlehem.  That  great 
event  in  a  Hebrew  household,  His  circumcision,  marked  the 
eighth  day  from  His  birth.  To  dedicate  their  children  to 
the  God  of  Israel  in  His  appointed  way,  and  thus  at  once 
give  them  "  a  portion  in  Israel,"  and  set  them  apart  from 
the  nations  by  this  sacred  token,  was  a  duty  which  no 
Jewish  parent  would  for  a  moment  dare  to  neglect.  "  On 
the  eighth  day,"  says  the  Book  of  Jubilees,"  "  shalt  thou 
circumcise  thy  boy,  for  on  that  day  were  Abraham  and  the 
people  of  his  house  circumcised.  And  no  one  may  dare  to 
change  the  day,  nor  go  a  day  beyond  the  eight  days,1  for  it 
is  an  everlasting  law,  established  and  graven  on  the  tablets 
of  heaven.  And  he  who  does  it  not  belongs  not  to  the 
children  of  the  promise,  but  to  the  children  of  destruction. 
Sons  of  Belial  are  they  who  do  it  not."  The  infant  Saviour 
was  in  all  probability  carried  on  the  legal  day  to  the  Temple, 
as  it  was  so  near,  for  the  performance  of  the  rite, — for 
Joseph  and  Mary,  like  all  other  Jews,  would  think  a  religious 
act  doubly  sacred  within  the  hallowed  courts  of  Mount  Zion. 
Custom,  however,  would  allow  its  being  done  in  the  local 
synagogue,  or  in  the  humble  house  of  prayer  in  Bethlehem 
itself,  or  even  in  the  house  in  which  Mary  and  Joseph 
lodged. 

The  name  Mary's  child  received  had  already  been  fixed  at 
the  Annunciation,  and  was  formally  given  at  the  circum- 
cision, in  accordance  with  Jewish  customs  in  reference  to 
male  infants.1*  Its  association  with  such  a  strictly  Jewish 
rite  made  it  the  symbol  of  the  child's  formal  admission  into 
the  congregation  of  Israel,  of  which  he  was  henceforth 
a  member.  The  infant  Jesus  was  now  an  acknowledged 
Israelite.0 

1  See  John  vii.  22,  23. 


120  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

Thirty-three  days  more  had  to  elapse,  in  accordance  with 
Jewish  custom,  before  Mary  could  visit  the  Temple,  or  even 
go  outside  her  dwelling,  or  touch  anything  made  sacred  by 
being  consecrated  to  God.  Including  the  circumcision  week, 
the  Jewish  mother  had  to  pass  forty  days  of  seclusion  after 
the  birth  of  a  son,1  and  sixty-six  after  that  of  a  daughter,2 
before  she  could  again  take  part  in  common  life.  After  this 
long  delay,  she  might  appear  in  the  Holy  Place,  to  thank  God 
for  her  preservation,  and  to  receive  from  the  priest  the  legal 
rite  of  purification. 

When,  at  last,  the  day  of  her  long-desired  visit  to  the 
Temple  came,  Mary,  with  her  child,  had  to  present  them- 
selves in  the  Court  of  the  Women  as  soon  as  the  morning 
incense  had  been  offered,  and  the  nine  blasts  of  the  Temple 
trumpets  had  given  the  signal  for  morning  prayer.d  The 
road  from  Bethlehem  ran  along  the  western  side  of  the  hill 
which  overlooks  Mount  Zion  from  the  south — that  on  which 
Pompey,  sixty  years  before,  had  pitched  his  camp — a  defile- 
ment of  the  holy  soil  never  since  forgotten.  Passing  Herod's 
great  amphitheatre,3  with  its  heathen  ornaments — a  sight  as 
revolting  to  a  Jewess  as  was  the  remembrance  of  the  bloody 
games  celebrated  in  the  circus  within—  Mary  would  go  up 
the  Valley  of  the  Giants,  and  at  the  further  end  of  it  the  full 
splendour  of  the  city  and  Temple  would  be  before  her.  The 
long  sweep  of  the  valley  of  Hinnom  ran,  bending  eastward, 
to  the  valley  of  the  Kidron,  with  the  royal  gardens  where  the 
two  valleys  met,  and  mansions  and  palaces  rising  on  the  hills 
beyond.  Over  Ophel  rose  the  dazzling  whiteness  of  the  Royal 
Porch  of  the  Temple,  a  structure  longer  and  higher  than 
York  Cathedral,  built  upon  a  solid  mass  of  masonry,  almost 
equal  in  height  to  the  tallest  of  our  church  spires.4  Passing 
up  the  northern  arm  of  Hinnom,  her  road  skirted  the  pools  of 
Gihon,  shining,  as  she  looked  at  them,  in  the  morning  light, 
and  wound  round  to  the  Gennath  Gate,  under  the  shadow  of 
the  great  towers  beyond  the  palace  of  Herod,  on  the  line  of 
the  oldest  of  the  city  walls.  These  fortresses  had  all  been 
built  by  Herod  to  overawe  Jerusalem,  and  had  been  named 
by  him ;  the  one,  after  his  friend  Hippicus,  the  next,  after  his 
brother  Phasael,  and  the  third,  after  his  wife  Mariamne, 
whom  he  had  murdered,  but  could  not  forget.  On  the  north- 
east, the  colossal,  eight-sided  Psephinos,  with  its  double  crown 

1  Lev.  xii.  4.  *  Lev.  xii.  5. 

*  Dell.  Jud  ,  ii.  3.  2.  4  Recovery  of  Jerusalem,  p.  9. 


THE   PUEIFICATION.  121 

of  breastworks  and  battlements,  looked  down  on  the  city,  and 
all  four  glittered  in  the  early  light,  and  rose  high  into  the 
clear  blue  of  the  sky.  Mary  was  now  within  the  walls  of 
Jerusalem,  and  had  to  thread  her  way  through  the  narrow 
streets  of  the  lower  town,  till,  after  crossing  the  bridge  over 
the  valley,  to  Mount  Moriah,  she  at  last  reached  the  eastern 
side  of  the  Temple,  where  the  Golden  Gate,  at  the  head  of 
the  long  flight  of  steps  that  led  to  the  valley  of  the  Kidron, 
opened  into  the  Court  of  the  Women. 

She  would,  doubtless,  be  early  enough  on  her  way  to  hear 
the  three  trumpet  blasts  which  announced  the  opening  of 
the  outer  gate,  long  before  the  call  to  prayer.  The  earlier 
she  came,  the  less  chance  would  there  be  of  meeting  any- 
thing on  the  way  that  might  defile  her,  and  prevent  her 
entering  the  Temple.  Women  on  her  errand  commonly  rode 
to  the  Temple  on  oxen,  that  the  body  of  so  huge  a  beast 
between  them  and  the  ground  might  prevent  any  chance  of 
defilement  from  passing  over  a  sepulchre  on  the  road,  and, 
doubtless,  she  rode  either  an  ass  or  an  ox,  as  was  the 
custom.1 

While  the  mothers  who  were  coming  that  morning  for 
purification  gradually  gathered,  Mary  would  have  to  wait 
outside  the  lofty  gate  of  the  Court  of  the  Israelites,  known 
as  that  of  Nicanor,"  because  the  head  and  hands  of  the  Syrian 
general  of  that  name,  slain  in  battle  by  Judas  Maccabaeus, 
had  been  hung  up  on  it  in  triumph.2  She  had  doubtless 
often  heard,  among  the  household  stories  of  her  childhood, 
how  the  haughty  enemy  of  her  people  wagged  his  hand, 
each  day,  towards  Judea  and  Jerusalem,  with  the  words 
"  Oh !  when  will  it  be  in  my  power  to  lay  them  waste  ?  " 
and  how  the  hand  that  had  thus  been  lifted  against  the  holy 
place  in  blasphemy,  had  been  exposed  on  the  gate  before  her 
in  shame.*  It  was  the  greatest  of  all  the  Temple  gates: 
greater  even  than  the  outer  gate  east  of  it,  known  as  the 
Beautiful,  from  its  being  covered  with  massy  silver  and  gold, 
richly  carved,3  or  from  its  being  made  of  Corinthian  brass, 
elaborately  chased,g  and  of  far  higher  value  than  even  golu. 
It  was  known  also  as  the  Agrippa  Gate,  for  over  its  eastern, 
or  outer  side,  glittered  a  gigantic  Roman  eagle,  underneath 
which  Herod  had  inscribed  the  name  of  his  friend  Yipsanias 
Agrippa,  the  friend  and  son-in-law  of  Augustus.  A  flight  of 

1  Lightfoot,  Hora  Hebraicce,  vol.  i.  p.  77.     2  Jost,  Jud.,  vol.  i  p.  142. 
8  Jos.,  Bell.  Jud.,  v.  5.  3. 


122  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

fifteen  steps,  in  crescent  shape,  formed  the  approach  to  it,  and 
marked  the  height  of  the  Court  of  the  Men,  above  that  of 
the  Women.  The  gate,  itself,  stood  at  the  inner  end  of  a 
massive  structure,  fifty  cubits  in  depth,  with  porticoes  at 
the  eastern  side,  and  chambers  above  it,  under  which  Joseph 
doubtless  waited  with  Mary,  for  husbands  could  enter  the 
Court  of  the  Women  with  their  wives,1  though  no  woman 
could  pass  into  the  Court  of  the  Men.  They  must  have 
shuddered  as  they  passed  underneath  the  great  golden  eagle, 
the  hateful  symbol  of  idolatry  and  Roman  domination,  for 
destroying  which,  in  the  riots  before  Herod's  death,  so  many 
of  the  flower  of  Jerusalem  were  soon  to  die. 

After  a  time,  the  Nicanor  Gate  was  opened,  and  the 
offerings  of  all  the  women  who  had  come  for  purification, 
which  was  much  the  same  as  churching  is  with  us,  were 
taken  from  them  by  the  Levites,  into  the  Court  of  the 
Priests,  to  be  burned  on  the  altar,  after  the  morning  sacrifice. 
Mary  might  have  had  either  a  lamb  or  a  pair  of  young 
pigeons,  for  the  rite ;  but  Joseph  was  poor,  and  she  was  con- 
tented with  the  cheaper  offering  of  doves,h  probably  bought 
from  the  Temple  officer  who  kept  flocks  of  doves,  purchased 
with  the  funds  of  the  Temple,  and  spld  them  to  those 
who  were  about  to  offer,  at  the  market  price.2  Or  she  may 
have  got  them  in  the  outer  court,  which  had  been  turned  into 
a  noisy  bazaar,  by  great  numbers  of  money-changers,  sellers 
of  doves,  and  even  dealers  in  oxen,  who  sought  the  custom  of 
the  crowds  frequenting  the  Temple,  contrary  to  the  very  idea 
of  such  a  place.3  Meanwhile,  the  assembled  mothers  spent 
the  interval  before  their  offering  was  laid  on  the  altar,  in 
giving  thanks  to  God  for  their  recoveiy.  After  a  time,  a 
priest  came  with  some  of  the  blood,  and,  having  sprinkled 
them  with  it,  pronounced  them  clean,1  and  thus  the  rite 
ended. 

Her  own  "purification,"  however,  was  not  the  only  object 
of  this  first  visit  to  the  Temple,  after  the  birth  of  her  Son. 
In  the  patriarchal  times,  the  firstborn  son  of  each  family 
seems  to  have  been  the  assistant  of  the  Family  Head  in  the 
priestly  services  of  the  household.  Jewish  tradition  haa 
always  supported  this  belief,4  and  the  ancient  commentators 
appeal  to  various  passages  in  support  of  it.k  A  great  change 

1  Jos.,  Ant.,  xv.  11.  5.  8  Jost,  vol.  i.  p.  152. 

'  Matt.  xxi.  12.  John  ii.  14.  Delitzsch.  JiidiscJies  Handwerkerleben  z. 
Zeit,  Jesu,  p.  25.  *  Winer,  R.  W.  B.,  Art.  Eeinigunj. 


THE   CIKCUMCISION   OF  JESUS.  123 

was,  however,  introduced  by  Moses.  Aaron  and  his  sons 
were  set  apart,  with  the  whole  tribe  of  Levi,  as  the  only 
priests,  and  thus  the  priestly  services  of  the  firstborn  were 
no  longer  required.  That  they  had  originally  been  claimed, 
however,  was  still  kept  before  the  people  by  a  law  erelong 
announced  at  Sinai,  that  the  eldest  male,  of  both  man  and 
beast,  was  sacred  to  God.  Of  the  lower  creatures,  some  were 
to  be  offered  on  the  altar ;  others  redeemed  at  a  fixed  price. 
The  firstborn  son  was  to  be  presented  before  God  in  the 
Temple,  and  consecrated  to  His  service,  a  month  after  birth, 
but  a  money  payment  of  not  more  than  five  shekels,1  and,  in 
the  case  of  a  parent's  poverty,  of  less,  was  accepted  as  a  "  re- 
demption "  of  the  rights  this  involved.1  Rabbinical  law,  in 
the  time  of  Mary,  had  made  a  refinement  on  the  original 
statute  of  Moses,  no  child  being  required  to  be  "  presented  to 
the  Lord"  who  was  in  any  way  maimed,  or  defective,  or 
had  any  blemish,  so  as  to  be  unfit  for  a  priest2 — anile  which 
throws  an  incidental  light  on  Mary's  child,  such  as  might 
have  been  expected.  He  must  have  been,  in  all  points,  with- 
out physical  blemish. 

The  details  of  the  ceremony,  as  observed  in  the  days  of 
our  Lord,  have  not  come  down  to  us,  but  may,  doubtless, 
be  illustrated  by  those  still  in  force ;  for  the  "  redemption  of 
the  firstborn  "  is  still  observed  by  strict  Jews  as  the  legacy 
of  immemorial  tradition.  The  Hebrew  father  invites  ten 
friends  and  a  Rabbi,  who  must  be  a  Cohen3 — that  is,  one 
reputed  to  belong  to  the  house  of  Aaron — to  his  house,  on 
the  thirty-first  day  after  the  child's  birth.  The  infant  is 
presently  brought  in  by  the  father  and  laid  before  the 
Rabbi,  with  a  sum  of  money — which,  in  England,  if  the 
father  be  ordinarily  well-to-do,  generally  amounts  to  about 
twelve  shillings."1  He  then  formally  tells  the  Rabbi  that  his 
wife,  who  is  an  Israelite,  has  borne,  as  her  firstborn,  a  male 
child,  which,  therefore,  he  now  gives  to  the  Rabbi,  as  the 
representative  of  God.u  "Which  would  you,  then,  rathei* 
do  ?  "  asks  the  Rabbi,  "  give  up  your  firstborn,  who  is  the 
first  child  of  his  mother,  to  Jehovah,  or  redeem  him  for  five 
(Shekels,  after  the  shekel  of  the  sanctuary,  which  is  five  gera?  " 


1  Lev.  xxvii.  6.  Num.  xviii.  15 ;  xvi.  3,  12.  Lev.  xii.  4.  Exod.  xiii.  18 ; 
xxxiv.  20. 

3  Lightfoot,  Hor.  Heb.,  vol.  iii.  p.  38.  Herzog's  Beal-Ency.,  vol.  iv. 
p.  115. 

*  Cohen  jn'3,  is  the  Hebrew  word  for  priest. 


124  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

The  father,  of  course,  answers  that  he  wishes  to  redeem  his 
child.  "  This  is  my  firstborn,"  says  he ;  "  here,  take  unto 
thee  the  five  shekels  due  for  his  redemption."  As  he  hands 
the  money  to  the  Rabbi,  he  praises  God  for  the  day — "  Blessed 
art  Thou,  O  Lord  our  God,  King  of  the  Universe,  who  hast 
sanctified  us  with  Thy  commandments,  and  commanded  us 
to  perform  the  redemption  of  a  son.  Blessed  art  Thou,  O 
Lord  our  God,  King  of  the  Universe,  who  hast  maintained 
us,  and  preserved  us,  to  enjoy  this  season."  The  Rabbi  then 
takes  the  money,  and  after  passing  the  coin  round  the  child's 
head,  as  a  symbol  of  redemption,  lays  his  other  hand  on  its 
brow,  with  the  words — "  This  [child]  is  instead  of  this 
[money],  and  this  [money]  instead  of  this  [child]  :  may  this 
child  be  brought  to  life,  to  the  Law,  and  to  the  fear  of 
heaven  ;  and  as  he  has  been  brought  to  be  ransomed,  so  may 
he  enter  into  the  Law,  and  good  deeds."  He  then  places 
both  his  hands  on  the  child's  head,  and  prays — "  God  make 
thee  as  Ephraim  and  Manasseh.  The  Lord  bless  and  pre- 
serve thee.  The  Lord  lift  up  His  countenance  upon  thee, 
and  give  thee  peace.  Length  of  days,  years,  and  peace  be 
gathered  to  thee ;  and  God  keep  thee  from  all  evil  and  save 
thy  soul."  And  now  the  rite  is  over. 

In  a  nation  which  has  boasted,  for  two  thousand  years, 
that  it  hands  down  its  religious  customs,  from  generation  to 
generation,  without  a  shadow  of  change,  in  word  or  form,  a 
practice  of  to-day  is,  doubtless,  in  most  respects,  identical  with 
its  counterpart  in  the  time  of  Mary.  It  was,  we  may  assume, 
with  some  such  prayers  and  solemn  forms  that  Joseph  and 
Mary,  still  standing  before  the  Nicanor  Gate,  "  presented  " 
the  infant  Saviour  "  to  the  Lord,"  l  °  after  Mary  had  been  de- 
clared "  clean  "  by  the  sprinkling  of  the  blood  of  the  doves. 

It  was  still  morning,  and  crowds  of  men  were  entering  the 
Court  of  the  Israelites,  by  the  Nicanor  Gate,  or  passing  out. 
The  mothers  and  fathers  who  had  firstborn  sons  to  redeem 
were  still  before  the  gate,  Mary  and  Joseph  among  them. 
And  now  an  aged  man,  who  could  not  come  earlier  to  his 
morning  devotions,  approaches.  We  know  only  that  his 
name  was  Simeon,  a  very  common  one,  then,  among  the  Jews, 
and  that  he  was  one  in  whom  the  reign  of  form  and  rite  had 
not  extinguished  true  spiritual  conceptions.  He  was  "  a  just 
man  and  devout,"  says  St.  Luke  2 — an  expression,  the  force 
of  which,  in  those  days,  is  seen  in  the  explanation  of  nearly 

1  Luke  ii.  22.  2  ch.  ii.  25. 


THE   AGED   SIMEON.  125 

the  same  character  given  to  the  great  high  priest  Simon. 
"  He  was  called  '  Just '  both  for  his  piety  towards  God,  and 
his  charity  towards  his  countrymen." l  Simeon  must  have 
been  one  who,  though  he  followed  the  Law,  did  so  from  the 
lore  of  it;  and  from  the  fear  of  God,  and  was  careful  of  ita 
spirit,  while,  no  doubt,  exact  in  the  countless  ritual  obser- 
vances then  thought  to  constitute  "  righteousness  ;  "  one,  like 
Nathanael,  "an  Israelite  indeed,  in  whom  was  no  guile."  v 
Habitually  drawing  near  God,  the  promise  had  been  fulfilled 
to  this  aged  saint  that  God  would  draw  near  to  him : 3  for 
"  the  Holy  Ghost  was  upon  him."  Too  old  to  care  for  longer 
life,  so  far  as  earth  alone  was  concerned,  his  heart  yet  beat 
warmly  for  his  down-trodden  nation,  and  for  man  at  large, 
sunk  in  heathen  darkness.  He  would  fain  wait  among  the 
living  till  the  appearance  of  the  "  Consolation  of  Israel " — 
the  familiar  name  by  which  his  race,  in  their  deep  yearning 
for  deliverance,  had  come  to  speak  of  the  long  expected 
Messiah,5  as  the  sure  restorer  of  its  glory.  He  had  a  pre- 
monition, divinely  sent,  that  he  should  have  this  joy,  and  had 
come  this  morning  "  by  the  spirit  "  q  into  the  Temple.  How 
he  knew  it  we  cannot  tell,  but,  as  Mary  stood  presenting  her 
child,  he  recognised  in  Him  the  "Messiah  of  God."  Tho 
ceremony  over,  his  full  heart  cannot  restrain  itself.  Tottering 
towards  the  young  mother,  he  takes  her  babe  in  his  arms, 
and  gives  thanks  to  God  in  words  of  touching  beauty — "  Lord, 
now  lettest  Thou  thy  servant  depart  in  peace,  according  to 
Thy  word :  for  mine  eyes  have  seen  Thy  Salvation,  which 
Thou  hast  prepared  before  the  face  of  all  peoples :  a  light  to 
lighten  the  heathen  and  the  glory  of  Thy  people  Israel." 
Like  a  true  Jew,  he  thinks  of  Israel  as  the  centre  of  the 
Messianic  glory,  the  light  oi  which  is  to  stream,  afar,  over 
the  heathen  world  around,  attainting  them  to  it. 

Turning  to  Josephr  and  Mary,  the  old  man  then  says  a  few 
parting  words,  with  prophetic  insight  of  the  future  both  of 
the  child  and  its  mother.  "  Your  child,"  says  he  to  her,  "  is 
destined  for  the  fall  of  many  in  Israel,  for  many  will  reject 
Him  ;  but  also  for  the  rising  again  of  many,  who  will  believo 
on  Him  and  live.  He  is  sent  for  a  sign  which  shall  be  spoken 
against,  and  will  meet  with  reproach  and  contradiction,  which 
will  reveal  the  thoughts  of  many  hearts  respecting  Him  " — a 
truth  too  sadly  culminating  at  Calvary.  Mary's  own  heart 
"  would  be  pierced  with  a  great  sorrow." 

*  Ant.,  xii.  2.  5.  a  John  i.  47.  •  Jas.  >.  3. 


126  THE   LIFE    OF   CHEIST. 

At  that  instant,  we  are  told,  an  aged  woman,  Anna  by  name, 
of  the  tribe  of  Asher,  and  therefore  a  Galilean,  approached 
the  gate.  She  was  eighty-four  years  old,  and  had  thus  lived 
through  the  long  sad  period  of  war,  conquest,  and  oppression, 
which  had  intensified,  in  every  Jewish  heart,  the  yearning 
for  national  deliverance  by  the  promised  Messiah.  She 
must  have  remembered  the  fatal  war  between  the  Asmonear- 
brothers,  Aristobulus  and  Hyrcanus,1  which  had  brought  all 
the  misery  of  her  people  in  its  train,  and  she  had  likely  seen 
the  legions  of  Pompey,  when  they  encamped  on  the  hills 
round  Jerusalem.2  The  rise  of  Herod  3  was  a  recollection  of 
her  middle  life,  and  its  dreadf ul  story  of  war,  murder,  and 
crime,  must  have  sunk  into  her  heart,  as  it  had  into  the  hearts 
of  all  her  race. 

Her  long  life  had  been  spent  in  pious  acts  and  services, 
for,  after  she  had  been  seven  years  a  wife,  her  husband  had 
died,  leaving  her,  doubtless,  still  very  young,  since  Hebrew 
girls  married  at  twelve  or  fourteen  years  of  age.  She  had 
never  married  again,  a  fact  mentioned  by  St.  Luke  in  accord- 
ance with  the  feeling  of  the  day,4  to  her  honour,  but  had  been, 
in  the  words  of  St.  PauL5  "  a  widow  indeed,"  "  trusting  in 
God,"  and  "continuing  in  supplications  and  prayers  night 
and  day."  She  might,  in  truth,  be  said  to  have  lived  in  the 
Temple,6  and  to  have  spent  her  life  in  fastings  and  prayers  ; 
having  very  likely  come  from  Galilee  to  be  near  the  holy  place, 
and  thus  able  to  give  herself  up  to  religious  exercises,  on  the 
spot,  where,  in  the  eyes  of  a  Jew,  they  were  most  sacred.8 

Such  a  woman  must  have  been  well  known  in  a  place  like 
Jerusalem.  Catching  the  burden  of  Simeon's  words  as  she 
passed,  she  too,  like  him,  forthwith  thanks  God  that  the 
promise  of  the  Messiah  is  now,  at  last,  fulfilled.  There  could 
have  been  few,  however,  to  whom  the  glad  tidings  of  such  a 
Saviour  were  welcome,  for  though  the  heart  of  the  nation  was 
burning  with  Messianic  hopes  of  a  political  kind,  we  are  told 
that  Anna  was  able  to  announce  the  birth  of  Christ  to  all  in 
J  erusalem  who  looked  for  a  redemption  of  a  higher  type.* 

Returning  to  Bethlehem,  Joseph  and  Mary  seem  to  have 
intended  to  settle  in  it  permanently,7  for  even  after  their 
return  from  Egypt  they  would  have  gone  to  it  again,  but  for 
their  fear  of  Archelaus.  St.  Matthew8  speaks  of  their  living 
in  a  "house"  when  the  Magi  came,  very  soon  after  the 

1  B.O  7.        2  B.C.  63.        »  B.C.  37.         *  1  Tim.  iii.  2.         6  1  Tim.  v.  5. 
•  Luke  ii  37.  '  Matt.  ii.  22.  «  Ch.  ii.  10. 


BETHLEHEM.  127 

Presentation,  but  the  natural  chamber  in  the  hill-side,  which 
was  Mary's  first  shelter,  would  be  as  much  a  part  of  a  house 
as  any  other.  It  has  for  ages  been  the  custom  to  speak  of 
the  birthplace  of  Jesus  as  a  cave,  though  the  word  raises  very- 
different  ideas  in  our  minds,  from  any  that  could  have  been 
felt  where  such  cool,  dry  recesses  are,  even  still,  ordinary 
parts  of  village  or  country  houses  of  the  humbler  kind. 

The  "  Cave  of  the  Nativity  "  now  shown  in  Bethlehem,  is 
surrounded  by  such  artificial  distractions,  that  it  is  hard  to 
realize  the  possibility  of  its  being  the  actual  scene  of  the  most 
stupendous  event  in  all  history.  A  convent,  like  a  mediaeval 
castle  for  strength  and  solidity,  and  of  great  extent,  crowns 
the  hill,  its  huge  buttresses  resting  on  the  shelving  rocks  far 
below.  The  village  lies  on  the  eastern  and  western  summit- 
crests  of  the  hill,  at  a  height  above  the  sea  l  only  300  feet 
lower  than  the  top  of  Helvellyn,  and  as  high  as  the  loftiest 
hill-top  in  the  Cheviot  range.  You  may  easily  walk  round 
it,  or  from  side  to  side  of  it,  in  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  or 
along  its  whole  length  in  half  that  time.  The  villagers 
support  themselves  partly  by  field  work,  but  mainly  by 
carving  rosaries,  crucifixes,  and  models  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre, 
in  wood,  for  sale.  The  Cave  of  the  Nativity  lies  on  the  east 
hill,  under  a  "  Church  of  St.  Mary,"  first  built  by  the  Emperor 
Constantine,  but  often  renewed  since.  To  this  church  there 
is  joined,  on  the  north,  the  Latin  cloister  of  the  Franciscans, 
with  the  Church  of  St.  Catherine,  which  belongs  to  it,  and, 
on  the  south,  the  Greek  and  the  Armenian  cloisters. 

The  "  Church  of  the  Nativity  " — venerable  at  least  for  its 
great  age — is  built  in  the  form  of  a  cross.  The  choir,  two 
steps  higher  than  the  long  nave,  includes  the  top  and  arms 
of  the  cross,  and  is  divided  from  the  nave  by  a  partition.  A 
low  door,  in  the  west,  leads,  through  the  porch,  to  the  desolate 
and  cheerless  nave,  with  forty-four  pillars,  in  seven  rows, 
supporting  the  roof,  the  rough  beams  of  which  are  uncovered, 
and  look  very  bare  and  dreary.  The  Greeks  and  Armenians 
have  charge  of  this  part,  the  Latins  being  only  allowed  to 
pass  through  it  to  their  cloister.  The  former  have  altars  in 
the  choir ;  that  of  the  Greeks,  which  is  consecrated  to  "  the 
three  kings,"  standing  in  the  centre,  and  showing,  in  a  niche 
under  it,  a  star  of  white  marble,  marking  the  spot  where  the 

1  2,538  Paris  feet =2,774  English  feet.  Arnold's  Palaslina.  The 
summit  of  Helvellyn  is  3,055  feet  above  the  sea-level ;  that  of  Cheviot 
Peak  2,638;  and  that  of  Broad  Law,  in  Peebles,  2,741. 


128  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

star  of  the  wise  men  stood  in  the  heavens  over  Bethlehem ! 
The  Cave  of  the  Nativity  is  under  the  altar,  and  is  reached, 
from  both  sides  of  the  choir,  by  a  flight  of  broad  and  beautiful 
marble  steps,  respectively  fifteen  and  thirteen  in  number. 
The  cave  itself  is  about  thirty-eight  feet  long,  eleven  broad, 
and  nine  high,  and  is  paved  "with  black  and  red- veined  marble. 
The  sides  are  partly  lined  with  marble  slabs,  but  some  of 
these,  on  the  north,  have  fallen  off,  and  show  the  bare  wall, 
while,  elsewhere,  curtains  of  silk  or  linen  are  hung  up — the 
silk  apparently  only  at  festivals.  From  the  roof  hangs  a  row 
of  silver  lamps,  along  the  whole  length  of  the  cave.  The 
site  of  the  manger  itself  is  on  the  east  side  of  the  grotto,  in 
a  rounded  niche  about  eight  feet  high  and  four  broad,  in 
which  an  altar  stands.  The  pavement  of  this  recess  is  a  few 
inches  higher  than  that  of  the  cave,  and  is  formed  of  marble 
slabs  on  which  there  is  a  silver  star,  with  sparkling  rays, 
inlaid  with  precious  stones.  Along  the  edge  runs  an  inscrip- 
tion which  no  one  can  read  without  emotion — "  Hie  de  Virgine 
Maria  Jesus  Christus  natus  est." l 

South  from  this  spot,  in  a  corner,  is  a  small  separate  cave, 
three  steps  lower  than  the  larger  one,  and  in  this  stands  the 
"  Altar  of  the  Manger ; "  but  as  the  wooden  manger  which 
was  exhibited  in  earlier  times  was  taken  to  Rome  in  1486  by 
Pope  Sixtus  V.,  very  little  interest  attaches  now,  even  on  the 
ground  of  antiquity,  to  the  crib  of  coloured  marble  shown  in 
its  place.  A  painting  of  the  Adoration  of  the  Shepherds 
covers  the  rock  behind.  Five  silver  lamps  swing  before  this, 
and  opposite  is  the  "  Altar  of  the  Magi,"  with  another  paint- 
ing. It  throws  additional  distrust  over  all,  except,  perhaps, 
the  central  facts  of  the  spot,  that  a  door  from  the  larger  cave 
admits  into  a  long,  crooked,  rough  opening,  like  the  gallery 
of  a  mine,  in  which  are  various  altars,  in  recesses,  natural,  or 
formed  by  man.  You  are  shown  the  "  Chapel  of  St.  Joseph ;  " 
then  that  of  "  The  Innocents,"  under  the  altar  of  which  a 
square  latticed  opening  is  said  to  lead  to  the  cave  in  which 
the  bones  of  the  murdered  Innocents  were  buried.  From 
the  Chapel  of  the  Innocents  you  pass  the  altar  of  Eusebius  of 
Cremona,  who  lies  there ;  and  in  a  cave  at  the  west  end  of 
the  gallery  you  are  shown  the  tombs  of  the  holy  Paula  and 
her  daughter  Eustochium,  with  that  of  their  friend  St. 
Jerome,"  whose  cell — the  scene  of  his  wonderful  version  of 
the  Scriptures — is  pointed  out,  a  little  beyond. 

1  Here,  Jesus  Christ  was  born,  of  the  Virgin  Mary. 


CHAPTER  XI. 
THE   MAGI. 

fTIHE  two  centuries  in  which  Jndea  was  a  province  of  the 
-L  Persian  Empire 1  were,  perhaps,  the  happiest  time  in 
the  history  of  the  Jewish  nation.  Enjoying  perfect  religious 
liberty,  for  which  alone  they  cared,  they  were  loyal  and 
contented.  Nehemiah,  the  rebuilder  of  Jerusalem,  was  at 
the  same  time  a  Persian  pacha,  and  the  people  at  large  only 
expressed  their  common  fidelity  to  the  power  he  represented, 
in  allowing,  with  a  liberality  amazing  in  their  case,  a  sculp- 
ture of  Susa,  the  Persian  metropolis,  to  be  cut  over  one  of 
the  gates  of  the  Temple.2 

The  most  striking  characteristic  of  each  nation  furthered 
this  mutual  respect.  In  Persia  the  highest  form  of  Aryan 
religion  had  been  brought  face  to  face  with  the  highest  form 
of  Semitic,  and  there  were  many  points  in  which  mutual 
sympathy  and  regard  were  inevitable.  Both  nations  hated 
idolatry ;  indeed,  the  Persian  was  more  zealous  in  this  than 
the  Jew  had  been,  for  there  were  not  wanting,  even  in  the 
exile,  Jews  who  served  idols.3  In  Ormuzd  and  Ahriman, — the 
personifications  of  Light  and  Darkness,  or  Good  and  Evil, — 
the  Persian,  as  it  might  seem,  had  only  developed  the  Jewish 
doctrine,  of  Jehovah  and  the  Evil  that  struggled  to  counter- 
act His  beneficent  rule.  To  the  Persian,  as  to  the  Jew,  his 
sacred  books  were  the  weapon  against  darkness,  and  the 
guide  to  blessedness.  They  prescribed  commandments  and 
supplied  revelations.  They  taught  a  life  after  death,  and 
future  rewards  and  punishments ;  they  disclosed  the  issue  of 
the  great  struggle  between  Good  and  Evil,  and  what  would 
happen  at  the  end  of  the  world.  Times  of  great  trial  were 
to  prove  the  faithful  before  the  final  day.  Their  blood  would 
flow  like  water.  At  the  end  of  every  millennium,  however, 
Ormuzd  would  send  a  prophet,  with  a  new  revelation,  and 

1  B.C.  540-332.  *  Winer,  JR.  W.  B.,  Art.  Susan. 

8  Ezek.  xiv.  1  ft. 

10 


130  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST 

thus  a  reformation  would  be  effected  for  the  time.  The 
prophet  next  to  appear  would  be  born  of  a  virgin,  and  after 
destroying  the  works  of  Ahriman,  would  establish  a  happy 
kingdom  for  a  thousand  years.  To  aid  him  in  this,  the  most 
famous  men  of  all  times  would  appear  in  life  again.  At  the 
end  of  the  millennium,  the  resurrection,  it  was  taught,  would 
take  place,  through  fifty-seven  years.  Then  would  begin 
the  burning-up  of  the  world  by  fire :  the  mountains  would 
sink,  and  the  whole  globe  become  like  a  sea  of  molten  metals. 
Through  this  all  men  must  pass,  to  be  purified  from  the  sina 
still  cleaving  to  them ;  but  while  the  holy  would  do  it  with 
ease,  the  wicked  would  suffer  pain  such  as  the  same  torments 
would  have  given  them  during  life.  After  this  purification, 
even  the  formerly  wicked  would  be  freed  from  evil.  Ahri- 
man and  hell  would  be  conquered  and  pass  away ;  there 
would  remain  only  the  great  communion  of  the  blessed,  who 
live  with  Ormuzd. 

As  regards  this  life,  the  Persians  were  taught  that  no  man 
can  remain  neutral,  but  mast  take  the  side  either  of  good  or 
evil.  To  follow  the  former  was  not  only  right  but  natural, 
since  Ormuzd  is  the  Creator.  Yet  even  he  who  chooses 
the  right  does  not  always  receive  his  reward,  for  evil  is 
powerful,  and  hinders  Ormuzd,  in  many  ways,  from  favour- 
ing his  servant  here.  The  bad,  by  the  help  of  Ahriman,  may 
obtain  prosperity,  and  even  secure  the  blessings  designed  for 
the  good,  but  in  the  world  to  come  this  will  no  longer  be 
possible.  As  a  man  has  lived  on  earth,  so,  they  believed, 
would  be  his  reward  or  suffering  in  the  life  beyond.  He  who 
has  been  good  and  pure,  in  thought,  word,  and  deed,  would 
be  owned  as  a  servant  of  Ormuzd,  and  received  into  the 
fellowship  of  the  spirits  in  light,  while  he  who  had  opposed 
Ormuzd  here,  would  be  driven  down,  in  the  life  hereafter, 
to  dwell  with  Ahrinian  and  his  followers,  in  thick  darkness. 
The  decision  as  to  the  class  to  which  any  one  belongs  would 
be  given  according  to  his  works.  On  the  third  day  after 
death,  judgment,  they  were  taught,  will  be  held,  and  every 
soul  will  have  to  pass  over  a  bridge,  where  the  ways  to  heaven 
and  hell  divide.  Beside  it  sit  the  judges  of  the  dead  and 
weigh  the  deeds  of  each  soul  in  great  scales.  If  the  good 
hear  down  the  evil,  the  soul  goes  forward,  over  the  bridge, 
to  Paradise,  where  it  is  welcomed,  and  has  its  dwelling  till 
the  Last  Judgment.  But  when  a  wicked  soul  presents  itself, 
on  the  third  day  after  death,  to  try  to  pass  over,  the  bridge 
seems  too  narrow  and  slight,  the  footsteps  totte.r,  and  the 


JUDAISM  AND   PAESEEISM.  131 

soul  falls  into  the  dark  abyss  beneath.  It  is  there  received 
with  laughter  and  mocker y  by  fiends,  and  tortured  with  the 
bitterest  agonies  till  the  Day  of  Judgment.1 

How  far  this  early  creed  retained  its  hold  among  the 
Persians  in  the  days  of  the  Captivity,  is  not  known,  and 
there  are  no  grounds  for  assuming  that  the  Jews  were  in- 
debted to  it,  to  any  great  extent,  for  the  development  of  their 
theology.  The  unity  of  Jehovah  was  in  direct  opposition  to 
the  dualism  of  the  Persian  system.*  The  Jewish  conception 
of  Satan,  like  that  of  the  resurref  cion,  has  its  roots  in  the 
Old  Testament,  in  which  the  development  of  both  may  be 
traced.  The  doctrine  of  the  resurrection,  indeed,  seems 
hardly  to  have  been  among  the  old  Persian  popular  beliefs, 
though  found  in  one  place  in  the  Avesta.  Jewish  ideas  re- 
specting angels,  good  and  bad,  no  doubt  received  an  impulse 
from  those  of  the  Persians,1"  but,  as  a  whole,  the  relation  be- 
tween the  two  theologies  was  mainly  that  of  independent 
similarity  in  some  details.2 

But  while  the  Jew  borrowed  very  little  from  Persian 
sources,  the  exile, — partly  under  Persian  rule, — the  two  hun- 
dred years  of  Persian  supremacy  in  Judea,  and  the  lasting 
connection  between  the  Jews  of  the  East  and  their  brethren 
in  Palestine,  must  have  created  a  deep  interest,  on  both  sides, 
in  faiths  which  had  so  much  in  common. 

The  extent  to  which  Parseeism  had  spread  in  the  East,  in 
the  days  of  Christ,  cannot  be  known,  but  it  had  doubtless 
diffused  itself,  more  or  less,  over  many  regions,  by  the  move- 
ments of  men  in  these  troublous  times. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  knowledge  of  Judaism  was  by  no 
means  confined  to  Palestine.  The  great  bulk  of  the  Jewish 
nation  had  never  returned  from  Babylon,  but  remained,  in 
distinct  communities,  spread  over  the  surface  of  that  empire. 
Their  fidelity  to  their  faith  was  proved  by  their  having  sup- 
ported the  colony  at  Jerusalem  till  it  no  longer  needed  their 
help.3  They  looked  to  the  Temple  as  their  religious  centre, 
contributed  largely  to  its  funds,  and  received  their  ecclesias- 
tical instructions  from  its  authorities.  The  Babylonian  Jew 
prided  himself  on  the  purity  of  his  descent.  What  the  Heb- 
rews of  Judea  boasted  they  were,  compared  to  those  of  other 

1  See,  for  a  full  account  of  Parseeism,  Spiegel — in  Herzog  Ency.,  xi 
115-127. 

*  See  Dillmann's  Art.  Persien,  in  Schenkel's  Bibel  Lexicon. 
1  Jost  and  Dcrcnlourg,  passim. 


132  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

countries,  the  Babylonian  Hebrew  claimed  to  be  to  the  Judean 
— "  like  pure  flour  compared  to  dough."  From  Babylon,  the 
Jew  had  spread  through  every  region  of  the  East,  and  wher- 
ever he  went  he  became  a  zealous  missionary  of  his  faith. 
Various  causes  had  led  to  the  same  wide  dispersion  in  the 
West,  with  the  same  result.  The  number  of  proselytes  gained 
over  the  world  by  this  propaganda  was  incredible.  The  West 
was  as  full  of  Jews  as  the  East.  Egypt,  and  other  parts  of 
Africa,  had  a  vast  Jewish  population.  To  use  the  words  of 
Josephus,  the  habitable  globe  was  so  full  of  Jews,  that  there 
was  scarcely  a  corner  of  the  Roman  empire  where  they  might 
not  be  found.1  The  great  synagogue  at  Alexandria  was  so 
large  that,  if  we  can  believe  the  Talmud,2  the  Hazan,  or 
Reader,  had  to  make  use  of  a  handkerchief,  as  a  signal,  when 
the  congregation  were  to  repeat  their  "  Amen." 

Incidental  proofs  of  the  success  of  Jewish  proselytism  are 
numerous.  Cicero,  and  Horace,  Juvenal,  Tacitus,3  and  Seneca 
alike  give  vent  to  the  irritation  everywhere  felt,  at  the  num- 
bers of  Greeks  and  Romans  thus  won  over  to  what  they 
regarded  as  a  hateful  superstition.  Exemption  from  military 
service  granted  to  the  Jews,  trade  privileges  they  specially 
enjoyed,  marriage,  and  other  inducements,  swelled  the 
list  of  proselytes  in  every  part.  "  The  Jewish  faith,"  says 
Seneca,4  "  is  now  received  over  every  land :  the  conquered 
have  given  laws  to  the  conqueror."  "  This  race,"  says  Dio 
Cassius,5  "  has  been  repeatedly  checked  by  the  Romans,  yet 
it  has  increased  amazingly,  so  that  it  has  assumed  the  greatest 
boldness."  Josephus  tells  us  6  that  in  Antioch  a  great  multi- 
tude of  Greeks  were  constantly  coming  forward  as  proselytes. 
Still  further  east,  it  was  the  same,  for  St.  Luke  7  records  that 
proselytes  thronged  to  the  feasts  at  Jerusalem  from  provinces 
of  the  empire  north  of  the  Mediterranean,  such  as  Pontus, 
Asia,  Phrygia,  Pamphylia,  and  Cappadocia  ;  from  Rome  itself ; 
from  its  southern  territories,  such  as  Egypt,  Arabia,  Crete, 
and  the  parts  of  Libya  about  Gyrene ;  from  its  eastern 
extremities,  and  even  from  lands  beyond — Mesopotamians, 
Parthians,  Medes,  and  Elamites, — dwellers  in  the  vast  regions 
reaching  from  the  Caspian  Sea  to  the  Persian  Gulf,  on  the 

1  Ant.,  xiv.  7.  2.    Bell.  Jud.,  vii.  3.  3. 

*  Sitcca,  51  b,  quoted  in  Delitzsch's  Judisches  Handwcrkerleben. 
8  Cic.  pro  Flacco,  c.  28.    Horat.  bat.,  i.  9.  69;  4.  142.    Juven.,  xiv.  96. 
Tacit.  Ann.,  ii.  85. 

4  Seneca,  de  Superst.  *  Dio  Cassius,  xxxvii.  17. 

«  Bell.  Jud.,  vii.  3.  3.  '  Acts  ii.  9-12. 


JEWISH   HOPE   OF   A  MESSIAH.  133 

north  and  south,  and  even  further  to  the  east.  The  influ- 
ence of  Judaism  extended  into  all  lands. 

Among  the  Jewish  ideas  diffused  far  and  near  by  this 
universal  agency,  none  would  find  so  easy  and  wide  a  circu- 
lation as  that  which,  above  all  others,  filled  the  mind  and 
heart  of  every  Jew  in  that  age — the  expected  appearance 
of  a  great  prince,  of  whom  they  spoke  as  the  Messiah  or 
'*  Anointed."  No  indication  of  popular  feeling  can  be  more 
sure  than  that  supplied  by  the  literature  of  a  period ;  and 
Jewish  literature,  from  the  date  of  Daniel  to  the  age  of  Christ, 
was  more  and  more  completely  Messianic.  The  Book  of 
Enoch,  the  Jewish  Sibylline  books,  the  Psalter  of  Solomon,  the 
Ascension  of  Moses,  the  Ascension  of  Isaiah,  the  Fourth  Book 
of  Esdras,  the  Targums  of  Onkelos  and  Jonathan,  and  other 
writings  of  later  Judaism,  strove  to  sustain  and  rouse  the 
nation,  in  those  dark  days,  by  prophetic  anticipations  of 
Messianic  deliverance.  Burning  hope  glows  through  them, 
like  fire  through  clouds,  revealing  the  feverish  concentration 
of  heart  and  thought  of  all  Israel  on  this  one  grand  expecta- 
tion. 

The  restlessness  of  Judea  was  only  another  symptom  of  this 
universal  tension  of  the  popular  mind.  Patriotic  hatred  of 
foreign  rule,  and  religious  zeal  against  the  introduction  of 
heathen  manners,  kept  the  country  in  a  continual  ferment, 
which  was  heightened  at  every  festival  by  assurances  of  the 
Rabbis,  priests,  and  fanatical  "  prophets,"  that  Jehovah  would 
not  much  longer  endure  the  intrusion  of  the  heathen  into 
His  own  Land.  This  temper  of  the  people  forced  Herod  to 
erect  five  times  as  many  fortresses  in  Judea  as  were  required 
in  Galilee ; l  and  yet,  in  spite  of  them,  the  robbers  and  bandits 
of  the  Judean  hills  never  ceased  to  make  war  against  the 
existing  government,  in  the  name  of  Jehovah.  Blind  super- 
stition reigned.  The  bigoted  masses  were  continually  deceived 
by  pretended  Messiahs,  who  led  them,  at  one  time,2  to  the 
Mount  of  Olives,  to  see  the  walls  of  the  now  heathen  Jeru- 
salem fall  down  at  the  word  of  the  prophet ;  at  another,3  to 
the  Jordan,  to  pass  through,  dry  shod,  like  their  fathers ;  at  a 
third,  as  if  nothing  could  warn  them,  into  the  wilderness,  to 
wait  for  the  signs  of  the  Son  of  Man  predicted  by  Daniel.4 
What  must  have  been  the  contagious  effect  of  such  a  state  of 

« 

1  Hausrath,  N.  T.  Zeitgeschichte,  vol.  i.  p.  42. 
*  Jos.,  Ben.  Jud.,ii.  13.  5.  3  Jos.,  Ant.,  xx.  5.  L 

4  Jos.,  Bell.  Jud.t  ii.  13.  4.     Matt.  xxiv.  24,  26. 


134  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

things  on  the  multitudes  of  Jews  and  proselytes  from  every 
country,  who  yearly  visited  Jerusalem  ?  Josephus,  perhaps 
with  some  exaggeration,  tells  us  that,  at  many  feasts,  there 
were  not  less  than  three  millions  of  pilgrims.1  How  must 
they  have  spread  over  the  whole  earth  the  expectation  of  a 
great  Jewish  king  who  was  to  conquer  the  world  !  for  this 
the  Messiah  was  to  accomplish.  It  is  no  wonder  that 
Josephus,  Tacitus,  and  Suetonius  should  record  the  fact, 
though  the  Jewish  historian  in  mean  flattery,  and  the  others 
from  the  turn  of  affairs,  applied  it  to  Vespasian.' 

It  is,  therefore,  only  what  might  have  been  expected,  when 
St.  Matthew  tells  us  that  strangers  from  the  East  came,  soon 
after  His  birth,  to  visit  the  infant  Jesus.  Any  real  or  fancied 
occasion,  which  might  lead  to  the  belief  that  the  prince,  so 
•universally  looked  for,  had  actually  appeared,  was  well-nigh 
certain  to  call  forth  such  an  incident. 

The  simple  notice  given  us  throws  no  further  light  on  these 
earliest  pilgrims  from  the  great  Gentile  world,  than  is  afforded 
by  the  title  Magi,  and  the  intimation  that  they  were  led  to 
undertake  their  journey  to  Bethlehem  by  some  mysterious 
appearances  in  the  heavens. 

The  worship  of  the  heavenly  bodies  had  been  established 
for  immemorial  ages  in  the  East,  where  the  transparent 
atmosphere  reveals  the  splendours  of  the  universe,  both  by 
night  and  day,  with  a  glory  unknown  to  duller  regions.  In 
ages  when  science  was  yet  unknown,  and  motion  was  every- 
where assumed  as  the  result  of  inherent  life,  it  was  almost 
inevitable  to  regard  the  sun  as  the  lord  of  day,2  and  the  moon 
and  stars  as  ruling  the  night.  From  this  it  was  only  a 
single  step  to  superstition.  "  Magic,"  as  Professor  Bastian 
observes,*1  "  is  the  physics  of  the  children  of  nature."  It  is 
the  first  step  towards  induction,  and  misleads,  only  by 
assuming  that  accidental,  or  independent,  coincidence  or  suc- 
cession, is  necessarily  cause  and  effect.  Like  children,  men, 
in  simple  ages,  jump  to  conclusions  from  isolated  obser- 
vations, nor  is  the  power  of  slow  and  careful  generalization, 
from  a  wide  range  of  facts,  attained,  till  very  much  later. 

The  phenomena  of  the  daily  and  nightly  heavens  thus  led 
very  early,  in  the  East,  to  a  belief  in  astrology  ;  the  patient 
scientific  faculty  being  yet  wanting  which  would,  hereafter, 

1  Jos.,  Bell.  Jud.,  vi.  9.  3.  , 

2  Baal — the   sun  god — means  "  The  Lord."       See  ?J?Jl  Buxtorf,  Leg. 
Heb.  Chal.  Thai.,  p.  331,  for  its  various  corabm.itious. 


ANCIENT  ASTEOLOGY.  135 

develop  that  illusive  science  into  astronomy,  as,  in  a  later 
age,  it  raised  alchemy  into  chemistry.  The  stars  were  sup- 
posed, then,  as  they  have  been  till  recent  times,  to  exercise 
supreme  influence  over  human  life  and  the  course  of  nature, 
and  from  this  belief  a  vast  system  of  imaginary  results  was 
elaborated.  The  special  power  of  each  star,  alone  or  in  con- 
junction with  others,  over  health  and  sickness,  prosperity  or 
trouble,  life  or  death,  the  affairs  of  nations,  and  the  pheno- 
mena of  nature,  was  supposed  to  have  been  discovered ;  and 
this  power  was  believed  to  affect  the  future  as  well  as  the 
present.  Diodorus  Siculus,  who  lived  in  the  generation  be- 
fore Christ,  says  of  the  astrologers  of  the  East,  "  They  think 
the  noblest  study  is  that  of  the  five  stars  called  planets,  which 
they  call  interpreters.  This  name  they  give  them,  because 
other  stars  do  not  wander  like  them,  but  have  a  fixed  course, 
while  these  have  paths  of  their  own,  and  predict  things  to  be ; 
thus  interpreting  to  men  the  will  of  the  gods.  For  they  say 
that  they  portend  some  things  by  their  rising,  others  by  their 
setting,  and  still  others  by  their  colour,  to  those  who  study 
them  diligently.  For,  at  one  time,  they  say  they  foretell  the 
violence  of  storms ;  at  another  the  excess  of  rains  or  of  heat, 
the  appearance  of  comets,  eclipses  of  the  sun  or  moon,  earth- 
quakes, and  indeed,  every  change  in  the  sky,  either  fortunate 
or  the  reverse,  not  only  to  nations  and  districts,  but  to  kings 
and  common  people."1  The  position  of  the  stars  at  a  child's 
birth  was  held  to  determine  its  future  fate  or  fortune,  and, 
hence,  to  cast  nativities,  early  became  one  of  the  most  im- 
portant functions  of  astrologers.* 

This  science  was  very  early  cultivated  among  the  races 
inhabiting  the  Mesopotamian  plains.  Like  all  higher  know- 
ledge in  simple  times,  it  was  in  the  hands  of  a  priestly  caste, 
known  as  Magi,  a  word  which  seems  of  Aryan  derivation.* 
This  order  nourished  among  the  Medes,  Babylonians, 
and  Persians,  but  it  is  chiefly  famous  in  connection  with 
Persia,  and  seems  as  if  it  had  risen  among  the  Aryan  races, 
and  had  only  mingled  as  a  foreign  element  in  the  Semitic 
civilization  of  Babylon.8 

We  first  meet  the  title  as  that  of  one  of  the  Chaldean 
officials  sent  by  Nebuchadnezzar  to  Jerusalem — theRabmag,2 
or  head  of  the  Magi ;  and  in  the  Book  of  Daniel,3  we  find 
the  caste  divided  into  five  classes,  as  the  astrologers  and 

1  Diod.  Sic.,  ii.  30. 
3  Jtt  3T,  Jer.  xxxix.  3.  »  Dan.  ii.  2;  iv.  7. 


136  THE   LIFE    OF   CHRIST. 

dream  interpreters  of  Babylon.  Their  origin,  however,  iden- 
tified them  with  the  purer  faith  of  Persia,  much  more  than 
with  a  corrupt  idolatry,  and  hence  they  especially  flourished 
under  the  Persian  rule.  In  later  times  the  name  lost  its 
early  prestige,  from  the  growth  of  lower  magical  arts,  prac- 
tised as  the  order  degenerated,  so  that,  in  the  New  Testament, 
it  is  applied,  excepting  in  the  case  of  those  who  came  to  visit 
the  infant  Saviour,  only  to  two  "  sorcerers  " — Simon  Magus, 
and  one  Bar-Jesus.1 

Soon  after  the  presentation  of  our  Lord  in  the  Temple,  a 
strange  report  spread  through  Jerusalem.  Members  of  the 
old  priestly  caste  of  Persia  had  "  come  from  the  East,"  in- 
quiring where  they  could  find  a  new-born  King  of  the  Jews, 
whose  star,  they  said,  they  had  seen  in  the  East.2  It  was 
quite  in  keeping  with  Jewish  belief  to  find  indications  of 
great  events  in  the  appearances  of  the  heavens,  for  their 
ancient  Scriptures  spoke  of  a  star  that  should  come  out  of 
Jacob,3  and  they  had  long  referred  the  prophecy  to  their 
expected  Messiah.  It  was,  indeed,  universally  believed  that 
extraordinary  events,  especially  the  birth  and  death  of  great 
men,  were  heralded  by  appearances  of  stars,  and  still  more 
of  comets,  or  by  conjunctions  of  the  heavenly  bodies.  Thus 
Suetonius  tells  us  4  that  at  the  death  of  Caesar  "  a  hairy  star 
shone  continuously  for  seven  days,  rising  about  the  eleventh 
hour,"  and  Josephus  relates 5  that  for  a  whole  year  before 
the  fall  of  Jerusalem  a  star,  in  the  shape  of  a  sword — doubt- 
less a  comet — hung  over  the  doomed  city.h  A  hundred  and 
thirty  years  after  Christ's  birth,6  a  false  Messiah,  in  Hadrian's 
reign,  assumed  the  title  of  Bar-Cochba71 — "the  son  of  the 
star  " — in  allusion  to  the  star  to  come  out  of  Jacob.  The 
Jews  had  already,  long  before  Christ's  day,  dabbled  in 
astrology,  and  the  various  forms  of  magic  which  became 
connected  with  it.  They  were  skilled  in  mysterious  com- 
binations of  letters  and  numbers,  which  they  used  as  talis- 
mans and  amulets,  to  heal  the  sick,  to  drive  away  evil  spirits, 
and  bring  frightful  curses  when  wished,  and  they  even 
affirmed  that  some  of  their  spells  could  draw  the  moon  from 


1  Acts  viii.  9  ;  xiii.  6. 

8  See  a  fine  Sermon  of  Sckleiermacher  on  the  Magi,  Predigten,  Tol. 
iv.  p.  455. 

8  Num.  xxiv.  17.  4  Suet.,  Gees.,  p.  88. 

»  Jos.  Bell.  Jnd.,  -vi.  5.  3.  •  A.D.  130,  131. 

Bosenmuller,  A.  u.  N.  Morgcnland,  vol.  i.  p.  15. 


MEDIEVAL  ASTEOLOGT.  137 

heaven  or  open  the  abyss  beneath  the  earth.1  Such  practices 
dated  among  them  as  far  back  as  the  time  of  Alexander  the 
Great.  They  were  much  given  to  cast  horoscopes  from  the 
numerical  value  of  a  name.  Everywhere  through  the  whole 
Roman  empire,  Jewish  magicians,  dream  expounders,  and 
sorcerers,  were  found.3  Josephus  3  ascribes  the  banishment 
of  the  Jews  from  Rome  to  the  acts  of  impostors  of  this  kind. 
Nor  did  their  superstition  stop  here.  They  were  skilled  in 
the  mysteries  of  astrology  itself.  "  The  planets  give  wisdom 
and  riches,"  says  the  Talmud,  and  it  adds,  in  other  passages, 
— "  The  life  and  portion  of  children  hang  not  on  righteous- 
ness, but  on  their  star."  "The  planet  of  the  day  has  no 
virtue,  but  the  planet  of  the  hour  (of  nativity)  has  much. 
Those  who  are  born  under  the  sun  are  beautiful  and  noble- 
looking,  frank  and  open ;  those  born  under  Venus,  rich  and 
amatory  ;  under  Mercury,  strong  in  memory  and  wise  ;  under 
the  moon,  feeble  and  inconstant ;  under  Jupiter,  just ;  under 
Mars,  fortunate."  "  The  calculation  of  the  stars  is  the  joy 
of  the  Rabbi."  In  another  passage,  indeed,  a  Rabbi  tells  an 
inquirer  that  "  there  is  no  planet  that  rules  Israel,"  but  the 
explanation  added  shows  a  pride  that  only  a  Jew  could 
express — "  The  sons  of  Israel  are  themselves  stars."  Many 
Rabbis  gave  themselves  to  astrology.4 

Belief  in  the  influence  of  the  stars  over  life  and  death, 
and  in  special  portents  at  the  birth  of  great  men,  survived, 
indeed,  to  recent  times.  Chaucer  abounds  in  allusions  to  it. 
He  attributes  the  great  rain  and  the  pestilence  of  1348  and 
1350  to  an  extraordinary  conjunction  of  Saturn  with  other 
planets,5  and  in  the  Man  of  Lawes  Tale  6  he  says  : — 

"  In  sterres  many  a  wynter  therebyfore, 
Was  write  the  deth  of  Ector  and  Achilles, 
Of  Pompe,  Julius,  er  they  were  i-bore ; 
The  stryf  of  Thebes,  and  of  Ercules, 
Of  Sampson,  Turnus,  and  of  Socrates 
The  deth."  * 

Still  later,  Shakespere  tells  us — 

1  Hausrath,  Zeitgcschichte,  vol.  i.  p.  108. 
Juv.  Sat.,vi.  543-548. 

3  Ant.,  xviii.  3.  5.     See  also  Gieseler's  Kirch.  Geschichtt,  vol.  i.  p.  57. 

4  Buxtorf,  Lex.  Heb.  Chal.  et.  Thai.,  p.  1623.     Gfrorer's  Jahrhundcrt^ 
vol.  ii.  p.  416. 

*  L'envoy  de  Chaucer  a  Scogan.     Chaucer's  Poems,  vol.  viii.  p.  145. 

•  Canterbury  Tales,  Chaucer's  Poems,  vol.  ii.,  p  13. 


138  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

"  When  beggars  die  there  are  no  comets  seen ; 
The  heavens  themselves  blaze  forth  the  death  of  princes  j"1 

aud  Bedford  at  Henry  V.'s  funeral  is  made  to  say — 

"  Comets,  importing  change  of  time  aud  states, 
Brandish  your  crystal  tresses  iu  the  sky, 
And  with  them  scourge  the  bad  revolting  stars 
That  have  consented  unto  Henry's  death."  2 

The  special  phenomena  that  led  the  Magi  to  undertake  their 
journey  have  been  elsewhere  stated.3  That  successive  con- 
junctions4 of  three  planets  in  the  sign  of  the  Zodiac,  Pisces, 
which  was  believed  by  the  Jews  to  be  that  in  which  a  similar 
conjunction  happened  before  the  birth  of  Moses,  and  in 
which  another  was  to  occur  before  the  birth  of  the  Messiah,1 
should  have  roused  the  attention  of  men  to  whom  the 
motions  of  the  planets  were  revelations  from  heaven,  was 
only  natural.  Doubtless  they  had  heard  in  their  own 
country  such  a  belief  expressed  by  Jews,  and  traced  to  the 
prophecy  of  Balaam,  one  of  their  own"  caste,  and  from  their 
own  parts.  When,  in  addition  to  such  significant  facts,  at 
a  time  when  all  men  were  looking  for  a  great  Jewish  prince, 
a  comet  appeared  soon  after,  nothing  could  be  more  in 
keeping  than  that  men,  to  whom  such  phenomena  were  the 
voice  of  God,  should  set  out  to  pay  homage  to  the  newborn 
King  who  was  to  rule  the  world. 

At  the  time  when  the  Magi  arrived,  Herod,  now  an  old 
man,  was  sinking  into  the  last  stages  of  disease,  but  was  still 
as  jealous  and  afraid  of  attempts  against  his  throne  as  ever. 
Its  steps  were  wet  with  the  blood  of  his  best-loved  wife,  his 
sons,  his  benefactor,  and  of  the  flower  of  the  nation,  mur- 
dered to  make  it  secure.  Like  our  own  William  the 
Conqueror,  or  Henry  VIII.,  or  like  Alexander  the  Great, 
or  Nero,  or  Tiberius,  his  character  had  grown  darker  in  his 
later  years,  and  now,  in  his  old  age,  he  sat  alone  in  his  new 
palace, — amidst  splendour  of  architecture  greater  if  possible 
than  that  of  the  Temple, — lonely,  hated  and  hating,  his 
subjects  waiting  impatiently,  in  veiled  rebellion,  for  his 
death.  In  his  own  court,  shortly  before,  a  plot  had  been 
discovered  which  had  filled  all  Jerusalem  with  commotion. 
The  Pharisees,  to  the  number  of  6,000,  had  refused  to  take 

1  Julius  Casar,  Act.  ii.  scene  2.  s  Henry  VI.,  Act.  i.  scene  1. 

*  In  note  » to  chap.  ix.  at  the  end. 

4  By  "  conjunction  "  is  meant  unusual  proximity. 


LINEAGE   OF   THE   MESSIAH.  139 

th«»  oath,  of  allegiance,  and  their  leaders,  whom  the  people 
believed  gifted  with  the  power  of  prophecy,  had  gone  the 
length  of  asserting,  that  God  had  determined  that  Herod 
and  his  family  should  be  speedily  driven  from  the  throne, 
to  make  way  for  the  Messiah.  To  secure  the  fulfilment  of 
this  prediction,  the  influence  of  their  firm  supporter,  the 
wife  of  Pheroras,  his  brother,  was  used,  to  carry  the  plot 
inside  the  palace,  among  the  ladies  of  the  court.  Bagoas, 
the  eunuch,  as  most  easily  approached,  from  his  connection 
with  the  harem,  was  made  their  tool,  and,  with  him,  a  youth 
named  Carus,  the  loveliest  person  of  his  day,  but  loathsomely 
immoral.  Bagoas  was  won  over  to  believe  that  he  would 
be  the  father  of  the  coming  Messiah,1  but  Herod  found  out 
the  whole,  and  the  conspiracy  was  quenched  in  blood.  No 
wonder  that,  as  St.  Matthew  tells  us,  "  he  was  troubled,  and 
all  Jerusalem  with  him,"  when  the  news  spread  of  strangers 
having  come  on  such  an  errand  as  that  of  the  Magi.  To 
Herod  their  arrival  was  a  fresh  cause  of  jealous  terror :  to 
Jerusalejn  a  possible  ground  of  hope. 

Herod  had  often  before  shown  the  craft  bred  by  habitual 
suspicion,  and  was  too  clever  to  take  any  rash  steps  now. 
Summoning  the  heads  of  the  priesthood  and  the  "  scribes  " 
to  his  palace,  he  demanded  of  them  where  Christ  should  be 
born. 

Jewish  theology  had  already  determined,  correctly,  that 
the  Messiah  was  to  be  of  the  stock  of  Judah,  which  had 
from  the  first  challenged  the  headship  of  the  tribes,  and 
had  been  supreme  since  Ephraim's  captivity  in  Assyria.2  It 
boasted  of  David,  the  ancestor  and  the  prototype  of  the 
Messiah,  and  the  words  of  Jacob  that  the  "  sceptre  "  should 
"  not  depart  from  it,  until  Shiloh  come,"  or,  as  it  may  be 
translated,  from  the  Greek  version,10  "  till  he  comes  to  whom 
the  dominion  belongs,"  had  long  been  understood  to  refer  to 
the  Messiah.  "  How  fair  is  the  King  Messiah,"  says  the 
Targum"  on  the  passage,3  "  who  will  rise  from  the  house  of 
Judah  ! "  The  words  of  Zechariah*  "  The  Lord  of  Hosts 
hath  visited  the  house  of  Judah,  and  hath  made  them  as 
His  goodly  horse  in  the  battle,"  are  also  applied  by  another 
Targum  to  the  Messiah.5  "  A  king  will  rise  from  the  children 
of  Jesse,"6  says  the  same  Targum  elsewhere,  "  and  the  Messiah 

1  Ant.,  xvii.  2.  5.  »  B.C.  721. 

*  Targ.  Jems.,  Gen.  xlix.  10.  4  Zech.  x.  3. 

•  Jon.  Ben  Vzzicl,  in  loc.  •  Jon.  Btn  Uzziel,  Isaiah  xi.  1. 


140  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

will  spring  from  his  children's  children."  Hence  "  the  Son 
of  David  "  was  a  constant  name  for  this  expected  Prince. 

As  a  descendant  of  David,  Bethlehem,  David's  town,  waa 
naturally  regarded  as  the  place  of  his  birth,  and  hence  the 
passage  in  Micah,  adduced  by  the  priests  and  scribes,1  is 
also  quoted  by  the  Targums.2  "  An  Arab  said  to  a  Jew  at 
his  plough,"  says  the  Talmud,8  " '  Your  Messiah  is  born  ! ' 
*  What  is  his  name  ? '  asked  the  Jew.  '  Menahem,  the  son 
of  Hezekiah.'  '  Where  was  he  born  ?'  asked  the  Jew  again. 
'  In  the  king's  castle  at  Bethlehem  Judah,'  answered  the 
Arab." 

Long  before  the  birth  of  Christ,  it  had  been  felt  that  the 
time  for  the  advent  of  the  Messiah  was  fulfilled,  and  his 
non-appearance  even  led  to  the  fanciful  idea  that  he  was 
already  born,  but  kept  himself  hidden  in  some  unknown 
part.  "  We  know  this  man  whence  he  is,"  said  the  Jews, 
long  after,  of  Jesus,  "  but  when  the  Christ  cometh,  no  man 
knoweth  whence  He  is  !  "*  "  Thou,  0  anointed  one  of  Israel," 
cries  the  Targum,5  "  Thou  who  art  hidden  on  account  of  the 
sins  of  the  people  of  Zion,  Thine  shall  be  the  kingdom ! " 

The  prophecy  of  Balaam6  had  led  to  the  same  belief  among 
the  Jews,  as  amongst  the  Eastern  Magi — that  a  great  star 
would  appear  in  heaven  when  the  Messiah  came.  "  When 
the  Messiah  is  to  be  revealed,"  says  the  book  Sohar,  7  °  "  a 
star  will  rise  in  the  east,  shining  in  great  brightness,  and 
seven  other  stars  round  it  will  fight  against  it  on  every  side." 
"  A  star  will  rise  in  the  east  which  is  the  star  of  the  Messiah, 
and  will  remain  in  the  east  fifteen  days." 8  The  rising  of 
Bar-Cochba,  "  the  son  of  the  star,"  was  a  terrible  illustration 
of  this  belief. 

To  hear  of  Magi  coming  from  the  East — the  country  of 
Balaam,  the  reputed  founder  of  the  caste,  announcing  the 
appearance  of  the  star  of  the  Messiah,  which  they  them- 
selves expected,  was,  hence,  fitted  to  rouse  the  Rabbinical 
world  of  Jerusalem  to  the  highest  excitement.  They  had 
already  a  wondrous  estimate  of  the  great  soothsayer,  for 
Philo,  a  contemporary  of  Christ,  speaks  of  him  as  "  famous 
for  his  gift  of  prophecy."  "He  was  skilled,"  says  he,  "in 
every  branch  of  the  black  art.  He  had  learned  the  greatest 


1  Chap.  v.  2.  8  Jon,  Ben  Uzziel  on  Mic.  v.  2. 

*  Berachnt.  Joiis.,  11  a  ;  quoted  by  Gfrdrer. 

4  John  vii.  27.         s  Jon.  Ben  Uzziel  on  Mic.  iv.  8.         6  Num.  xxiv.  17. 

*  Sohar  on  Exod.,  p.  3.  8  Pesikta  Zotarta  oil  Num.  xxiv,  17. 


HEEOD   AND   THE   MAGI.  141 

names  (names  of  angels  and  of  God,  to  be  used  in  magic), 
through  his  knowledge  of  the  flight  of  birds,  and  did  much 
that  was  wonderful  by  their  means.  He  predicted  rain  in 
the  hottest  time  of  summer ;  heat  and  drought  in  the  midst 
of  winter ;  unfruitfulness  when  the  fields  were  greenest ; 
plenty  in  years  of  famine,  and  the  overflowing  or  drying  up 
of  streams  ;  the  removal  of  pestilence ;  and  a  thousand  other 
things,  the  foretelling  of  which  got  him  boundless  fame, 
which  spread  even  to  this." 1  The  Rabbis  believed,  indeed, 
that  Balaam  himself  was  a  Rabbi,  who  taught  disciples  the 
black  art,  and  that  the  Magi,  his  successors,  knew  his  pro- 
phecy of  the  star  of  the  Messiah,  through  the  tradition  of 
his  schools."2 

Having  learned  the  expected  birthplace  of  the  Messiah, 
which  he  would  himself  have  known,  had  he  been  a  Jew 
and  not  an  Idumean,  Herod  sent  for  the  Magi  and  made 
every  inquiry,  under  the  pretext  that  he,  also,  wished  to  do 
homage  to  the  young  child.  But  very  different  thoughts 
were  in  his  heart.  A  descendant  of  David  was  not  likely  to 
be  spared  by  the  man  who  had  murdered  the  last  of  the 
Asmoneans.p  The  hope  of  the  world  was  not  to  perish  thus, 
however,  for  the  Magi  having  paid  their  visit  to  Bethlehem, 
and  presented  gifts  to  Him,  as  all  Easterns  do  when  they 
come  before  princes  or  the  great,  a  dream,  sent  from  above, 
led  them  to  return  to  their  own  country  without  revisiting 
Jerusalem. 

Balked  in  his  purpose  so  far,  Herod  was  not  the  man  to 
stop  at  half-measures.  A  few  murders  more  were  nothing. 
The  most  thorough  precautions  must  be  taken.  A  band  of 
soldiers  was  therefore  sent  to  Bethlehem  with  orders  to  kill 
every  male  child  near  the  supposed  age  of  the  infant  he 
dreaded.  Josephus  is  silent  about  this  slaughter,  but  this 
needs  not  surprise  us,  for  what  was  a  single  deed  of  blood, 
in  a  mountain  village,  among  the  crimes  of  Herod  ?  Nor  is 
it  alone  in  the  omissions  of  the  historian,  for  his  whole 
history  of  the  centuries  after  the  Return  omits  far  more 
than  it  tells." 

Joseph  and  Mary  had  left  Bethlehem  before  this  tragedy, 
and  had  fled  to  the  friendly  shelter  of  Egypt,  at  a  warning 
divinely  given.  How  long  they  remained  there  is  not  known. 
All  Palestine  was  under  Herod,  so  that  he  could  have  reached 

1  Philo,  de  Vita  Mosis.  Bk.  i. 

2  Origeu,  Op.,  ii.  321  a.     See  Gfrorer'a  Jahrhundert,  vol.  ii.  p.  SCO. 


142  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

them  in  any  part  of  it,  but  in  Egypt  the  fugitives  were  safe. 
It  was,  moreover,  almost  another  Judea,  for  the  favour  shown 
to  their  race  by  the  Ptolemies  had  induced  as  many  as  a 
million  of  Jews  to  settle  in  the  Nile  Valley,  and  of  the  five 
quarters  of  Alexandria,  with  300,000  free  citizens,  Jews 
occupied  more  than  two.1  They  had  had  a  temple  of  their 
own  at  Leontopolis,  in  the  Delta,  for  about  160  years,  though 
they  preferred  to  go  up  to  that  at  Jerusalem ;  the  Greek 
translation  of  the  Bible,  which  had  already  widely  taken  the 
place  of  the  Hebrew  original,  nad  been  made  in  Egypt,  and 
the  Egyptian  Rabbis,  by  their  efforts  to  turn  Judaism  into 
a  philosophic  system  which  should  win  it  the  favour  of  the 
cultivated  Romans  and  Greeks,  had  founded  a  new  school  of 
Jewish  theology,  which  was,  hereafter,  to  influence  even 
Christianity. 

It  has  been  usual  to  suppose  that  Herod  died  in  the  spring 
of  the  year  750 — that  is,  within  a  few  months  after  the  birth 
of  Christ.  But  there  seem  to  be  some  reasons  for  believing 
that  he  lived  tiU  753.' 

Josephus 2  says  that  he  died  shortly  before  the  Passover, 
and  that  an  eclipse  of  the  moon  happened  not  long  before. 
In  the  year  750  such  an  eclipse  happened  on  the  13th  of 
March ;  but  if  he  died  at  the  end  of  that  month,  or  in  April, 
there  must  have  been  a  crowding  of  events  into  the  short 
interval,  beyond  what  seems  possible. 

It  appears,  however,  that  there  was  an  eclipse  of  the  moon 
on  the  night  of  January  the  10th,  in  the  year  753,  and  it  is 
urged3  that  this  suits  the  facts  much  better,  by  giving  three 
months  instead  of  one  for  the  incidents  mentioned  by  Josephus, 
even  if  Christ  were  born  three  years  later,  and  by  leaving 
ample  time  for  those  related  by  Matthew  and  Luke.  A 
passage  has  been  found  in  a  Calendar  of  the  Feasts,  in  the 
Talmud4  which  seems  to  support  this  later  date.  "  The  1st 
Shebet  (or  24th  of  January)  is  a  day  of  double  good  fortune 
as  the  day  of  the  death  of  Herod  and  of  Jannai,8  for  it  is 
joy  before  God  when  the  wicked  are  taken  from  this  world." 
If  this  be  right,  the  eclipse  happened  on  the  10th  of  January, 
Herod's  death  on  the  24th,  and  there  was  ample  time  before 
April  *  for  the  burial  and  all  that  followed,  which  must  have 
required  weeks. 

If,  then,  Herod  had  yet  nearly  three  years  to  live  after 

1  Keim's  Jem  v.  Nazara,  vol.  i.  p.  211.  *  Ant.,  xvii.  6.  4. 

*  By  Caspar!,  Chron.  Geug.  Einleitung,  p.  23.  4  Tannittt,  xi. 


THE   INFANT  JESUS  IN   EGYPT.  143 

the  birth  of  Christ,  Mary  and  her  husband  must  have  stayed 
in  Egypt  that  length  of  time.  Nor  would  it  be  difficult  for 
Joseph  to  find  support,  as  the  different  classes  of  Jewish 
workmen  in  Egypt  were  associated  in  guilds,1  which  main- 
tained those  out  of  employment,  much  as  trades'  unions  do 
now.  The  goldsmiths,  the  silversmiths,  the  nail-makers  and 
needle-makers,  the  coppersmiths,  and  the  weavers,  are  spec- 
ially mentioned  as  being  banded  together  in  such  associations, 
which  supported  any  stranger  of  their  respective  crafts  till 
he  found  work.  The  workers  in  wood,  in  all  probability,  had 
such  a  union  as  well;  and  Joseph,  moreover,  though  called 
a  carpenter  in  the  Gospels,  may  have  been  more,  for  the 
word  does  not  necessarily  mean  a  worker  in  wood  only,  but 
a  waggon  smith  and  other  occupations  as  well.2  In  its 
Hebrew  sense,3  it  may  mean,  indeed,  any  kind  of  trade  which 
uses  cutting  instraments,  and  is  employed  indifferently  of 
workers  in  metal,  wood,  or  stone.4 

Egypt,  though  thus  filled  with  a  Jewish  population,  was, 
however,  no  land  for  Joseph  and  Mary,  nor,  above  all,  for 
the  infant  Jesus.  Neither  the  Greek  inhabitants  of  the 
towns  and  cities,  nor  the  Egyptian  peasantry,  were  very 
friendly  to  the  strangers  who,  in  hundreds  of  thousands, 
intruded  into  the  Nile  Valley.  The  old  hatred  between  the 
land  of  Mizraim  and  the  sons  of  Israel  seemed  still,  in  some 
measure,  to  survive  on  both  sides.  The  Jews  hated  the 
Egyptian  priesthood,  with  its  worthless  secrets  and  its  ridi- 
culous symbols,  and  prided  themselves,  as  the  prophets  had 
done  of  old,  on  their  purer  faith.  They  saw,  in  Egypt,  the 
incarnation  of  the  most  corrupt  heathenism.  The  command, 
"  Thou  shalt  make  no  likeness  or  graven  image,"  was  nowhere 
mocked  to  such  an  extent  as  on  the  banks  of  the  Nile.  Even 
Philo  makes  the  remark  that  the  Egyptian  religion  is  the 
most  grovelling  of  all  forms  of  idolatry,  since  it  did  not  look 
to  the  heavens  for  objects  of  worship,  but  to  the  earth,  and 
the  slime  of  the  Nile,  with  its  creatures.5  Josephus  derides 
the  system  which  worshipped  crocodiles  and  apes,  vipers  and 
cats ;  and  even  the  Roman  Juvenal  scoffed  at  a  race  who 
grew  their  divinities  in  their  kitchen  garden.  The  Apostle 


P.  Succa,  51  b;  quoted  by  Delitzscb,  Jwl.  Ilanlwrkerleben,  p.  38. 
2  Hofmann,  L'-ben  Jcsu,  p.  2.  3  &"in  (Harash). 

4  1  Cbron.  xxix.  5.        Isa.  xl.  19 ;  xliv.  12.       2  Kings  xxii.  6.        Isa. 
xi.  20. 
*  Philo,  Mas.  lib.,  3.    Leg.  ad  Cai.  SI.,  569. 


144  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

Paul  evidently  had  Egyptian  heathenism  in  his  mind  when 
he  speaks  of  idolatry  as  running  to  the  foul  licence  of  changing 
the  image  of  the  invisible  God  into  the  likeness  of  men,  of 
birds,  of  four-footed  beasts,  and  creeping  things.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  Jews  suffered  from  the  traditional  hatred  of 
their  race  by  the  Egyptians,  in  the  repetition  of  scandals  and 
shameful  calumnies  against  them,  which  had  survived  since 
the  Exodus.  It  was  said  that  the  children  of  Israel,  whom 
Moses  led  out  of  Egypt,  were  lepers,  whom  Pharaoh  had 
banished  from  the  country  ;  and  Greeks  and  natives,  catching 
at  the  bitter  slander,  strove  which  should  turn  it,  and  others 
equally  contemptuous,  with  most  effect,  against  their  Jewish 
fellow-citizens,  whom  all  equally  disliked.  The  very  fact 
that  the  Romans  had  granted  special  favours  to  the  Jews, 
and  that  they  were  rivals  in  trade,  was,  indeed,  itself,  sufficient 
to  account  for  such  an  attitude  of  acrid  raillery  and  deprecia- 
tion. Things  had  at  last  come  to  open  rupture,  and  the 
Jewish  community  of  Alexandria  looked  forward  only  to 
ultimate  expulsion  and  ruin.1  It  is  no  wonder,  therefore, 
that  Joseph  and  Mary  sought  to  return  as  soon  as  possible  to 
their  own  country. 

The  Apocryphal  Gospels  are  full  of  extraordinary  miracles 
wrought  by  the  infant  Jesus  while  in  Egypt,  and  of  legends 
respecting  Him  and  Mary,  but  none  of  them  are  worth  re- 
producing. Memphis  is  commonly  given  as  the  place  where 
Joseph  settled,  and  his  stay  is  variously  stated  as  having 
lasted  three  years,  two,  or  only  one.3 

The  star  and  the  Magi  have  naturally  given  rise  to  many 
legends.  The  country,  the  number,  and  the  names  of  the 
illustrious  visitors  are  as  entirely  passed  over  by  the  Apocry- 
pha as  by  the  Gospels,  but  later  tradition  abundantly  atones 
for  the  omission.  They  were  said  to  be  the  kings  of  Sheba 
and  Seba,  in  Arabia,  come  to  offer  gifts  to  His  light  and  to 
the  brightness  of  His  rising,3  but  Persia,  Chaldea,  Ethiopia, 
and  India,  have  each  had  their  advocates.  It  is  equally  un- 
determined in  the  legends,  whether  they  were  Jews  or  heathen, 
though  most  of  the  fathers  favour  the  idea  that  they  were 
the  latter,  and  the  Arabic  Gospel  of  the  Infancy  4  represents 
them  as  worshipping  fire,  and  as  referring  to  a  prophecy  of 
Zoroaster  respecting  the  Messiah.  Their  three  gifts  led  to 
the  fancy  that  they  themselves  were  only  three  in  number, 

1  Jos.,  e.  Apion,  i.  26.  *  Hofmann,  p.  182.     Brunei. 

•  Isa.  Ix.  1-6.  *  Chaps,  vii.  and  viii. 


LEGENDS   EESPECTING  THE   MAGI.  145 

which  was  supposed  to  correspond  to  the  three  divisions  of 
the  earth  as  then  known,  Europe,  Asia,  and  Africa.  Some- 
times, however,  they  are  spoken  of  as  twelve,  to  correspond 
with  the  Apostles,  and  their  names  given,  with  the  special 
gift  which  each  presented.  Their  kingdoms  also  are  men- 
tioned, and  their  very  ages,  which  are  made  to  represent 
youth,  manhood,  and  grey  hairs.  Bede,  indeed,  is  able  to  tell 
us  that  Melchior  was  an  old  man,  with  long  white  hair,  and 
a  sweeping  beard,  and  that  he  gave  the  gold  as  to  a  king ; 
that  Caspar  was  a  beardless  youth,  with  a  ruddy  face,  and 
that  he  presented  the  frankincense,  as  a  gift  worthy  the  God ; 
while  Balthasar  was  a  swarthy  strong-bearded  man,  and  gave 
the  myrrh  for  the  burial.  In  the  cathedral  at  Cologne, 
visitors  may  yet  see  the  supposed  skulls  of  the  three,  set  in 
jewels,  and  exhibited  in  a  great  gilded  shrine.  They  are  said 
to  have  been  discovered  by  Bishop  Reinald  of  Cologne  in  the 
twelfth  century. 

Imagination  has  been  equally  busy  with  the  star.  The 
Arabic  Gospel  of  the  Infancy 1  says  it  was  an  angel  in  the 
form  of  a  star,  and  several  of  the  Fathers  were  of  the  same 
opinion.  Origen  believed  it  to  have  been  a  comet.  One 
tradition  is  beautiful.  In  the  farthest  East,  it  says,  lived  a 
people  who  had  a  book  which  bore  the  name  of  Seth,  and  in 
this  was  written  the  appearance  of  the  star  of  the  Messiah, 
and  the  offering  of  gifts  to  Him.  This  book  was  handed 
down  from  father  to  son,  generation  after  generation. 
Twelve  men  were  chosen  who  should  watch  for  the  star,  and 
when  one  died,  another  was  chosen  in  his  place.  These  men, 
in  the  speech  of  the  land,  were  called  Magi.  They  went, 
each  year,  after  the  wheat-harvest,  to  the  top  of  a  mountain, 
which  was  called  the  Mountain  of  Victory.  It  had  a  cave  in 
it,  and  was  pleasant  by  its  springs  and  trees.  At  last  the 
star  appeared,  and  in  it  the  form  of  a  little  child,  and  over 
him  the  sign  of  the  cross  ;  and  the  star  itself  spoke  to  them, 
and  told  them  to  go  to  Judea.  For  two  years,  which  was 
the  time  of  their  journey,  the  star  moved  before  them,  and 
they  wanted  neither  food  nor  drink.  Gregory  of  Tours2 
adds  that  the  star  sank,  at  last,  into  a  spring  at  Bethlehem, 
where  he  himself  had  seen  it,  and  where  it  still  may  be  seen, 
but  only  by  pure  maidens." 

The  Gospel  of  Matthew,  which  was  written  for  the  Jewish 
Christians  of  Palestine,3  has  for  its  primary  aim  the  proof 

1  Chaps,  vii.  and  viii. 

*  A  bishop  born  about  A.D.  540.  3  Guder,  in  Hcrsog,  vol.  ix.  p.  174« 

11 


146  THE   LIFE   OP   CHEIST. 

that  Jesus  was  the  promised  Messiah,  and  as  nothing  would 
weigh  so  much  in  the  minds  of  men  trained  in  Jewish  ideas, 
as  evidences  from  their  own  Scriptures,  it  abounds  with 
quotations  from  them  to  show  how  prophecy  was  fulfilled  in 
our  Saviour.  There  are  five  such  quotations  in  the  first  two 
chapters,  some  of  which  would  not  perhaps  have  struck  UH, 
of  themselves,  as  primarily  bearing  on  the  Messiah.  In 
Christ's  day,  a  system  of  allegorizing  was  in  vogue  with  tho 
Rabbis  of  the  various  Jewish  schools,  as  it  afterwards  came 
to  be  in  the  Christian  Church,  and  this,  though  familiar  to 
those  for  whom  the  Gospel  was  first  written,  is  not  so  much 
so  to  us.  How  far,  in  some  cases,  it  is  intended  to  be  under- 
stood that  the  passages  quoted,  originally  referred  to  the 
events  to  which  they  are  applied,  has  been  a  subjecb  of  much 
controversy,  for  the  sacred  writers  themselves  evidently  in- 
tend them  to  be  understood,  in  some  instances,  as  a  divine 
fulfilment  of  prophecy,  but,  in  others,  only  as  an  illustration 
and  parallel.  Perhaps  the  rule  laid  down  by  Tholuck l  is  as 
nearly  right  as  any.  "  Where  parallels  are  adduced  in  the 
New  Testament,"  says  he,  "  from  the  Old,  whether  it  be  in 
words  of  the  prophets,  or  in  institutions  or  events,  it  is  to 
be  taken  for  granted,  in  general,  that  the  intention  was  we 
should  regard  them  as  divinely  designed.2  On  the  contrary, 
there  are  other  cases,  as  for  example,  Matthew  ii.  17,  where 
the  phrase  '  that  it  might  be  fulfilled  '  is  not  used,  but  only 
'  then.'  In  these  the  sacred  writer  is  to  be  regarded  as 
following  the  custom  of  his  day,  by  expressing  his  own 
thoughts  in  the  words  of  Scripture." 

1  Herzog,  vol.  xvii.  p.  39. 

•  As  in  Matt.  i.  23 ;  ii.  15  ;  iv.  14 ;  viii.  17,  etc. 


CHAPTER  XII. 
NAZARETH,  AND  THE  EARLY  DATS  OF  JESUS. 

fTlHE  exceeding  difficulty  of  telling  the  story  of  a  life  like 
-*-  that  of  Jesus  Christ,  a  man  and  yet  divine,  one  having 
all  power  given  Him  in  heaven  and  in  earth,1  and  yet  like 
other  men  in  all  respects  except  sin,2  is  at  once  evident,  on 
the  least  reflection.  Indeed,  it  is  not  so  much  difficult  as 
impossible,  to  tell  it  as  such  conditions  demand,  for  human 
intellect  can  only  comprehend  the  created,  not  the  Creator. 
The  Eternal  still  dwells  in  thick  darkness ;  no  eye  hath  seen 
or  can  see  Him :  His  very  attributes  utterly  transcend  our 
comprehension.  In  Jesus  Christ,  as  at  once  God  and  Man, 
we  have  opposite  conceptions  which  we  may  humbly  receive, 
but  can  neither  harmonize,  explain,  nor  adequately  express. 
Man,  as  such,  is  not  almighty,  but  frail  as  a  flower;  not 
omniscient,  but,  even  at  his  highest  wisdom,  a  child  on  the 
shore  of  the  Infinite;  not  omnipresent,  but  fixed  at  any 
given  moment  to  one  minute  spot.  We  cannot  conceive 
what  is  implied  in  a  nature  of  which  almighty  power,  omni- 
science, and  omnipresence  are  attributes:  far  less  present 
them,  adequately,  in  words,  as  united  with  human  weakness 
and  local  limitation.  The  Man  Christ  Jesus  maybe  realized. 
His  acts  and  words  may  be  related ;  His  divine  powers  may 
be  illustrated  by  their  recorded  exhibitions,  and  there  may 
be  the  most  sincere  admission  of  His  highest  claims  ;  but  the 
narrative  must  still  inevitably,  as  a  whole,  be  that  of  the 
human  side  of  His  nature  only.3 

It  seems  necessary  to  remind  the  reader  of  this  at  the 
point  which  we  have  reached,  to  prevent  misconceptions. 

1  Matt,  xxriii.  18. 

*  Heb.  vii.  26.    1  Pet.  ii.  22.    John  viii.  46.    Hcb.  iv.  15. 

3  See  on  the  subject,  Schenkel's  Charakteibild  Jesii,  p.  8;  also 
McLaurin's  Glorying  in  the  Cross  of  Christ  in  Masterpieces  of  Pulpit 
Eloquence,  vol.  ii.  p.  2Gi. 


148  THE   LIFE   OP   CHKIST. 

We  yield  to  none  in  reverence  to  Jesus  Christ  as  "  God 
manifest  in  the  flesh ;  "  but  the  mystery  of  a  nature  which 
could  be  thus  described  must  ever  remain  beyond  the  power 
of  adequate  presentation  in  .any  narrative  of  His  earthly 
life. 

Having  heard  of  Herod's  death,  Joseph  determined  to 
return  to  Palestine,  with  the  intention  of  settling  perman- 
ently at  Bethlehem.  On  reaching  Judea,  however,  and 
finding  Archelaus  had  been  appointed  ethnarch,*  the  dread 
of  one  who,  of  all  the  family,  was  believed  to  be  the  most 
like  the  hated  tyrant,  his  father  Herod, — the  tumults  and 
massacres  in  Jerusalem  at  his  accession,  and  the  chronic 
disturbance  of  the  country,  induced  him  to  choose  his  former 
place  of  residence,  in  Galilee,  instead. 

In  Nazareth,  he  was  still  under  the  rule  of  another  of 
Herod's  sons,  Herod  Antipas — a  man  of  no  higher  principle 
than  his  brother,  as  his  shameless  life  abundantly  proved, 
but  less  likely  to  be  goaded  into  violent  acts  towards  his 
people,  from  receiving  less  irritation  at  their  hands,  than 
Archelaus  had  to  bear  at  those  of  the  fiercely  orthodox 
population  of  Judea.  With  the  exception  of  the  dead  Anti- 
pater,  moreover,  Archelaus  was  the  most  tyrannical  and 
self-willed  of  the  sons  of  Herod,  and  he  was  not  at  all  un- 
likely to  follow  up  the  suspicious  cruelty  of  his  father,  which 
had  led  to  the  Bethlehem  massacre,  should  any  hint  betray 
the  return  of  the  supposed  rival  to  his  dominions.  Herod 
Antipas,  on  the  other  hand,  was  far  less  likely  to  trouble 
himself  about  any  claimant  of  the  throne  of  Judea,  a  pro- 
vince unconnected  with  his  government.1  Thus,  Nazareth 
became,  once  more,  a  year  or  two  before  the  commencement 
of  our  present  era,  the  habitation  of  the  infant  Jesus.  Here 
He  was  to  spend  all  His  future  life,  except  part  of  its  last 
few  years. 

Nazareth*  lies  among  the  hills,  which  extend  for  about  six 
miles  between  the  plains  of  El  Battauf  on  the  north,  and 
Esdraelon  on  the  south.  It  is  on  the  north  side  of  the  latter, 
and  overlooks  one  of  the  numerous  little  folds  or  bays  of  the 
great  plain,  which  are  seen  wherever  the  hills  open.  The 
village  lies  on  the  northern  side 2  of  this  green  bay,  and  is 
reached  by  a  narrow,  steep,  and  rough,  mountain  path,  over 
which  the  villagers  have  to  bring  their  harvests  laboriously 

Reynold's  John  the  Baptist,  p.  48. 

See  survey  map  in  llecoveiy  of  Jerusalem,  p.  337. 


NAZAEETH.  149 

from  the  plain  beneath,  on  camels,  mules,  and  donkeys.1  If 
the  traveller  ride  up  this  path  in  March,  when  Palestine  is  in 
its  glory,  he  will  be  charmed  by  the  bright  green  of  the  plains 
and  the  beauty  of  the  flowers,  everywhere  lighting  up  the 
otherwise  barren  hills,  which,  at  best,  yield  scanty  pasture 
for  sheep  and  goats.  The  red  anemone  and  the  pink  phlox 
are  the  commonest ;  rock  roses,  white  and  yellow,  are  plenti- 
ful, with  a  few  pink  ones ;  the  cytisus  here  and  there  covers 
the  ground  with  golden  flowers,  and  the  pink  convolvulus, 
marigold,  wild  geranium,  and  red  tulip,  are  varied  by  several 
kinds  of  orchis — the  asphodel,  the  wild  garlic,  mignonette, 
salvia,  pimpernel,  and  white  or  pink  cyclamen.  As  the  path 
ascends,  the  little  fertile  valley  beneath,  running  east  and 
west,  gradually  opens  to  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  in  breadth, 
covered  with  fields  and  gardens,  divided  by  cactus  hedges, 
and  running  into  the  hills  for  about  a  mile.0  Near  the  vil- 
lage, beside  the  pathway,  about  an  hour  from  Esdraelon,  is 
a  spring,  from  which  the  water  pours  from  several  taps  in  a 
slab  of  masonry,  falling  into  a  trough  below,  for  camels, 
horses,  asses,  and  cattle. 

The  distant  view  of  the  village  itself,  in  spring,  is  beau- 
tiful. Its  streets  rise,  in  terraces,  on  the  slopes,  towards 
the  north-west.  The  hills,  here  and  there  broken  into  per- 
pendicular faces,  swell  above  it,  in  an  amphitheatre  round,  to 
a  height  of  about  five  hundred  feet,  and  shut  it  in  from  the 
bleak  winds  of  winter.  The  flat-roofed  houses,  built  of  the 
yellowish- white  limestone  of  the  neighbourhood,  shine  in  the 
sun  with  a  dazzling  brightness,  from  among  gardens,  and  fig- 
trees,  olives,  cypresses,  and  the  white  and  scarlet  blossoms  of 
the  orange  and  pomegranate.  A  mosque,  with  its  graceful 
minaret,  a  large  convent,  from  whose  gardens  rise  tall 
cypresses,  and  a  modest  church,  are  the  principal  buildings. 
The  streets  are  narrow,  poor,  and  dirty,  and  the  shops  are 
mere  recesses  on  each  side  of  them,  but  the  narrowness  shuts 
out  the  heat  of  the  sun,  and  the  miniature  shops  are  large 
enough  for  the  local  trade.  Numbers  of  dogs  which  belong 
to  the  place,  and  have  no  owner,  lie  about,  as  in  all  Eastern 
towns.  Small  gardens,  rich  in  green  clumps  of  olive-trees 
and  stately  palms,  break  the  monotonous  yellow  of  the  rocks 
and  houses,  while  doves  coo,  and  birds  of  many  kinds  twitter, 
in  the  branches,  or  flit  across  the  open.  The  bright  colours 
of  the  roller,  the  hoopoe,  the  sunbird,  or  the  bulbul,  catch 

1  Pal.  Fund  Rep.,  Oct.,  1874,  p.  181.     Mr.  Drake  calls  it  "execrable." 


150  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

the  eye  as  one  or  other  darts  swiftly  past,  and  many  birds 
familiar  in  England  are  seen  or  heard,  if  the  traveller's  stay 
be  lengthened,  for  of  the  322  birds  found  in  Palestine,  172 
are  also  British.  The  song  of  the  lark  floods  a  thousand 
acres  of  sky  with  melody  ;  the  restless  titmouse,  the  willow- 
wren,  the  blackcap,  the  hedge-sparrow,  the  whitethroat,  or  the 
nightingale,  flit  or  warble,  on  the  hillside,  or  in  the  cactus 
hedges,  while  the  rich  notes  of  the  song-thrush  or  blackbird 
rise  from  the  green  clumps  in  the  valley  beneath.  The  wag- 
tail runs  over  the  pebbles  of  the  brook  as  here  at  home ;  the 
common  sparrow  haunts  the  streets  and  house-tops ;  swallows 
and  swifts  skim  the  hill-sides  and  the  grassy  meadows ;  and, 
in  winter,  the  robin  redbreast  abounds.1  Great  butterflies 
flit  over  the  hill-sides,  amongst  the  flowers,  while  flocks  of 
sheep  and  goats  dot  the  slopes  and  the  little  plain  below. 
Through  this  a  brook  ripples,  the  only  one  in  the  valley,  and 
thither  the  women  and  maidens  go  to  fetch  water  in  tall 
jars,  for  household  use.  It  is  the  one  spring  of  the  town,  and, 
hence,  must  have  been  that  which  the  mothers  and  daughters 
of  Christ's  day  frequented.  It  rises  nnder  the  choir  of  the 
present  Greek  church,  and  is  led  down  the  hill-side  in  a 
covered  channel.  An  open  space  near  the  church  is  the 
threshing-floor  of  the  village,  where,  after  harvest,  the  yoked 
oxen  draw  the  threshing-sledges  slowly,  round  and  round, 
over  the  grain,  in  the  open  air.a  No  wonder  that  in  spring 
Nazareth  should  have  been  thought  a  paradise,  or  that  it 
should  be  spoken  of  as  perhaps  the  only  spot  in  Palestine 
where  the  mind  feels  relief  from  the  unequalled  desolation 
that  reigns  nearly  everywhere  else.3 

Later  in  the  year,  the  hills  around  lose  the  charm  of  their 
spring  flowers.  They  are  then  grey  and  barren,*1  divided  by 
dry  gullies,  with  no  colour  to  relieve  their  tame  and  common- 
place outlines,  the  same  on  every  side.  But  even  then,  the 
rich  hues  at  sunset,  with  its  tints  reflected  from  the  rocks, 
the  long-drawn  shadows  of  afternoon,  and  the  contrasts  of 
light  and  dark  on  a  cloudy  day,  give  frequent  charms  to  a 
landscape  in  itself  unattractive. 

Nazareth  lies  nearly  twelve  hundred  feet  above  the  sea, 
and  some  of  the  hills  which  cluster  round,  and  shut  it  in,  rise, 
as  has  been  said,  about  five  hundred  feet  higher.  It  is  a 

1  Tristram's  Natural  Hist,  of  the  Bible,  p.  168  ff.  Furrer,  Art.  Vogel, 
in  Sehenkel's  Bibel  Lexicon. 

9  Furrer,  Nazareth,  iu  Bibel  Lexicon.        8  Kenan,  Vic  de  Jesus,  p.  18 


THE   NAZAEETH  HILLS.  151 

monntain  village,  only  to  be  reached  from  the  plain  by  a 
tedious  climb. 

The  Nazareth  hills  are  of  different  kinds  of  white  lime- 
stone. A  thick  bed  of  this  rock — containing  flints,  and 
merging,  above,  into  the  marl  which  is  still  found  at  Nablus, 
and  into  a  more  thinly  bedded  soft  limestone  beneath — • 
originally  covered  the  whole  country,  from  Samaria  to  Naza- 
reth. This  stone,  though  hard  when  exposed  to  the  air,  is  so 
soft,  where  fresh,  that  it  can  be  cut  like  chalk.  Beneath  it 
lies  hard  dolomitic  limestone.1  The  hills  are  the  remains  of 
these  different  rocks,  after  denudation  through  a  long  geo- 
logical period,  their  strata  being  more  or  less  disturbed  by 
volcanic  upheaval  and  contortion.  Three  centres  of  eruptive 
outbursts  are  visible  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Esdraelon — 
one  in  the  range  of  Gilboa,  on  the  south-east;  another  at 
Little  Hermon,  between  Gilboa  and  Tabor ;  and  the  third  in 
the  south-eastern  part  of  the  Carmel  range,  at  Jebel  Iskander 
— no  fewer  than  twenty-nine  outbursts  of  basalt,  on  the  east, 
west,  and  north  of  the  plain,  marking  their  former  activity. 
The  limestone  beds  are  everywhere  more  or  less  tilted  up  by 
this  volcanic  energy.  The  rich  dark  soil  of  Esdraelon  has 
been  formed  from  the  wearing  down  of  the  basalt  which  now 
forms  part  of  some  of  the  neighbouring  hills,  and  from  strata 
of  volcanic  mud  derived  from  it.  The  smaller  plains  of 
Palestine  are.  of  a  more  clayey  soil,  the  hills  round  them 
being  of  limestone  or  basalt,  presenting,  at  times,  sudden 
and  precipitous  cliffs,  and  the  original  soft,  chalky  limestone 
remaining  still  on  their  tops. 

The  free  air  of  their  mountain  home  seems  to  have  had 
its  effect  on  the  people  of  Nazareth.  Its  bright-eyed,  happy 
children  and  comely  women  strike  the  traveller,  and  even 
their  dress  differs  from  that  of  other  parts.  Through  Pales- 
tine generally,  the  frequent  and  excessive  changes  of  climate6 
nxpose  the  peasants,  or  fellahin,  to  rheumatism,  coughs,  and 
bronchitis ;  and,  as  a  protection,  the  men  in  many  parts  wear 
a  sheepskin  coat,  on  warm  days  as  well  as  cold.  The  women, 
however,  make  no  change  in  their  dress,  which  usually  con- 
sists of  nothing  but  a  long  blue  garment  tied  in  round  the 
waist,  a  bonnet  of  red  cloth,  decorated  with  an  edging  or  roll 
of  silver  coins,  bordering  the  forehead  and  extending  to  the 
ears,  reminding  one  of  the  crescent- shaped  female  head-dresg 
worn  by  some  of  the  Egyptian  priestesses  Over  this,  a  veil 

1  Lieut.  C.  Cornier,  E.E.,  Pa?.  Exp.  Fund,  Jan.,  1873,  p.  7. 


152  THE   LITE   OF   CHRIST. 

or  shawl  of  coarse  white  cotton  is  thrown,  which  hangs  down 
to  the  waist,  serving  to  cover  the  mouth,  while  the  bosom  is 
left  exposed,  for  Eastern,  and  Western  ideas  of  decorum  differ 
in  some  things.1 

The  people  of  the  plain  of  Esdraelon  are  different.  Their 
dark  skins,  bright  eyes,  white  teeth,  and  wonderful  taste  in 
the  combination  of  the  brightest  colours,  draw  the  attention. 
Nothing  more  picturesque  could  be  desired  than  the  women, 
in  their  red  veils  and  long  pointed  sleeves,  carrying  water ; 
the  dark  camel-drivers,  in  black  head-dresses,  and  striped 
brown  and  white  abbas,  riding  on  diminutive  donkeyo, 
before  the  train  of  clumsy,  swinging,  dull-coloured  camels  ; 
the  rich  sheikh,  in  a  purple  jacket,  scarlet  boots,  thin  white 
cloak,  and  yellow  head-dress ;  his  grey  mare,  with  a  scarlet 
saddle,  set  off  by  long  brown  tassels  at  its  peaks ;  alternating 
with  the  herds  of  black  goats  and  diminutive  red  oxen.2 

The  various  costumes  which  seem  peculiar  to  Nazareth  are 
not  less  striking.  The  short  abba  or  cloak  of  the  men,  and 
their  gorgeous  kefeyehs,  or  kerchiefs,  folded  triangularly 
and  thrown  over  the  head,  so  as  to  fall  over  the  neck  and 
shoulders ;  the  white  veil,  the  silk  dresses,  the  broad  scarves, 
and  many-coloured  trousers,  red,  green,  blue,  and  yellow,  of 
the  women,  give  the  wearers  a  peculiarly  picturesque  ap- 
pearance, and  differ  materially  from  the  sordid  dresses  of  the 
poorer  southern  villages.  In  a  country  where  nothing 
changes,  through  age  after  age,  the  dress  of  to-day  is  very 
likely,  in  most  respects,  the  same  as  it  was  two  thousand 
years  ago,  though  the  prevailing  colour  of  the  Hebrew  dress, 
at  least  in  the  better  classes,  was  the  natural  white  of  the 
materials  employed,  which  the  fuller  made  even  whiter.3 

One  characteristic  of  the  hills  round  Nazareth  existing  al- 
ready in  Christ's  day,  and,  indeed,  much  earlier,  is  a  striking 
proof  of  the  denseness  of  the  population  of  Palestine  in  for- 
mer times,  and  of  its  restless  industry  and  energy.  Many  of 
them  are  honeycombed  with  countless  excavations  of  various 
kinds.  Cemeteries  of  over  two  hundred  tombs  cut  in  the 
soft  rock,  some  of  them  large  tunnelled  vaults,  with  separate 
hollows  for  twelve  bodies  ; 4  large  numbers  of  cisterns,  grape 
and  olive  presses,  store  or  dwelling  caves,  wells  and  quarries, 

1  Tyrwhitt  Drake,  in  Pal.  Fund  Rep.,  Oct.,  1875,  p.  175. 

3  Lieut.  Conder,  R.E.,  Pal.  Fund  Rep.,  Jan.,  1873,  pp.  9,  27. 

3  Mark  ix.  3.     Winer,  Art.  Kleidung. 

4  Tyrwhitt  Drake  in  Pal.  Fund  Report,  Oct.,  1872,  p.  177.  Lieut.  Conder 
do.,  do.,  Jan.,  1873,  pp.  24,  25. 


THE   VIEW  FEOM  NAZAEETH.  153 

are  everywhere  abundant,  as,  indeed,  they  are  over  the  whole 
country,  but  especially  in  the  Shephelah  or  Philistine  plain. 
The  cisterns  are  from  twenty  to  thirty  feet  deep,  shaped  like 
a  church  bell  or  inverted  funnel,  about  two  and  a  half  feet 
across  at  the  mouth,  and  fifteen  to  twenty- five  at  the  bottom, 
the  whole  cut  out  of  the  solid  limestone,  showing  that 
Palestine  must  always  have  been,  for  a  good  part  of  the  year, 
a  waterless  country,  needing  to  store  up  the  rains  of  autumn 
and  spring.  It  is  not  uncommon  to  find  groups  of  from 
three  to  ten,  or  even  more,  of  these  fine  excavations  together. 
What  must  have  been  the  density  of  the  population,  what  its 
civilization  and  industry,  to  leave  such  remains  in  such  num- 
bers ? 

The  Nazareth  hills  are,  for  the  most  part,  neglected  now. 
but  were  utilized  in  Christ's  day  as  the  hill-sides  along  the 
Rhine,  or  the  lime-slopes  of  Malta  are  at  present,  by  terrace 
cultivation.  Traces  of  these  ancient  terraces  may  still  be 
seen.  All  the  loose  stones  were  gathered  and  built  into 
rough  walls  along  the  sides  of  the  hills,  like  so  many  steps, 
as  at  Bethlehem  still.  The  tops  of  the  strips  thus  gained, 
after  being  levelled,  produced  grapes  and  all  kinds  of  fruit 
in  great  abundance.  The  supporting  walls,  having  been  long 
neglected,  have  fallen  down,  and  well-nigh  disappeared ;  the 
earth  once  behind  them  has  been  washed  away  by  the  heavy 
rains,  and  the  slopes,  except  in  spring,  when  the  flowers  are 
in  their  glory,  show  little  but  barren  rock.1 

The  view  from  Nazareth  itself  is  limited,  as  might  be 
expected  from  its  nestling  in  an  amphitheatre  of  hills  that 
shut  in  the  little  valley,  except  to  the  west,  where  it  opens 
on  Esdraelon.  From  the  top  of  the  hill  at  the  back  of  the 
village,  to  the  north,  however,  it  is  very  different.  Galilee 
lies  spread  out  like  a  map  at  one's  feet.  The  eye  wanders 
over  the  plain  of  Esdraelon  in  its  broad  western  sweep. 
Three  hours  to  the  east,  it  rests  on  the  round  outline  of 
Tabor,  with  its  woods  of  oaks  and  pistachios,  and,  beyond  it, 
on  the  swelling  mass  of  Jebel  el  Dahy,  or  Little  Hermon, 
which  closes-in  the  plain,  at  about  the  same  height  as  Tabor.3 
Banging  southwards,  the  mountains  of  Gilboa,  four  or  five 
hundred  feet  lower,  shut  in  the  lowlands ;  while  far  beyond 
them,  across  the  hidden  course  of  the  Jordan,  rise  the  moun- 

1  Recovery  of  Jems.,  p.  456. 

2  2,013  feet  above  the  sea-level.    Kiepert's  Neue  Hand-Knrte  v.  Palaest^ 
1875.     1,300  feet  above  the  plain.     Miihlau  in  Riehm,  1883. 


154  THE   LIFE   OF  CHRIST. 

tains  of  Gilead.  Looking  to  the  sonth,  across  Esdraelon,  the 
hills  of  Samaria  are  seen,  through  the  openings  of  the  wooded 
heights  of  the  Cannel  range,  reaching  northward  to  join  it. 
Turning  slowly  towards  the  west,  the  whole  length  of  the 
Cannel  hills,  running  thirty  miles  north-west,  to  the  coast, 
seem,  in  the  pure  air  of  these  parts,  as  if  close  at  hand. 
About  twenty  miles  off,  almost  directly  west,  rises  the  head- 
land of  Carmel ;  its  top  crowned  with  woods  of  oaks  and  fig- 
trees,  its  slopes  varied  with  orchards,  laurels,  and  olives,  and 
its  seaward  face  sinking  abruptly  into  the  Mediterranean 
waters.  Nestling  at  the  northern  base  of  the  hill,  on  the  sea- 
shore, the  white  houses  of  Haifa  arrest  the  eye.  The  blue 
waters,  specked  with  sails,  stretch  far  away,  beyond,  to  the 
distant  horizon.  The  whole  Bay  of  Acre  is  seen,  though  Acre 
itself  lies  too  low  to  be  visible.  The  brown  sandy  shores, 
sweeping  far  to  the  north,  are  hidden  only  here  and  there,  by 
intervening  hills.  Leaving  the  coast,  and  looking  from 
north-west  to  north,  the  panorama  shows  a  sea  of  hills — the 
highlands  of  Galilee, — broken  by  the  fertile  upland  plain  of 
Battauf,  close  at  hand,  with  the  ruins  of  the  once  famous 
Sepphoris,  on  a  solitary  hill  at  its  southern  edge,  and  beyond, 
on  its  northern  slope,  the  cottages  of  Cana  of  Galilee.  In  the 
background,  twenty  miles  away,  toAver  the  hills  of  Safed, 
2,770  feet  above  the  sea,  rising  over  the  ever-heightening 
summits  of  the  highlands  of  Upper  Galilee.  But  Safed  itself 
is  only  midway  in  the  land  ;eape.  Mountains  rise  beyond 
mountains,  to  the  north,  till  they  culminate  more  than  sixty 
miles  off,  as  the  crow  flies,  in  the  highest  peaks  of  Hermon, 
ten  thousand  feet  above  the  sea-level.  As  the  eye  wanders 
round  to  the  point  from  which  it  began  its  survey,  hills  be- 
yond hills  still  meet  the  view,  stretching  away,  with  rounded 
tops,  towards  the  Sea  of  Galilee,  and  rising  again,  beyond  it, 
to  a  greater  height  on  its  eastern  shores. 

In  the  town  of  Nazareth,'  then  doubtless  much  larger, 
Jesus  spent  most  of  His  life.  Amidst  these  hills,  in  these 
streets,  He  was  brought  up  as  a  child ;  and  "  grew,"  as  a 
boy,  "  in  wisdom  and  stature."  Here,  for  many  years,  He 
laboured  as  a  man  for  His  daily  bread.  This  was  the  land- 
scape on  which  He  daily  gazed,  and  it  was  along  these 
mountain  paths  He  walked.  He  must  often  have  stood  on 
the  hill-top  from  which  the  whole  country  is  seen,  and  the 
little  bay  of  the  great  plain  below  the  village,  with  its 
encircling  heights,  must  have  been  familiar  to  Him  in  its 
least  detail.  If  there  be  a  spot  to  which  a  Christian  pilgrim 


TOWNS  BOUND  NAZAKETH.          155 

might  rightly  turn  as  the  most  sacred  in  the  history  of  his 
faith,  it  is  Nazareth. 

The  influence  of  such  a  home  on  the  character  of  its  people 
mnst  have  been  marked.  Less  lovely,  perhaps,  than  the  plain 
of  Gennesareth,  on  the  other  side  of  the  hills  on  the  north- 
east, it  was  yet  a  place  fitted  alike  by  the  dreamy  qniet  of 
its  environment  of  heights,  the  surpassing  view  from  the  hill 
above  it,  the  beauty  of  earth  and  sky,  and  the  soul-inspiring 
purity  of  its  mountain  air,  to  form  true-hearted  and  generous 
children  of  nature,  quick  in  intellect,  bright  in  imagination, 
and  noble  in  higher  characteristics.  Yet,  with  all  its  seclu- 
sion, the  position  of  Nazareth  checked  any  narrow  onesided- 
ness.  The  wonderful  landscape  from  its  hill-top  made  this 
impossible.  The  great,  rich,  Sepphoris,  the  capital  of  Galilee, 
at  once  a  town  and  a  fortress,  was  scarcely  three  hours 
,  distant,  Tiberias  was  only  eight,  and  a  crown  of  populous 
villages  rose  on  all  sides,  around.  The  great  high  road — 
known  even  in  the  days  of  Isaiah  as  "  the  way  of  the  sea  " 1 — 
ran  across  the  plain  of  El  Battauf ,  just  behind  Nazareth,  from 
Damascus  to  Ptolemais.  Another  caravan  road,  from  Da- 
mascus to  Judea  and  Egypt,  crossed  Esdraelon  at  the  foot 
of  the  Nazareth  hill,  meeting  a  third,  from  the  north,  at 
Megiddo,  on  the  other  side  of  the  plain.  The  Roman  road 
from  Syria,  moreover,  after  passing  through  Berytus,  Sidon, 
Tyre,  and  Ptolemais,  on  the  coast,  ran,  by  way  of  Sepphoris, 
through  Nazareth,  to  Samaria,  Jerusalem,  and  the  south. 
Nazareth  was,  thus,  at  the  crossing  place  of  the  nations, 
where  commerce  or  military  changes  gave  daily  familiarity 
with  all  the  neighbouring  races — the  Syrian,  the  Phenician, 
the  Arab,  and  the  Roman ;  and  where  there  was  so  much 
intercourse,  there  must  have  been  greater  liberality  of  mind 
than  in  other  parts  of  Jewish  territory. 

It  has  been  usual  to  think  of  Nazareth  as  a  rough  and 
fierce  place,  with  a  doubtful  character  even  for  morals.  The 
rejection  of  its  greatest  Son  by  His  fellow-townsmen  has  been 
thought  to  show  their  rude  coarseness ;  but  Jesus  offers  a 
milder  explanation — that  a  prophet  has  no  honour  in  his  own 
country.  Yet,  even  in  rejecting  Him,  only  a  rough  and  coarse 
people  would  have  acted  so  rudely.  The  exclamation  of 
Nathanael  seems  to  imply  the  doubtful  morality  of  the  town,2 
perhaps  from  its  position  in  the  midst  of  constant  heathen 

1  D^H  "SjYJ  (The  highway  to  the  sea).    Isa.  ix.  1. 
*  John  i.  46.    See  Meyer's  Komment, 


156  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

traffic  on  the  great  roads;  and  this  appears  to  correspond 
with  the  other  notices  of  it  in  the  Gospels.  If  it  were  so,  it 
would  only  heighten  the  wonder  that  such  a  shoot  should 
grow  from  ground  so  diy  ! 

Of  the  first  thirty  years  of  Christ's  life  we  know  nothing 
except  the  one  incident  of  His  visit  to  Jerusalem,  with  Joseph 
and  Mary,  when  a  boy  of  twelve  years  old.  It  is  not  difficult, 
however,  to  imagine  at  least  some  of  the  influences  which 
must  have  had  their  part  in  the  development  of  that "  wisdom  " 
in  which  He  "  grew,"  as  His  childhood  and  boyhood  passed 
away. 

"  It  must  be  granted,"  says  Ewald,1  "  that  in  no  ancient 
people  has  family  life  maintained  itself  so  powerfully  as  in 
Israel,  during  the  early  days  of  the  outward  strength  of  the 
nation,  or  with  so  little  weakening  and  deterioration  as  during 
the  period  of  its  gradual  decline."  In  their  patriarch  Isaac 
and  his  wife  Rebecca,  they  had  an  abiding  ideal  which  it 
seemed  the  highest  felicity  to  copy.  Woman,  among  the 
Jews,  was  never  so  dependent  and  despised  as  among  other 
Eastern  races,  for  the  Law  proclaimed  that  she  was  bone  of 
man's  bone,  and  flesh  of  his  flesh,  and  designed  to  be  a  help 
meet  for  him.2  In  the  picture  of  Eve  as  the  one  wife  of 
Adam  polygamy  was  indirectly  censured,  and  it  was  no  less 
so  in  the  command  given  in  Eden,  that  "  a  man  should  leave 
his  father  and  mother  and  cleave  unto  his  wife,  and  that 
they  should  be  one  flesh."  Hence  it  was  never  in  much 
favour  among  the  Jews,  and  gradually  gave  place  to  the 
original  law.  Indeed,  it  was  at  any  time  rather  a  feature  of 
royal  or  princely  ostentation  than  a  characteristic  of  ordinary 
life. 

The  Book  of  Proverbs  throws  great  light  on  the  position 
of  women  in  Israel,  and,  incidentally,  on  her  place  and  oc- 
cupations in  the  household.  "  A  gracious  woman,"  we  are 
told,  "  retaineth  honour;"3  "a  wise  woman  buildeth  her 
house,"  4  that  is,  establishes  her  family ;  and  "  the  price  of  a 
virtuous  woman  is  set  far  above  that  of  rubies."  5  Instead 
of  being  the  playthings  or  slaves  of  man,  women  are  taught 
that  they  may  be  his  helpers  and  noblest  friends.  "  The 
heart  of  the  husband  of  the  virtuous  woman,"  says  King 
Lemuel, 
"  Doth  safely  trust  in  her,  so  that  he  shall  not  want  for  gain. 

1  Alterthilmer,  p.  251.  *  Gen.  ii.  20-22. 

*  Prov.  xi.  16.  4  Prov.  xiv.  1.  •  Prov.  xxxi.  10. 


THE   HEBEEW  WIFE.  157 

Rhe  will  do  him  good  and  not  harm  all  the  days  of  her  life. 
She  seeketh  wool,  and  flax,  and  worketh  with  diligent  hands. 
She  is  like  the  merchant  ships ;  she  bringeth  her  food  from 

afar. 
She  riseth  also  while  it  is  yet  night,  and  giveth  meat  to  her 

household, 

And  the  day's  work  to  her  maidens. 
She  considereth  a  field  and  buyeth  it ;  with  the  fruit  of  hei 

hands  she  planteth  a  vineyard. 
She  girdeth  her  loins  with  strength,  and  maketh  strong  her 

arms. 
She  sees  that  her  trading  yields  good  profit :  her  lamp  is  kept 

burning  by  night. 
She  lays  her  hands  on  the  spindle,  and  her  hands  hold  the 

distaff. 
She  stretcheth  out  her  hand  to  the  poor ;  yea,  she  reacheth 

forth  her  hands  to  the  needy. 
She  is  not  afraid  of  the  snow  for  her  household ;  for  all  her 

children  are  clothed  with  scarlet  wool. 
She  maketh  herself  robes  :  her  clothing  is  silk  and  purple. 
Her  husband  is  known  in  the  gates,  when  he  sitteth  among 

the  elders  of  the  land. 
She  maketh  fine  linen,  and  selleth  it ;  and  delivereth  girdles 

unto  the  merchant. 
Strength  and  honour  are  her  clothing  ;  and  she  smiles  at  days 

to  come. 
She  openeth  her  mouth  with  wisdom ;  and  in  her  tongue  is 

the  law  of  kindness. 
She  looketh  well  to  the  ordering  of  her  household,  and  eateth 

not  the  bread  of  idleness. 
Her  sons  rise  up  and  praise  her;  her  husband  also,  and  he 

extols  her ; — • 
'  Many  daughters  have  done  virtuously,  but  thou   excellest 

them  all.' 
Gracefulness  is  deceitful,  and  beauty  is  a  breath,  but  a  woman 

that  fears  Jehovah,  she  shall  be  praised. 
G  ive  her  the  honour  that  the  fruit  of  her  hands  deserves ;  her 

works  are  the  praise  of  all,  in  the  gates."  g 

No  literature  of  any  age  offers  a  finer  ideal  of  the  Wife 
and  Mother  than  this  Hebrew  poem,  written  not  less  than 
two  thousand  five  hundred  years  ago,  when  the  history  of 
Greece  was  still  the  era  of  fable,  and  Rome  was  little  more 
than  a  rude  fort  on  the  top  of  the  Palatine  hill.  That  it  is 
a  separate  poem,  inserted  in  this  collection  of  Proverbs,  is 


158  THE   LIFE   OP   CHRIST. 

seen  from  its  construction,  each,  verse  beginning  -with  the 
successive  letters  of  the  Hebrew  alphabet,  in  regular  order,* 
with  the  design,  no  doubt,  of  helping  the  memory  to  retain 
it.  For  hundreds  of  years  before  Mary's  day  it  had  been 
on  the  lips  of  many  Jewish  maidens,  for  the  words  of  the 
sacred  books  were  familiar  to  the  whole  Jewish  race,  as  no 
part  of  any  other  literature,  so  far  as  we  know,  has  ever  been 
to  any  people.  The  picture  of  loving  fidelity,  ceaseless 
industry,  prudence,  management,  charity,  thrift,  wisdom,  self- 
respect  ;  of  noble  reverence,  rising  from  the  husband  on  earth 
to  God  above,  and  of  motherly  virtues  towards  her  children, 
must  have  kindled  high  aspirations  in  many  a  Jewish  wife. 
It  cannot  be  wrong  to  believe  that,  in  her  sphere,  Mary 
realized  this  ideal,  both  in  her  activities  and  in  her  character, 
and  that  it  had  its  share  in  the  spiritual  development  of  her 
wondrous  child. 

The  relation  of  the  Jewish  husband  to  his  wife  was  equally 
striking.  If  he  were  her  Isaac,  she  was  his  Rebecca.  "  A 
good  wife  is  a  great  gift  of  God,"  says  the  son  of  Sirach,  "  to 
him  that  fears  God  is  she  given."  l  "  Joy  to  the  man  who  has 
such  a  wife,"  says  he  again,  "  for  the  number  of  his  days  is 
doubled." 2  "Honour  your  wife  that  you  may  be  rich  in  the 
joy  of  your  home,"  says  the  Talmud.3  "  Is  your  wife  little  ?  " 
says  another  Jewish  proverb,  also  quoted  in  the  Talmud, 
"  then  bow  down  to  her  and  speak " — that  is,  do  nothing 
without  her  advice.4  "  In  eating  and  drinking,"  says  a  Rabbi, 
"  let  a  man  keep  within  his  means  ;  in  his  own  dress  let  him 
epend  as  his  means  allow ;  but  let  him  honour  his  wife  and 
children  to  the  very  edge  of  his  power,  for  they  are  depen- 
dent on  him,  but  he  himself  is  dependent  on  God  whose  word 
made  the  world."  The  humour  that  marks  the  Jew  in  all 
ages  made  a  butt  of  the  man  who,  contrary  to  the  better 
feeling  of  his  people,  ventured  to  take  two  wives.  "Bald 
here,  and  bald  there,"  5  says  a  Jewish  proverb,  in  allusion  to 
one  who  had  two  wives,  one  young  and  one  old.  The  young 
one,  said  Jewish  wit,  pulled  out  the  white  hairs,  and  the  old 
one  the  black,  till  his  head  was  as  smooth  as  an  ivory  ball ! 

The  reverence  of  children  towards  their  parents  was  carried 
to  the  sublime  in  Hebrew  families.  The  child  found  the  ideal 
of  his  obedience  in  Isaac's  willingly  yielding  himself  to  death 

1  Ecclesiasticus  xxvi.  1-4.  *  Verses  2,  3. 

*  Dukes,  Rablrinische  Blumenlese,  p.  124.  *  Dukes,  p.  225. 

•  Dukes,  p.  232. 


JEWISH  EEVEEENCE   TO  PARENTS.  159 

at  his  father's  command.1  Every  young  Hebrew  heard,  from 
his  earliest  years,  how  the  finger  of  God  Himself  had  written 
on  the  tables  of  stone,  "  Hononr  thy  father  and  thy  mother, 
that  thy  days  may  be  long  upon  the  land  which  the  Lord  thy 
God  giveth  thee ; "  3  and  this  command  he  found  repeated 
again  and  again  in  the  sacred  Law.3  Disobedience  to  a  father 
or  mother  was  made  a  public  crime,  which  the  community 
might  punish  with  death.4  Unworthy  children  were  laid 
under  the  most  awful  threatenings  of  divine  displeasure.5 
Childhood  read  how  Joseph,  "  when  he  met  his  father,  fell 
on  his  neck  and  wept  a  good  while,"  and  "  bowed  himself  to 
the  earth  before  him,"  6  and  how  the  great  lawgiver  "  did 
obeisance  to  his  father-in-law  and  kissed  him."'  It  knew 
the  curse  that  fell  on  the  son  of  Noah  who  failed  in  respect  to 
his  father,8  and  read  that  the  young  were  to  "  rise  up  before 
the  hoary  head,  and  honour  the  face  of  the  old  man."  9  The 
tender  care  of  an  aged  parent  was  regarded  by  every  Jew  as 
a  sacred  duty.  The  son  of  Sirach  only  repeated  the  senti- 
ment of  all  Scripture  when  he  said,  "  Honour  thy  father  with 
thy  whole  heart,  and  forget  not  the  sorrows  of  thy  mother. 
Remember  that  thou  wast  begotten  of  them ;  and  how  canst 
thou  recompense  them  the  things  that  they  have  done  for 
thee  ?  "10  That  a  father  and  a  mother's  blessing  was  prized 
as  sacred,  and  its  being  withheld  regarded  as  the  saddest  loss, 
shows  how  deeply  such  teaching  had  sunk  into  the  Jewish 
mind. 

Family  life,  resting  thus  on  the  holiest  duty  and  reverence, 
has  been  nowhere,  in  any  age,  more  beautiful  than  it  was, 
and  still  is,  among  the  Jews.  In  the  parents,  moreover,  the 
passionate  love  of  offspring,  characteristic  of  the  race,  doubt- 
less hallowed  these  lofty  sanctions.  The  children  of  a  Jewish 
household  were  the  centre  round  which  its  life  and  love 
moved.  Full  of  affection  and  sensibility,  the  heart  of  a  Jew 
was  not  content  with  loving  only  those  of  his  own  genera- 
tion, but  yearned  to  extend  itself  to  others  who  would  inherit 
the  future.  A  childless  marriage  was  the  bitterest  trial. 
The  Rabbis  went  even  so  far  as  to  say  that  childless  parents 

1  See  Art.  Eltern,  in  Herzog,  and  Kind,  in  Winer's  R.  W.  B.,  also 

Ewald's  AltertMmer,  p.  251.  2  Exod.  xx.  12. 

8  Lev.  xix.  3.  Deut.  v.  16.  Prov.  i.  8 ;  iv.  1;  vi.  20;  vii.  1.  etc. 
Mai.  i.  6. 

4  Deut.  xxi.  18-21.  *  Deut.  xxvii.  16.    Prov.  xx.  20. 

4  Gen.  xlvi.  29  ;  xlviii.  12.    '  *  Exod.  xviii.  7.             8  Gen.  ix.  25 

•  Lev.  xix.  32.  K>  Ecclesiasticus  vii.  27,  28. 


160  THE   LIFE   OF   CHKIST. 

were  to  be  lamented  as  one  would  lament  the  dead.  *  The 
purity  of  Jewish  family  life  was  proverbial  even  in  anti- 
quity. 2  The  surpassing  morality  of  the  ancient  Scriptures, 
and  the  illustrations  of  ideal  virtue  presented  by  such 
mothers  in  Israel  as  Sarah,  Rachel,  Hannah,  and  Susanna, 
shed  a  holiness  over  household  relationship  in  Israel  that 
was  unknown  elsewhere.  The  Talmud  hardly  goes  too  far 
when  it  ascribes  to  the  fidelity  of  the  wives  of  the  nation  in 
Egypt,  its  first  deliverance  and  its  national  existence,  and  a 
modern  Jew  is,  perhaps,  justified  in  believing  that  the  bond 
of  family  love  among  his  people  is  stronger  than  in  any 
other  race. 3  "  From  the  inexhaustible  spring  of  Jewish 
family  love,"  he  affirms,  "  rise  the  saviours  of  the  human  race." 
"  The  Jewish  women  alone,"  says  he  justly,  elsewhere, 4  have 
the  sound  principle  to  subordinate  all  other  love  to  that  of  the 
mother."  Alexander  Weill  puts  into  the  mouth  of  the 
Jewish  mother  the  words,  "  Dare  any  Jewish  mother,  worthy 
of  the  name,  let  the  thought  of  '  love  '  in  its  ignoble  sense, 
ever  cross  her  mind  ?  It  seems  to  her  no  better  than  a  vile 
apostasy.  A  Jewess  dares  love  only  God,  her  parents,  her 
husband,  and  her  children."  Kompert  ventures  to  repeat  the 
audacious  Jewish  saying — "  God  could  not  be  everywhere, 
and  therefore  He  made  mothers."  "  The  mother's  love,"  he 
continues,  "  is  the  basis  cf  all  family  life  in  Jewish  romances ; 
its  passion,  its  mystery.  The  same  type  of  the  Jewish 
mother  is  found  in  all  alike."  It  is  true  in  all  ages,  as 
Douglas  Jerrold  put  it,  that  she  who  rocks  the  cradle  rules 
the  world.  The  earliest  years  of  a  child  are  the  most  recep- 
tive. "  It  learns  more  in  the  first  three  or  four  than  in  all 
its  after  life,"  says  Lord  Brougham.  The  character  of  the 
mother,  her  care,  her  love,  her  looks,  her  soul,  repeat  them- 
selves in  the  child  while  it  is  yet  in  her  arms  or  at  her 
knees. 

It  is  not  too  much,  then,  to  ascribe  supreme  influence  to 
Mary,  in  the  development  of  her  wondrous  child.  Words- 
worth's sonnet  is  only  the  adequate  utterance  of  what  must 
have  been  daily  realized  in  the  cottage  of  Nazareth  : — 

"  Mother !  whose  virgin  bosom  was  nncross'd 
With  the  least  shade  or  thought  to  sin  allied ; 
Woman  1  above  all  women  glorified  ; 
Our  tainted  Nature's  solitary  boast ; 

1  Hess,  Pom.  u.  Jerusalem,  p.  40.  *  Benan's  St.  Paul}  p.  10& 

*  Hess,  Rom.  u.  Jerusalem,  p.  2.  4  Hess,  p.  39. 


EDUCATION   OF  HEBEEW   CHILDEEN.  161 

Purer  than  foam  on  central  ocean  toss'd  : 
Brighter  than  Eastern  skies  at  daybreak  strewn 
With  fancied  roses,  than  the  unblemish'd  moon, 
Before  her  wane  begins  on  heav'n's  blue  coast  ; 
Thy  image  falls  to  earth.    Yet  some,  I  ween, 
Not  unforgiven  the  suppliant  knee  might  bend, 
As  to  a  visible  Power,  in  whom  did  blend 
All  that  was  mix'd  and  reconciled  in  thee 
Of  mother's  love  with  maiden  purity, 
Of  high  with  low,  celestial  with  terrene  1 "  * 

That  both,  parents  of  a  Jewish  child  took  an  active  part  in 
its  early  education  is  shown  by  the  instance  of  Susanna,1  k  of 
whom  we  are  told  that  "  her  parents  also  were  righteous,  and 
taught  their  daughter  according  to  the  law  of  Moses,"  and 
by  that  of  Timothy,  who,  from  a  child,2 1  had  "  known  the 
Holy  Scriptures ;  "  his  grandmother,  Lois,  and  his  mother, 
Eunice,  having  been,  by  implication,  his  teachers.3  But  it 
was  on  the  father,  especially,  that  the  obligation  lay  to  teach 
his  children,  of  both  sexes,  the  sacred  Law  and  the  other 
Scriptures,  the  knowledge  of  which  constituted  almost  ex- 
clusively the  sum  of  Jewish  education.  Abraham  had  found 
divine  favour  on  the  express  ground  that  he  "  would  com- 
mand his  children  and  his  household  after  him,  and  they 
should  keep  the  way  of  Jehovah  ;  "  *  and  express  injunctions 
required  eveiy  father  to  teach  the  sacred  history  of  his 
nation,  with  the  great  deeds  and  varying  fortunes  of  his 
ancestors,  and  the  words  of  the  Law,  "  diligently  "  to  his 
children,  and  to  talk  of  them  while  sitting  in  the  house,  or 
walking  by  the  way,  when  they  retired  to  rest,  and  when 
they  rose  for  the  day. 5  It  waSj  in  fact,  required  by  the 
Rabbis  that  a  child  should  begin  to  learn  the  Law  by  heart, 
when  five  years  old. 6  As  soon  as  it  could  speak  it  had  in 
the  same  way  to  learn  the  lessons  and  petitions  of  the  morn- 
ing service.  At  the  frequently  recurring  household  religions 
feasts,  special  rites,  which  should  stir  the  child  to  ask  their 
meaning,  formed  a  regular  part.  The  book  of  Proverbs 
abounds  with  proofs  of  the  fidelity  with  which  these  com- 
mands were  carried  out  by  both  fathers  and  mothers.  In  a 
virtuous  family  no  opportunity  was  lost — at  the  table,  at  home 
or  abroad,  evening  or  morning — of  instilling  reverence  for 
God's  law  into  the  minds  of  the  family,  and  of  teaching  them 

1  Susanna,  ver.  3.  2  2  Tim.  iii.  15. 

3  2  Tim.  i.  5.  4  Gen.  xviii.  19. 

•  Deut.  vi.  7,  21 ;  xi.  19  ;  iv.  9,  10.     Ps.  Ixxviii.  5,  6,  etc. 

*  Schi'.cckenlturgcr,  p.  105. 

12 


162  THE   LITE   OF  CHRIST. 

its  express  words  throughout,  till  they  knew  them  by  heart. 
When  we  remember  that  the  festivals  made  labour  unlawful 
for  two  months  in  each  year,1  in  the  aggregate,  it  is  evident 
that  the  leisure  thus  secured  would  give  great  facilities  for 
domestic  instruction. 

Such  had  been,  for  ages,  the  rule  in  Israel,  and  it  doubtless 
still  prevailed  in  many  households.  Elementary  schools, 
however,  gradually  came  to  be  felt  a  necessity  for  orphan 
children,  and,  in  the  decline  of  manners,  even  for  those  of 
many  living  parents.  Whether  they  had  been  generally 
established  in  the  days  of  Christ's  childhood  has,  neverthe- 
less, been  questioned  "If  any  man,"  says  the  Talmud, 
"  deserves  that  his  name  should  be  handed  down  to  poster- 
ity, it  is  Joshua,  the  son  of  Gamaliel."1  For,  but  for  him,  the 
knowledge  of  the  Law  would  have  perished  in  Israel.  In 
early  times  he  who  had  a  father  was  taught,  but  he  who  had 
not,  did  not  learn  the  Law.  For  they  were  commanded  in 
the  words  of  the  Law,  '  you ' — doubtless  the  fathers — '  shall 
teach  them.'  At  a  later  date  it  was  ordered  that  school- 
masters should  be  appointed  to  teach  the  youth  of  Jerusalem, 
because  it  is  written,2  '  The  law  shall  go  forth  from  Zion.' 
But  this  plan  did  not  remedy  the  evil,  for  only  the  child 
that  had  a  father  was  sent  to  school,  while  he  who  had  none 
was  not  sent.  It  was  therefore  provided  that  higher  teachers 
should  be  appointed  in  every  district,"  and  that  the  youth  of 
sixteen  or  seventeen  years  of  age  should  attend  their  schools. 
But  this  plan  failed,  because  any  scholar  whom  the  master 
chastised  presently  ran  off.  Then,  at  last,  Joshua,  the  son  of 
Gamaliel,  ordained  that  teachers  should  be  appointed,  as  in 
every  district,  so  in  every  town,  to  whom  the  boys  from  the 
sixth  or  seventh  year  of  their  age  should  be  committed."3 
But  such  a  law  must  have  been  only  supplementary  to  already 
existing  customs,  and  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  boys'  schools 
were  already  general  in  the  time  of  Christ.4 

The  enthusiasm  of  the  Jews  for  education,  which,  in  their 
sense  of  the  word,  was  the  learning  to  read  "the  Law,"  and 
the  committing  it  to  memory,  was  amazing.  "  A  town  in 
which  there  is  no  school  must  perish."  "Jerusalem  was 
destroyed  because  the  education  of  the  children  was  ne- 
glected," °  says  the  Talmud. 5  Josephus  tells  us  that  "  Moses 

1  Ginsburg,  Cyclo.  Bib.  Lit.,  vol.  i.  p.  727.  2  Isa.  ii.  3. 

3  Haba  Pathra  Bab.,  21 ;  quoted  by  Gfi-orer,  vol.  i.  p.  186. 

4  Schurer,  p.  468.  5  Shabbath,  cxix.  b  ;  quoted  by  Ginsburg 


UNIVERSAL  KNOWLEDGE   OF  THE   LAW.  163 

commanded  that  the  children  be  taught  to  read,  and  to  walk 
in  the  ways  of  the  Law,  and  to  know  the  deeds  of  their 
fathers,  that  they  might  imitate  them,  and  that  they  might 
neither  transgress  the  Law,  nor  have  the  excuse  of  ignor- 
ance." 1  He  repeatedly  boasts  of  the  universal  zeal  that 
prevailed  for  the  education  of  the  young.  "  We  interest 
ourselves  more  about  the  education  of  our  children  than 
about  anything  else,  and  hold  the  observance  of  the  laws,  and 
the  rules  of  piety  they  inculcate,  as  the  weightiest  business 
of  our  whole  lives. 2  "  If  you  ask  a  Jew  any  matter  concern- 
ing the  Law,  he  can  more  readily  explain  it  than  tell  his  own 
name.  Since  we  learn  it  from  the  first  beginning  of  intel- 
ligence, it  is,  as  it  were,  graven  on  our  souls." 8  "  Our 
legislator  neither  left  practical  enforcement  to  go  on  without 
verbal  instruction,  nor  did  he  permit  the  hearing  of  the  Law 
to  proceed  without  its  illustration  in  practice ;  but  beginning 
his  laws  from  the  earliest  infancy,  with  the  appointment  of 
every  one's  diet,  he  left  no  act  of  life,  of  the  very  smallest 
consequence,  at  the  pleasure  and  disposal  of  the  person  him- 
self." 4  This  passage  throws  light  on  the  kind  of  instruction 
imparted.  Philo,  a  contemporary  of  Christ,  bears  similar 
testimony.  "  Since  the  Jews,"  says  he,  "  look  on  their  laws 
as  revelations  from  God,  and  are  taught  them  from  their 
earliest  childhood,  they  bear  the  image  of  the  Law  on  their 
souls. 5  "  They  are  taught,"  adds  he  elsewhere,  "  so  to  speak, 
from  their  very  swaddling  clothes,  by  their  parents,  masters, 
and  teachers,  in  the  holy  laws,  and  in  the  unwritten  cus- 
toms, and  to  believe  in  God,  the  one  Father  and  Creator  of 
the  world.  G  Josephus  boasts  that  at  fourteen  he  had  so 
thorough  a  knowledge  of  the  Law,  that  the  high  priests 
and  first  men  of  the  town  sought  his  opinion.7  There  can, 
indeed,  be  no  question  that  a  boy  was  trained,  from  the 
tenclerest  years,  with  sedulous  care,  in  a  knowledge  of  the 
moral  and  ceremonial  laws  of  Judaism,  not  only  as  written 
in  Scripture,  but  as  explained,  in  endless  detail,  by  the 
"  ti-aditions  "  and  rules  of  the  Rabbis.  At  the  age  of  thir- 
teen 8  he  became  a  "  son  of  the  Law,"  and  was  bound  to 
pi*actise  all  its  moral  and  ritual  requirements.9 

1  c.  Avion,  ii.  26.  *  c.  Apion,  i.  12. 

8  c.  Apion,  ii.  19.       4  c.  Apion,  ii.  18.  8  Legat.  ad  Caium,  sec.  31. 

Lff/at.  ad  Caium,  sec.  16.  7  Vita,  2. 

8  Mixchna  Pirk.  Ab.,  iv.  20  ;  v.  21 ;  vol.iv.,  pp.  460,  482, 486,  Surcnlius. 
•  Schiircr  (464)  says  twelve  years,  but  this  may  mean  when  he  has 
completed  that  age,  and  is,  consequently,  in  his  thirteenth  year. 


164  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

The  age  at  which  children  were  to  be  sent  to  school  is 
fixed  in  the  Mischna.  Raf  said  to  Samuel,  the  son  of  Schi- 
lath,  a  teacher,  "  Do  not  take  a  boy  to  be  taught  before  he 
is  six  years  old,  but  from  that  year  receive  him,  and  train 
him  as  you  do  the  ox,  which,  day  by  day,  bears  a  heaviei 
load."  Even  the  number  of  scholars  a  teacher  might  take 
is  rigidly  fixed.  "  Rabba  (or  Raf )  has  said,  a  schoolmaster 
may  receive  to  the  number  of  twenty-five  scholars.  If  there 
be  fifty,  there  must  be  two  schoolmasters  ;  if  only  forty,  there 
must  be  an  assistant,  who  is  to  be  paid,  half  by  the  con- 
gregation, half  by  the  schoolmaster."  The  few  children  who 
were  not  sent  to  school,  from  whatever  cause,  were  called 
Am-ha-aretzin,  or  boors — it  being  taken  for  granted  that 
they  must  have  lived  in  some  rude  district  where  schools 
were  not  easy  of  access.1  Neither  unmarried  men  nor  women 
were  allowed  to  be  teachers.2  The  Ha-zan  p  or  "  minister  "  of 
the  nearest  synagogue  was,  in  general,  the  master,  and  the 
synagogue  itself,  in  a  great  many  cases,  served  as  the  school- 
house. 

In  school,  the  children,  according  to  their  age,  sat  on 
benches,  or  on  the  ground,  as  they  still  do  in  the  East,3  the 
master  sitting  on  a  raised  seat.  The  younger  children  had, 
as  text-books,  some  simple  passage  from  the  Bible,  carefully 
written  out — for,  of  course,  there  were  no  books,  in  our  sense, 
then — and  they  seem  to  have  repeated  it  in  a  sing-song 
cadence  till  they  learned  it  by  heart.4  In  Eastern  schools,  at 
this  time,  some  of  the  lessons  are  written  by  each  scholar, 
with  chalk,  on  tablets  of  wood,  like  our  slates  in  shape,  and 
these  are  cleaned  after  each  lesson.5  Some  centuries  after 
Christ,  the  boys,  having  had  portions  of  the  "  Law  "  as  their 
class-book  till  they  were  ten  years  old,  began  at  that  age  to 
read  the  Mischna,  or  Rabbinical  comments,  and  at  fifteen 
entered  on  the  reading  of  the  Gemara,  or  the  collected  com- 
ments on  both  the  Law  and  the  Mischna.  In  Christ's  day, 
advanced  education  was,  no  doubt,  much  the  same,  but  it 
must  have  been  given  by  oral  instruction,  for  the  sayings  of 
the  Rabbis  were  not  as  yet  committed  to  writing. 

The  early  years  of  Christ  were,  doubtless,  spent  in  somo 
such  school,  after  He  had  passed  from  the  first  lessons  of 

1  Gfrorer,  vol.  i.  p.  188. 

2  Winer,  R.  W.  B.,  Unterricht,  Diet,  of  the  Bille,  vol.  i.  p.  493. 

8  Liyhtfoot  on  Luke  ii.  46.  4  Kenan,  Vie  dc  Jeans,  p.  18. 

8  Smith's  Bible  Diet.,  vol.  i.  p.  493. 


THE   CHILDHOOD    OF   CHKIST.  165 

Mary,  and  the  instructions  of  Joseph.  Mysterious  as  it  is  to 
us,  we  must  never  forget  that,  as  a  child,  He  passed  through 
the  same  stages  as  other  children.  The  Apocryphal  Gospels 
are  full  of  miracles  attributed  to  these  opening  years,  de- 
scribing the  infant  as  already  indefinitely  beyond  His  age. 
There  is  no  warrant  for  this  in  Scripture.  Nothing  was  out 
of  keeping  in  the  life  of  our  Lord.  As  Irenaeus  says,  "  Ho 
sanctified  childhood  by  passing  through  it."  Neither  His 
words  nor  acts,  His  childish  pleasures  nor  His  tears,  were 
different  from  those  of  His  age.  Evil  alone  had  no  growth 
in  Him :  His  soul  gave  back  to  the  heavens  all  their  sacred 
brightness.  The  ideal  of  humanity  from  His  birth,  He  never 
lost  the  innocence  of  childhood,  but  He  was  none  the  less 
completely  like  other  children  in  all  things  else. l  We  are 
told  that  "  the  child  grew,  and  waxed  strong  in  spirit ; "  q  that 
"  the  favour r  of  God  was  upon  Him,"  and  that  "  He  kept 
on  increasing "  in  wisdom  and  stature,  and  in  favour  with 
God  and  man ; "  2  and  this  can  only  mean  that,  with  a  sweet 
attractiveness  of  childish  nature,  He  spoke,  and  understood, 
and  thought,  as  simply  as  His  playmates,  in  the  fields,  or  on 
the  hill-sides,  of  Nazareth.  The  earlier  words  are  the  same 
as  are  used  of  John  the  Baptist  in  his  childhood 3  and  can 
bear  only  the  same  meaning.  Both  grew  in  the  shade  of  a 
retired  country  life,  in  the  sanctuary  of  home,  apart  from 
the  great  world,  under  the  eyes  of  God,  and  with  His  grace 
upon  them.  It  was  only  in  later  years  that  the  mighty 
difference  between  them  was  seen,  when  the  fresh  leaves  of 
childhood,  much  alike  in  all,  passed  into  flower.  There  was 
no  moment  in  Christ's  life  when  the  higher  light  began  to 
reveal  itself  in  His  soul :  life  and  "  grace  "  dawned  together, 
and  grew  in  a  common  increase  to  the  end. 

1  See  Monod's  L'Enfance  de  J&tw,  p.  7.     Prossense,  Jesus  Christ,  etc., 
p.  206. 
>  Luke  ii.  40,  52.  •  Luke  i.  80. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 
EARLY  BOYHOOD. 

religious  life  of  the  home,  the  Church,  and  the  com- 
"••  munity  necessarily  mould,  more  or  less,  the  susceptible 
nature  of  children,  and  we  may  be  certain  that  "  the  child 
Jesus  "  was  no  exception,  in  this  respect,  more  than  in  others, 
to  the  general  law.  His  opening  being  must  have  reflected 
all  that  was  good  around  Him,  as  the  flower  reflects  the 
colours  of  the  light. 

Rabbinism  was  then  in  its  full  glory.  The  strong  hand  of 
Herod  the  Great  had  suppressed  all  political  agitation  for 
more  than  a  generation,  with  the  result  of  turning  the  atten- 
tion of  the  Rabbis  supremely  to  religious  questions,  which 
alone  were  left  for  their  discussion.  The  ten  thousand l  legal 
definitions  and  decisions,  which  are  now  comprised  in  Jewish 
religious  jurisprudence,  were  for  the  most  part  elaborated  in 
those  years,  and  every  devout  Israelite  made  it  the  labour 
of  his  life  to  observe  them  faithfully,  as  far  as  possible.  It 
must  not,  therefore,  shock  us,  accustomed  as  we  are  to  feel 
that  religious  acts  lose  their  value  when  not  free  and  spon- 
taneous, to  find  minute  prescriptions  laid  down  and  observed 
in  Judea,  for  every  detail  of  public  and  private  life  and 
worship.  The  whole  existence  of  a  Jew  was  religious,  but 
it  was  a  religiousness  which,  while  the  right  spirit  might  not 
bo  wanting,  was  yet  elaborately  mechanical  at  every  step. 

The  East  is  essentially  different  in  its  spirit  from  the  West. 
Here,  the  idea  of  improvement  and  advancement  leads  to 
incessant  changes ;  there,  an  intense  conservatism  retains  the 
past  with  superstitious  tenacity.  Orientals  cling,  by  nature, 
to  the  old,  merely  as  such.  Novelty  of  any  kind  is  painful 
and  annoying.  They  resist  the  least  innovation.  The  cus- 
toms of  their  fathers  are  law ;  use  and  wont  are  sacred. 
They  are  graver  and  quieter  than  vre.  Noisy  amusements 
have  little  attraction  for  them :  they  seldom  laugh  or  joke. 

1  Delitzsch,  Jud.  Handwcrkerlebcn,  p.  35. 


THE   RELIGIOUS  LIFE   OF   JUDAISM.  167 

The  play  of  wit,  dreamy  thoughtfulness,  attractive  narrations 
and  inventions,  religious  observances,  and  the  display  of  re- 
ligious festivals,  are  their  sufficing  delights.  We  must  guard, 
therefore,  against  looking  at  Oriental  life  through  Western 
eyes. 

A  devout  Jew  began  his  daily  religious  life  with  his  first 
waking  moments.  '*  Every  Israelite,"  says  Maimonides, 
"  should  be  penetrated  at  all  times  by  reverence  for  his 
Almighty  Creator.  The  central  thought  of  the  godly  and 
devout  man  is — '  I  have  set  the  Lord  continually  before  me.' 1 
As  if  he  stood  before  a  king  of  flesh  and  blood,  he  should 
never  forget  the  requirements  of  right  conduct  and  cere- 
monial purity."  3  He  was  taught  that  his  first  thoughts,  as 
soon  as  he  waked,  should  be  directed  to  the  worship  of  God. 
Sleep  was  regarded  as  a  kind  of  death,  in  which  the  soul 
leaves  the  body,  to  return  to  it  on  its  awaking,  and  hence  the 
first  words  of  revived  consciousness  were  an  acknowledgment 
before  "  the  living  and  everlasting  King,  of  His  having  given 
back  the  soul  for  another  day,  in  His  great  mercy  and  faith- 
fulness." 3  Thanks  for  new  life  thus  granted  followed  in 
something  like  this  form : — "  My  God,  the  soul  which  Thou 
hast  given  me  is  clean.  Thou  hast  created  it,  formed  it,  and 
breathed  it  into  me,  and  Thou  wilt  take  it  from  me,  and 
restore  it  me  again.  While  this  soul  lives  in  me,  I  thank 
Thee,  O  Eternal  One,  my  God,  and  the  God  of  my  fathers ! 
Lord  of  all  works !  King  of  all  souls !  Praised  be  Thou, 
O  Eternal,  Thou  who  puttest  the  souls  again  into  dead 
bodies !  "  4  • 

Having  risen  from  bed,  it  was  not  lawful  to  move  four 
steps  before  washing  the  hands  and  face,  which  the  Rabbis 
taught  was  needed  to  cleanse  one  from  the  defilement  of 
sleep,  as  the  image  of  death.5  It  was  unlawful  to  touch  the 
face,  or  any  other  part  of  the  body,  till  this  was  done,  nor 
could  it  be  done  except  in  the  form  prescribed.  Lifting  the 
ewer,  after  dressing,  with  the  right  hand,  it  must  be  passed 
into  the  left,  and  clear  cold  water,  Babbinically  clean,  must 
be  poured  thrice  over  the  right  hand,  the  fingers  of  which 
must  be  open,  and  must  point  to  the  ground.  The  left  hand 
must  then  be  washed  in  the  same  way,  with  water  poured  on 
it  from  the  right,  and  then  the  face  must  be  washed  three 
times.  The  palms  of  the  hands  must  then  be  joined,  with 

1  Ps.  xvi.  8.    *  Quoted  in  Coben's  Historisch.  Krit.  Darsfclhinv,  p.  199 
8  Mill's  Jews,  p.  56.  4  Cohen,  p.  199.  6  Mill,  p.  57. 


168  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

the  thumbs  and  fingers  outstretched,  and  the  words  must  be 
uttered — "  Lift  up  your  hands  to  the  sanctuary,  and  praise 
the  Lord  !  "  Then  followed  the  prayer,  "  Blessed  art  Thou, 

0  Lord,  our  God!  King  of  the  universe  !* Thou  who  hast 
sanctified  us  through  Thy  commandments,  and  hast  required 
us  to  wash  the  hands.      Blessed  art  Thou,  O  Eternal,  our 
God,  King  of  the  universe !  who  hast  formed  man  in  wisdom, 
and  hast  made  in  him  many  vessels.     If  but  one  of  these 
stood  open,  or  was  stopped,  man  could  not  live  and  remain 
before  Thee.     This  is  evident,  and  confessed  before  the  throne 
of  Thy  majesty.     Blessed  art  Thou,  O  Eternal  One,  main- 
tainer  of  all  flesh,  who  in  Thy  Creation  doest  wonders  !  " l 

With  some  such  forms  and  words,  the  morning  began  in 
Joseph's  house  in  Nazareth.  But  this  was  only  the  prepara- 
tion for  morning  prayers.  It  was  not  lawful  to  do  any  work, 
or  to  eat  any  food,  till  these  had  been  repeated,  either  at 
home,  or  more  properly,  in  the  synagogue,  where  they  formed 
the  daily  morning  service.  I  shall  describe  them  when  I 
come  to  speak  of  the  synagogue  worship. 

The  religiousness  of  the  first  moments  of  the  day  was  only 
in  keeping  with  the  whole  life  of  a  devout  Jew  like  Joseph. 

1  have  mentioned  the  morning  first  because  our  day  begins 
then,  but  that  of  the  Jew  began  in  the  evening.     From  the 
beginning  of  each  day — that  is,  from  the  appearance  of  the 
first  star — to  its  close,  and  from  the  first  day  of  the  week  till 
the  Sabbath ;  from  the  beginning  of  each  month  to  its  feasts 
and  half- feasts  ;  from  each  New  Year's  Day  to  the  next ;  and 
from  one   Sabbath  year — that   is,   each  seventh  year — till 
another,  the  attention  of  every  Jew  was  fixed  uninterruptedly 
on  the  sacred  usages  which  returned  either  daily,  weekly,  or 
at  set  times,  and  kept  his  religion  continually  in  his  mind, 
not  only  by  symbolical  rites,  but  by  prescribed  words.     There 
was  little  leisure  for  the  lighter  pleasures  of  life,  and  little 
taste  for  them.     Lengthened  prayers  in  set  forms  had  to  be 
repeated  three  times  each  day,  and  also  at  all  feasts,  half- feasts, 
and  fast  days ;  each  kind  of  day  having  its  special  prayers. 
In  every  week  there  was  a  preparation  day  for  the  Sabbath, 
and  there  were  similar  preparation  days  for  each  feast  in  the 
different  months  ;  public  worship  was  held  twice  weekly,  each 
Monday  and   Thursday,  and  on  feast  days  and  holy  days. 
Three  pilgrimages  to  Jerusalem  were  required  yearly,  and 
others  were  often  undertaken.     A  whole  week  was  occupied 

1  Cohen,  p.  £00. 


THE   BABBINICAL  PRECEPTS.  169 

by  the  Feast  of  Unleavened  Bread,  and  by  that  of  Tabernacles 
and  by  the  Feast  of  the  Dedication.  Every  Jew  was,  more- 
over, occupied  to  a  large  extent,  through  his  connection  with 
the  Temple,  by  tithes,  sacrifices,  and  vows.  He  visited  the 
Holy  Place  as  often  as  possible,  for  prayer,  and  to  offer  special 
gifts.  He  had  to  pay  the  most  minute  attention,  continually, 
to  permitted  and  forbidden  food  and  clothing,  and  to  the  strict 
observance  of  all  laws  respecting  the  accessories  of  his  public 
and  private  worship,  his  rolls  of  the  Law,  his  phylacteries, 
the  blowing  of  trumpets,  the  gathering  of  palm  twigs  at  the 
right  times,  and  much  more.  The  endless  rules  respecting 
the  cleanness  and  uncleanness  of  persons  and  things,  demanded 
the  greatest  care  every  hour.  Both  men  and  women,  as  such, 
had  many  details  to  observe.  Then,  there  were  the  ever- 
recurring  usages,  festivities,  or  events  of  family  life — circum- 
cisions, betrothals,  marriages,  divorces,  deaths,  and  mourning  ; 
the  laws  of  the  Sabbath  year,  recurring  periodically,  and 
many  other  diversified  occurrences,  which  had  each  its  pro- 
lixity of  religious  form,  not  to  be  overlooked.  Besides  all, 
extraordinary  solemnities  were  appointed  on  special  occasions, 
and  these,  again,  made  grave  demands  on  the  thoughtful  care 
of  the  whole  population.1  No  wonder  that  the  Law  was 
almost  the  one  thing  in  a  Jew's  mind,  or  that  a  child  brought 
up  in  such  an  atmosphere  should,  in  most  cases,  be  blindly 
conservative  and  narrow. 

Opportunity  will  be  taken  hereafter  to  illustrate  what  life 
under  the  Law  really  was,  but  even  without  the  statement  of 
details,  it  is  evident  that  a  system  which  spread  its  close 
meshes  over  the  whole  of  life,2  must  have  been  a  heavy 
burden  on  the  conscientious,  and  a  fruitful  source  of  hypocrisy 
and  dead  formality  to  the  mass.3  The  hedge  invented  by 
Rabbinism  was  a  unique  expansion  of  a  few  written  precepts 
to  infinite  detail.  Artificial  interpretations  of  Scripture,  often 
contrary  to  the  sense  and  even  to  the  letter  of  the  Law,  were 
invented  as  occasion  required,  and  then  enforced  as  of  more 
authority  than  the  Law  itself.4  The  Rabbi  could  "  bind  and 
loose ; "  no  case  escaped  his  casuistry :  religion  was  turned 
into  a  lifelong  slavery,  so  burdensome,  that  even  the  Talmud 
itself  speaks  of  "  the  vexatious  worry  of  the  Pharisees."  5 
Ethics  and  theology  were  refined  into  an  elaborate  system  of 

1  Jost,  vol.  i.  pp.  193,  194.  *  c.  Apion,  ii.  16,  17. 

8  Hausrath,  vol.  i.  p.  83.  *  Cohen,  p.  1G2. 

*  Sola  f.  20  ;  quoted  by  Hausrath,  vol.  i.  p.  88. 


170  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

jurisprudence,  till  even  where  the  requirements  were  right, 
their  morality  was  poisoned  in  its  principles,  and  deadened 
the  fresh  pulses  of  spiritual  life.1 

Still  there  were  many  in  Israel  who  retained  more  or  less  of 
the  primitive  godliness  of  the  nation.  If  Rabbinism,  as  a 
system,  had  fallen  from  its  earlier  and  nobler  idea  of  binding 
the  nation  permanently  to  the  true  faith  ;  if  it  had  substituted 
teaching  for  a  change  of  heart;  legality  for  spontaneous 
fidelity  ;  endless  prescriptions  for  the  life-giving  spirit,  there 
were  not  a  few,  alike  among  the  Rabbis  and  the  people,  to 
whom  the  external  was  not  all.  There  may  have  been  a 
Rabbi  at  Nazareth  as  self-righteous  as  Nechimza  Ben  Hakana, 
who,  when  he  left  his  school,  was  wont  to  pray — "  I  thank 
Thee,  0  Lord,  my  God,  that  Thou  hast  given  me  my  portion 
among  those  who  frequent  the  House  of  Instruction,  and  not 
among  those  who  are  busy  at  the  street  corners,  for  I  rise 
early,  and  they  rise  early ;  I  apply  myself  early  to  the  Law, 
and  they  to  vain  things ;  I  work,  and  they  work  ;  I  work,  and 
receive  my  reward ;  they  work  and  receive  none  ;  I  run,  and 
they  run ;  I  run  after  eternal  life,  and  they  to  the  pit."  But 
there  may  have  been,  also,  another,  like  the  Rabbi  of  Jamnia, 
who  told  his  scholars,  "  I  am  a  creature  of  God,  and  my  fellow- 
man  is  no  less  so.  I  have  my  calling  in  the  town,  he,  his,  in 
the  field.  I  go  early  to  my  work,  and  he  to  his.  As  he  is  not 
made  proud  by  his  labour,  I  am  not  made  proud  by  mine.  If 
you  think  that  I  am  busied  with  great  matters  and  he  with 
small,  remember  that  true  work,  whether  great  or  small, 
leads  to  the  same  end."  3 

The  child  Jesus  must  have  often  heard  in  the  house  of 
such  a  man  as  Joseph,  and  in  those  of  his  neighbours  of  like 
mind  with  him,  whom  he  visited,  a  healthy  intelligent  religi- 
ousness, beautiful  in  any  age.  The  popular  proverbs  and 
sayings  which  have  uome  down  to  us  may  easily  bring  back 
manyan  evening  scene  in  Nazareth,  when  friends  or  neigh- 
bours of  Joseph's  circle  met  for  an  hour's  quiet  gossip,  when 
their  day's  toil  was  over.  "  Quite  true,  neighbour,  "  we  may 
fancy  one  of  such  a  group  saying,  "  he  who  knows  the  Law, 
and  has  no  fear  of  God,  is  like  the  ruler  of  the  synagogue  who 
has  only  the  key  of  the  inner  door,  but  not  of  the  outer."3 

v 

1  Schurer,  p.  50R. 

8  Berachoth  17  a  and  28  b  ;   quoted  in  Delitzsch,  Jud.  Handwerker- 
teben  p.  36. 
3  Dukes,  Rab.  Blumenlese,  p.  278. 


JEWISH  PROVERBS.  171 

"  Yes,  Zechariah,  a  God-fearing  Rabbi  is  like  a  good  player 
who  has  his  harp  with  him,  but  a  godless  Rabbi  is  like  one 
who  has  nothing  on  which  to  make  music."1  "  Yon  speak 
truly,  Menahem ;  a  godly  man  is  the  glory  of  a  town,  its 
reward,  and  its  ornament ;  if  he  leave  it,  its  glory,  its  reward, 
and  its  ornament,  leave  it  with  him."2  "  My  father  used  to 
tell  me,"  chimes  in  Hananyah  Ben  Hizkiyah,  "  that  there  are 
four  who  never  have  the  face  of  God  lifted  upon  them — the 
scoffer,  the  liar,  the  hypocrite,  and  the  slanderer."3  "  Rabbi 
Nathan,"  says  the  fifth,  "  is  right,  I  think ;  I  have  heard  him 
say  that  the  man  who  stands  firm  in  temptation,  and  the  hour 
of  whose  death  is  like  that  of  his  birth,  is  the  only  man  to  be 
envied."  4b 

Good  counsels  to  the  young  were  not  wanting.  The  Kazan 
who  taught  the  Nazareth  school  in  the  synagogue,  may  have 
told  his  scholars — "  Get  close  to  the  seller  of  perfumes  if  you 
want  to  be  fragrant."  5  °  He  may  have  given  the  groups  of 
little  one's  at  his  feet  words  of  wisdom  such  as  these — that 
"  grapes  on  vines  are  beautiful,  and  in  their  right  place ;  but 
grapes  among  thorns  are  neither." 6  d  "A  Nazarite  should 
go  round  about,  rather  than  come  near  a  vineyard."7*  "  A 
friend  who,  as  often  as  he  meets  you,  tells  you,  in  secret,  your 
faults,  is  better  than  one  who,  whenever  he  meets  you,  gives 
you  a  gold  piece."  8  "  If  you  see  an  humble  man,  you  may 
almost  take  for  granted  that  he  fears  God,9  but  a  proud  man 
is  no  better  than  an  idolater."  *  "  Make  the  best  of  your 
childhood;  youth  is  a  crown  of  roses ;  old  age  of  thorns.  Yet 
do  not  fear  death,  it  is  only  a  kiss,  if  you  fear  God." 10 
"  Truth  is  the  seal  of  God."  n  "  Trust  in  the  mercy  of  God, 
even  if  the  sharp  sword  be  at  your  throat ;  He  forsakes  none 
of  His  creatures  to  give  them  up  to  destruction."  13  "  Take  a 
lesson  from  Jose  Ben  Joezer,  who  was  the  first  Jew  ever 
crucified.  He  died  for  his  faith  in  the  evil  time  of  the 
Syrian  kings.  As  he  was  being  led  to  death,  his  sister's  son, 
Alkim,  tried  to  make  him  believe  that  God  showed  more 
favour  to  transgressors  of  the  Law  than  to  the  godly.  He 
could  have  saved  Jose's  life,  if  the  martyr  had  yielded  to 

1  Dukes,  p.  279.  2  Dukes,  p.  260.  »  Dukes,  p.  118. 

4  Dukes,  pp.  126,  127.  Rabbi  Nathan  lived  in  the  second  generation 
after  Christ,  but  I  have  adopted  his  words  as  expressing  a  sentiment  no 
doubt  common  earlier. 

*  Dukes,  p.  590.          •  Dukes,  p.  563.  7  Dukes,  p.  441. 

8  Dukes,  p.  363.          »  Dukes,  pp.  361,  359.         10  Dukes,  pp   318,  32a 

11  Dukes,  p.  287.  13  Dukes,  p.  113. 


172  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

him.  But  Jose  only  answered,  '  If  God  prepares  such  a  fate 
as  mine  for  the  godly,  what  will  become  of  the  wicked  ?  ' — 
and  passed  on  to  the  cross."  l  "  The  hn table  man  is  he  who 
is  as  reverent  before  God  as  if  he  saw  Him  with  his  eyes.  "2 

A  wise  teacher  may  have  spoken  thus  to  the  children  in 
the  school,  but  wise  counsels  would  not  be  wanting  at  home. 
Like  all  Orientals,  Joseph  was,  doubtless,  given  to  speak  in 
proverbs  and  parables.  "  One  sheep  follows  another," 3  he 
might  have  said.  "  As  is  the  mother,  so  is  the  daughter."  4 
"  A  man  without  friends  is  like  the  left  hand  without  the 
right."5  "The  road  has  ears,  and  so  has  the  wall."6  "It 
is  no  matter  whether  a  man  have  much  or  little,  if  his  heart 
be  set  on  heaven."  7  "A  good  life  is  better  than  high  birth."  8 
"  The  bread  and  the  rod  came  from  heaven  together." 9 
"  Seeking  wisdom  when  you  are  old  is  like  writing  on  water ; 
seeking  it  when  you  are  young  is  like  graving  on  stone."  10 
"  Every  word  you  speak,  good  or  bad,  light  or  serious,  is 
written  in  a  book."  n  "  Fire  cannot  keep  company  with 
flax  without  kindling  it."  "  In  this  world  a  man  follows 
his  own  will;  in  the  next  comes  the  judgment."12  "With  the 
same  measure  with  which  a  man  measures  to  others  it  will 
be  measured  to  him  again."13  "Patience,  and  silence  in 
strife,  are  the  sign  of  a  noble  mind."  l4  "  He  who  makes  the 
pleasures  of  this  world  his  portion,  loses  those  of  the  world 
to  come ;  but  he  who  seeks  those  of  heaven,  receives,  also, 
those  of  earth."  15  "  He  who  humbles  himself  will  be  exalted 
by  God ;  but  he  who  exalts  himself,  him  will  God  humble."  16 
"  Whatever  God  does  is  right."  17  "  Speech  is  silver ;  silence 
is  worth  twice  as  much." 18  "  Sin  hardens  the  heart  of 
man."19  "  It  is  a  shame  for  a  plant  to  speak  ill  of  him  who 
planted  it."  20  "  Two  bits  of  dry  wood  set  a  moist  one  on 
fire."21  All  these  are  Jewish  sayings,  which  Jesus  may  well 
have  heard  in  His  childhood. 

Nazareth  would,  no  doubt,  have  its  finer  spirits  who,  from 
time  to  time,  shed  the  light  of  their  higher  nature  over 
family  gatherings,  and  none  of  this  could  be  lost  on  such  a 

1  Jost,  vol.  i.  p.  125.  a  Dukes,  p.  86.  s  Dukes,  p.  6. 

4  Dukes,  p.  15.  *  Dukrs,  p.  16.  6  Dukfs,  p.  32. 

*  Dukes,  p.  33.  8  Dukes,  p.  38.  9  Dukes,  p.  47. 

10  Duke*,  p.  97.  "  Dukes,  p.  103.  ls  Dukrs,  p.  145. 

u  Dukes,  p.  162.  Compare  Matt.vii.  1.  u  Dukes,  p.  305. 

"  Dul.es,  p.  380.  16  Compare  Luke  xviii.  14. 

l*  Dukes,  p.  452.  18  Dukes,  p.  491.  ^  Dukes,  p.  543 

»  Dukes,  p.  559.  n  Atodah  Zarah,  i.  93. 


HEBEEW  APOLOGUE.  173 

cliild  as  Jesus.  On  some  glorious  night,  when  the  moon  was 
walking  in  brightness,  a  mind  like  this  may  have  told  the 
children  round  him  some  such  fine  Hebrew  apologue  as 
follows : — 

"  The  Eternal  sent  forth  His  creating  voice,  saving,  4  Let 
two  lights  shine  in  the  firmament,  as  kings  of  the  earth,  ar.d 
dividers  of  the  revolving  year.' 

"  He  spake,  and  it  was  done.  The  sun  rose  as  the  first 
Light.  As  a  bridegroom  comes  forth  in  the  morning  from 
his  chamber;  as  a  hero  rejoices  on  his  triumphal  march,  so 
rose  he,  clothed  in  the  splendour  of  God.  A  crown  of  all 
hues  encircled  his  head ;  the  earth  rejoiced,  the  plants  sent 
up  their  odours  to  him,  and  the  flowers  put  on  their  best 
array. 

"  The  other  Light  looked  on  with  envy,  as  it  saw  that  it 
could  not  outvie  the  Glorious  One  in  splendour.  *  What 
need  is  there,'  it  asked,  murmuring  to  itself,  '  of  two  kings 
on  one  throne  ?  Why  was  I  the  second  instead  of  the  first  ?  ' 

"  Forthwith  its  brightness  faded,  chased  away  by  its  in- 
ward chagrin.  It  flew  from  it  high  through  the  air,  and 
became  the  Host  of  Stars. 

"  The  Moon  stood  pale  as  the  dead,  ashamed  before  all  the 
heavenly  ones,  and  wept — '  Have  pity  on  me,  Father  of  all 
creatures,  have  pity.' 

"  Then  the  angel  of  God  stood  before  the  Sad  One,  and  told 
her  the  decree  of  the  Highest.  *  Because  thou  hast  envied 
the  light  of  the  Sun,  unhappy  one,  henceforth  thou  wilt  only 
shine  by  his  light,  and  when  yonder  earth  comes  between 
thee  and  him  thou  wilt  stand  darkened,  in  part,  or  entirely, 
as  now. 

'*  *  Yet,  Child  of  Error,  weep  not.  The  Merciful  One  has 
forgiven  thy  sin,  and  turned  it  to  good  for  thee.  "  Go,"  said 
He,  "  speak  comfortably  to  the  Sorrowful  One ;  she  will  be, 
at  least,  a  queen,  in  her  brightness.  The  tears  of  her  sorrow 
will  be  a  balm  to  quicken  all  living  things,  and  renew  the 
strength  which  the  beams  of  the  Sun  have  made  faint." ' 

"  The  Moon  went  away  comforted,  and,  lo,  there  streamed 
round  her  that  brightness  in  which  she  still  shines :  she  seb 
forth  on  that  peaceful  path  in  which  she  still  moves,  as 
Queen  of  the  Night  and  leader  of  the  stars.  Lamenting  her 
sin,  and  pitying  the  tears  of  men,  she  seeks  whom  she  can 
revive,  and  looks  for  any  one  she  can  cheer." l 

1  Herder,  Blumenlese  Horgenltindischer  Dichter,  p.  14. 


174  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

Such,  no  doubt,  would  be  some  of  the  characteristics  of 
Nazareth  life.  Every  one  would  know  every  one ; 1  industry 
and  idleness ;  worth  and  vice ;  pleasure  and  sadness  ;  would 
be  around  the  growing  Child.  The  oxen  ploughing  the  little 
valley  below  the  town  and  the  great  plain  outside,  would 
often  arrest  His  eyes  ;  the  asses  and  mules,  and  camels  laden 
with  goods  or  produce,  would  pass  then,  as  now,  up  the 
mountain  track  to  the  narrow  Nazareth  streets :  the  different 
ti'ades  of  the  village  would  be  busy,  as  they  are  still.  The 
wise  and  the  simple :  the  clown  and  the  scholar :  the  poor 
and  the  rich :  the  soiled  workman  and  the  proud  squire : 
helpless  infancy,  and  as  helpless  age  ;  the  school,  the  play- 
ground, the  market,  the  court,  the  synagogue,  and  the  ceme- 
tery, would  each  in  turn  be  prominent  for  the  time.  But  it 
would  be  under  Joseph's  roof,  as  in  a  silken  nest,  with  the 
counsels  of  Joseph,  and  the  gentle  and  lofty  devoutness  of 
Mary,  that  the  young  soul,  destined  one  day  to  be  so  great, 
would  learn  its  richest  lessons  of  childhood. 

At  a  very  early  age,  Jesus  would  be  taken  to  the  syna- 
gogue with  Joseph  and  Mary,  and  the  other  children  of  the 
Nazareth  family  circle,  for  even  then  that  institution  had 
become  the  banner  of  Jewish  nationality,  the  centre  of 
national  life,  and  the  aegis  of  the  Jewish  faith,2  whose  services 
no  Israelite  would  think  of  neglecting. 

The  importance  of  the  Synagogue  dates  not  later  than 
the  age  of  the  Maccabees.8  It  rose  from  the  institution, 
by  Ezra,  of  periodical  readings  of  the  Law  in  public.3  Its 
earliest  history  is  not  known,  for  we  can  hardly  trust  the 
Rabbinical  traditions,  that  there  were  hundreds  in  Jerusalem 
under  the  second  Temple.4  But  the  germ  of  the  Synagogue 
doubtless  existed  in  Babylon.  The  exiles  could  no  longer 
offer  their  sacrifices,  for  this  could  be  done  only  in  the 
Temple  at  Jerusalem.  Hence  they  naturally  betook  them- 
selves to  prayer,  and  lifted  their  hands,  in  their  loneliness, 
to  God,  at  the  times  when  their  sacrifices  were  wont  to  be 
consumed.  Instead  of  these  they  presented  their  prayers,1* 
and  prophets  like  Ezekiel,  on  the  Sabbath,  spoke  to  them 

1  Mark  vi.  3. 

8  On  the  Synagogue,  see  Keim's  Jesu  von  Nazara,  vol.  i.  p.  431.  Leyrer, 
Herznff,  vol.  xv.  p.  300.  Zunz,  G«ttesdieii>it.  Vortrdge,  p.  2.  Scliiirer'a 
Lehrbuch,  p.  4G8.  Hausrath,  vol.  i.  p.  73.  Jost,  vol.  i.  p.  168.  Ewald, 
vol.  iv.  p.  314 ;  vol.  vi.  p.  407.  Kenan,  Vie  de  Jesus,  p.  82.  Schnecken- 
burger,  Zciti/eachiciite,  p.  106.  Bibel  Lexicon,  Art.  Symnjogue. 

3  Began  B.C  107.  4  Jost,  vol.  i.  p.  390. 


THE   SYNAGOGUE.  175 

of  their  duty.  It  would  seem,  as  if  the  Law  itself  had  been 
well-nigh  unknown  during  the  exile,  from  the  fact  of  Ezra 
summoning  the  people  to  hear  it,  as  something  which  they 
had  transgressed,  from  ignorance  of  its  requirements.  To 
him,  apparently,  belongs  the  signal  honour  of  introducing 
the  custom  of  constant  public  reading  of  the  sacred  books 
before  the  congregations  of  the  people,  and  of  taking  care 
that,  as  Hebrew  was  no  longer  understood,  interpreters 
should'  be  provided,  to  translate  the  Scripture  lessons,  at  the 
public  services,  into  the  spoken  dialect.1  Established,  first, 
in  Jerusalem,  synagogues  soon  spread  over  the  land,  and  even 
beyond  it,  wherever  Jews  had  settled,  till  they  gradually 
became  the  great  characteristic  of  the  nation.  For,  though 
the  services  of  the  Temple  were  yet  cherished,  the  Synagogue, 
by  its  local  convenience,  its.  supreme  influence  in  fixing 
Jewish  religious  opinion,  and  its  natural  importance  as  the 
centre  of  each  community,  and  the  basis  of  their  social  life, 
carried  with  it  the  seeds  of  the  destruction  of  the  strictly 
local  Temple  service.  The  priest,  henceforth,  was  of  less 
importance  than  the  lay  Rabbi,  for  while  the  one  touched 
life  at  only  a  few  points,  the  other  directed  its  every  move- 
ment. In  Christ's  day  there  were  synagogues  everywhere.1 
In  Jerusalem,  alone,  there  gradually  rose,  according  to  the 
Talmud,  no  fewer  than  480.k  Tiberias  had  thirteen,  Damascus 
ten,  and  other  cities  and  towns,  in  proportion  to  their  popula- 
tion. But  the  Mother  Synagogue  in  the  Temple  still  re- 
mained, as  it  were,  the  model  after  which  all  other  synagogues 
were  organized. 

Wherever  ten  Jews  were  settled,  it  was  incumbent  on 
them  to  form  themselves  into  a  congregation,  and  have 
synagogue  service.  Where  the  Jewish  population  was  small, 
open  structures  on  the  banks  of  rivers,  or  on  the  sea- 
shore 2  were  preferred,  from  their  convenience  for  the  neces- 
sary purifications  ;  but,  whenever  it  was  possible,  a  syna- 
gogue was  erected  by  the  free  contributions  of  the  people. 
Sometimes,  indeed,  a  rich  man  built  one  at  his  own  expense.3 
The  ruins  of  those  in  Galilee,  Christ's  own  country,  enable 
as  to  learn  many  particulars  respecting  this  locality  at  least. 
In  selecting  sites,  the  builders  by  no  means  always  chose 
prominent  positions.  If,  in  some  cases,  the  Rabbinical 

1  Matt.  xiii.  54.    Luke  iv.  28,  31.     Acts  xvii.  17;  xviii.  4;  ix.  2,  20; 
xiii.  5;  xvi.  13.     Bell.  Jud.,  vii.  7.  3.     Vit.t  54. 
8  Acts  xvi.  13.  8  Luke  vii.  5. 


176  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

requirements  were  observed  that  the  synagogue  should  be 
raised  on  the  highest  part  of  the  town,1  and  its  entrance  be 
on  the  western  side,  they  were,  seemingly,  more  frequently 
neglected.  The  ruins  of  the  old  synagogues  in  the  district 
on  the  Sea  of  Galilee,  and  north  of  it,  are  sometimes  in  the 
lower  part  of  the  town,  and  at  others  have  had  a  site  exca- 
vated for  them  in  the  rocky  side  of  a  hill.3  Their  entrances 
are  almost  always  at  the  southern  end,  an  arrangement 
hardly  to  have  been  expected,  as  it  required  every  Jew,  on 
entering,  to  turn  his  back  to  Jerusalem. 

The  building  was  always  rectangular,  with  its  longest 
dimension  in  a  nearly  south  and  north  direction,  and  its 
interior  divided  into  five  aisles,  by  four  rows  of  columns, 
unless  it  was  very  small,  when  two  rows  of  columns  were 
used,  making  only  three  aisles.  The  walls  were  well  and 
solidly  built  of  native  limestone  :  the  stones  "  chiselled  "  into 
each  other,  without  mortal-,  and,  while  finely  dressed  outside, 
left  rough  on  the  inner  side,  for  plastering.  The  entrances 
were  three  in  number  ;  one  large  doorway,  opening  into  the 
central  aisle,  and  a  smaller  one  on  each  side,  though  some- 
times, in  small  synagogues,  there  was  only  one  entrance. 
Folding  doors,  with  socket  hinges,  closed  by  bars  on  the 
inside,  gave  them  security.  Over  the  doors  was  more 
ornament  than  we  might  have  expected — sculptures  of  the 
golden  candlestick — or  of  the  pot  of  manna — or  of  the 
paschal  lamb — or  the  vine.  The  floors  were  paved  with 
slabs  of  white  limestone,  and  the  arrangement  of  the 
columns  was  the  same  in  all.  The  spaces  between  these 
were  very  small,  though  the  columns  themselves  were  some- 
times elaborately  finished  with  Corinthian  and  Ionic  capitals. 
Blocks  of  stone  laid  from  column  to  column  received  the 
wooden  rafters,  which  were  bedded  deeply  in  these  supports, 
for  strength,  and  were  very  broad  as  well  as  thick,  to  bear 
up  a  flat  roof,  covered  heavily  with  earth,  which  was  the 
fashion  in  private  houses  also,  as  it  still  is  in  nearly  all  Arab 
dwellings,  as  best  adapted  for  keeping  out  the  intense  heat 
of  the  sun.1  The  ruins  are  too  imperfect  to  show  the  ar- 
rangement of  the  windows. 

The  synagogues  were  open  every  day  for  three  services,™ 
but  as  those  of  the  afternoon  and  evening  were  always 

1  Cohen,  p.  194. 

*  Captain  Wilson,  B.E.,  on  Synagogues  in  Galilee.  Pal.  Explo.  Fund 
Hep.,  No.  2,  pp.  37,  38. 


A   SYNAGOGUE   DESCEIBED.  177 

joined,  there  were,  in  reality,  only  two.  It  was  the  duty  of 
every  godly  Jew  to  go  to  each  service,  for  so  sacred  was 
ilaily  attendance,  that  the  Rabbis  taught  that  "  lie  who 
practised  it  saved  Israel  from  the  heathen." 1  The  two 
market  days,  Monday  and  Thursday,  when  the  country 
people  came  into  town,  and  when  the  courts  were  held,  and 
the  Sabbaths,  were  the  special  times  of  public  worship. 
Feast  days,  and  fasts,  were  also  marked  by  similar  sacred- 
ness. 

The  interior  of  the  synagogues  was  arranged,  as  far  as 
possible,  after  the  model  of  the  Tabernacle  or  the  Temple. 
Before  the  doors  of  some,  a  sunken  space  for  a  porch  formed 
a  counterpart  to  the  forecourt  of  the  sanctuary.  The  space 
immediately  inside  was  for  the  congregation.  A  little 
beyond  the  middle,  a  raised  and  enclosed  platform,  in  the 
centre  of  the  floor,  in  some  measure  corresponded  to  the 
altar.  Here  the  official  stood  to  conduct  the  services,  by 
reading  from  the  sacred  books  and  chanting  the  prayers. 
In  the  wall  at  the  farther  end  was  a  recess,  before  which 
hung  a  veil ;  the  recess  the  equivalent  of  the  Holy  of  Holies ; 
the  veil,  of  the  one  before  that  mysterious  chamber  in  the 
Temple.  In  this  niche  were  kept  the  Sacred  Rolls,  wrapped 
in  several  covers  of  linen  and  silk ;  the  outer  one  adorned, 
as  means  allowed,  with  gold  and  silver.  The  Rabbis 
required  that  the  shrine  should  look  towards  Jerusalem, 
but  this  was  not  generally  provided  for  in  the  Galilean 
synagogues  of  Christ's  day.  Before  it  always  hung  an 
ever-burning  lamp — the  representative  of  the  "  eternal  fire  " 
in  the  holy  place  in  the  Temple,  and  at  its  side  stood  a 
large  eight-branched  lamp,  like  the  "  golden  candlestick " 
of  the  Temple,  which  is  sculptured  on  the  Arch  of  Titus. 
It  was  adorned  with  inscriptions,  and  was  kept  for  the 
illumination  made  at  the  Feast  of  the  Dedication,2  each 
December,  when  the  joy  of  the  nation  at  the  rekindling  of 
the  lamps  in  the  Temple,  after  the  triumph  of  Judas  Macca- 
baeus,  was  celebrated  for  eight  days  together.  Other  lamps 
hung  up  and  down  the  synagogue  to  illuminate  it  during  the 
Sabbath  evening  service,  whether  needed  or  not,  in  honour 
of  the  day,  as  was  done  also  in  private  houses.  Rabbis  and 
the  elders  of  the  synagogue  sat  on  raised  cushions  in  the 
"  chief  seats,"  next  the  shrine,  facing  the  people.  The  men 

1  Bab.  Berach.,  f.  8.  1. 

8  John  x.  22.     This  was  the  Chanulca  Feast. 

i  n 


178  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST 

of  the  congregation  filled  the  open  floor  next  these,  and  in 
small  synagogues,  the  women,  separated  by  a  lattice,  sat 
with  their  backs  to  the  men.1  Where  space  allowed,  how- 
ever, a  flat  gallery  was  built  for  them,  but,  in  any  case,  they 
were  not  visible  to  the  other  sex.  Trumpets  for  proclaiming 
the  new  moon,  and  for  publishing  sentences  of  excommuni- 
cation, formed  part  of  the  furniture,  but  were  kept  in  the 
house  of  the  Hazan.  In  the  porch  was  a  tablet  with  prayers 
for  the  reigning  prince,  and  another  with  the  names  of  any 
who  had  been  excommunicated,  while  below  them  were 
boxes  to  receive  the  alms  of  the  congregation,  as  they 
entered,  for  the  poor. 

The  greatest  reverence  was  paid  by  every  Jew  to  his 
synagogue.  It  could  not  be  built  near  a  public  bath,  or  a 
wash-house,  or  a  tannery,  and,  if  it  were  taken  down,  no  one 
would  on  any  account  cross  the  ground  on  which  it  had 
stood. 

The  chief  authorities  of  the  Synagogue  were  a  council  of 
elders,2"  of  whom  one  acted  as  head,  though  only  the  first 
among  equals.  They  pronounced  excommunications,  de- 
livered sentences  on  offenders  of  various  kinds,  managed  the 
charities  of  the  congregation,  and  attended  to  the  wants  of 
strangers,3  forming  a  local  counterpart  of  the  "  elders  of 
the  people,"  who,  through  the  whole  history  of  Israel,4 
formed  a  kind  of  national  senate,5 — and  of  those  humbler 
"  elders  "  who  constituted  the  ruling  body  over  towns  and 
districts,6  as  their  predecessors  had  done  over  the  different 
tribes.7  °  It  marks  the  simple  and  healthy  basis  of  society  in 
Israel,  that  the  one  idea  of  the  family  and  household,  ruled 
by  its  head,  thus  lay  at  its  root,  as  is  indeed  implied  in  the 
very  name — House  of  Israel — by  which  the  nation,  as  a 
whole,  was  known.8  The  head  ruler  or  elder  of  the  Syna- 
gogue was  formally  consecrated  by  the  laying  on  of  hands  .p 

The  inferior  offices  were  held  by  various  officials.  The 
Hazan,  or  "  minister," 4  had  the  charge  of  the  building,  of 
cleaning  the  lamps,  opening  and  closing  the  doors,  and  doing 
any  other  necessary  servile  work,  like  a  modern  sexton ; 
besides  acting  as  messenger  to  the  rulers.  But  he,  also,  in 

•  Kneucker  in  Schenkel's  Bibel  Lexicon,  Art.  Syjiagngue. 

•  Schiirer,  p.  471.         3  Lcyrer,  p.  312.        4  Exod.  xxiv.  1.    Lev.  iv.  15. 
.     Ezra  v.  3.     Mark  xiv.  43.     1  Mace.  xii.  6  ;  xiv.  9,  etc.,  etc. 

•  1  bam.  sv\  4.     Lain.  ii.  10.     2  Kings  x.  1. 
1  2  Sam.  xix.  11.    Deut.  xxxi.  28. 

•  Kneacker  in  Bibcl  Lex.,  Art.  Afltcete. 


THE  CONGREGATION  IN  A  SYNAGOGUE.     179 

many  cases,  led  the  prayers  and  chants.  It  was  his  part 
to  hand  the  roll  of  the  Law  to  the  Reader  for  the  time, 
pointing  out  the  proper  lesson  of  the  day.1  The  Reader, 
as  representative  of  the  congregation,  had  to  blow  the 
trumpet  at  the  new  moon,  and  to  strew  ashes  on  his  head  on 
fast  days.3  The  alms  of  the  congregation  were  collected  and 
distributed  by  special  officers,  of  whom  two  were  required 
to  act  together  in  the  receiving :  three  in  the  distribution.3 
There  seems  to  have  been  no  functionary  for  reading  the 
prayers,  which  was  done  in  the  name  of  the  congregation, 
and  by  its  authority,  by  any  one  empowered  for  the  time.4 
Any  member  of  the  congregation,  unless  he  were  a  minor, 
was  qualified  to  do  so.  As  a  rule,  however,  it  is  likely  that 
the  Hazan  generall}'  led  the  chanting,  and  read  the  ordinary 
lessons.  A  curious  feature  in  the  organization  was,  that  in 
each  synagogue,  ten  men,  known  as  Batlanim,  were  paid  to 
attend  every  service  from  its  opening  to  its  close,  that  there 
might  never  be  fewer  present  than  the  Rabbis  required  to 
constitute  a  lawful  service.5 

There  seems  to  have  been  only  one  synagogue  in  Nazareth,6 
so  that,  as  all  the  Jews  in  the  town  doubtless  attended  it,  a 
large  proportion  of  the  population  must  have  been  other 
than  Israelites,  or  the  town  itself  must  have  been  small,  to 
judge  from  the  size  of  other  synagogues  of  Galilee,  whose 
ruins  have  been  discovered.  The  congregation  would,  in 
many  respects,  be  very  different  from  Western  notions. 
The  men  came  in  the  long,  flowing,  and,  to  us,  feminine- 
looking  dress  of  the  East ;  their  heads  covered  with  turbanR 
of  various  colours — some  simple,  others  costly — or  with  the 
plain  keffiyeh,  a  kerchief  of  cotton,  linen,  or  silk,  of  various 
colours,  folded  so  that  three  of  the  corners  hung  over  the 
back  and  shoulders,  leaving  the  face  exposed,  and  loosely 
held  round  the  head  by  a  cord — as  is  still  the  Arab  custom ; 
their  clothing,  only  a  long  white  or  striped  tunic,  of  linen  or 
cotton,  with  sleeves,  next  the  body — bound  at  the  loins  by  a 
sash  or  girdle, — and  a  loose  abba  or  cloak  thrown  over  it ; 
their  bare  feet  shod  with  sandals.  Over  the  abba  somo 
would  wear  a  wide  scarf  of  white  wool,  thin  and  light ;  with 
bars  of  red,  purple  and  blue ;  but  with  many,  this  scarf, 

1  Bmtorf,  Lex.,  p.  730.  a  Jost.  vol.  i.  p.  194. 

8  Schiirer,  p.  471.  *  Scliiirer,  p.  471. 

s  This  custom  still  obtains  in  many,  if  not  most,  synagogues.     Nearly 
£1,000  are  thus  spent  yearly  in  London  alone. 
6  Luke  iv.  1C. 


180  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

enlarged  to  an  abba,  would  be  the  only  outer  garment.  A 
few  rich,  men,  might,  perhaps,  wear  one  of  silk,  adorned  with 
silver  or  gold.  This  was  the  Tallith,  an  indispensable  part 
of  the  clothing  of  a  Jew.1  *  From  its  four  corners  hung  four 
tassels  of  eight  threads  a-piece,"  of  hyacinth-blue,*  of  wool 
alone,  woven  and  made  up  with  superstitious  care,  as  a  half 
religious  art,  by  a  Jew  only.2  These  were  the  Zizith,  or 
fringes,  worn  in  fulfilment  of  an  express  commandment  of 
Moses,  that  the  sight  of  them  might  make  the  wearer  "re- 
member all  the  commandments  of  the  Lord,  and  do  them."  3 
So  sacred,  indeed,  were  they,  that  a  smaller  Tallith,  as  well, 
duly  provided  with  them,  was  worn  underneath  his  clothing 
by  every  Jew,  from  his  earliest  years,  and  he  had  been 
taught,  even  in  childhood,  never  to  put  it  on  without  repeat- 
ing the  prayer  —  "  Blessed  art  Thou,  0  Lord  our  God,  King 
of  the  Universe,  who  hast  sanctified  us  with  Thy  command- 
ments, and  given  us  the  commandment  of  the  fringes."  The 
outer  Tallith,  indeed,  was  only  worn  because  the  fringes  of 
this  one  were  covered  u^),  and  could  not  be  kissed,  as  the 
Rabbis  required,  from  time  to  time,  during  one  of  the 
synagogue  prayers.*  The  right  use  of  the  lessons  of  the 
fringes  a  Jew  believed  equivalent  to  keeping  the  whole  Law, 
for  the  Rabbis  told  him  that,  as  the  letters  of  the  name 
Zizith,  used  as  figures,  made  up  the  number  600,  they  and 
the  five  knots  and  eight  threads,  are  equal  to  the  whole  613 
precepts  of  the  Law.4 

The  Jewish  mothers  and  daughters  of  Nazareth,  as  they 
made  their  way  to  the  synagogue,  were  not  less  Oriental  and 
strange.  They  were  always  veiled  in  white  at  public  wor- 
ship,5 and  not  unfrequently  at  other  times.6  Their  flowing 
mantles  showed  as  great  variety  of  colour  as  female  dress 
does  now,  but  they  were  much  the  same  in  shape  as  they 
had  been  for  centuries.  Like  many  of  the  men,  they  wore 
turbans,  but  they  showed  a  contrast  to  the  other  sex  in  their 
ornaments.  On  week  days  they  wore  nose  rings,  but  they 
were  not  allowed  to  wear  these  on  the  Sab  bath,7  though  they 
indulged  in  earrings,  and  metal  armlets,  and  necklaces  and 


1  rivE  from  77B   tegere,  operire,  so,  Buxtorf,  p.  877. 

2  Delitzsch,  Sehft  wflch  ein  Menxch,  p.  5.     Schurer,  p.  496. 

*  Num.  xv.  38,  39.     Deut.  xxii.  12. 

4  Buxtorf,  B.  v.  JVVV,  pp.  1908,  1909.  6  1  Cor.  xi.  5. 

•  See  Art.  Kleidung,  in  Schenlel,  Winer,  and  Herzog. 

1  Talmud  ;  quoted  by  Leyrer.     Art.  Kleidiing,  in  llerz^g. 


THE   PIIYLACTEEIES.  181 

leg  rings,  which  tinkled  as  their  -wearers  walked.  Their 
feet,  like  those  of  the  men,  were  shod  with  sandals.  The 
males  of  a  family  might  go  to  the  synagogue  any  way  they 
chose,  but  the  women  went  only  by  back  streets,  to  avoid 
the  gaze  of  men.1  All,  alike,  were  required  to  greet  no  one, 
and  to  make  no  reverence,  whoever  passed,  nor  to  loiter  by 
the  way,  lest  it  should  distract  their  minds  from  thinking 
upon  God.  At  the  threshold  all  laid  aside  their  sandals,  for 
it  was  unbecoming  to  enter  even  one's  own  house  with  shod 
feet,  far  less  the  house  of  God  ;  but,  for  the  same  reason,  all 
kept  their  heads  covered  during  the  whole  service.  Every 
man,  on  entering,  prepared  to  put  on  his  Tephillin  *  or  phylac- 
teries, which  must  be  worn  every  day  during  morning 
prayer.2  They  consisted  of  two  small  parchment  boxes, 
about  an  inch  square,  one  divided  into  four  parchment  com- 
partments, the  other  left  undivided.  On  the  two  sides  was 
stamped  the  letter  {»>,  as  part  of  the  word  Shaddai — one  of 
the  names  of  the  Almighty.  Four  slips  of  parchment,  each 
about  an  inch  wide  and  eight  inches  long,  inscribed  with 
the  verses — Deut.  vi.  4-9  ;  Deut.  ix.  13-21 ;  Exod.  xiii.  2-10  ; 
and  Exod.  xiii.  11-16,  were  placed  in  the  different  compart- 
ments of  the  first,  a  parchment  lid  enclosing  the  whole,  with 
long  leather  thongs  attached,  to  bind  it  on  the  forehead. 
The  second  box  was  exactly  the  same,  except  that  its  interior 
was  not  divided,  and  the  verses  of  Scripture  enclosed  were 
written,  in  four  columns,  on  one  piece  of  parchment. 

The  former  of  these  phylacteries,  or  amulets,  was  bound 
on  the  forehead  exactly  between  the  eyes,  before  morning 
prayer  began  ;  the  other  on  the  left  arm,  opposite  the  heart, 
its  thongs  being  wound  seven  times  round  the  arm  and 
thrice  round  the  middle  finger.3  Their  wearer  was  now 
ready  to  take  part  in  the  services.  As  in  the  case  of  the 
Tallith,  the  Tephillin  were  put  on  with  words  of  prayer  in 
the  prevailing  language  of  the  country. 

The  worship  of  the  synagogue  was  limited  to  prayer  and 
reading  the  Law  and  the  Prophets,  for  though  a  Rabbi  or 
other  person,  if  present,  might  be  asked  to  speak,  this  was  an 
addition  to  the  prescribed  forms.  The  service  began  with 
silent  prayer  by  all  present,  the  congregation  standing  during 
this  as  during  all  the  prayers.  Then  the  Reader,  wearing 

1  Philo  in  Place.,  p.  977. 

3  Matt,  xxiii.  5.  They  are  not  worn,  however,  on  Sabbaths  or  Festivals. 

3  Cohen,  p.  202. 


182  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

his  Tallith,  having  entered  the  raised  enclosure  in  the  middle 
of  the  synagogue,  recited  a  prayer  of  adoration  from  the 
desk — "  Blessed  be  Thou  by  whose  word  the  world  was 
created ;  blessed  be  Thou  for  ever !  Blessed  be  Thou  who 
hast  made  all  out  of  nothing  ;  blessed  be  He  who  orders  and 
confirms ;  blessed  be  He  who  has  pity  on  the  earth  ;  blessed 
be  He  who  has  pity  on  His  creatures  ;  blessed  be  He  who 
richly  rewards  His  saints ;  blessed  be  He  who  lives  for  ever, 
and  is  for  ever  the  same ;  blessed  be  He,  the  Saviour  and 
Redeemer !  Blessed  be  Thy  name  !  Blessed  be  Thou,  0 
Eternal !  Our  God  !  King  of  the  universe  !  All-Merciful 
God  and  Father !  Thy  people  utter  Thy  praise  with  their 
lips :  Thy  godly  servants  proclaim  Thy  glory  and  honour. 
We  would  praise  Thee,  Eternal  Lord  God,  with  the  psalms 
of  Thy  servant  David ;  we  would  laud  and  magnify  Thee 
with  songs  of  thanksgiving  and  praise.  We  do  homage  to 
Thy  name,  our  King,  our  God,  the  only  One,  He  who  liveth 
for  ever,  O  Lord,  whose  name  is  glorious  for  ever  and  ever ! 
Blessed  be  Thou,  0  Eternal !  Lord,  blessed  be  Thou  in 
songs  of  praise  !  "  To  this,  as  to  all  prayers,  the  congrega- 
tion answered,  Amen.1 

Readings  from  different  parts  of  the  Scripture  then 
followed,  in  part  a  collection  of  separate  verses,  in  part 
connected  extracts,  ending  with  the  last  six  Psalms,y  this 
introductory  portion  of  the  service  closing  with  another 
short  but  exalted  prayer.  A  few  verses  more  from  Scripture 
followed,2  and  then  came  the  Song  of  Moses  at  the  Passage 
of  the  Red  Sea,  and  another  short  prayer. 

Presently  the  Reader  summoned  the  congregation  to  join 
in  a  short  responsive  utterance  of  praise  known  as  the 
Kadish.*  "  Praise  the  Lord,"  said  he,  "  who  is  worthy  to  be 
praised,"  and  to  this  the  people,  bowing,  responded,  "  Praised 
be  the  Lord,  who  is  ever  and  eternally  worthy  of  praise !  " 
and  so,  through  several  antiphonies. 

It  was  obligatory  on  every  Jew  to  repeat  certain  verses 
twice  every  day,  morning  and  evening.  These  were  now 
read.  They  were  known  by  the  name  of  Sch'ma,**  or 
"Hear,"  from  their  beginning  with  the  words,  "Hear,  O 
Israel,  the  Eternal,  our  God,  is  one  Eternal  God."  Two 
prajers  preceded  them ;  the  one,  heard  with  joy  and  yet  with 
trembling,  exalting  God  for  His  Majesty  in  the  heavens, 
amidst  the  armies  of  the  angels.  It  was  believed  to  be 

1  Cohen,  p.  203.  s  1  CLron.  xxix.  10-13.     Neb.  ix.  7-12. 


THE   SYNAGOGUE   SEBVICE,  183 

listened  to  by  all  heaven,  God  Himself  and  the  angels  re- 
sponding, at  its  close — "  Happy  the  people  in  such  a  case ; 
happy  the  people  whose  God  is  Jehovah !  " 1  The  other 
thanked  God  for  His  love  to  Israel,  and  asked  enlightenment 
in  His  holy  law.  Another  short  prayer  was  now  read, 
thanking  Him  for  the  mighty  works  He  had  done  for  their 
fathers,  especially  in  delivering  them  from  Egypt,  and  ending 
with  supplication  for  delivery  as  a  nation  from  their  evil  state. 
The  closing  words  chanted  by  the  Reader  were  striking — 
"  Bock  of  Israel !  up  !  to  the  help  of  Israel :  save,  for  Thy 
promise  sake,  Judah  and  Israel !  Save  us,  Eternal  God, 
eternal  God  of  Hosts  !  whose  name  is  the  Holy  One  of  Israel. 
Blessed  be  Thou,  O  Eternal,  who  of  old  didst  redeem  Israel !  " 

During  all  these  prayers  the  congregation  stood,2  with 
their  faces  towards  the  shrine  of  the  Law.  Only  the  Reader 
spoke  :  the  congregation  simply  responded  "  Amen,"  except 
at  the  Kadish. 

Now  commenced  the  second  part  of  the  service — the 
repeating  of  the  "  prayers  known  as  the  eighteen  Bene- 
dictions,"bb  or  simply  as  "  The  Prayer."  3  It  was  originally 
drawn  up  by  the  men  of  the  Great  Synagogue, 4  co  but  finally 
arranged  in  its  present  form,  with  one  or  two  additional 
prayers,  about  the  year  100  after  Christ.5  The  whole  were 
spoken  by  the  entire  congregation  softly,  and  then  aloud  by 
the  Reader,  and  this  was  repeated  at  the  evening  service,  it 
being  required  of  every  Israelite  that  he  should  repeat  them 
all,  for  himself,  three  times  every  day,  just  as  he  was  required 
to  repeat  the  Sch'ma  twice  daily.  During  this  series  of 
prayers  the  whole  congregation  stood,  immovable,  with  their 
faces  towards  the  shrine,  and  their  feet  close  together,  in  an 
attitude  of  fixed  devotion.6  At  the  beginning  and  close  of 
the  first  and  sixteenth  Benedictions  all  bent  the  knee,  and 
bowed  their  heads  to  the  earth.  As  in  the  case  of  the 
Sch'ma,  these  prayers  were  read  without  the  change  or 
addition  of  a  word.  After  the  congregation  had  recited  them 
the  Reader,  still  standing  in  the  raised  enclosure,  took  three 
steps  backwards,  then  three  forwards  :  stood  quite  still,  and 
commenced,  "  Lord,  open  Thou  our  lips,  that  our  mouth  may 
show  forth  Thy  praise !  " 7  "I  will  call  upon  the  name  of 

1  Ps.  cxliv.  14.     Zunz  and  Ewald. 

3  Matt.  vi.  5.    Mark  xi.  25.    Luke  xviii.  11.  •  Tefilla. 

4  Derenbovrg,  p.  315.  *  Schiirer,  p.  500.  •  Cohen,  p.  207. 
7  Ps.  li.  15. 


184  THE   LITE   OF   CHRIST. 

the  Lord ;  ascribe  ye  greatness  unto  our  God !  "  1  The  first 
three  prayers  of  the  eighteen  contained  ascriptions  of  praise, 
the  last  three,  thanksgivings,  and  the  twelve  between,  sup- 
plications for  the  nation  and  for  individuals.  As  the  Reader 
slosed,  he  recited  the  words — "  We,  here  below,  would 
hallow  Thy  name,  as  it  is  hallowed  in  heaven,  as  is  written 

in  the  prophets 3 — '  One  cried  to  another,  and   said .'  " 

The  congregation  then  responded,  "  Holy,  holy,  holy  is  the 
Lord  of  Hosts  :  the  whole  earth  is  full  of  His  glory  !  "  Then 
the  Reader  began  again  :  "  They  who  stand  before  Him  say, 
'  Blessed ; '  "  and  the  congregation  answered,  "  Blessed  be 
the  glory  of  the  Lord  from  His  place."  3  The  Reader,  once 
more,  began  :  "  In  Thy  holy  Scripture  it  is  written  :  "  *  and 
the  congregation  answered,  "  The  Lord  shall  reign  for  ever, 
even  Thy  God,  O  Zion,  unto  all  generations.  Hallelujah  !  " 

On  Mondays  and  Thursdays,  and  on  Sabbaths,  the  Law 
was  now  read.  For  the  Sabbaths,  the  five  Books  of  Moses 
were  divided  into  fifty  sections,  of  seven  lessons  each,  and  a 
complete  section  was  repeated  each  Sabbath,  so  that  the  Law 
was  read  through  in  a  year.  At  the  end  of  each  lesson,  and 
at  its  beginning,  a  collect  was  read,  and  between  each,  the 
Expositor — a  member  of  the  congregation  who  had  been 
invited  for  the  purpose,  and  who  stood  in  the  desk  beside 
the  Reader  while  the  lesson  was  being  read— delivered  a 
short  address  from  it.  A  priest,  if  present,  had  the  first 
invitation,  then  a  Levite ;  any  one  who  seemed  to  know  the 
Law  coming  after.  The  roll  of  the  Prophets  was  handed 
to  him  by  the  Reader  after  the  closing  collect  of  the  lesson. 
At  each  service  there  was  thus  a  series  of  short  comments. 
One  Expositor  gave  a  general  address  on  the  Law  embodied 
in  the  lesson  :  another,  an  exhortation  based  on  it,  and  a 
third  expounded  the  allegorical  mysteries  it  shadowed  forth. 
Each,  however,  was  expected  to  illustrate  the  three  cardinal 
points  of  Jewish  piety — the  love  of  God,  of  virtue,  and  of 
one's  neighbour,  this  last  duty  being  additionally  enforced 
by  a  collection  in  the  boxes  at  the  door,  "  for  the  land  of 
Israel."4 

Very  few  relics  of  these  synagogue  addresses  survive,  bat 
we  are  able  even  from  these,  as  preserved  in  the  Talmud,  to 
realize  their  general  characteristics.  Short,  and  in  great 
measure  made  up  of  proverbs,  natural  imagery,  and  parables, 

1  Deut.  xxxii.  3.  *  Isa.  vi.  3.  8  Ezek.  iii.  12. 

4  Ps.  cxlvi.  10.  *  Philo,  vol.  i.  p.  877. 


ANCIENT  JEWISH   SEKMON.  185 

they  were  very  different  from  our  sermons.  One  example 
will  suffice.  An  ancient  address  from  the  same  chapter  of 
Isaiah l  from  which  Jesus  took  His  text  in  the  synagogue 
of  Nazareth,  runs  thus — the  special  words  commented  on 
being,  "He  hath  clothed  me  with  the  garments  of  salva- 
tion "  :— 

"  There  are  seven  garments,"  says  the  speaker,  "  which 
the  Holy  One,  blessed  be  His  name,  has  put  on  since  the 
world  began,  or  will  put  on  before  the  hour  when  He  will 
visit  with  His  wrath  the  godless  Edom.3  When  He  created 
the  world  He  clothed  Himself  in  honour  and  glory,  for  it 
says  :  3  '  Thou  art  clothed  with  honour  and  glory.'  When 
He  showed  Himself  at  the  Red  Sea  He  clothed  Himself  in 
majesty,  for  it  says  :  4  '  The  Lord  reigneth,  He  is  clothed  with 
majesty.'  When  He  gave  the  Law  He  clothed  Himself  with 
might,  for  it  says  :5  '  Jehovah  is  clothed  with  might,  where- 
with He  hath  girded  Himself.'  As  often  as  He  forgave  Israel 
its  sins  He  clothed  Himself  in  white,  for  it  says  :  6  '  His 
garment  was  white  as  snow.'  When  He  punishes  the  nations 
of  the  world  He  puts  on  the  garments  of  vengeance,  for  it 
says  :  7  '  He  put  on  the  garments  of  vengeance  for  clothing, 
and  was  clad  with  zeal  as  a  cloak.'  He  will  put  on  the  sixth 
robe  when  the  Messiah  is  revealed.  Then  will  He  clothe 
Himself  in  righteousness,  for  it  says :  8  '  For  He  put  on 
righteousness  as  a  breastplate,  and  an  helmet  of  salvation  on 
His  head.'  He  will  put  on  the  seventh  robe  when  He  pun- 
ishes Edom.  Then  will  He  clothe  Himself  in  Adorn  (red), 
for  it  says  :  9  '  Wherefore  art  Thou  red  in  Thine  apparel  ?  ' 
But  the  robes  with  which  He  will  clothe  the  Messiah  will 
shine  from  one  end  of  the  world  to  the  other,  for  it  says  : 10 
'As  a  bridegroom  who  is  crowned  with  his  turban,  like  a  priest.' 
And  the  sons  of  Israel  will  rejoice  in  His  light,  and  will  say, 
'  Blessed  be  the  hour  when  the  Messiah  was  born,  blessed  the 
womb  which  bore  Him,11  blessed  the  eyes  that  were  counted 
worthy  to  see  Him.12  For  the  opening  of  His  lips  is  blessing 
and  peace,13  His  speech  is  rest  to  the  soul,14  the  thoughts  of 
His  heart  confidence  and  joy,  the  speech  of  His  lips  pardon 
and  forgiveness,  His  prayer  like  the  sweet-smelling  savour 

1  Chap.  Ixi.  2  A  hidden  allusion  to  the  Roman  empire. 

•  Ps.  civ.  1.  4  Ps.  xciii.  1.          *  Ps.  xciii.  1.  6  Dan.  vii.  9, 

7  Isa.  lix.  17.         8  Isa.  lix.  17.          •  Isa.  Ixiii.  2. 

10  Isa.  Ixi.  10.     See  Gesenius,  Kommentar,  in  loc. 

11  Comp.  Luke  xi.  27.  12  Comp.  Matt.  xiii.  16.    Luke  x.  23. 
13  Matt.  v.  2-11.                            '«  Mutt.  xi.  29. 


186  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

of  a  sacrifice,  His  supplications  holiness  and  purity.'  0  how 
blessed  is  Israel  for  whom  such  a  lot  is  reserved,  for  it  says  :  l 
'  How  great  is  Thy  goodness  which  Thou  hast  laid  up  for 
them  that  fear  Thee.'  "  2 

On  Mondays  and  Thursdays  the  first  of  the  seven  lessons 
for  the  next  Sunday  was  read,  but  it  was  divided  into  three 
portions,  before  each  of  which  one  of  the  congregation  •«  as 
called  up  to  the  desk. 

A  few  prayers  more  from  the  Reader,  and  the  service  wns 
ended,  with  a  parting  benediction  delivered  by  a  priest  with 
uplifted  hands,  if  one  were  present ;  if  not,  by  the  Reader. 
The  prayers  were  repeated  in  the  common  dialect  of  Palestine 
as  a  rule,  but  in  Greek  towns,  such  as  Ccesarea,  they  were 
also  recited  in  Greek.  The  Hebrew  or  Chaldee  of  the  Law 
or  the  Prophets  was  translated  into  the  spoken  language 3 
by  an  interpreter,  who  stood  by  the  side  of  the  Reader. 

Such  was  the  morning  service.  In  the  afternoon  the 
congregation  met  once  more ;  heard  a  shorter  service,  and 
frequently  remained,  listening  to  addresses,  till  lamplight  in 
the  evening.  The  "Amen  "  of  the  congregation,  from  time 
to  time,  was  the  only  interruption  sanctioned,  but  among 
Orientals  it  would  have  been  hopeless  to  enforce  silence. 
Ever  and  anon  a  hearer  volunteered  assistance  if  the  speaker 
hesitated,  or  corrected  a  mistake  if  he  supposed  one  made, 
and  the  whole  congregation,  at  times,  signified  aloud  their 
agreement,  shouted  a  contradiction,  or  even  ordered  the 
speaker  to  be  silent.dd 

When  to  the  many  prayers  of  the  synagogue  service  we 
add  those  required  in  private  life,  the  "  vain  repetitions  "  4 
against  which  Christ  cautioned  His  hearers  on  the  Mount 
may  be  understood.  Besides  the  five  daily  repetitions  of 
the  Sch'ma  and  the  Benedictions,  every  Jew  gave  thanks 
before  and  after  every  act  of  eating  or  drinking ;  before,  and, 
often,  after,  each  of  the  countless  external  rites  and  exercises 
required  of  him  ;  and  there  were,  besides,  special  prayers  for 
new  moons,  new  years,  feasts,  half  feasts,  and  fasts,  and 
many  for  special  incidents  of  private  or  family  life.  Prayer, 
always  prescribed  in  exact  words,  was  in  fact  multiplied  til] 
it  was  in  danger  of  becoming  too  often  formal  and  mechani- 


1  Ps.  xxxi.  19. 

5  Pesitka  de  Itab.  Cahana,  149  a,  ed.    Buber ;  quoted  in  Delitzsch 
Ein  Tag  in  Capernaum,  pp.  131-133. 
*  Jost,  vol.  i.  p.  177.  4  Matt.  vi.  7. 


EARLY   RELIGIOUS   TRAINING   OP  JESUS.  187 

cal — a  mere  outward  act,  of  superstitions  importance  in 
itself,  apart  from  the  spirit  in  which,  it  was  offered. 

Such  a  circle  of  synagogue  service,  constantly  repeated, 
we  must  conceive  the  child  Jesus  to  have  frequented  from 
his  earliest  years,  day  by  day,  and  week  by  week. 

The  influence  of  an  institution  in  which  the  Law  was  read, 
throughout,  every  year,  on  the  Sabbath,  and,  in  part,  twice 
each  week,  with  extra  readings  on  special  high  days  ;  in  which 
the  Prophets  and  Psalms  were  constantly  brought  before  the 
congregation,  and  in  which  multiplied  prayers,  always  the 
same,  impressed  on  the  mind  every  emotion  and  thought  of 
the  national  religion,  in  language  often  grand  and  solemn 
in  the  extreme,  must  have  been  great.  The  synagogue  was, 
in  fact,  the  seed-bed  of  Judaism  :  its  inspiring  soul  and  its 
abiding  nurture.88  It  was  in  it  that  Jesus,  as  a  child,  was 
first  drawn  into  love  and  sympathy  for  His  people,  and  that 
He  heard  the  rights,  duties,  and  prospects,  of  the  suffering 
people  of  God,  and  drank  in  that  deep  knowledge  of  the  Law 
and  the  Prophets,  by  which,  as  St.  Luke  tells  us,  "  He  kept 
on  growing  in  wisdom." ff  The  lessons  He  learned  in  it  can 
be  traced  through  the  whole  Gospels.  The  addresses  He 
heard  were  no  doubt,  for  the  most  part,  lifeless  Rabbinical 
refinements,  with  a  Pharisaic  colouring,  which  His  pure  and 
sinless  soul,  filled  with  the  love  of  His  heavenly  Father, 
instinctively  prized  at  their  true  value.  His  words  in  after 
life  often  show  that  He  had  been  accustomed  to  see  Pharisees 
and  Scribes  in  the  synagogue,  who  made  the  Mondays  and 
Thursdays,  on  which  service  was  held,  their  days  of  fasting ; 
who  paraded  a  show  of  long  prayers  or  of  liberal  alms; 
and  eagerly  pressed  forward  to  the  front  seats,  where  they 
would  be  most  in  honour,  and  would  be  most  likely  to  be 
called  up  to  speak.  As  He  grew  older  He  would  meet,  in 
turn,  in  the  synagogue,  every  shade  of  the  religion  of  the  day, 
— the  strictness  of  the  school  of  Shammai,  and  the  mildness 
of  that  of  Hillel ;  Jewish  bigotry,  and  Galilean  freedom  and 
tolerance  ;  the  latitudinarianism  of  the  Sadducee,  or  the 
puritanical  strictness  of  the  Essene.  The  great  doctrines  of 
ceremonial  purity,  of  the  righteousness  of  works,  of  the 
kingdom  of  God,  and  of  the  coming  redemption  of  Israel, 
would  sound  in  His  ears  Sabbath  by  Sabbath,  giving  Him 
much  to  retain  and  still  more  to  reject.  In  the  synagogue 
He  came  in  contact  with  the  religious  life  of  His  race,  in 
its  manifold  aspects.  We  see,  in  His  public  life,  how  the 
crowds  that  gathered  round  Him,  as  the  new  Rabbi  of  Israel, 


188  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

entered  into  conversation  with  Him  on  the  subjects  of  His 
discourse,  or  commented  on  them  afterwards,  and  He  had, 
no  doubt,  done  much  the  same  with  the  teachers  He  heard 
in  His  earlier  years.  The  Rabbis  whom  He  met  in  the 
synagogues,  in  the  markets,  or  at  meals,  were  accustomed 
to  exchange  question  and  answer  with  all,  and  must  often 
have  had  to  reply  to  His  searching  questions,  and  deep 
insight  into  Scripture.  Nor  would  the  longing  of  the  people 
at  large,  for  the  vengeance  of  God  on  the  oppressors  of  the 
nation,  escape  His  notice.  As  a  man  in  all  things  like  other 
men,  except  in  His  sinlessness — the  synagogue  with  its 
services,  and  the  free  expression  of  thought,  both  in  public 
and  private,  which  it  favoured,  must  have  been  one  of  the 
chief  agencies  in  developing  His  human  nature." 1 

1  Matt.  xiii.  54.  Luke  iv.  22.  Matt.  ix.  33  ;  xi.  16  ;  xvi.  13,  14.  Mark 
i.  27.  Matt.  viii.  2 ;  v.  19  ;  ix.  3 ;  xiv.  18,  27  ;  xix.  3,  13,  16.  Luke  xi. 
15,  37,  37 ;  xii.  13,  31 ;  xiv.  15. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 
SOCIAL    INFLUENCES. 

A  MONG  the  influences  amidst  which  the  child  Jesus  grew 
**  up  at  Nazareth,  the  Synagogue,  with  its  constantly 
recurring  services,  was,  no  doubt,  one  of  the  most  important. 
It  was  a  characteristic  of  Jewish  life,  however,  that  its 
religion  was  interwoven  with  the  whole  tissue  of  daily 
events,  from  the  cradle  to  the  grave. 

The  Jewish  ecclesiastical  calendar,  with  its  cycle  of  feasts, 
half- feasts,  and  fasts,  must  have  had  a  great  effect  in  colour- 
ing the  general  mind,  and  perpetuating  the  system  and 
sentiments  which  they  illustrated.  There  were  four  diffe- 
rent reckonings  of  the  Hebrew  year — that  which  commenced 
with  the  first  day  of  Nisan,  and  was  known  as  "  the  year  of 
kings  and  feasts ;  "  a  second,  which  dated  from  the  first  of 
Elul — that  is,  from  the  full  moon  of  August — from  which 
the  year  was  calculated  for  the  tithing  of  cattle ;  a  third, 
from  the  first  day  of  Tisri — that  is,  from  the  new  moon  of 
September — from  which  the  years  from  the  creation  of  the 
world  were  reckoned  ;  and  a  fourth,  from  the  first  day  of  the 
eleventh  month,  Schebet — from  which  the  age  of  trees  was 
counted,  for  the  payment  of  tithes,  and  for  noting  the  time 
when  it  became  lawful 1  *  to  eat  the  fruit. 

The  stir  made  to  catch  the  first  glimpse  of  the  new  moon 
would  be  a  great  event  each  month,  even  in  a  retired  place 
like  Nazareth.  Jesus  would  hear  how,  on  the  last  day  of 
each  month,  men  were  posted  on  all  the  heights  round 
Jerusalem  to  watch  for  it ;  how  they  hastened,  at  the  utmost 
speed,  to  the  Temple,  with  the  news,  even  if  it  were  Sabbath,2 
and  how  the  sacred  trumpet  sounded  to  announce  it,  and 
special  sacrifices  were  offered.3  The  appearance  of  the  new 

1  Mischna  ;  quoted  in  Grundt's  Art.  Jahr,  in  Bilel  Lexicon. 
8  Mischna  Roshha-Sliana,  vol.  i.  p.  4.     Giiisburg,  New  Moon.     Kitto'a 
Cyclo. 
3  Plutarch,  de  vitando  aere  alicno,  c.  2. 


190  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

moon  had  in  all  ages  been  a  great  day  in  Israel,  as  it  also 
was  among  the  Greeks  and  Romans.1  The  Rabbis  affirmed 
that  God  Himself  had  spoken  of  it  to  Moses,  and  told  him 
how  to  observe  it.  All  over  the  land  it  was  celebrated, 
monthly,  by  special  religious  solemnities,  and  by  universal 
rejoicing ;  in  some  months  more  than  in  others ;  every  one 
in  Jerusalem,  who  could,  repairing  to  the  Temple,  and  all, 
elsewhere,  making  it  a  point  to  attend  the  synagogue  on 
that  day.  In  the  fondly  remembered  times  of  the  past,  the 
day  of  the  new  moon  had  been  that  on  which,  especially,  the 
people  flocked  to  the  prophets  to  receive  instruction,2  and  on 
which  their  ancestors,  at  some  periods,  had  been  wont  to 
worship,  from  their  roofs,  the  returning  light,  as  that  of  the 
Queen  of  Heaven. 

Many  things  would  impress  this  event  on  the  Nazareth 
children.  They  doubtless  noticed  how  all  the  men  of  the 
village  watched  from  their  doors,  each  month,  for  the  new 
light,  and  they  had  often  heard  their  fathers,  with  covered 
head,  repeat  the  prayer  still  used  by  every  pious  Jew  at  first 
seeing  it — "  Blessed  be  Thou,  Lord,  our  God  !  who,  through 
Thy  Word,  didst  create  the  heavens,  and  their  whole  host, 
by  the  breath  of  Thy  mouth.  He  appointed  them  a  law  and 
time  that  they  should  not  go  back  from  their  places.  Joy- 
fully and  gladly  they  fulfil  the  will  of  their  Creator,  whose 
working  and  whose  works  are  truth.  He  spoke  to  the  moon, 
and  commanded  her  that  she  should  renew  herself  in  glory 
and  splendour,  for  those  whom  He  has  carried  from  their 
mother's  breast,3  for  they,  too,  will  be  one  day  renewed  like 
her,  and  glorify  their  Creator  after  the  honour  of  His  king- 
dom. Blessed  be  Thou,  O  Lord,  who  renewest  the  moons."  4 
Nor  would  the  simple  household  feast  that  followed  be  un- 
noticed, with  its  invited  guests,  nor  the  Sabbath  rest  of  all 
from  their  daily  work,5  for  it  must-  have  been  a  welcome 
monthly  holiday  to  the  school  children  of  Nazareth. 

The  great  festival  of  the  Hebrew  year — the  Passover  and 
the  feast  of  Unleavened  Bread — began  on  the  15th  day  of 
Nisan,  the  first  month,  and  lasted  till  the  22nd.fc  It  was  one 

1  Num.  x.  10 ;  xxviii.  11-15.     Jos.,  Ant.,  iii.  10.  1. 

3  2  Kings  iv.  23.    Ezek.  xxvi.  1 ;   xxix.  17  ;   xxxi.  1.     Hag.  i.  1.     Isa. 
xlvii.  13. 

8  Israel.     Isa.  xlvi.  3. 

4  Talmud  Sanhedr.  L  42  a ;    quoted   by  Kneucker,   Ncumond,  Bilel 
Le.ric  n. 

5  Ils.  ii.  13.     Col.  ii.  16.     Ewal.l's  Alter.,  p.  470. 


THE   PASSOVER.  191 

of  the  three  yearly  feasts  which  every  Israelite,  if  he  could, 
attended  in  Jerusalem.  Like  circumcision,  which,  indeed, 
was  hardly  thought  so  sacred,1  its  due  observance  was 
esteemed  a  vital  necessity,  on  no  account  to  be  neglected  in 
any  year.  It  was  the  annual  sacrament  of  the  whole  Jewish 
race.  The  Passover  lamb  was  the  one  offering  which  all 
presented  spontaneously.  It  not  only  commemorated  a 
national  deliverance — the  "  passing  over  "  of  Israel  by  the 
destroying  angel,  but  was  believed  to  secure  the  same  mercy 
for  themselves  hereafter.5  Every  one  regarded  it  as  a  debt 
he  owed,  and  must  by  all  means  pay,  if  he  would  be  counted 
worthy  of  a  part  in  the  congregation  of  Israel.  It  was,  in 
fact,  a  household  sacrifice,  which  each  family  offered  on  its 
own  behalf,  that  its  transgressions  through  the  year  might 
be  "  passed  over."  Even  till  the  later  ages  of  Jewish  history 
the  father  of  each  household  himself  killed  the  male  lamb  or 
goat  required,  and  sprinkled  the  blood  on  the  lintel  and 
doorposts,  as  an  expiation  for  the  family  as  a  whole,  and  for 
any  who  might  have  joined  them  in  keeping  the  feast.2 

Pious  Israelites  were  careful  to  accustom  their  children, 
from  the  earliest  years,  to  the  requirements  of  their  religion, 
and  hence  often  brought  them  with  them  to  Jerusalem  at 
the  great  feasts.  Indeed,  even  the  liberal  school  of  Hillel 
made  it  binding  to  do  so  as  soon  as  a  child  was  able,  with  the 
help  of  its  father's  hand,  to  climb  the  flight  of  steps  into  the 
Temple  courts.3 

The  Passover  itself  was  eaten  only  by  males,4  but  the 
week  of  the  feast  was  a  time  of  universal  rejoicing,  so  that 
husbands  were  wont  to  take  their  wives,  as  well  as  their  sons, 
with  them. 

Joseph  and  Mary 5  went  to  Jerusalem,  every  year,  to  this 
Festivity,  and  took  Jesus  with  them,  for  the  first  time,  when 
He  was  twelve  years  old.  Like  His  cousin  John,6  He  had 
grown  in  mind  and  body,  and  showed  a  sweet  religious 
spirit.7  d  The  journey  must  have  been  the  revelation  of  a 
new  world  to  Him — a  world,  beyond  the  hills  of  Samaria, 
which  had  hitherto  seemed  the  limit  of  the  earth,  as  He 
looked  away  to  them  from  the  hill-top  behind  Nazareth. 

Only  a  Jew  could  realize  the  feelings  such  a  visit  must 

1  Ewald's  Alter.,  p.  474.  2  Ewald's  Alter.,  p.  467. 

*  Lightfoot,  Chorograph  Cent.,  p.  76.  4  EwakTs  Alter.,  p. 474. 

*  Luke  ii.  41. 

*  Luke  i.  80  ;  where  the  same  words  are  used  of  John.      7  Luke  ii.  40. 


192  THE  LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

have  raised  even  in  a  child.  Jerusalem,  to  the  Israelite,  was 
more,  if  possible,  than  Mecca  is  to  the  Mahometan.  The 
whole  "  land  of  Israel  "  was  "  holy,"  since  it,  only,  could  offer 
to  God  the  first-fruits,  or  the  firstborn,  or  the  "  perpetual " 
shewbread.  Its  walled  towns  were  still  "  holier."  No  leper 
was  allowed  in  them,  and  a  corpse  carried  out  to  burial  could 
not  be  brought  into  a  town  again.1  But  Jerusalem,  the 
sacred  city,  the  seat  of  the  Temple,  had  a  sanctity  all  its 
own.  By  Rabbinical  laws,  which,  however,  were,  doubtless, 
often  neglected,  even  holy  offerings,  of  the  lower  kinds,  and 
second  tithes,  might  be  eaten  in  it.  The  dead  must  be 
carried  out  before  sunset  of  the  day  of  death.  No  houses 
could  be  let  for  lodgings  ;  and  no  sepulchres,  except  those  of 
the  house  of  David,  and  of  Huldah,  the  prophetess,  had  been 
tolerated.  No  impurity  was  suffered,  lest  creeping  things 
should  defile  the  holy  city  ;  nor  could  scaffolds  be  set  up 
against  the  walls,  for  a  similar  fear  of  defilement.  Smoke 
from  household  fires  was  forbidden ;  poultry  were  unlawful, 
because  they  scratched  up  the  soil,  and  might  defile  passing 
offerings  ;  no  leper  could  enter  the  gates  ;  gardens  were  pro- 
hibited, because  the  decaying  leaves  and  the  manure  would 
make  an  offensive  smell.2  Superstition  had  invented  the 
most  amazing  fancies,  as  proofs  of  the  passing  holiness  of  the 
city  in  its  whole  extent,  and  these  were,  doubtless,  universally 
and  implicitly  believed.  It  was  maintained  that  no  serpent 
or  scorpion  ever  harmed  any  one  in  Jerusalem  ;  that  no  fly 
was  ever  seen  in  the  place  for  slaughtering  the  sacrifices  ; 
that  no  rain  ever  put  out  the  fire  of  the  altar,  and  that  no 
wind  ever  blew  aside  the  pillar  of  smoke  over  the  altar. 
But  the  hospitality  of  the  holy  city  was  less  open  to  question  ; 
for  it  was  a  common  boast  that  no  one  had  ever  failed  to  find 
friendly  entertainment,  or  a  hearth  on  which  to  roast  his 
passover.  However  churlish  to  all  besides,  the  hospitality  of 
the  citizens  to  their  own  nation  was  unbounded. 

But  if  the  city  were  holy,  it  was  mainly  so  because  of  the 
far  greater  holiness  of  the  sanctuary  within  its  bounds.  The 
Temple  mountain  held  the  fourth  place  in  local  holiness.  The 
ceremonially  unclean  could  not  enter  it.  The  space  between 
the  court  of  the  heathen  and  the  inner  courts — the  Zwinger, 
or  Chel — ranked  next ;  none  but  Israelites  could  enter  it, 
and  not  even  they,  if  defiled  by  a  dead  body."  The  women's 
court  came  next.  No  unclean  person,  even  after  bathing, 

»  Jost,  vol.  i.  p.  135.  8  Lightfoot,  Chorograpli  Cent.,  pp.  47,  48. 


JEWISH  LOVE   FOR  JERUSALEM.  193 

could  enter  it  till  sunset.  The  Forecourt  of  the  Israelites 
was  still  holier.  Xo  one  could  go  into  it  who  needed  expia- 
tion to  be  made  for  him.  Even  the  clean  must  bathe  before 
entering,  and  any  unclean  person  intruding,  through  over- 
sight, must  atone  for  his  error  by  a  trespass-offering.  The 
Forecourt  of  the  Priests  was  yet  more  sacred.  None  but  the 
priests  or  Levites  could  cross  its  threshold,  except  on  special 
occasions,  specified  by  the  Law.  The  space  between  the 
altar  and  the  Temple  had  a  still  greater  sanctity,  for,  into  it, 
no  priest  with  any  bodily  defect,  or  with  his  hair  in  disorder, 
or  with  a  torn  robe,  or  who  had  tasted  wine,  could  enter. 
The  Temple  itself  stood  apart,  in  the  tenth  and  highest  degree 
of  sanctity.  Before  entering  it,  every  priest  had  to  wash 
both  hands  and  feet.  In  this  revered  centre,  however,  there 
was  one  spot  more  awful  than  all  the  rest — the  Holy  of 
Holies,  which  the  high  priest  alone  could  enter,  and  he  only 
once  a  year,  on  the  great  Day  of  Atonement,  in  the  per- 
formance of  the  rites  of  the  day,  which  required  his  entering 
it  four  times. 

Such  a  country  and  city  could  not  fail  to  be  the  objects  of 
abiding  and  passionate  sentiment.  Affection  for  their  native 
land  led  to  the  unique  historical  phenomenon  of  the  return 
of  the  exiles  from  Babylon.  Many  psalms  of  the  period 
still  record  how  the  captives  wept  by  the  rivers  of  Babylon 
when  they  remembered  Zion,  and  hung  their  harps  on  the 
willows  of  their  banks ; l  and  the  same  intense  longing  for 
Palestine  is  illustrated  even  yet,  by  the  fond  fancy  of  the 
Targum  2  that  the  bodies  of  the  righteous  Jews  who  die  in 
foreign  lands,  make  their  way,  under  ground,  to  the  Mount 
of  Olives,  to  share  in  the  resurrection  of  the  just,  of  which 
it  is  to  be  the  scene.  The  wailing  of  the  Jews  of  Jerusalem 
over  their  ruined  Temple,  as  they  lean  against  the  few  stones 
of  it  which  yet  remain,  shows  the  same  feeling,  and  it  is 
shared  by  all  the  race  so  strongly,  that  some  earth  from  the 
land  of  their  fathers  is  sprinkled  on  the  grave  of  every  Jew 
that  dies  away  from  it,  to  make  him  rest  in  peace. 

Love  of  their  mother-land,  however,  was  not  especially 
that  which  linked  the  Jews  of  all  countries  in  Christ's  day 
into  a  great  brotherhood,  and  attracted  them  continually  to 
Jerusalem,  for  they  were  voluntarily  settled,  far  and  wide,  in 

1  Ps.  cxxxvii. 

1  Upon  Cant.  viii.  1 ;  quoted  by  Lightfoot,  vol.  i.  p.  87.  Rom  und 
Jerutahm,  p.  18. 

14 


194  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

foreign  lands.  Nor  was  it  their  longing  for  freedom  and 
independence,  for  they  were  contented  subjects  of  all  forma 
of  government.  Their  eyes  were  everywhere  turned  to  the 
Temple,  and  they  found  in  it  the  centre  of  their  national 
unity.  Their  heavenly  and  earthly  fatherland  seemed  to 
meet  in  its  sacred  enclosure.  From  all  the  earth,  wherever 
a  Jew  lived,  rose  the  same  cry  as  that  of  the  exiles  at  the 
sources  of  the  Jordan.  "  As  the  hart  panteth  after  the 
water-brooks,  so  panteth  my  soul  after  Thee,  O  God.  My 
soul  thirsteth  for  God,  for  the  living  God :  when  shall  I 
come  and  appear  before  God  ?  I  pour  out  my  soul  in  me 
when  I  remember  these  things — how  I  went  with  the  pilgrim 
bands,  and  marched  up  with  them  to  the  house  of  God,  with 
the  voice  of  joy  and  praise  ;  with  the  festive  crowd  !  " J  To 
the  Jews  of  every  land  it  was  the  crown  and  glory  of  their 
religious  system.  In  their  scattered  synagogues  and  houses 
of  prayer  they  looked  towards  it  at  every  service.  Their 
gifts  and  offerings  flowed  to  it  in  a  golden  stream,  partly  to 
satisfy  the  requirements  of  the  Law,  but  even  more  to  gratify 
their  religious  devotion.  Every  Jew  over  twenty  throughout 
the  world  gave  his  didrachma  yearly — in  payment  of  the 
fi  rst-fruits  required  by  the  Law — to  maintain  the  Temple  and 
its  sacrifices.2  Constant  voluntary  gifts,  besides, — often  of 
great  value — streamed  into  the  holy  treasury.  Tithes,  also, 
were  claimed  by  the  Rabbis  from  all  Jews  abroad  as  well  as 
at  home,  and  were  doubtless  given  by  the  devout.3  "  In 
almost  every  town,"  says  Philo,  "  there  is  a  chest  for  the 
sacred  money,  and  into  this  the  dues  are  put.  At  fixed  times 
it  is  entrusted  to  the  foremost  men  to  carry  it  to  Jerusalem. 
The  noblest  are  chosen  from  every  town  to  take  up  the  Hope 
of  all  Jews,  untouched,  for  on  this  payment  of  legal  dues 
rests  the  hope  of  the  devout."  *  Egypt,  though  it  had  a 
Temple  of  its  own  at  Leontopolis,  sent  this  yearly  tribute 
regularly  ;  it  came  constantly  from  Rome  and  all  the  West  ; 
from  Lesser  Asia  and  all  Syria.  But  it  flowed  in  the  richest 
stream  from  Babylonia  and  the  countries  beyond  the 
Euphrates,  from  which  it  was  brought  up  under  the  pro- 
tection of  thousands,  who  volunteered  to  escort  it  to  Jeru- 
salem, and  protect  it  from  plunder  by  the  Parthians  on  the 
way.5 

1  Ps.  xlii.  1-4.     See  F.wald,  Zunz,  and  3ML 

*  Schneckenburger's  Vorlesungen,  p.  110.      8  Herzog,  vol.  xviii.  p.  420 

*  Philo,  de  Monnichia,  lib.  ii.'§  3,  ed.  Mnng.,  ii.  224. 

'  Jos.,  Ant.,  xviii.  9.  1.     Philo,  Legut  ad  Caium,  §  31. 


THE   PASSOVER   CROWDS.  195 

Thus  Jerusalem  and  the  Temple  were  the  grand  religious 
centre  of  all  Israel,  to  the  remotest  limits  of  its  wanderings. 
The  Sanctuary  lived  in  everj  heart.  To  maintain  it  inviolate 
was  the  one  common  anxiety.  Foreign  rulers  might  hold 
sway  over  Palestine,  and  even  over  Jerusalem,  and  so  long 
as  the  Temple  was  left  untouched,  submission  was  paid  them, 
as  the  will  of  fate.  If,  however,  the  haughtiness  or  greed  of 
the  enemy  violated,  or  even  only  threatened,  the  Sanctuary, 
there  ran  through  the  whole  Jewish  world  a  feeling  of  indig- 
nation that  roused  them  at  once,  and  at  the  cry  that  the 
Temple  was  in  danger,  weapons  were  grasped  and  solemn 
prayers  rose,  and  one  deep  resolve  pervaded  all — to  shed  the 
last  drop  of  their  blood  on  the  battle-field  or  at  the  Altar, 
for  Jerusalem  and  the  Sanctuary.1 

It  must  have  been  a  wonderful  sight  to  the  child  Jesus2  to 
visit  the  Holy  City  at  the  season  of  the  Passover.  The  multi- 
tudes who  flocked  to  the  feast  from  all  countries  were  count- 
less. "  Many  thousands,"  says  Philo,  "  from  many  thousand 
towns  and  cities,  make  a  pilgrimage  to  the  Temple  at  every 
feast ;  some  by  land,  others  by  sea,  from  the  east  and  the 
west,  the  north  and  the  south.3  Even  at  Pentecost,  which 
attracted  a  much  smaller  number,  vast  crowds  of  Jews  and 
proselytes  were  present  from  every  part  of  the  Roman  empire, 
which  was  nearly  equivalent  to  the  then  known  world.4 
Josephus  reckoned  the  numbers  attending  a  single  Passover 
at  2,700,000,  inclusive  of  the  population  of  the  city.5*  Every 
house  in  the  narrow  limits  of  Jerusalem  was  crowded  with 
pilgrims,  and  the  whole  landscape  round  covered  with  the 
tents  or  booths,6  of  mat,  and  wicker  work,  and  interwoven 
leaves,  extemporized  to  serve  as  shelter — like  the  similar 
structures  of  the  Easter  pilgrims  still* — for  those  who  could 
not  be  accommodated  in  any  house.  The  routes  by  which 
they  travelled  to  the  Holy  City  from  all  lands  must  have 
been  like  those  to  Mecca,  at  certain  seasons,  even  now :  count- 
less vessels  laden  with  living  freights  of  pilgrims  :  all  the  main 
lines  of  road  thronged  with  huge  caravans  :  eveiy  port  of  the 
Mediterranean,  and  every  city  and  town  on  the  highways 
leading  to  the  great  centre,  thronged  as  with  the  passage  of 
armies.  The  vast  "  dispersion  " — Jewish  by  birth,  sentiment, 
or  adoption — converged  more  and  more  densely  on  the  one 

1  Jost,  vol.  i.  p.  137.  s  Luke  vii.  9. 

*  Philo,  de  Monarchic,,  lib.  ii.  §  1,  ed.  Many.,  ii.  223.        *  Acts  ii.  9,  11. 

*  Bell.  Jud.,  vi.  9.  3.  «  Succoth. 


196  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

point, — Jerusalem.  PartWans,  Medes,  Elamites,  and  Meso- 
potamianSj  in  the  costume  of  the  far  East,  with  their  long 
trains  of  camels  and  mules  ;  crowds  from  every  province  of 
Lesser  Asia — Cappadocia,  Pontus,  Phrygia,  and  Pamphylia, 
each  band  with  the  distinctive  characteristics  of  its  own 
district ;  swarthy  multitudes,  in  long  caravans,  or  afoot, — 
after  a  sea  voyage  to  Joppa  or  Caesarea — from  Egypt,  tho 
head-quarters  of  the  foreign  Jews,  and  from  Libya  and 
Gyrene  ;  pilgrims  even  from  imperial  Rome  ;  men  from  the 
slopes  of  Cretan  Ida,  and  from  the  far-off  cities  and  towns  of 
sandy  Arabia,  met  under  the  shadow  of  the  Temple.  The 
whole  world,  in  a  sense,  was  gathered  to  one  spot,  and  this, 
itself,  to  a  mind  such  as  that  of  the  boy  Jesus,  must  have  been 
rich  in  the  most  varied  influence  and  knowledge. 

The  appearance  of  the  city  would  make  an  impression 
never  to  be  forgotten.  If  there  were  no  gardens  in  Jerusa- 
lem,11 there  was  a  girdle  of  them  reaching  from  its  very  walls, 
down  the  valleys,  and  up  the  opposite  hill-sides ;  one  of  them1 
so  famous  that  the  figs  from  it  were  sold  for  three  or  four 
assarii  each.2  The  garden  walls  and  ditches  netted  over  all 
the  approaches  to  the  city,  on  each  side.  On  the  hills  around 
rose  the  mansions  of  the  rich  citizens,  and  at  the  bend  where 
the  valleys  of  Kidron  and  Hinnom  met,  beside  the  Pool  of 
Siloam,  the  eye  regaled  itself  with  the  wide  and  rich  verdure 
of  the  royal  gardens. 

As  Joseph,  and  Mary  with  her  Son,  came  in  sight  of  the 
city  from  the  north,  they  would  be  on  ground  as  high  as 
Mount  Zion  : 3  and  rising,  to  the  north-west  of  the  city,  even 
a  few  feet  higher,  while  on  the  west,  Zion  rose,  on  an  average, 
about  100  feet  above  the  hills  across  the  Valley  of  Hinnom ; 
and,  on  the  east,  the  Mount  of  Olives  overtopped  the  highest 
part  of  the  city  by  100  feet,  and  the  Temple  hill  by  no  less 
than  300.  Except  on  the  north,  however,  the  high  ground 
was  divided  from  Jerusalem  by  deep  valleys,  which  could  be 
reached  from  within  the  city  only  by  steep  streets  and  roads. 
The  pilgrims  encamped  in  the  valleys  of  Kidron  or  Hinnom 
saw  the  buildings  and  towers  of  Mount  Zion  more  than  500 
feet  above  them  ;  and  those  whose  tents  were  pitched  not  far 
from  the  same  place,  at  Joab's  Well,  were  nearly  600  feet 
below  the  houses  of  the  upper  city.  The  Court  of  the  Priests 
looked  over  to  the  Pool  of  Siloam,  370  feet  below  ;  and  from 

1  Liglitfoot,  vol.  ii.  p.  89.  *  2%d.  and  3d. 

*  Map  of  English  Ordnance  Survey. 


ANCIENT  JERUSALEM.  197 

Mount  Zion  it  needed  a  descent  of  264  feet  to  reach,  the 
Garden  of  Gethsemane,  in  the  Valley  of  the  Kidron.1 

Jerusalem  was  thus,  pre-eminently,  a  mountain  city,  sur- 
rounded on  all  sides  by  hills,-  and  with  hills,  famous  and 
sacred  beyond  all  others,  as  its  own  site.  The  road  from 
Nazareth  entered  the  new  lower  town,  by  the  Damascus  gate, 
and  passed  through  the  most  stirring  business  street — in  the 
bottom  of  the  Valley  of  the  Cheesemakers,  or  the  Tyropoeon  : 
a  deep  and  narrow  hollow  between  Mounts  Zion  and  Moriah  ; 
then  crowded  with  the  narrow  lanes  which  serve  for  streets  in 
Eastern  cities.  In  the  new  town,  under  the  shadow  of  the 
two  hills,  were  the  shops  of  the  braziers ;  the  clothes'  bazaar, 
and  the  square  where  the  authorities  received  announcements 
of  the  new  moon,  and  gave  the  public  feasts  that  followed, 
monthly.  In  the  Tyropoaon,  the  streets  ran  in  terraces,  up 
the  steep  sides  of  the  hill,  side  lanes  climbing  here  and  there, 
to  the  top,  past  the  bazaar  of  the  butchers,  and  that  of  the 
wool-dealers,  to  the  upper  street,  where  Ismael  Ben  Camithi,3 
the  high  priest  at  the  time,  having  gone  out  on  the  great  Day 
of  Atonement,  to  speak  with  a  heathen,  a  fleck  of  spittle  fell 
on  his  clothes,  from  the  lips  of  the  uncircumcised,  and 
defiled  him,  so  that  he  could  not  perform  the  services  of  the 
day,  and  had  to  get  his  brother  to  take  his  place. 

On  the  west  of  the  Tyropoeon,  on  the  top  of  Mount  Zion, 
rose  the  old,  or  upper  city,  known  also  as  the  City  of  David. 
In  it  were  the  shops  of  the  goldsmiths,  and  the  houses  of  the 
priests  who  lived  in  Jerusalem.  The  Wall  of  David  ran  along 
its  north  side,  opening  through  the  gate  Gennath,  to  Akra, 
or  the  lower  town.  High  above  this  wall,  which  was  over 
fifty  feet  in  height,  rose  the  three  famous  castles — Hippikus, 
Phasaelus,  and  Mariamne — built  by  Herod  the  Great,  and 
then  fresh  from  the  builder's  hands.  Of  these,  Hippikus, 
stern  and  massive,  towered  120  feet  above  the  wall,  at  its 
north-west  corner ;  a  great  square  of  huge  stones,  in  succes- 
sive stories,  the  upper  one  surmounted  by  battlements  and 
turrets.4  Close  by,  and  in  a  line  with  it,  rose  Phasaelus,  the 
splendid  memorial  to  Herod's  brother  Phasael,  who  had 
beaten  out  his  brains  against  the  walls  of  his  dungeon  when 
a  prisoner  of  the  Parthians.  It,  also,  was  square,  for  sixty 
feet  of  its  height  above  the  wall,  but  from  amidst  the  breast- 

1  These  details  are  from  the  Ordnance  Survey  Map.          2  Pa.  cxxv.  2. 
3  A  similar  story  is  also  told  of  Simon,  son  of  Hannas,  see  p.  277. 
•  Jos.,  Bell.  Jnd..  v.  4.  3. 


198  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

works  and  bulwarks  of  this  lower  fortress,  rose  a  second 
tower  about  seventy  feet  higher,  with  magnificent  battle- 
ments and  turrets.  Within,  this  upper  tower  was  like  a 
palace,  and  it  was,  doubtless,  intended  as  a  refuge  for  tho 
king,  in  case  of  necessity.  Marianme,  the  smallest  of  the 
three  castles,  was  about  thirty  feet  square,  and  about  seventy- 
five  in  height,  but  its  upper  half  was  more  highly  finished 
than  that  of  either  of  the  others,  as  if  to  quiet  its  builder's 
conscience  for  the  murder  of  her  whose  name  it  bore.  All 
three  fortresses,  towering  thus  grandly  aloft,  above  the  high 
wall, — which  itself  rose  along  the  crest  of  a  high  hill, — were 
of  white  marble :  each  stone  thirty  feet  long,  fifteen  in 
breadth,  and  from  seven  to  eight  in  thickness ;  and  all 
squared  so  exactly  that  their  joinings  could  hardly  be  seen. 
"  Each  tower,"  to  use  the  words  of  Josephus,  "  looked  like  a 
great  natural  rock  which  had  been  cut  by  the  workman  into 
shape,  like  the  rock-hewn  buildings  of  Edom."1 

Under  the  protection  of  these  splendid  structures  rose  the 
new  palace  of  Herod,  about  the  centre  of  the  northern  half 
of  Mount  Zion,  a  great  part  of  which  was  enclosed  within 
its  park  walls,  themselves  a  second  line  of  defence,  forty-five 
feet  in  height,  with  strong  towers  rising,  at  equal  distances, 
from  their  broad  tops.  The  palace  itself  was  indescribably 
magnificent.  Spacious  rooms,  with  elaborately  carved  walls 
and  ceilings,  many  of  them  crusted  with  precious  stones,  dis- 
played Oriental  splendour  to  hundreds  of  guests  at  a  time. 
Gold  and  silver  shone  on  every  side.  Round  this  sumptuous 
abode,  porticoes  with  curious  pillars  of  costly  stone,  offered 
wide,  shady  retreats.  Groves  and  gardens  stretched  around, 
intermingled  with  pools  and  artificial  rivers,  bordered  by 
long,  delightful  walks,  frequented,  through  the  day,  by  all 
who  could  endure  the  desecration  of  Jerusalem  by  the  count- 
less statues  which  adorned  them. 

The  theatre  built  by  Herod,  to  the  horror  of  the  nation, 
was  also,  apparently,  in  this  part  of  the  city ;  2  and  outside, 
at  a  little  distance,  was  the  amphitheatre,  an  object  of  still 
greater  popular  aversion,  from  its  gladiatorial  shows,  in 
which  men  condemned  to  death  fought  with  wild  beasts. 
Inscriptions  in  honour  of  Augustus,  and  trophies  of  tho 
nations  Herod  had  conquered  in  his  wars,  adorned  the  ex- 
terior of  the  theatre ;  and  the  games  in  the  circus,  though 
shunned  by  the  Jews,  were  celebrated  with  the  greatest 

1  BeU.  Jud.,  v.  5.  4.  2  Jos.,  Ant.,  i.  8.  1. 


ANCIENT  JERUSALEM.  199 

pomp,  strangers  from  all  the  neighbouring  countries  being 
invited  to  them.  The  trophies  round  the  theatre  especially 
excited  indignation,  being  supposed  to  cover  images,  and 
hence  being  looked  upon  as  heathen  idols.  So  great,  indeed, 
had  the  excitement  become,  in  Herod's  lifetime,  that,  for 
policy,  he  had  caused  the  armour  to  be  taken  from  some  of 
them,  in  presence  of  the  leading  men,  to  show  that  there 
was  nothing  but  shapeless  wood  beneath.  Yet  even  this  did 
not  calm  the  people,  and  no  Jew  passed  the  hated  building 
without  the  bitterest  feelings  at  its  presence  in  the  holy 
city. 

On  the  eastern  crest  of  Zion  stood  the  old  palace  of  the 
Asmonean  kings,  and,  north  of  it,  an  open  space  surrounded 
by  a  lofty  covered  colonnade,  known  as  the  Xystus.1  A 
bridge  spanned  the  Tyropceon  Valley  to  the  south-west 
corner  of  the  Temple  enclosure,  and  near  the  Xystus  rose  a 
hall,  known  as  the  Hall  of  the  King's  Council.  The  main 
streets  ran  north  and  south — some  along  the  brow  of  the 
hill,  others  lower  down,  but  parallel,  following  the  course  of 
the  valley,  with  side  lanes  or  narrow  streets  connecting 
them.  They  had  raised  pavements,  either  because  of  the 
slope  of  the  ground,  or  to  allow  passers-by  to  avoid  contact 
with  person  or  things  ceremonially  unclean  .k  The  upper 
city  was  mainly  devoted  to  dwelling-houses  of  the  better 
kind  ;  but  in  the  lower  city,  bazaars,  or  street-like  markets 
were  then,  as  now,  a  prominent  feature,  each  devoted  to  a 
special  branch  of  commerce. 

Looking  out  at  the  Gennath  gate  on  the  north  of  Zion, 
the  Almond  pool,  near  at  hand,  refreshed  the  eye.  Beyond 
it,  across  a  little  valley,  slightly  to  the  north-west,  near  the 
Joppa  road,  was  Psephinos,  another  of  the  castles  by  which 
the  city  was  at  once  defended  and  overawed.  It  rose  in  an 
octagon,  high  into  the  clear  blue,  showing  from  its  battle- 
ments the  whole  sweep  of  the  country,  from  the  sea-coast  to 
beyond  the  Dead  Sea,  and  from  the  far  north,  away  towards 
Edom,  on  the  south.  In  Christ's  day  it  stood  outside  the 
city,  by  itself,  but  soon  after  His  death  it  was  included  in 
the  lino  of  wall  built  by  Herod  Agrippa,1 

The  northern  part  of  the  lower  town,  known  as  Akra, 
was  mainly  interesting  for  the  bustle  of  restless  city  life  of 
every  colour  which  it  presented.  The  wood  bazaar,  the  city 
council-house,  and  public  records  office,  were  in  it.  Nor 

1  A.D.  41-44. 


200  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

was  it  destitute  of  attractions,  for  the  double  pool  of  Bethesda 
lay  at  its  north-east  corner.  The  temple  and  its  courts 
occupied  nearly  the  whole  of  Mount  Moriah,  the  second  hill 
on  which  the  city  was  built,  the  only  other  building  on  it 
contrasting  strangely  in  appearance  and  character.  It  was 
the  great  fortress  Antonia,  at  the  north-west  corner,  on  an 
isolated  rock,  separated  by  a  cleft  from  Mount  Moriah,  and 
cased  with  stone  where  exposed,  so  that  no  foe  could  scale 
it.  The  castle  occupied,  with  its  enclosures,  nearly  a  third 
of  the  great  Temple  plateau,1  and  was  built  originally  by 
John  Hyrcanus,  but  had  been  rebuilt  by  Herod  with  great 
magnificence,  with  baths,  fountains,  galleries,  piazza,  and 
great  rooms,  to  fit  it  for  a  residence  for  princely  guests.  It 
served  now  as  the  quarters  of  the  Roman  garrison,  sent  from 
Csesarea  at  the  time  of  the  great  feasts,  to  keep  peace  in  the 
city.1  In  Christ's  day  the  robes  of  the  high  priest  were  kept 
in  it  by  the  Romans,  to  prevent  a  seditious  use  of  them. 
Covered  ways  led  from  the  castle  to  the  Temple  area,  to 
allow  the  soldiery  free  access  in  case  of  tumult  or  disturb- 
ance. 

Such  was  the  city  to  which  Jesus  now  came  for  the  first 
time.  As  He  was  led  through  its  crowded  streets,  and  saw 
its  famous  palaces,  and  towers,  and  marts,  and  above  all,  the 
Temple,  what  strange  thoughts  must  have  risen  in  the 
opening  mind  of  the  wondrous  boy.3 

The  panorama  spread  before  Him  from  the  city,  at  its 
different  points,  was  no  less  filled  with  interest.  From  the 
Temple  He  looked  eastward  to  Mount  Olivet,  then  crowned 
by  two  great  cedars,  underneath  which  were  booths  for  the 
sale  of  all  things  needed  for  ceremonial  purifications,  in- 
cluding the  doves  for  the  various  offerings.3  He  would  no 
doubt  hear  how,  in  former  times,  beacon  fires  had  been 
kindled  on  the  hill-top  at  each  new  moon,  and  how  moun- 
tain after  mountain,  catching  the  sight,  spread  the  news  in 
an  hour  over  the  whole  land.  Some  one  would,  doubtless, 
also,  tell  Him.  that  it  was  the  hated  Samaritans  who  had 
brought  the  custom  to  an  end,  by  holding  up  lights  at  wrong 
times,  and  thus  misleading  Israel. 

The  Valley  of  the  Kidron,  below,  would  be  equally  inter- 
esting. It  was  to  it  the  pilgrims  came  down  at  the  Feast  of 

1  Acts  xxi.  31.     Jos.,  Bell.  Jud.,  ii.  12.  1.  *  Luke  ii.  40. 

3  Titlmiul;  quoted  in  Liyhtfoot's  Chor,  Cent.,  p.  87.  Jost,  vol.  i 
p.  189. 


ENVIRONS   OF  JERUSALEM.  201 

Tabernacles,  to  cut  the  long  boughs  of  willow  which  they 
carried  in  procession  to  the  Temple,  and  laid  bending  over 
the  altar.1  On  the  eve  of  the  first  day  of  the  feast,  Jesus 
would  see  men  sent  by  the  Temple  authorities — a  great 
crowd  following — to  cut  the  sheaf  of  first-fruits.  Perhaps 
He  saw  the  three  reapers,  with  basket  and  sickle,  step  to 
spots  previously  marked  out,  asking,  as  they  stood  beside 
the  new  barley,  "  Has  the  sun  set  yet  ?  Is  this  the  right 
sickle  ?  Is  this  the  right  basket  ?  "  and,  if  it  were  Sabbath, 
"  Is  this  the  Sabbath  ?  " — to  be  followed  by  another  question, 
thrice  repeated,  "  Shall  I  cut  ?  "  which  was  answered  with 
what  seems,  now,  childish  formality,  but  then  thrilled  all 
hearts,  "  Out."  2  Religious  bitterness  lay  behind  all  this 
minute  triviality,  for  did  not  the  hated  aristocratic  Sadducees 
maintain  that  the  first  sheaf  should  be  cut  only  on  the  first 
week-day  of  the  feast,  which  would  have  affected  the  date 
of  Pentecost,  fifty  days  later  ? 3  The  child  from  Nazareth 
would  follow,  when  the  sheaf,  thus  reaped,  was  carried, 
amidst  great  rejoicings,  to  the  forecourt  of  the  Temple,  and 
presented  by  the  priest  as  a  heave-offering  ;4  then  threshed, 
winnowed,  and  cleansed,  dried  over  a  sacred  fire,  and  forth- 
with ground  into  flour,  the  finest  of  which  was  the  new- 
harvest  "  meat-offering  "  before  God.  He  knew  that  till  this 
had  been  presented  at  the  altar,  no  field  could  be  cut,  except 
to  get  fodder  for  cattle,  or  for  other  necessary  ends.5 

Looking  into  the  Valley  of  Hinnom  from  the  southern  end 
of  the  Temple,  with  its  magnificent  Royal  porch,  His  eyes 
must  have  turned  from  the  sight  one  spot  in  it  offered,  the 
fires  kept  up,  night  and  day,  to  burn  all  the  garbage  and 
offal  of  the  Temple,  and  the  refuse  of  the  city — the  symbol 
of  the  unquenchable  flames  of  the  Pit.  It  was  in  this  valley 
that  children  had  been  burned  alive  to  Moloch  in  the  old 
idolatrous  times,  and  the  remembrance  of  this,  with  the 
foulness  of  the  part  where  the  perpetual  fires  now  burned, 
had  made  Gehenna — the  name  of  the  valley — the  word  used 
afterwards  even  by  Jesus  Himself,  for  the  place  of  the  lost. 

Between  Hinnom  and  Kidron,  where  the  two  valleys  met 
at  the  south-east  of  the  city,  His  eyes,  looking  down  from 
the  Temple  Mount,  would  rest  on  the  contrasted  sweetness  of 


1  Lightfoot,  p.  89. 

*  2  Sain.  xxi.  9.     Ruth  i.  22;  ii.  23.     Jos.,  Ant.,  iii.  10.  5. 
1  Jost,  vol.  i.  p.  1G6.  4  Lev.  xxiii.  6-14. 

*  Lightfoot,  Hora  llel.,  i.  23.  84. 


202  THE  LIFE    OF   CHEIST. 

the  softly-flowing  waters  of  Siloam,  which  bubbled  up  noise- 
lessly at  the  foot  of  the  hill,  and  after  filling  a  double  pool, 
glided  on  to  the  south,  till  they  lost  themselves  in  the  king's 
gardens. 

City  and  people  :  the  past  and  the  present,  must  have 
filled  the  whole  being  of  the  Child  with  awe  and  wonder,  for 
He  now  stood,  for  the  first  time,  under  the  shadow  of  His 
Father's  Temple,  and  the  murmur  of  countless  languages 
that  filled  the  air,  was,  in  very  truth,  homage  to  that  Father 
from  all  the  world. 


CHAPTER  XV. 
THE  PASSOVEB  VISIT  TO  JEKUSALEM. 

rpHE  vast  multitudes  coining  to  the  Passover  arranged  to 
-*-  reach  Jerusalem,  at  the  latest,  on  the  14th  of  Nisan, 
on  the  evening  of  which  the  feast  was  celebrated.  In  the 
city,  however,  there  had  been  a  great  stir  for  some  days 
already,  in  anticipation  of  the  solemnity.  So  far  back  as  from 
the  15th  of  the  preceding  month,1  all  the  bridges  and  roads, 
far  and  near,  had  been  begun  to  be  repaired.  All  graves 
near  the  lines  of  travel,  or  round  Jerusalem,  had  been  either 
fenced  in,  or  the  head-stones  had  been  whitewashed,2  that 
they  might  be  seen  from  a  distance,  and  thus  warn  off  the 
pilgrims,  whom  they  might  otherwise  have  defiled,3  and 
made  unfit  for  the  feast.  The  fields,  throughout  the  whole 
country,  had  been  anxiously  gone  over,  to  see  if  they  were 
unclean  by  any  plants  growing  together  in  them,  which  the 
Law  forbade  in  more  than  one  text.4  On  the  Sabbath  im- 
mediately preceding  the  14th — the  Great  Sabbath — special 
services  had  been  held  in  all  the  synagogues  and  in  the 
Temple  itself,  and  the  Rabbis  had  discoursed  to  the  people  on 
the  laws  and  meaning  of  the  festival.  The  lambs,  or  he  goats, 
had  been  selected,  in  earlier  times,  on  the  10th,  from  the  vast 
flocks  driven  to  the  city  at  this  season  to  supply  the  Pass- 
over demand.  But  this  was  impossible  now,  as  the  pilgrims 
arrived,  mostly,  after  that  day.5  Only  male  lambs,  or  he 
goats,  of  a  year  old,  and  without  blemish,  could  be  used,6  and 
they  were  selected  with  the  most  scrupulous  care  by  the  head 
of  each  company  of  relatives  or  neighbours,  who  proposed  to 
eat  the  feast  together.7 

The  fourteenth  day,  which  began  at  sunset  of  the  13th, 
ras  also  the  first  day  of  the  feast  of  "  Unleavened  Bread,"  8* 
and   was   hence   known   as   the    "  preparation   day." 9      No 

1  Adar.  z  Matt,  xxiii.  27.  3  John  xviii.  28. 

*  Lev.  xix.  19.   Deut.xxii.9.     s  John  xi.  55,  56.          *  Exod.  xii.  1-28. 
~>  Luke  xxii.  8.  8  Exod.  xiii.  7.  •  Jolin  xix.  li. 


204  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

particle  of  leaven  could  be  left  in  any  house.  The  head  of 
each  family,  as  the  evening  closed,  began  the  household 
purification  with  the  prayer — "  Blessed  art  Thou,  O  Lord, 
our  God,  King  of  the  universe,  who  hast  sanctified  us  with 
Thy  commandments,  and  requirest  us  to  remove  the  leaven," 
and  then  proceeded,  in  rigorous  silence,  to  search  every 
room,  gathering  every  crumb  that  could  be  found,  and 
finally  tying  all  up  till  the  following  morning.  A  further 
search,  which  must  end  before  noon,  was  then  made  for 
any  liquid  or  solid  product  of  fermented  grain,  and  for  all 
dishes  or  vessels  that  had  held  it.  All  were  taken  out  of 
the  house,  and  the  crumbs  and  dough  carefully  burned,  with 
a  repetition  of  prescribed  prayers.  The  house  itself  was  then 
cleansed  in  every  part,  and  no  one  could  enter  the  un- 
purified  house  of  a  heathen,  henceforth,  during  the  feast,1 
without  being  defiled.  Nothing  leavened  could  be  eaten  or 
permitted  in  the  house  during  the  next  seven  days, — for 
defilement,  bringing  with  it  unfitness  to  eat  the  Passover, 
would  follow  in  either  case.2 

This  purification  of  the  house,  however,  was  by  no  means 
all.  Vessels  of  any  kind,  to  be  used  at  the  feast,  were 
cleansed  with  prescribed  rites,  in  a  settled  mode.  Metal 
dishes,  etc.,  after  being  scoured,  must  be  first  dipped  in 
boiling  water — in  a  pot  used  for  no  other  purpose — and 
then  into  cold.  Iron  vessels  must  be  made  red-hot ;  then 
washed  in  the  same  way.  Iron  mortars,  for  crushing  grain 
for  baking,  were  filled  with  red  coals,  till  a  thread,  tied  out- 
side, was  burned  through.  Wooden  vessels,  after  being 
wetted,  were  rubbed  with  a  red-hot  stone.  No  clay  dish 
could  be  used  at  all  if  not  quite  new,  and  it  had  to  be  first 
dipped  thrice  in  running  water,  and  consecrated  by  a  special 
prayer.  Personal  purity  was  as  strictly  enforced.  Every 
one  had  to  cut  his  hair  and  nails,  and  to  take  a  bath. 

The  baking  of  the  unleavened  bread  was  accompanied 
with  equally  formal  care.  On  the  evening  of  the  13th, 
"before  the  stars  appeared,"  the  head  of  each  household 
went  out  and  drew  water  for  the  purpose,  uttering  the  words 
as  he  did  so,  "  This  is  the  water  for  the  unleavened  bread," 
and  covering  the  vessel  that  contained  it,  for  fear  of  any 
defilement.  In  grinding  the  flour,  the  most  anxious  care 
was  observed  to  keep  all  leaven  from  coming  near  the 
woman  at  the  mill,  and  to  take  no  grain  that  was  at  all  damp, 

1  John  xviii.  28.  •  John  xi.  55.     Jns..  Bell.  Jnd.,  vi.  9.  3. 


THE    CELEBRATION   OF   THE    PASSOVER. 

lest  it  might  have  begun  to  ferment.  After  baking,  one 
loaf,  to  be  taken  to  the  priest  at  the  Temple,  was  laid  aside, 
with  another  prescribed  prayer. 

The  afternoon  of  the  14th  was  a  time  of  the  intensost 
bustle,  for  the  rams'  horn  trumpets  would  presently  ad- 
nounce,  from  the  Temple,  the  beginning  of  the  feast.  At 
the  sound,  every  one  took  his  lamb  to  the  Temple,  the  cotxt 
walls  of  which  were  gaily  hung  with  many-coloured  carpets 
and  tapestries,  in  honour  of  the  day.  The  countless  victims 
must  be  first  examined  by  the  priests,  to  see  if  they  were 
without  blemish,  then  slaughtered  and  prepared  for  roasting, 
in  the  forecourts  of  the  Temple,1  by  the  heads  of  the  dif- 
ferent households,  or  by  men  deputed  by  them,  or  by  the 
Levites  in  attendance,2  with  indescribable  haste  and  confu- 
sion, for  there  was  more  than  work  enough  for  all,  to  kill, 
almost  at  the  same  time,  the  256,000  lambs  sometimes  re- 
quired.3 The  exact  time  for  slaying  the  victims  was  "  be- 
tween the  evenings,"  from  sunset  of  the  14th  till  the  stars 
appeared,  though  they  might  be  killed  in  the  last  three  hours 
of  the  day. 

As  soon  as*  the  courts  were  full,  the  gates  were  shut  on  the 
multitude  within,  each  holding  his  lamb.  Three  blasts  of 
trumpets  then  announced  the  beginning  of  the  heavy  task. 
Long  rows  of  priests,  with  gold  and  silver  bowls,  stood 
ranged  between  the  altar  and  the  victims,  to  catch  the 
blood,  and  pass  it  on  from  one  to  the  other,  till  the  last 
poured  it  on  the  altar,  from  which  it  ran  off,  through  pipes 
beneath.  When  the  lamb  had  been  drained  of  blood,  the 
head  of  the  family  to  which  it  belonged  took  it  to  the  hooks 
on  the  walls  and  pillars  round,  where  it  was  opened  and 
skinned.  The  tail,  which,  in  the  sheep  of  Palestine,  often 
weighs  many  pounds,  and  the  fat,  were  handed  to  the  nearest 
priest,  and  passed  on  till  they  reached  the  altar,  to  be  burned 
as  an  offering  to  God.  The  lamb  was  killed  without  the 
usual  laying  of  the  hands  on  its  head.  It  was  now  ready  to 
be  carried  away,  and  was  borne  off  by  the  family  head  in  its 
skin,  which  was  afterwards  to  be  given  to  the  host  in  whose 
house  the  feast  might  be  held. 

Not  fewer  than  ten,  but  as  many  as  twenty,  might  sit  down 


1  2  Cbron.  xxxv.  5.     Mischna  Petaclrim,  v.  5.  8 
8  2  Chron.  xxx.  17.     Ez.  vi.  20.     2  Cliron.  xxxv.  6,  14  f. 
3  Jos.,  Bell.  Jvd.,  vi.  9.  3.     See  the  vivid  account  of  the  Passover  in 
Josiah's  times.  2  Chron.  xxxv.  1-20. 


206  THE   LIFE    OF   CHEIST. 

at  a  company.1  Women  were  allowed  to  join  their  house- 
holds, though  it  was  not  required  that  they  should  eat  the 
Passover ; 3  and  lads  from  fourteen,3  and  even  slaves  and 
foreigners,  if  circumcised,  sat  down  with  the  rest.  Every- 
thing was  hurried,  for  the  lambs  4  were  required  to  be  killed, 
roasted,  and  eaten,  between  three  in  the  afternoon  and  nino 
or  twelve  at  night.  They  were,  properly,  to  be  eaten  in 
the  courts  of  the  Temple,  but  this,  after  a  time,  having 
become  impossible,  they  might  be  consumed  anywhere  within 
the  Rabbinical  limits  of  the  city.5  Thousands  of  fires,  in 
special  ovens,  prepared  them  ;  for  they  must  be  roasted  only  ; 
not  boiled,  or  cooked  except  in  this  way.  They  were  trussed 
with  spits  of  pomegranate  wood,6  inserted  in  the  form  of  a 
cross,  and  the  whole  creature  roasted  entire.  None  of  the 
flesh  was  allowed  to  remain  till  morning,  any  fragments  left 
being  forthwith  burned,  that  they  might  not  be  defiled.  The 
very  dress  and  attitude  of  all  who  took  part  had  been  origi- 
nally prescribed,  but  these  details  were  now  out  of  use. 

The  feast  itself  must  have  impressed  a  child  like  Jesus  no 
less  than  the  preparations.  Not  a  bone  of  the  lamb  must  be 
broken,  under  a  penalty  of  forty .  stripes,  nor  must  any  part 
of  it  touch  the  oven ;  and  if  any  fat  dropped  back  on  it,  the 
part  on  which  it  dropped  was  cut  off.  The  company  having 
assembled,  after  the  lamps  were  lighted,  arranged  themselves 
in  due  order,  on  couches,  round  the  tables,  reclining  on  their 
left  side.  A  cup  of  red  wine,  mixed  with  water,  was  filled 
for  every  one,  and  drunk,  after  a  touching  benediction,  by 
the  head  man  of  the  group.  A  basin  of  water  and  a  towel 
were  then  brought  in,  that  each  might  wash  his  hands,7 
and  then  another  blessing  was  pronounced. 

A  table  was  then  carried  into  the  open  space  between  the 
couches,  and  bitter  herbs,  and  unleavened  bread,  with  a  dish 
• — made  of  dates,  raisins,  and  other  fruits,  mixed  with  vinegar 
to  the  consistency  of  lime,  in  commemoration  of  the  mortar 
with  which  their  fathers  worked  in  Egypt, — set  on  it,  along 
with  the  paschal  lamb.  The  head  man  now  took  some  of  the 
bitter  herbs,  dipped  them  in  the  dish,8  and,  after  giv'ng 

Jos.,  Bell.  Jud.,  vi.  9.  3.     Targ.  Jon.  on  Exod.  xii.  4. 
Miachna  Pesachim,  viii.  1. 

Das  Buck  d.  Juirilaen,  c.  49,  says,  from  20,  upwards. 
Das  Buck  d.  Jubilden,  c.  49. 

Deut.  xvi.  6,  7.     D.  Bitch  d.  Jubilden,  c.  49.     Mischna  Zebachim,  7.  8. 
Mischnn  Pesachim,  vii.  1.  2. 
7  John  xiii.  4,  5,  12.  »  Matt.  xxvi.  23. 


CLOSE   OF  THE   PASSOVEB.  207 

thanks  to  God  for  creating  the  fruits  of  the  earth,  ate  a 
small  piece,  and  gave  one  to  each  of  the  company.1  A 
second  cup  of  wine  and  water  was  then  poured  out,  and  the 
son 2  of  the  house,  or  the  youngest  boy  present,  asked  the 
meaning  of  the  feast.  The  questions  to  be  put  had  been 
minutely  fixed  by  the  Rabbis,  and  were  as  formally  and 
minutely  answered  in  appointed  words,  the  whole  story  of  the 
deliverance  from  Egypt  being  thus  repeated,  year  after  year, 
a*  every  Passover  table,  in  the  very  same  terms,  throughout 
all  Israel.1* 

The  first  part  of  the  great  Hallelujah — Psalms  cxiii.  and 
cxiv. — was  now  chanted,  and  was  followed  by  a  prayer 
beginning,  "  Blessed  art  Thou,  0  Lord  our  God,  King  of  the 
universe,  who  hast  redeemed  us  and  our  forefathers  from 
Egypt."  A  third  cup  was  now  poured  out,  and  then  came 
the  grace  after  meals.  A  fourth  and  last  cup  followed,  and 
then  Psalms  cxv.,  cxvi.,  cxvii.,  and  cxviii.,  which  formed  the 
rest  of  the  Hallelujah,  and  another  prayer,  closed  the  feast. 

At  midnight  the  gates  of  the  Temple  were  once  more 
opened,  and  the  people,  who  seldom  slept  that  night,  poured 
through  them,  in  their  holiday  dress,  with  thank-offerings, 
in  obedience  to  the  command  that  none  should  appear  before 
the  Lord  empty.3  Of  these  gifts  the  priests  took  their  right- 
ful share,  and  gave  back  the  rest  to  the  offerers,  who  had 
it  cooked  for  them  in  the  Court  of  the  Women,  and  sat 
down  to  a  second  feast  in  the  Temple  cloisters,  or  in  some 
part  of  the  town,  within  the  limits  of  which  alone  it  was 
lawful  to  eat  such  food. 

The  whole  week  was  full  of  interest.  The  15th  was  kept 
like  a  Sabbath.4  It  was  one  of  the  six  days  of  the  year  on 
which  the  Law  prohibited  all  servile  work.  Only  what  was 
necessary  for  daily  life  might  be  done.  It  was  a  day  for 
rest,  and  for  the  presentation  of  freewill  offerings  in  the 
Temple. 

It  was  on  the  third  day  that  the  first-fruits  of  the  harvest 
were  brought  from  the  Kidron  valley  to  the  Temple,  to  be 
waved  before  God  in  solemn  acknowledgment  of  His  bounty 
in  giving  the  kindly  fruits  of  the  earth.  This  incident  Jesus, 
doubtless,  saw.  He  would  notice,  besides,  how  the  sheaf  had 
no  sooner  been  offered  than  the  streets  were  filled  with  sellers 
of  bread  made  of  new  barley,  parched  ears  of  the  young 

1  Matt.  xxvi.  23.     John  xiii.  26.  •  Exod.  xii.  26.    Dent,  xxxii.  7. 

1  Exod.  xxiii.  15.  *  Ej.od.  xii.  16.    Lev.  xxiii.  7.    Num.  xxviii.  18. 


203  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

crop,  and  early  growths  and  fruits  of  all  kinds,  which  had 
been  kept  Lack  till  then. 

From  the  17th  to  the  20th  the  days  were  only  half  holy, 
and  many  of  the  people  had  already  begun  to  leave  Jerusa- 
lem. Crowds  still  remained,  however,  to  enjoy  the  great 
holiday  time  of  the  year,  and  the  days  and  even  the  nights, 
with  their  bright  moon,  went  merrily  by. 

The  last  day,  the  21st,  like  the  first,  was  kept  as  a 
Sabbath.  Only  necessary  work  was  permitted,  and  it  closed 
with  a  rehearsal  of  the  Passover  supper,  for  the  sake  of  those 
who  could  not  come  up  on  the  first  great  day  of  the  feast.0 

But  amidst  all  the  sights  and  wonders  of  the  week  one 
specially  interested  Jesus.  His  heart  was  already  set 
supremely  on  "  His  Father's  house,"  l  the  Temple.  Can  we 
doubt  that,  with  the  early  habits  of  the  East,  He  found  time 
to  watch  its  daily  service  throughout  ? 

This  began,  in  reality,  the  night  before.  The  priests  re- 
quired for  the  services  of  the  next  day,  or  to  watch  through 
the  night,  assembled  in  the  evening  in  the  great  Fire  Chamber. 
The  keys  of  the  Temple,  and  of  the  inner  forecourts,  were 
then  handed  them  by  their  brethren  whom  they  relieved, 
and  hidden  below  the  marble  floor.  The  Levites  on  watch 
through  the  night,  or  to  serve  next  day,  also  received  the 
keys  of  the  outer  forecourts  from  their  brethren  whose  duties 
were  over.  Besides  these,  twenty-four  representatives  of  the 
people,  on  duty, — men  delegated  by  the  nation  to  represent 
it, — at  the  daily  sacrifices,  were  also  present.d 

As  the  morning  service  began  very  early,  everything  was 
put  in  train  beforehand.  Ninety -three  vessels  and  instru- 
ments needed  for  it  were  received  from  the  retiring  Levites, 
and  carried  to  a  silver  table  on  the  south  of  the  Great  Altar, 
to  be  ready.  The  gates  of  the  Temple  building  itself,  and  of 
the  inner  forecourts,  were  locked  up  for  the  night,  the  key 
once  more  put  in  its  place,  the  priest  who  had  charge  of  it 
kissing  the  marble  slab  as  he  replaced  it,  and  lying  down  to 
sleep  over  it  through  the  night.  The  gates  of  the  outer 
forecourts  were  now  also  shut,  and  the  watches  of  priests 
and  Levites  set  for  the  night,  But  the  Temple  was  too 
sacred  to  be  entrusted  to  them  alone ;  the  Representatives 
slept  in  it  on  behalf  of  the  people  ;  besides  some  ecclesiastical 
dignitaries,  deputed  by  the  authorities,  and  one  of  the  higher 
priests,  who  was  to  preside  over  the  lots  for  daily  offices  next 
morning. 

1  Luke  ii.  49. 


DAILY   TEMPLE   SEEVICB.  209 

Towards  dawn,  the  captain  of  the  watch  and  some  priests 
rose,  took  the  keys,  and  passing  into  the  inner  forecourt, 
preceded  by  torch-bearers,  divided  into  two  bands,  which 
went  round  the  Temple  courts,  to  see  that  all  was  safe,  and 
every  vessel  in  its  right  place. 

Meanwhile,  the  other  priests  had  risen,  bathed,  and  put  on 
their  white  robes.  The  duties  of  each  for  the  day  were  fixed 
by  lot  each  morning,  to  prevent  the  unseemly  quarrels, 
resulting  even  in  bloodshed,  which  had  formerly  risen.1 
Assembling  in  a  specia^  chamber,  all  stood  in  a  circle,  and 
the  lot  was  taken  by  counting  a  given  number  from  any  part 
of  the  ring,  the  choice  remaining  with  him  whose  place  made 
up  the  figure.  Meanwhile,  the  Levites  and  Representatives 
waited  the  summons  to  gather.  The  priests  for  the  day  now 
once  more  washed  their  hands  and  feet  in  a  brazen  laver, 
which,  itself,  had  been  kept  all  night  in  water,  for  fear  of  its 
being  defiled.  The  feet  were  left  bare  while  the  priests  were 
on  duty. 

All  the  gates  were  presently  opened  by  the  Levites,  and 
the  priests  blew  thrice  on  their  trumpets  to  announce  to  the 
whole  city  that  the  worship  of  the  day  would  soon  begin. 
The  Great  Altar  was  forthwith  cleansed  by  priests  to  whose 
lot  this  duty  had  fallen.  The  singers  and  musicians  of  the 
day,  and  the  priests  to  blow  the  trumpets  at  the  morning 
sacrifice,  were  set  apart ;  the  instruments  brought ;  the 
night-watchers  dismissed,  and  then  the  day's  service  had 
begun.  All  this  took  place  by  torchlight,  before  dawn. 

The  morning  sacrifice  could  not  be  slain  before  the  distinct 
appearance  of  the  morning  light.  A  watcher,  therefore, 
standing  on  the  roof  of  the  Temple,  looked  out  for  the  first 
glimpse  of  Hebron,  far  off,  on  the  hills,  as  the  sign  of  morning 
having  come.  When  it  was  visible,  the  summons  was  given 
— "  Priests,  to  your  ministry '  Levites,  to  your  places ! 
Israelites,  take  your  stations  !  "  The  priests  then  once  more 
washed  their  feet  and  hands,  and  the  service  finally  began. 

Entering  first  the  Temple,  and  then  the  Holy  Place,  with 
lowly  reverence,  a  priest  now,  after  prayer,  cleansed  the 
altar  of  incense,  gathered  the  ashes  in  his  hands,  and  went 
out  slowly,  backwards.  Another,  meanwhile,  had  laid  wood 
on  the  Great  Altar,  and  a  third  brought  to  the  north  side 
of  the  altar,  a  year-old  lamb,  selected  four  days  before, 
from  the  pen  in  the  Temple.  The  Representatives  having 

1  Cohen,  p.  172. 
15 


210  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

laid  their  hands  on  its  head,  it  was  slaughtered  with  the  head 
to  the  west  side  of  the  Temple,  and  the  blood  caught  in  a 
bowl,  and  stirred  continually,  to  prevent  its  curdling  and 
becoming  unfit  for  sprinkling. 

The  incense  offering  was  now  kindled.  At  the  tinkling  of 
a  bell,  the  people  in  the  inner  forecourt  began  to  pray,  and 
the  priests  whose  lot  it  was  entered  the  Holy  Place.  The 
first  brought  out  the  censer  last  used,  praying  and  walking 
backward  as  he  retired.  The  blood  of  the  lamb  was  sprinkled 
on  the  four  sides  of  the  Great  Altar  as  soon  as  he  reappeared. 

A  second  priest  having  now  extinguished  five  of  the  seven 
lamps  of  the  golden  candlestick  in  the  Holy  Place,  a  third 
took  in  a  glowing  censer  and  laid  it  on  the  altar,  prayed, 
and  retired  backwards.  A  fourth  now  went  in,  handed  the 
censer  to  an  assistant  who  followed,  shook  incense  on  the 
coals,  prayed,  and  retired.  The  two  remaining  lights  were 
then  extinguished,  and  the  offering  ended. 

The  skin  was  now  stripped  from  the  slain  lamb,  the  bowels 
taken  out  and  washed,  the  body  cut  in  pieces,  laid  on  a 
marble  table,  and  salted.  The  food  or  meat-offering  of  meal, 
mixed  with  oil,  and  strewed  with  incense,  was  then  prepared, 
and  a  fixed  measure  of  wine  poured  into  a  costly  cup  for  the 
drink-offering.  It  was  now  sunrise. 

As  the  sun  rose,  the  nine  pieces  of  the  sacrifice  were  lifted 
by  nine  priests,  and  carried  to  the  Great  Altar,  in  order — 
laid  on  it  and  consumed — the  other  priests  and  the  people 
repeating  morning  prayer.  The  meat-offering  was  then  laid 
on  the  altar,  salt  and  incense  added,  and  then  a  handful  of  it 
was  thrown  on  the  altar  fire,  the  rest  falling  to  the  priest  as 
his  perquisite.  Twelve  cakes,  the  bread- offering  of  the  high 
priest,  were  next  burned,  after  being  strewn  with  salt.  Every 
detail  had  occupied  a  separate  priest,  and  now  another  poured 
the  wine  of  the  drink-offering  into  a  silver  funnel  in  the  altar, 
through  which  it  ran  into  a  conduit  underneath. 

The  morning  sacrifice  was  now  over.  Forthwith  two 
priests  sounded  their  trumpets  nine  times,  and  twelve 
Levites,  standing  on-  a  raised  platform  in  the  Court  of  tbo 
Priests,  recited  the  psalms  of  the  day  to  the  music  of  their 
instruments,  and  then  came  the  ancient  priestly  benediction 
— -"  The  Lord  bless  thee  and  keep  thee  ;  the  Lord  make  His 
face  shine  upon  thee,  and  be  gracious  unto  thee;  the  Lord 
liit  tip  His  countenance  upon  thee,  and  grant  thee  peace."  l 

1  Num.  vi.  21-26. 


JEEUSALEM  IN   THE   DATS   OF   CHEIST.  211 

Voluntary  offerings,  and  those  required  on  special  grounds, 
occupied  the  priests,  for  a  time,  after  the  morning  sacrifice. 
At  three  in  the  afternoon  the  evening  sacrifice  and  incenso 
offering  presented  the  same  details,  the  victim  being  left  on 
the  altar  to  burn  away  through  the  night.  At  sunset  the 
Sch'ma  was  read  again,  and  the  evening  prayer  offered ; 
the  seven  lamps  in  the  Holy  Place  again  kindled  and  left 
to  burn  till  morning,  and  all  the  vessels  cleaned  by  the 
Levites,  and  made  ready  for  next  day. 

This  daily  service  was  no  doubt  watched  by  the  child 
Jesus,  who  now,  for  the  first  time,  saw  the  priests  in  His 
Father's  house  at  their  ministrations.  But  the  city  itself 
would  be  sure  to  arrest  His  notice.  At  early  dawn  he  would 
hear  the  trumpets  of  the  Roman  garrison  in  Antonia,  and 
see  the  booths  open  shortly  after,  on  the  Mount  of  Olives. 
Three  trumpet  blasts  from  the  Temple  had  already  waked 
the  slumbering  citizens  and  pilgrims,  and  the  first  beams 
of  the  sun  had  announced  the  hour  of  morning  prayer. 
The  streets  had  already  filled  in  the  twilight,  for  the  Oriental, 
in  all  ages,  has  been  an  early  riser.  Sheep  and  cattle 
dealers,  and  money-changers,  were  hurrying  to  the  Court  of 
the  Heathen.  Worshippers  were  thronging  across  the 
Xystus  bridge  from  the  Upper  City  to  the  Temple,  and 
through  the  Market  gate,  from  the  Lower  Town,  along  all 
the  streets.  The  countless  synagogues  were  open  for  morn- 
ing service.  Men  wearing  the  Greek  dress,  and  speaking 
Greek,  had  gathered  in  some,  and  other  nationalities  in 
others. 

With  the  first  sight  of  the  risen  sun  every  one  bowed  his 
head  in  prayer,  wherever  at  the  moment  he  might  be. 
Yonder  a  Pharisee,  who  has  purposely  let  the  hour  overtake 
him,  in  the  street,  suddenly  stops,  and  puts  his  Tephillin,1 
broader  and  larger  than  common,  on  his  forehead  and  arm. 
The  olive -gatherer,  with  his  basket,  prays  where  he  is,  in  the 
tree.  Pilgrims  and  citizens  are  alike  bent  in  prayer. 

It  was  an  uneasy  time  when  Jesus  first  visited  Jerusalem. 
Archelaus  had  been  banished  two  years  before,  and  tho 
hateful  race  of  the  Edomites  no  longer  reigned  in  the  palace 
on  Zion,  but  the  hopes  built  on  the  change  to  direct  govern- 
ment by  a  Roman  Procurator  had  not  been  fulfilled.  Judea 
was  uow  only  a  part  of  the  Roman  province,  and  the  first 
act  of  the  direct  imperial  rule  had  been  to  make  a  census  of 

1  Matt,  xxiii.  5. 


212  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

the  whole  country  for  heathen  taxes.  Galilee  and  Judea, 
alike,  had  been  in  wild  insurrection,  which  had  been 
quenched  in  blood.  Men  spoke  with  bated  breath,  but  were 
at  one  in  deadly  hatred  of  the  foreigner,  and  in  the  yearning 
hope  that  the  Messiah  might  soon  appear  to  drive  him  out. 

The  great  bazaar  in  the  Lower  Xew  Town  was  early  full 
of  bustle.  It  was  a  long  street,  crowded  with  stalls,  booths, 
and  shops.  Fine  bread  of  the  wheat  of  Ephraim  was  soli 
after  the  second  day  of  the  feast.  Cakes  of  figs  and  raisins  ; 
fish  of  different  kinds  from  the  Sea  of  Tiberias  ;  wood-work 
of  all  kinds,  filled  the  open  stalls.  Dibs — the  syrup  of 
grapes — had  many  sellers,  and  there  were  booths  for 
Egyptian  lentiles,  and  even  for  cinnamon  and  pepper. 
Mechanics  plied  their  trades  in  the  streets,  too  busy  to  rise 
even  when  a  great  Rabbi  passed.  In  the  side  streets  trades 
of  every  kind  filled  the  roadway.  Potters  were  busy  in  their 
sheds  ;  fruiterers  offered  choice  Jerusalem  figs  from  gardens 
made  rich  with  the  blood  of  the  sacrifices ;  flax-beaters 
pounded  their  flax  in  the  streets.  The  numbers  of  passing 
priests  showed  that  Jerusalem  was  the  Holy  City.  Levites, 
with  their  peculiar  head-dress,  and  an  outside  pocket  con- 
taining a  small  roll  of  the  Law ;  Pharisees,  with  broad 
phylacteries  and  great  fringes  ;  Essenes  in  white,  with  the 
air  of  old  prophets ;  gorgeous  officials  of  the  governor's 
court,  at  present  in  the  city — pilgrims  in  the  costume  of 
every  land,  and  speaking  a  babel  of  languages — passed  and 
repassed  in  endless  variety.1 

The  people  of  Jerusalem  might  well  value  the  feasts,  for 
they  lived  by  the  vast  numbers  of  pilgrims.  The  money 
spent  by  individuals,  though  little  compared  to  the  wealth 
which  flowed  yearly  into  the  Temple  treasury,  from  the 
whole  Dispersion,  was  great  in  the  aggregate.  The  gifts  in 
money  to  the  Temple  might  in  part  remain  there ;  but  doves, 
lambs,  and  oxen  were  needed  for  sacrifices,  wood  for  the  altar, 
and  all  liked  to  carry  home  memorials  of  Jerusalem.  The 
countless  priests  and  Levites,  and  officials  connected  with  the 
Temple,  caused  a  great  circulation  of  money,  and  the  building 
itself,  and  the  requirements  of  its  worship,  involved  constant 
expenditure.  We  need  not,  therefore,  wonder  that  Jerusalem 
was  wildly  fanatical  in  its  zeal  Jior  the  Holy  Place.  It  was 
bound  to  it  not  less  by  self-interest  than  by  religious  bigotry. 

Jerusalem,    though   by   no   means   large,   was   the   head- 

1  See  Pelitzscli,  Handwerkcrlcbtn  jasFim. 


JEEUSALEM  AS  A  EELIGIOUS   CENTEE.  213 

quarters  of  the  great  religious  institutions,  as  the  capital  of 
the  theocracy.  Countless  scribes,  rulers,  presbyters,  scholars, 
readers,  and  servants  were  connected-  with  its  schools  and 
synagogues.  It  was  the  seat  of  all  the  famous  teachers  of 
the  Law,  the  focus  of  controversy,  the  university  town  of  the 
Rabbis,  the  battle-ground  of  religious  parties, — the  capital  of 
the  Jewish  nation,  in  short,  in  a  measure  only  possible  from 
its  having  in  its  midst  the  one  Temple  of  the  race.  It  was 
the  .Delphi  and  Olympia  of  Israel,  and  how  much  more!* 
Such  a  city,  at  such  a  time,  must  have  made  lasting  impres- 
sions on  the  boy  Jesus.  But  His  heart  was  set  supremely 
on  higher  things  than  the  merely  outward  and  earthly. 
From  His  earliest  years  His  mother's  faith  in  the  mysterious 
words  spoken  by  saints  and  angels  respecting  Him,  even 
before  His  birth,  must  have  shown  itself  in  a  thousand  ways 
in  her  intercourse  with  Him,  and  have  kindled  wonderful 
thoughts  in  His  boyish  mind.1  We  cannot  conceive  the 
relations  of  His  divine  nature  to  the  human,  but  it  must  be 
safe  to  follow  the  Gospels  in  their  picture  of  Him  as  maturing 
year  by  year,  from  the  simplicity  of  the  child  to  the  wisdom 
and  strength  of  riper  years. 

Physical  and  intellectual  ripeness  come  early  in  the  East. 
David,  Herod,  Hyrcanus,  and  Josephus  showed,  even  in  boy- 
hood, traits  which  in  more  backward  climates  mark  much 
later  years.2  Josephus  tells  us  that  numbers  of  Jewish  boys 
put  to  torture  in  Egypt,  under  Vespasian,  after  the  fall  of 
Masada,  bore  unflinchingly  the  utmost  that  could  be  inflicted 
on  them,  rather  than  own  Caesar  as  their  lord,3  and  even  in 
our  own  day  children  in  Palestine  are  so  early  matured  that 
marriages  of  boys  of  thirteen  and  girls  of  eleven  are  not 
unknown.4  Philo,  in  Christ's  day,  notes  different  ages 
strangely  enough  to  our  ideas.  "  At  seven,"  he  says,  "  a  man 
is  a  logician  and  grammarian  ;  at  fourteen  mature,  because 
aole  to  be  the  father  of  a  being  like  himself ;  while,  at 
twenty-one,  growth  and  bloom  are  over."  5  "A  son  of  five 
yea,rs,"  says  Juda  Ben  Tema,  "  is  to  read  the  Scriptures,  one 
of  ten  to  give  himself  to  the  Mischna,  of  thirteen  to  the 
Commandments,  of  fifteen  to  the  Talmud,  of  eighteen  to 
damage."6 


1  See  Vaihinger  in  Hrrzog,  vol.  x.  p.  41. 

2  Ant.,  xv.  10.  5 ;  xii.  4.  6.     Vit.,  2.  Bell.  Jud.,  vii.  10.  1. 
4  Burckhardt,  '/ravels,  p.  570.     Winer,  Art.  Ehc. 

•  Philo,  Leg.  Alley.,  xlii.  1.  •  Pirk.  Aloth.,  v.  21. 


214  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST.. 

The  Rabbis,  perhaps  from  the  tradition  that  Moses  left  hig 
father's  house  when  twelve  years  old,1  that  Samuel  had 
begun  to  prophesy  when  he  had  finished  his  twelfth  year,2 
and  that  Solomon  had  delivered  some  of  his  famous  judg- 
ments when  as  young,3  had  already  in  Christ's  day  fixed  that 
age  as  the  close  of  boyhood  and  the  opening  of  a  manlier 
life.  "After  the  completion  of  the  twelfth  year,"  says  the 
Talmud,  "  a  boy  is  to  be  considered  a  youth,4  and  is  to  keep 
the  fast  on  the  Day  of  Atonement.5  Till  he  is  thirteen  his 
religious  duties  are  to  be  performed  for  him  by  his  father, 
but  on  his  thirteenth  birthday  the  parent  is  no  longer 
answerable  for  his  son's  sins."6* 

Jesus,  who  had  ended  His  twelfth  year  when  taken  up  to 
the  Passover,  was  thus  already  a  "  Son  of  the  Law,"  and,  as 
such,  required  to  perform  all  religious  duties.  The  Tephillin 
or  phylacteries  had,  doubtless,  as  was  usual,  been  put  on  Him 
.  publicly  in  the  synagogue  of  Nazareth,  to  mark  the  transition 
from  boyhood,  to  remind  Him  that  He  was  henceforth  to 
wear  them,  to  keep  the  fasts,  to  follow  the  laws  of  the  Rabbis, 
and  to  think  seriously  of  His  future  calling  in  life.7  He 
would  be  much  freer  therefore,  to  go  where  He  liked,  without 
supervision,  than  a  boy  of  the  same  age  with  us,  and  hence 
all  Jerusalem,  with  its  thousand  wonders,  lay  before  Him,  to 
study  as  He  chose. 

The  week  of  the  feast  ended,  Joseph  and  Mary  turned 
their  faces  towards  home.  The  confusion  and  bustle  around 
must  have  been  indescribable.  Any  one  who  has  seen  the 
motley  crowds  of  Easter  pilgrims  returning  from  the  Jordan 
at  the  present  day  may  have  some  faint  idea  of  the  scene. 
The  start  is  always  made  at  night,  to  escape  the  great  heat 
of  the  day,  and  in  the  darkness,  lighted  only  by  torches,  it 
needs  care  not  to  be  trampled  under  foot.  At  narrow  or 
difficult  parts  of  the  road  the  noise  and  confusion  are  be- 
wildering— women  in  terror  of  being  trampled  down  by  a 
long  file  of  camels,  tied  one  behind  another ;  parents  calling 
for  lost  children ;  friends  shouting  for  friends ;  muleteers 
and  ass  drivers  beating  and  cursing  their  beasts ;  the  whole 
\vedged  into  a  moving  mass,  all  alike  excited. 

As  the  distance  from  Jerusalem  increased,  and  different 

1  Talmud;  quoted  in  Nork,  p.  131.  2  Jos.,  Ant.,  v.  10.  4. 

»  Lightfoot,  HOT.  Heb.,  vol.  iii.  p.  43. 

1  Berachoth,  fol.  24.  col.  1  in  Nork's  Rallinisclie  QitfUm,  p.  131. 
*  Joma,  fol.  82,  col.  1.  6  Bereshith  Rabba,  fol.  63. 

7  Talmud;  quoted  in  Lightfoot,  HOT.  Heb.,  vol.  iii.  p.  43. 


SCHOOLS   OF   THE   EABBIS.  215 

divisions  branched  off  to  different  roads,  danger  would  cease, 
and  the  scene  become  more  picturesque.  Veiled  women  and 
venerable  men  would  pass,  mounted  on  camels,  mules,  or 
perhaps  horses ;  younger  men  walking  alongside,  staff  in 
hand ;  children  playing  at  the  side  of  the  path  as  the  caval- 
cade slowly  advanced;  and  the  journey  ever  and  anon  be- 
guiled with  tabret  and  pipe.  Only  when  the  pilgrims  had 
thus  got  away  from  the  first  crowd,  would  it  be  possible  for 
each  group  to  know  if  all  its  members  were  safe. 

Among  many  others,  some  one  of  whose  family  had  for  the 
time  been  separated  from  them  in  the  confusion,  were  Joseph 
and  Mary.  On  reaching  their  first  night's  encampment  they 
discovered  that  the  boy  Jesus  was  not  in  the  caravan.  He 
had  likely  been  missed  earlier,  but  He  might  be  with  friends 
in  some  other  part  of  the  crowd.  After  seeking  diligently8 
for  Him,  however,  without  success,  they  were  greatly  alarmed. 
Amidst  such  vast  multitudes  He  might  be  lost  to  them  for 
ever. 

Nothing  was  left  but  to  return  to  Jerusalem,  which  they 
re-entered  on  the  evening  of  the  second  day.  But  they  could 
learn  nothing  of  Him  till  the  day  after,  when,  at  last,  they 
found  Him  in  one  of  the  schools  of  the  Rabbis,  held  in  the 
Temple  courts. 

These  schools  were  a  characteristic  of  the  times.  They 
were  open,  and  any  one  entering  might  answer  or  propose  a 
question.11  The  Rabbi  sat  on  a  high  seat ;  his  scholars  on 
the  ground,  at  his  feet,  in  half-circles :  their  one  study  the 
Law,  with  its  Rabbinical  comments. 

In  the  school  in  which  Jesus  was  found,  a  number  of 
Rabbis  l  were  present,  perhaps  because  it  was  the  Passover 
season.  The  gentle  Hillel — the  Looser — was  perhaps  still 
alive,  and  may  possibly  have  been  among  them.  The  harsh 
and  strict  Shammai — the  Binder — his  old  rival,  had  been 
long  dead.1  Hillel's  son,  Rabban  Simeon,  and  even  his 
greater  grandson,  Gamaliel,  the  future  teacher  of  St.  Paul, 
may  have  been  of  the  number,  though  Gamaliel  would,  then, 
like  Jesus,  be  only  a  boy.  Hanan,  or  Annas,  son  of  Seth, 
had  been  just  appointed  2  high  priest,  but  did  not  likely  see 
Him,  as  a  boy,  whom  he  was  afterwards  to  crucify.  Apait 
from  the  bitter  hostility  between  the  priests  and  the  Rabbis, 
he  would  be  too  busy  with  his  monopoly  of  doves  for  the 
Temple,  to  care  for  the  discussions  of  the  schools,  for  he 

1  Luke  ii.  46.  *  A.D.  7. 


216  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

owned  the  shops  for  doves  on  Mount  Olivet,  and  sold  them 
for  a  piece  of  gold,  though  the  Law  had  chosen  them1  as 
offerings  suited  for  the  poorest  from  their  commonness  and 
cheapness. 

Among  the  famous  men,  then,  apparently,  living  in  Jeru- 
salem, was  Rabbi  Jochanan  Ben  Zacchai,  afterwards  reputed 
a  prophet,  from  his  once  crying  out — when  the  Temple  gate 
opened  of  itself — "  Temple,  Temple,  why  do  you  frighten  us  ? 
We  know  that  thou  will  shortly  be  destroyed,  for  its  says — 
'  Open,  Lebanon,  thy  gates,  and  let  fire  devour  thy  cedars.'  "2 
Jonathan  Ben  Uzziel,  the  Targumist,  revered  by  his  nation ; 
Rabbi  Ben  Buta,  who,  though  of  Shammai's  school,  was 
almost  as  mild  as  Hillel,  and,  like  him,  had  a  great  reputation 
for  Rabbinical  sanctity;  now  blind  these  many  years,  for 
Herod  had  put  out  his  eyes  ;  Dosithai  of  Jethma,  a  zealous 
opponent  of  Herod ;  Zadok,  who  had  taken  part  in  the  rising 
of  Judas  the  Gaulonite ;  Boethos,  father  of  one  of  Herod's 
wives — the  second  Mariamne — 3  once  high  priest,  and  now  the 
head  of  the  courtly  Herodian  and  Roman  party  ;  Nicodemus, 
who  afterwards  came  to  Jesus  by  night,  and  the  rich  Joseph 
of  Arimathea, — in  a  grave  given  by  whom  Jesus  was  after- 
wards to  lie,  were  all  apparently,  then  alive.4  But  we  can 
only  conjecture  in  whose  presence  Jesus  sat,  for  dates  are 
sadly  wanting.  One  picture  alone  survives  in  Scripture,  of 
Hebrew  boyhood  in  its  noblest  beauty — that  of  David,  with 
his  lustrous  eyes,  auburn  hair,  and  lovely  features.5  It  is  no 
great  stretch  of  fancy  to  believe  that  He  who  was  at  once 
David's  heir  and  his  lord — the  Son  of  David  in  a  sense  higher 
than  man  had  dreamed — realized  the  name  not  less  in  His 
personal  beauty  than  in  other  respects.  The  passion  of  His 
soul — to  learn  more  of  His  Father's  business*1 — had  led  Him 
naturally  to  the  famed  schools  in  His  Father's  house,  where 
the  wisest  and  most  learned  of  His  nation  made  the  holy 
books,  in  which  that  Father's  will  was  revealed,  their  lifelong 
study.  The  mystery  of  His  own  nature  and  of  His  relations  to 
His  Father  in  Heaven  was  dawning  on  Him  more  and  more. 
His  mother's  words,  from  time  to  time,  had  daily  a  deeper 
nnd  more  wondrous  significance,  and  His  sinless  spirit  lived 
in  ever  growing  communion  with  unseen  and  eternal  re« 

1  Derenbourg,  p.  468. 

*  Quoted  from  the  Talmud  in  Delit?scb,  Durch  Krankheit* 

*  Ant.,  xv.  9.  3.     Bell.  Jud.,  i.  28.  4. 

4  llicott's  Lectures  on  the  Life  of  Chritt,  p.  92. 
6  Sam.  xvi.  11 ;  xvii.  42. 


CHEIST  IN   THE   TEMPLE.  21? 

alities.  He  tad  naturally,  therefore,  sought  those  who  could 
open  for  Him.  the  fountains  of  Heavenly  wisdom  for  which 
His  whole  being  panted,  and  was  the  keenest  listener,  and  the 
most  eager  in  His  questions,  of  all  the  group  seated  at  their 
feet.  The  days  would  come  when  no  further  growth  was 
possible,  and  then  He  would  sit  in  the  courts  of  the  same 
Temple,  as  a  teacher  who  needed  no  human  help.  As  yet, 
however,  He  could  not  honour  His  Father  more  than  by  seek- 
ing, as  a  child,  to  know  His  holy  Word  from  its  accredited 
expounders.1  Enthusiasm  so  pure  and  lofty  in  one  so  young, 
lighting  up  the  beauty  of  such  eyes  and  features,  may  well 
have  filled  the  heart  of  the  gravest  Rabbi  with  wonder  and 
delight. 

In  this  school  of  the  Rabbis  Mary  and  Joseph  found  Him, 
sitting  on  the  ground,  with  others,  at  the  feet  of  the  half- 
circle  of  "  doctors,"  His  whole  soul  so  absorbed  in  the  Law 
and  the  Prophets  that  He  had  forgotten  all  other  thoughts : 
His  family  circle — the  flight  of  time.  It  was  no  wonder  to 
find  Him  in  such  a  place,  for  as  "  a  Son  of  the  Law  "  it  was 
only  what  a  Jew  expected,  but  it  might  well  amaze  them 
that  He  had  been  so  engrossed  with  such  matters  as  to  be 
still  there,  after  the  feast  was  over,  and  not  only  Mary  and 
Joseph,  but  the  great  throng  of  pilgrims,  had  left  for  home. 
As  befitted  her  higher  relationship,  and  with  the  greater 
zeal  natural  to  a  mother's  love  in  such  a  case,  she,  not 
Joseph,  spoke.  "  Son,"  said  she,  "  why  hast  Thou  thus  dealt 
with  us  ?  Behold,  Thy  father  and  I  have  sought  Thee  sor- 
rowing." It  seemed  so  strange  that  one  so  gentle,  docile,  and 
loving,  who  had  never  given  them  an  anxious  thought  by  any 
childish  frowardness,  should  cause  them  such  pain  and  alarm. 
The  answer,  gentle  and  lofty,  must  have  fallen  on  Mary's 
heart  as  a  soft  rebuke,  though  she  could  not  understand  its 
fulness  of  meaning  :  "  How  is  it  that  ye  sought  Me  ?  There 
was  no  place  where  I  could  so  surely  be  as  in  My  Father's 
house — there  were  no  matters  which  could  so  rightfully  fill 
My  thoughts  as  His?  "  Her  Son  was  outgrowing  His  child- 
hood :  the  light  of  a  higher  world  was  breaking  in  on  His 
soul ;  the  claims  of  the  home  of  Nazareth  were  fading  before 
others  infinitely  greater  and  holier. 

A  sinless  childhood  had  made  the  past  a  long  dream  of 
peace  and  love  in  the  home  at  Nazareth,  and  this  only 
deepened  as  the  simplicity  of  early  years  passed  into  the  ripe- 
ness of  a  perfect  manhood.  Though  He  must  have  felt  the 
growing  distance  between  Himself  and  Joseph,  or  even  Mary : 


218  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

their  weakness  and  His  own  strength ;  their  simplicity  and 
His  own  wisdom ;  their  frail  humanity,  touched  by  daily  sin. 
and  His  own  pure  and  sinless  nature,  He  remained  subject  to 
them,  as  if  only  like  others.  If  ever  there  was  a  son  who 
might  have  been  expected  to  claim  independence  it  was  He, 
and  yet,  to  sanctify  and  enforce  filial  obedience  for  ever,  He 
lived  on,  under  their  humble  roof,  exemplary  in  the  implicit 
and  far-reaching  obedience  of  a  Jewish  youth  to  his  parents.1" 


CHAPTER  XVI. 
EABLY  YEABS. 

FOR  nearly  eighteen  years  after  the  Passover  visit  to 
Jerusalem,  a  deep  obscurity  rests  over  the  life  of  Jesus. 
Like  His  cousin  John,  or  the  shepherd  Moses,  or  the  youthful 
David,  He  came  before  the  world  at  last,  only  after  a  long 
and  humble  seclusion.  The  quiet  valley  and  hills  of  Nazareth 
paw  Him  gradually  ripen  into  youth  and  manhood — as  son, 
brother,  citizen,  neighbour,  friend — like  others.1  There  was 
no  sudden  or  miraculous  disclosure  of  His  Divine  greatness. 
Like  the  grain  in  the  fields  beneath  His  early  home,  His 
growth  was  imperceptible.  The  white,  flat-roofed  houses  of 
to-day  are,  doubtless,  much  the  same  as  those  amidst  which 
He  played  as  a  child,  and  lived  as  a  man ;  vines  shading  the 
walls;  doves  sunning  themselves  on  the  flat  roofs;  the 
arrangements,  within,  as  simple,  as  they  are  unpretending, 
without.  A  few  mats  on  the  floor,  a  built  seat  running  along 
the  wall,  spread  with  some  modest  cushions  and  the  bright 
quilts  on  which  the  inmates  sleep  at  night,  and  serving  by 
day  as  shelf  for  the  few  dishes  in  common  use ;  a  painted 
chest  in  the  corner ;  some  large  clay  water  jars,  their  mouths 
filled,  perhaps,  with  sweet  herbs,  to  keep  the  contents  cool 
and  fresh ;  the  only  light  that  entering  by  the  open  door ;  a 
low,  round,  painted,  wooden  stool,  brought,  at  meals,  into 
the  middle  of  the  room,  to  hold  the  tray  and  dish,  round 
which  the  household  sit,  with  crossed  knees,  on  mats — supply 
the  picture  of  a  house  at  Nazareth  of  the  humbler  type.  It 
may  be  that  differences  in  details  were  found  in  early  times, 
for  many  of  the  houses  of  ancient  Chorazin  are  yet  tolerably 
perfect,  and  show  some  variations  from  present  dwellings. 
Generally  square,  they  ranged  downwards  in  size,  from  about 
30  feet  each  way,  and  had  one  or  two  columns  in  the  centre, 
to  support  the  flat  roof.  The  walls,  which  are  still,  in  some 
cases,  six  feet  high,  and  about  two  feet  thick,  were  built  of 

1  Luke  ii.  52. 


220  THE   LIFE    OF   CHRIST. 

masonry  or  of  loose  blocks  of  "basalt,  Choi-azin  being  on  the 
volcanic  edge  of  the  Sea  of  Galilee,  and  not,  like  Nazareth, 
on  limestone  hills.  A  low  doorway  opened  in  the  centre  of 
one  of  the  walls,  and  each  house  had  windows  a  foot  high 
and  about  six  inches  broad.  But,  like  the  houses  of  to-day, 
most  had  only  one  chamber,  though  some  were  divided  into 
four.1 

In  the  shelter  of  some  such  home,  in  one  of  the  narrow, 
stony  streets  of  Nazareth,  Jesus  grew  up.  On  the  hill-sides, 
in  the  little  crossways  between  the  houses,  in  the  rude 
gardens,  in  the  fields  below  the  town,  beside  the  bounteous 
fountain  outside  the  houses,  near  the  road — from  which  the 
village  mothers  and  daughters  still  bear  the  water  for  their 
households — He  was  a  child  among  other  children.  As  He 
grew,  year  by  year,  His  great  eyes  would  shine  with  a  spiri- 
tual brightness,  and  His  mind  would  be  filled  with  strange 
loneliness  that  would  separate  Him  from  most.  He  must, 
inevitably,  have,  early,  seemed  as  if  raised  above  everything 
earthly,  and  no  impure  word  or  thought  would  appear  befit- 
ting in  His  presence.  As  a  growing  lad,  He  would  already 
feel  the  isolation  which,  in  His  later  years,  became  so  extreme, 
for  how  could  sinlessness  be  at  home  with  sin  and  weakness  ? 
He  would  seek  the  society  of  the  elders  rather  than  of  the 
young,  and,  while  devoted  to  Joseph,  would  be  altogether  so 
to  His  mother.  The  habits  of  His  later  life  let  us  imagine 
that,  even  in  His  youth,  He  often  withdrew  to  the  loneliest 
retreats  in  the  mountains  and  valleys  round,  and  we  may 
fancy  that  Mary,  knowing  His  ways,  would  cease,  after  a 
time,  to  wonder  where  He  was.2  One  height,  we  may  be 
sure,  was  often  visited :  the  mountain-top  above  the  village, 
from  which  His  eye  could  wander  over  the  wondrous  land- 
scape. 

The  Passover,  though  the  greatest  religious  solemnity  of 
the  year,  was  only  one  in  a  continually  recurring  series. 
Four  times  each  year,  in  July,  October,  January,  and  March, 
different  events  in  the  national  history  would  be  more  or  less 
strictly  observed  in  the  Jewish  community  at  Nazareth. 
Special  fasts  were,  moreover,  ordered,  from  time  to  time,  in 
seasons  of  public  danger  or  distress.  These  days,  set  apart 
for  repentance  and  prayer,  excited  a  general  and  deep  re- 
ligious feeling.  At  all  times  striking,  they  sometimes,  in 

1  Recovery  of  Palestine,  p.  347. 

3  See  Delitzsch's  Durch  Krankhcit,  p.  155. 


THE   FEAST   OF   FIRST-FRUITS.  221 

exceptional  cases,  were  singularly  impressive.  On  special 
public  humiliations  all  the  people  covered  themselves  with 
sackcloth,  and  strewed  ashes  on  their  heads,  as  they  stood 
before  the  Reader's  desk,  brought  from  the  synagogue  into 
some  open  place,  and  similarly  draped  in  mourning.  Jesus 
must  have  seen  this,  and  how  ashes  were  put  on  the  heads  of 
the  local  judges  and  rulers  of  the  synagogue,  on  such  a  day, 
and  He  must  have  listened  to  the  Rabbi  calling  on  all  present 
k>  repent,  and  to  the  prayers  and  penitential  psalms  which 
followed,  and  to  the  trumpets l  wailing  at  the  close  of  each. 
He  may  have  gone  with  Joseph  and  all  the  congregation, 
when  the  service  ended,  to  the  burial-place  of  the  village  to 
lament. 

But  such  sadness  was  by  no  means  the  characteristic  of  the 
national  religion.  Fifty  days  after  the  Passover,  multitudes 
were  once  more  in  motion  towards  Jerusalem,  to  attend  the 
Feast  of  Weeks,  or  First- Fruits.  The  vast  numbers  present 
at  it  are  recorded  in  the  second  chapter  of  the  Acts.  It  was 
one  of  the  three  great  festivities  of  the  year,  and  there  can 
be  little  doubt  that  in  His  Nazareth  life  Jesus  and  the  house- 
hold of  Joseph,  as  a  whole,  took  part  in  so  great  and  universal 
a  rejoicing. 

The  intending  pilgrims  in  Nazareth  and  the  district  round 
met  in  the  town,  as  a  convenient  centre,  to  arrange  for  the 
journey.  As  before  the  Passover,  however,  no  one  slept  in 
any  house  immediately  before  starting,  all  going  out  into  the 
open  country  and  sleeping  somewhere  in  the  open  air,  lest  a 
death  might  happen  where  they  lodged,  and  defile  them,  so 
that  they  could  not  keep  the  feast.  They  had  to  be  in 
Jerusalem  before  the  6th  of  Siwan  (June),  on  which  and  the 
7th  the  feast  was  held,  and,  therefore,  set  off  some  days  before. 
The  early  harvest  was  mostly  over,  so  that  many  could  go. 
Wives,  unmarried  sisters,  and  children  accompanied  not  a 
few.  Flocks  of  sheep  and  oxen,  for  sacrifice  and  feasting, 
were  driven  gently  along  with  the  bands  of  pilgrims,  and 
strings  of  asses  and  camels,  laden  with  provisions  and  simple 
necessaries,  or  with  free-will  gifts  to  the  Temple,  or  bearing 
the  old  or  feeble,  lengthened  the  train.  Every  one  wore 
festal  clothes,  and  not  a  few  carried  garlands  and  wreaths  of 
flowers.  The  cool  banks  of  streams,  or  some  well,  offered 
resting-places  by  the  way,  and  the  pure  water,  with  melons, 
dates,  or  cucumbers,  sufficed  for  their  simple  food.  Different 

1  Jost,  vol.  i.  p.  185. 


222  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

bands  united  as  they  passed  fresh  towns  and  villages.  All 
were  roused,  each  morning,  with  the  cry,  "  Rise,  let  us  gu  up 
to  Zion,  to  the  Eternal,  our  God ! "  The  offerings  of  first- 
fruits — the  choicest  of  the  year — in  baskets  of  willows,  or 
even  of  gold  or  silver ;  doves  for  burnt- offerings,  with  their 
wings  bound,  and  the  ox,  intended  for  a  peace-offering, — its 
horns  gilded,  and  bound  with  wreaths  of  olive, — went  first. 
Flutes  forthwith  struck  up,  and  the  cavalcade  moved  on,  to 
the  chant,  "  I  was  glad  when  they  said  to  me,  We  shall  go 
into  the  house  of  the  Lord."  l  Similar  hymns  cheered  them 
ever  and  anon  on  each  day's  march.  When  within  sight  of 
Jerusalem,  all  was  enthusiasm.  Many  threw  themselves 
on  their  knees  in  devotion,  lifting  their  hands  to  heaven. 
Presently  all  burst  into  the  grand  ode,  "  Beautiful  for  situa- 
tion, the  joy  of  the  whole  earth  is  Mount  Zion,  on  the  sides 
of  the  North,  the  city  of  the  great  King  " — the  excitement 
culminating  in  the  climax — "  For  this  God  is  our  God  for 
ever  and  ever;  He  will  be  our  guide  even  unto  death."  A 
halt  was  now  made  to  get  everything  in  order.  All  arrayed 
themselves  to  the  best  advantage.  The  wheatsheaves  were 
wreathed  with  lilies  and  the  first-fruits  bedded  in  flowers,  and 
set  out  as  effectively  as  possible.  Each  company  unrolled  its 
banner,  bearing  the  name  of  the  town  or  village  from  which 
it  came.  When  near  the  city,  priests  in  their  white  robes 
came  out  to  meet  them,  accompanied  by  a  throng  of  citizens 
in  holiday  dress ;  and  as  they  entered  the  gates  they  sang 
aloud  to  the  accompaniment  of  flutes,  the  Psalm,  "I  was  glad 
when  they  said  to  me,  Let  us  go  into  the  house  of  the  Lord. 
Our  feet  shall  stand  within  thy  gates,  O  Jerusalem."2  The 
workmen  at  their  trades  in  the  streets,  or  at  their  doors,  rose 
in  honour  of  the  procession  as  it  passed,  with  the  greeting, 
"  Men  of  Nazareth  (or  elsewhere),  welcome  !  "  a  great  crowd 
as  they  advanced,  filling  the  air  with  gladness.  At  tho 
Temple  hill,  every  one,  rich  and  poor — for  all  shared  in  these 
processions — took  his  basket  on  his  shoulder  and  ascended  to 
tho  Court  of  the  Men,  where  the  Levites  met  them,  and  fell 
into  the  procession,  singing,  to  the  sound  of  their  instruments, 
the  Psalm,  beginning,  "  Hallelujah !  Praise  God  in  His 
sanctuary ;  praise  Him  in  the  firmament  of  His  power." 3 
'  I  thank  Thee,  0  Lord,  for  Thou  hast  heard  me,  and  hast 
not  let  mine  enemies  rejoice  over  me."4  The  doves  hanging 
from  the  baskets  were  now  handed  to  the  priests  for  burnt 

1  Ts.  cxxii.  1.  »  Ps.  cxxii.  2.  *  Ts.  cl.  4  Tri.  xli.  11. 


FEASTS   OF  TEUMPETS.  223 

offerings,  and  the  first-fruits  and  gifts  delivered,  with  the 
words  prescribed  by  Moses,  "  I  profess  this  day  unto  the 
Lord  thy  God  that  I  am  come  into  the  country  which  the 
Lord  sware  to  our  fathers  to  give  us.1  And  now,  behold,  I 
have  brought  the  first-fruits  of  the  land,  which  Thou,  O 
Lord,  hast  given  me."  The  pilgrims  then  left  the  Temple, 
followed  by  a  great  throng,  some  to  lodge  with  relations  ai.d 
friends,  others  with  some  of  the  many  hosts  inviting  them. 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that  Jesus  was  more  than  once 
a  spectator  of  such  rejoicings,  and  often  in  His  earlier  years 
saw  the  vast  encampments  of  pilgrims  from  every  part,  round 
the  city :  the  tents  spread  on  each  house-top  to  lodge  the 
overflowing  visitors ;  the  windows  and  doors  decked  with 
branches  of  trees,  and  garlands  and  festoons  of  flowers,  the 
streets  fluttering  with  banners  wreathed  with  roses  and  lilies, 
and  filled  with  gay  throngs. 

In  the  month  of  August  another  festivity  drew  many  from 
Nazareth  to  Jerusalem.  In  the  middle  of  that  month 2  the 
wood  for  the  Temple,  which  all  Jews  had  to  contribute,  was 
taken  to  the  capital  with  great  rejoicings.  The  1st  of  Octo- 
ber,3 which  was  celebrated  as  New  Year's  Day,  or  the  Feast 
of  Trumpets,  was  the  next  event  in  the  religious  calendar  of 
the  months.  As  the  day  of  the  first  new  moon  of  the  year, 
it  was  ushered  in,  over  the  land,  by  a  blast  of  trumpets,* 
and  special  sacrifices  were  offered  in  Jerusalem.  No  work 
was  done.  It  was  the  day,  in  the  eyes  of  the  Jew,  on  which 
an  account  was  taken  by  God  of  the  acts  of  the  past  year ; 
the  day  of  judgment,4  on  which  the  destiny  of  every  one 
for  the  coming  year  was  written  in  the  Heavenly  books. 
It  was  a  fast,  therefore,  rather  than  a  festival.  The  syna- 
gogues were  visited  earlier  than  usual  for  a  week  before  it ; 
special  prayers  were  offered,  and  no  one  ate  till  mid-day  or 
even  till  sunset.  In  the  synagogue  of  Nazareth,  as  elsewhere, 
its  eve  was  like  that  of  a  Sabbath.  It  must  have  been  a 
great  event  in  a  household  like  that  of  Joseph.5 

The  eight  days  that  followed  were  the  Jewish  Lent,  in  pre- 
paration for  the  Day  of  Atonement,6  a  time  so  solemn  and 
sacred  that  it  was  known  as  THE  DAY.7  It  was  a  Sabbath  of 


1  Deut.  xxvi.  3,  10.  2  The  15th  of  Ab. 

1  Tisri.     It  is  not  exactly  the  same  as  onr  October,  however. 

4  P^n  DT»     Cyclo.  Bib.  Lit.,  Art.  New  Year.  &  Cohfn,  p.  251. 

•  10th  Tisri  (October).  7  ln  Talmud  Kip? 


224  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

Sabbaths :  a  day  of  entire  rest.1  The  entire  people  fasted 
during  the  twenty-four  hours.2  Worldly  and  household 
affairs  were  neglected  ;  no  one  even  bathed.  The  whole  day 
was  spent  in  the  synagogue,  where  each  stood  wrapped  in 
the  white  shroud,  and  wearing  the  white  cap,  in  which  he 
was  hereafter  to  be  buried.3  As  was  befitting,  all  disputes 
between  friends  and  neighbours  were  required  to  be  settled 
before  it  began.  Each  made  a  formal  confession  of  his  sins 
before  God,  in  words  duly  prescribed.  It  was  the  most 
solemn  day  of  the  Jewish  year. 

In  the  Temple  the  high  priest  alone  officiated.  Jesus 
would  early  hear  how,  for  seven  days  before,  he  had  gone 
through  daily  rehearsals  of  every  rite,  for  fear  of  his  intro- 
ducing Sadducean  innovations,  and  had  been  cleansed  by 
sprinklings  of  holy  water.4  He  would  hear  how  the  night 
before  the  great  day  was  spent  in  reading  to  him,  or  hearing 
him  read  aloud,  to  keep  him  awake,  for  he  must  not  sleep  till 
after  next  sunset.  How  must  He  have  felt  the  puerility  of 
Rabbinism  when  He  learned  that  the  supreme  pontiff  of  the 
nation  had  to  change  his  dress,  on  the  great  day,  six  times, 
to  wash  his  hands  and  feet  eight  times,  and  to  bathe  his 
whole  body  five  times,  between  dawn  and  sunset ! 5  The  high 
priest  entered  the  Holy  of  Holies  four  times,6  to  offer  incense, 
to  pray,  to  sprinkle  the  blood  of  a  goat  towards  the  mercy 
seat ;  and,  at  the  close,  to  bring  out  the  censer.  Jesus  must 
often  have  seen  him,  clad  in  white,  his  golden  robes  laid 
aside,  with  bare  feet  and  covered  head,  drawing  aside  the 
veil,  and  passing  alone  into  the  awful  darkness  which  no  one 
but  he  ever  invaded,  and  he  only  on  this  one  day  of  the  year,b 
Rites  so  countless  and  intricate  that  even  the  historian  of 
Judaism  will  not  attempt  to  recount  them : 7  the  services  of 
hundreds  of  priests,8  the  whole  culminating  in  a  threefold 
confession  of  sin  for  the  nation  :  the  utterance  ten  times  of 
the  mysterious  name  of  God,  and  the  formal  absolution  of 
Israel  with  the  sprinkling  of  blood  :  the  vast  congregation  of 
worshippers  prostrating  themselves  on  the  earth  three  times, 
with  the  cry,  "  Blessed  be  His  glorious  name  for  ever,"  at 
each  utterance  of  the  awful  name,  the  high  priest  respoud- 


1  Based  on  Lev.  xvi.  1-34 ;  xxiii.  26-32.     Num.  xxix.  7-11. 

*  Jost,  vol.  i.  p.  181.         3  Pressel,  Art.  Fasten.     Hcrzoy,  vol.  iv.  p.  334 
4  Num.  xix.  13.     Jost,  vol.  i.  p.  162.  *  Jost,  vol.  i.  p.  163. 

*  Some  say  five  times.  7  Jost,  vol.  i.  p.  164. 
8  Far  over  500.     Schiltc  Hagg. 


THE   FEAST  OF  TABERNACLES.  225 

ing  after  each  shout,  "Ye  are  clean!"  were  all  seen  and 
watched,  again  and  again,  by  the  future  Saviour. 

These  high  solemnities  over,  the  day  ended  in  a  reaction 
natural  to  the  East.  No  sooner  had  the  exhausted  high 
priest  left  the  Temple,  accompanied  by  throngs,  to  congratu- 
late him  on  his  safety,  than  a  religious  feast  began  at  Jeru- 
salem, and,  we  may  be  sure,  over  all  the  land.  The  gardens 
below  Mount  Zion,  and  round  the  walls,  were  gay  with  the 
maidens  of  the  city,  dressed  in  white,  gone  to  meet  the 
youths,  who  were  to  choose  their  future  wives,  that  evening, 
from  among  them. 

Five  days  later  came  the  closing  great  feast  of  the  year — 
that  of  Tabernacles,  with  its  rejoicings — one  of  the  three 
great  annual  festivals  at  which  every  Israelite  was  required, 
if  possible,  to  make  a  journey  to  Jerusalem.  It  celebrated 
the  Forty  Years'  Wandering  in  tents,  but  it  was  also  the 
great  harvest  thanksgiving  for  the  fruits  of  the  year,  now 
fully  gathered."  Like  others,  Jesus,  doubtless,  often  lived 
for  the  week,  at  least  by  day,  in  booths  of  living  twigs, 
which  rose  in  every  court,  on  every  roof,  and  in  the  streets 
and  open  places  of  Jerusalem,*1 — and  watched  the  crowds 
bearing  offerings  of  the  best  of  their  fruit  to  the  Temple : 
each  carrying  a  palm  or  citron  branch  as  a  sign  of  joy. 
The  merry  feasting  in  every  house :  the  illuminated  city : 
the  universal  joy,  were  familiar  to  Him.1 

The  25th  of  Kislew — our  December — commemorated  the 
re-opening  of  the  Temple6  by  Judas  Maccabaeus,  after  its 
profanation  by  the  Syrians.2  It  brought  another  week  of 
universal  rejoicings.  All  through  the  land  the  people  assem- 
bled in  their  synagogues,  carrying  branches  of  palm  and 
other  trees  in  their  hands,  and  held  jubilant  services.  No 
fast  or  mourning  could  commence  during  the  feast,  and  a 
blaze  of  lamps,  lanterns,  and  torches  illuminated  every  house, 
within  and  without,  each  evening.3  In  Jerusalem  the  Temple 
itself  was  thus  lighted  up.  The  young  of  every  household 
heard  the  stirring  deeds  of  the  Maccabees,  to  rouse  them  to 
noble  emulation,  and  with  these  were  linked  the  story  of  the 
heroic  Judith  and  the  Assyrian  Holofernes.  There  was  no 
child  in  Nazareth  that  did  not  know  them. 

The  Feast  of  Purim  brightened  the  interval  between  that 
of  Tabernacles  and  the  Passover.  It  was  held  on  the  14th 

1  Winer,  R.  W.  B.,  Art.  Laubhiittenfest.        *  1  Mace.  iv.  52-59. 

3  1  Mace.  iv.  52-59.     2  Mace.  x.  6. 
16 


226  THE   LIFE   OF   CHKIST. 

and  15th  Adar — part  of  our  February  and  March — to 
embody  the  national  joy  at  the  deliverance,  by  Esther,  of 
their  forefathers  in  Persia,  from  the  designs  of  Haman.  The 
whole  book  of  Esther  was  read  at  the  synagogue  service  of 
the  evening  before,  to  keep  the  memory  of  the  great  event 
alive ;  the  children  raising  their  loudest  and  angriest  cries 
at  every  mention  of  the  name  of  Haman  ;  the  congregation 
stamping  on  the  floor,  with  Eastern  demonstrativeness,  nnd 
imprecating,  from  every  voice,  the  curse,  "  Let  his  namo  be 
blotted  out.  The  name  of  the  wicked  shall  rot."  Year  by 
year,  in  the  Nazareth  synagogue,  Jesus  must  have  seen  and 
heard  all  this,  and  how  the  Reader  tried  to  read  in  one 
breath,  the  verses  in  which  Haman  and  his  sons  are  jointly 
mentioned,  to  show  that  they  were  hanged  together. 

Such  was  the  Jewish  religious  year,  with  its  fifty-nine 
feast  days  and  its  background  of  fastings,  as  it  passed  before 
the  eyes  of  Jesus.1  Each  incident  had  its  special  religious 
colouring,  and  the  aggregate  influence,  constantly  recurring, 
impressed  itself  in  a  thousand  ways  on  the  national  language, 
thoughts,  and  life.  Religion  and  politics,  moreover,  are 
identical  in  a  theocracy,  and  thus  the  two  principles  which 
most  powerfully  move  mankind  constantly  agitated  every 
breast.  In  such  an  atmosphere  Christ  spent  His  whole 
earthly  life. 

Bat  neither  the  synagogue  services,  nor  the  feasts  at 
Jerusalem,  which  the  Galileans  delighted  to  attend,  were 
the  supreme  influences,  humanly  speaking,  in  the  growth  of 
Jesus  in  "  wisdom."  Like  the  teaching  of  the  Rabbis,  they 
were  only  so  many  aids  to  the  understanding  of  that  sacred 
book,  in  which  His  heavenly  Father  had  revealed  Himself  to 
Israel.  The  Gospels  show,  in  every  page,  that,  like  Timothy,3 
Jesus,  from  a  child,  knew  "  the  Holy  Scriptures."  In  sxioii 
a  household  as  that  of  Joseph,  we  may  be  sure  that  they 
were  in  daily  use,  for  there,  if  anywhere,  the  Rabbinical 
rule  would  be  strictly  observed,  that  "  three  who  eat  together 
without  talking  of  the  Law,  are  as  if  they  were  eating 
(heathen)  sacrifices."  3  The  directness,  joy,  and  naturalness 
of  Christ's  religion  speak  of  the  unconstrained  arid  holy 
influences  around  Him  in  early  years.  A  wise  and  tender 
guidance  in  the  things  of  God,  leading  the  way  to  heaven, 
as  well  as  pointing  it  out,  must  have  marked  both  Mary  and 
Joseph.  The  fond  pictures  of  home  and  childhood  in  the 

1  Winer,  Art.  Feste.  2  2  Tim.  iii.  15.  •  Pirke  Aloth,  iii.  5. 


SCRIPTURE   TRAINING  OF  JEWISH   CHILDREN.      227 

Gospels,  speak  of  personal  recollections.  The  allusions  to 
the  innocent  playing  of  children ;  to  their  being  nearest  the 
Kingdom  of  Heaven ;  the  picture  of  a  father  powerless 
agaiust  his  child's  entreaty ;  and  that  touching  outburst  at 
His  own  homelessness,  compared  even  with  the  birds  and  the 
foxes,1  show  how  Christ's  mind  went  back,  through  life,  to 
the  pure  and  happy  memories  of  Nazareth. 

Mary  and  Joseph,  we  can  scarcely  doubt,  were,  themselves, 
the  earliest  teachers  of  Jesus.  At  their  knees  He  must  have 
first  learned  to  read  the  Scriptures.  Pious  Jewish  parents 
took  especial  care  to  have  a  manuscript  of  the  Law,  in  the 
old  Hebrew  characters,  as  their  especial  domestic  treasure. 
Even  so  early  as  the  Asmonean  kings,  such  rolls  were  so 
common  in  private  houses,2  that  the  fury  of  the  Syrian  king, 
who  wished  to  introduce  the  Greek  customs  and  religion, 
was  especially  directed  against  them.  In  Joseph's  day,  the 
supreme  influence  of  the  Rabbis  and  Pharisees  must  have 
deepened  into  a  passion  the  desire  to  possess  such  a  symbol 
of  loyalty  to  the  faith  of  Israel.  Richer  families  would 
have  a  complete  copy  of  the  Old  Testament,  on  parchment, 
or  on  Egyptian  papyrus  ;  humbler  homes  would  boast  a  copy 
of  the  Law,  or  a  Psalter,  and  all,  alike,  gloried  in  the  verses 
on  their  door-posts  and  in  their  phylacteries.3  Children  had 
small  rolls,  containing  the  Sch'ma,  or  the  Hallel,  or  the 
history  of  Creation  to  the  flood,  or  the  first  eight  chapters  of 
Leviticus.4 

From  the  modest  but  priceless  instructions  of  home,  Jesus 
would,  doubtless,  pass  to  the  school  in  the  synagogue,  where 
He  would  learn  more  of  the  Law,  and  be  taught  to  write,5  or 
rather,  to  print, — for  His  writing  would  be  in  the  old  Hebrew 
characters — the  only  ones  then  in  use. 

His  deep  knowledge  of  the  Scriptures  shows  itself  through- 
out the  Gospels.  He  has  a  quotation  ready  to  meet  every 
hostile  question.  It  was  so  profound  that  it  forced  even  His 
enemies  to  recognise  Him  as  a  Rabbi.  His  frequent  retort 
on  the  Rabbis  themselves — "  Have  ye  not  read  ?  "  G  and  the 
deep  insight  into  the  spirit  of  Scripture,  which  opposes  to 
rubrics  and  forms  the  quickening  power  of  a  higher  life, 

1  Matt.  viii.  20 ;  xi.  16  ;  xix.  13-15.    Luke  xv.  12. 
8  1  Mace.  i.  56,  57.    Jos.,  Ant.,  xii.  5.  4. 

8  Deut.  vi.  8,  9.       Lev.  xiii.  9.       Deut.  xi.  18.        Jos.,  Ant.,  iv.  8.  13, 
Deut.  vi.  4-6  ;  xi.  13-22 ;  vi.  4-10.     Exod.  xiii.  8,  9. 
*  Herzfeld,  vol.  iii.  p.  267.  5  John  viii.  8. 

6  Matt.  xii.  3  ;  xix.  4 ;  xxi.  16,  42 ;  xxii.  31.     Mark  ii.  25. 


228  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

prove  how  intensely  He  must  have  studied  the  sacred  books, 
and  that  the  zeal  that  drew  Him,  in  His  boyhood,  to  the 
Temple  school  at  Jerusalem,  to  hear  them  explained,  was  the 
sacred  passion  of  His  life.  In  the  Gospels  we  find  two  quo- 
tations from  Genesis,  two  from  Exodus,  one  from  Numbers, 
two  from  Deuteronomy,  seven  from  the  Psalms,  five  from 
Isaiah,  one  from  Hosea,  one  from  Jonah,  two  from  Malachi, 
two  from  Daniel,  one  from  Micah,  and  one  from  Zechariah, 
respectively.1  The  whole  of  the  Old  Testament  was  as 
familiar  to  Him  as  the  Magnificat  shows  it  to  have  been  to 
His  mother,  Mary.8  It  was  from  the  clear  fountain  of  the 
ancient  oracles  His  childhood  drank  in  the  wisdom  that 
cometh  from  above.  They  had  been  His  only  school-book, 
and  they  were  the  unwearying  joy  of  His  whole  life.  From 
them  He  taught  the  higher  spiritual  worship  which  contrasted 
so  strongly  with  the  worship  of  the  letter.  It  was  to  them 
He  appealed  when  He  rejected  what  was  worthless  and 
trifling  in  the  religious  teaching  of  His  day. 

The  long  years  of  retired  and  humble  life  in  Nazareth 
were  passed  in  no  ignoble  idleness  and  dependence.  The 
people  of  the  town  knew  Jesus  as,  like  Joseph,  a  carpenter,1 
labouring  for  His  daily  bread  at  the  occupations  which  offered 
themselves  in  His  calling.  Study  and  handiwork  were 
familiarly  associated  in  the  Jewish  mind,  and  carried  with 
them  no  such  ideas  of  incompatibility  as  with  us.  "  Love 
handiwork,"  said  Shemaia,  a  teacher  of  Hillel,2  and  it  was  a 
proverbial  saying  in  the  family  of  Gamaliel,  that  to  unite 
the  study  of  the  Law  with  a  trade  kept  away  sin,  whereas 
study  alone  was  dangerous  and  disappointing.3  Rabbis  who 
gave  a  third  of  the  day  to  study,  a  third  to  prayer,  and  a 
third  to  labour,  are  mentioned  with  special  honour.  Stories 
were  fondly  told  of  famous  teachers  carrying  their  work-stools 
to  their  schools,  and  how  Rabbi  Phinehas  was  working  as  a 
mason  when  chosen  as  high-priest.4  Of  the  Rabbis  in  honour 
in  Christ's  day  or  later,  some  were  millers,  others  carpenters, 
cobblers,  tailors,  bakers,  surgeons,  builders,  surveyors,  money- 
changers, scribes,  carriers,  smiths,  and  even  sextons.5  In  a 
nation  where  no  teacher  could  receive  payment  for  his  in- 
structions the  honest  industry  which  gained  self-support 
brought  no  false  shame. 

1  Mark  vi.  3.  *  P.  Aboth,  i.  10. 

3  P.  Aboth,  ii.  2.  «  Sifra,  ed.  Malbim.  f.  192  b. 

*  Delitzsch,  Lehrstand  u.  Handwerk,  p.  75. 


CHEIST'S  STUDY  OF  LIFE  ABOUND  HIM.        229 

The  years  at  Nazareth  must  have  been  diligently  used  in 
the  observation  of  the  great  book  of  nature,  and  of  man,  as 
well  as  cf  written  revelation.  The  Gospels  show,  throughout, 
that  nothing  escaped  the  eye  of  Jesus.  The  lilies  and  the 
grass  of  the  field,  as  He  paints  them  in  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount ;  the  hen,  as  it  gathers  its  young,  in  its  mother's  love, 
under  its  widespread  wings ;  the  birds  of  the  air,  as  they  eat 
and  drink,  without  care,  from  the  bounty  around  them ;  the 
lambs  which  run  to  follow  the  shepherd,  but  sometimes  go 
astray  and  are  lost  in  the  wilderness;  the  dogs  so  familiar 
in  Eastern  cities ;  the  foxes  that  make  their  holes  in  the 
thickets  ;  the  silent  plants  and  flowers,  the  humble  life  of  the 
creatures  of  the  woods,  the  air,  the  fold,  and  the  street,  were 
all,  alike,  noticed  in  these  early  years  of  preparation.  Nor 
was  man  neglected.  The  sports  of  childhood  ;  the  rejoicings 
of  riper  life  ;  the  bride  and  the  bridegroom  ;  the  mourner  and 
the  dead ;  the  castles  and  palaces  of  princes,  and  the  silken 
robes  of  the  great ;  the  rich  owners  of  field  and  vineyard ;  the 
steward,  the  travelling  merchant,  the  beggar,  the  debtor ;  the 
toil  of  the  sower  and  of  the  labourer  in  the  vineyard,  or  of 
the  fisher  on  the  lake ;  the  sweat  of  the  worker ;  the  sighs 
of  those  in  chains,  or  in  the  dungeon,  were  seen,  and  heard, 
and  remembered.  Nor  did  He  rest  merely  in  superficial 
observation.  The  possessions,  joys,  and  sufferings  of  men, 
their  words  and  acts,  their  customs,  their  pride  or  humility, 
pretence  or  sincerity,  failings  or  merits,  were  treasured  as 
materials  from  which,  one  day,  to  paint  them  to  themselves. 
He  had,  moreover,  the  same  keen  eye  to  note  the  good  in 
those  round  Him  as  their  unworthy  striving  and  planning, 
their  avarice,  ambition,  passion,  or  selfishness.  It  is,  indeed, 
the  noblest  characteristic  in  this  constant  keen-sightedness, 
that  amidst  all  the  imperfections  and  faults  prevailing,  He 
never  failed  to  evoke  the  hidden  good  which  He  often  saw 
even  in  the  most  hopeless.h 

Publicans  and  sinners  were  not  rejected.  Even  in  them 
He  discovered  a  better  self.  In  Zaccheus  He  sees  a  son  of 
Abraham ;  in  Mary  Magdalene  He  gains  a  weeping  penitent, 
and  in  the  dying  robber  He  welcomes  back  a  returning 
prodigal.  Nor  was  it  mere  intellectual  penetration  that  thus 
laid  bare  the  secrets  of  every  heart.  His  search  of  the  bosom 
is  pervaded  throughout  with  the  breath  of  the  warmest  love.1 
As  the  brother  and  friend  of  all,  who  has  come  to  seek  and  to 

1  Matt.  vii.  9-11 ;  xii.  35.     Luke  xiii.  16  ;  xix.  9. 


230  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

save  that  which,  was  lost,1  He  looks  at  men  with  eyes  of  in- 
finite pity,  whatever  their  race. 

The  life  of  Nazareth,  in  its  quiet  and  obscurity,  is  passed 
over  in  a  few  lines  by  the  Evangelists  ;  but  in  the  counsels 
of  God  it  had  its  full  and  all-wise  purpose,  from,  first  to  last, 
as  a  preparation  for  the  great  work  of  the  closing  years  of  our 
Lord's  life.  We  cannot  conceive  of  Him  otherwise  than  as 
furnished  from  His  first  appearance  in  the  world  with  all 
that  was  needful  in  its  Saviour :  as  the  incarnation  of  the 
divine  "Word,  though  for  a  time  silent;  the  Light  which 
should  shine  in  darkness,  though  still,  for  a  time,  concealed. 
He  must  have  been  marked  out  from  all  around  Him  by 
His  higher  spiritual  nature,  and  separated  by  it  from  all 
fellowship  with  evil.3  Yet,  in  His  human  nature,  there  must 
have  been  the  same  gradual  development  as  in  other  men ; 
such  a  development  as,  by  its  even  and  steadfast  advance, 
made  His  life  apparently  in  nothing  diif erent  from  that  of 
His  fellow  townsmen,  else  they  would  not  have  felt  the  won- 
der at  Him  which  they  afterwards  evinced.  The  laws  and 
processes  of  ordinary  human  life  must  have  been  left  to 
mould  and  form  His  manhood — the  same  habits  of  inquiry  ; 
the  same  need  of  the  collision  of  mind  with  mind;  of 
patience  during  long  expectation  ;  of  reconciliation  to  home 
duties  and  daily  self-denials ;  of  calm  strength  that  leans 
only  upon  God.  He  must  have  looked  out  on  the  world  of 
men  from  the  calm  retreat  of  those  years  as  He,  doubtless, 
often  did  on  the  matchless  landscape  from  the  hill  above  the 
village.  The  strength  and  weakness  of  the  systems  of  the 
day ;  the  lights  and  shadows  of  the  human  world,  would  be 
watched  and  noted  with  never-tiring  survey,  as  were  the 
hills  and  valleys,  the  clouds  and  sunshine  of  the  scene 
around.  Year  after  year  passed,  and  still  found  Him  at  His 
daily  toil,  because  His  hour  was  not  yet  come.  In  gentle 
patience,  in  transparent  blamelessness  of  life ;  in  natural  and 
ever-active  goodness ;  in  tender  love  and  ready  favour  to  all 
around ;  loved,  honoured,  but  half  veiled  in  the  mysterious 
light  of  perfect  manhood  and  kindling  divinity,  thirty  years 
passed  quietly  away.3 

1  On  this  subject  see  a  fine  passage  in  Keim's  Jesu  v.  Nazara, 
pp.  444,  445  ;  and  another  in  Keim's  Christus,  p.  10. 
8  See  Sermon  by  Schleiermacher,  Prcdi<>ten,  ii.  55. 
3  See  a  Sermon  by  Robertson  of  Brighton,  vol.  ii.  p.  196. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 
LIFE   UNDEE   THE   LAW. 

TDESIDES  the  humbler  schools  of  the  towns  and  villages, 
•*•?  there  were  others  in  Jerusalem,  and  in  some  of  the 
larger  centres  of  population,  in  the  days  of  Christ,  in  which 
a  higher  education  was  given  by  the  Rabbis — the  learned 
class  of  the  nation.  There  was  nothing,  however,  to  attract 
Jesus  to  such  schools,  though  He  had  been  so  eager  in  His 
attendance  during  His  first  brief  visit  to  Jerusalem.  It  may 
be  that  even  so  short  a  trial  was  enough  to  show  Him  how 
little  could  be  gained  from  them. 

The  wonderful  revival  of  Judaism  under  Ezra  and  his 
associates  had  had  the  most  lasting  effect  on  the  nation.  An 
order  known,  indifferently,  as  "  Scribes,"*  "  Teachers  of  the 
Law,"  or  "  Rabbis,"  l  gradually  rose,  who  devoted  themselves 
to  the  study  of  the  Law  exclusively,  and  became  the  recog- 
nised authorities  in  all  matters  connected  with  it.  It  had 
been  a  command  of  the  Great  Synagogue  that  those  who 
were  learned  in  the  Law  should  zealously  teach  it  to  younger 
men,  and,  thus,  schools  rose  erelong  in  which  famous 
Rabbis  gathered  large  numbers  of  students.  The  supreme 
distinction  accorded  to  the  Rabbi  in  society  at  large,  in 
which  he  was  by  far  the  foremost  personage  :  the  exaggerated 
reverence  claimed  for  his  office  by  his  order  itself,  and 
sanctioned  by  the  superstitious  homage  of  the  people ;  the 
constant  necessity  for  reference  to  its  members,  under  a 
religion  which  prescribed  rules  for  every  detail  of  social  or 
private  life,  and,  not  least,  the  fact  that  the  dignity  of  a 
Rabbi  was  open  to  the  humblest  who  acquired  the  necessary 
leaning,  made  the  schools  very  popular.  As  the  son  of  a 
peasant,  in  the  middle  ages,  if  he  entered  the  Church,  might 
rise  above  the  haughtiest  noble,  the  son  of  a  Jewish  villager 
might  rise  above  even  the  high  priest,  by  becoming  a  Rabbi. 
It  was,  doubtless,  remembered,  in  Christ's  day,  that  some 

1  Jost,  vol.  i.  p.  93. 


232  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

sixty  years  before,  when  the  high  priest  had  been  returning 
from,  the  Temple  after  the  service  of  the  Day  of  Atonement, 
attended,  according  to  custom,  by  a  crowd,  to  congratulate 
him  on  his  having  come  safely  from  the  terrors  of  the  Awful 
Presence,  and  to  escort  him  to  his  dwelling — two  Rabbis 
having  chanced  to  pa-s  by,  the  people  left  the  high  priest, 
greatly  to  his  indignation,  and  paid  reverence,  instead,  to  the 
Teachers  of  the  Law.1  The  most  abject  prostration  of  in- 
tellect and  soul  before  any  priesthood  never  surpassed  that 
of  the  Jew  before  the  Rabbi. 

From  their  scholars  the  Rabbis  demanded  the  most  pro- 
found reverence.  "  The  honour,"  says  the  Talmud,2  "  due 
to  a  Teacher  borders  on  that  due  to  God."  If  a  choice  were 
necessary  between  one's  father  and  a  Rabbi,  the  Rabbi  must 
have  the  preference.  A  father  has  only  brought  him  into 
the  world,  but  the  Rabbi,  who  'teaches  him  wisdom,  brings 
him  to  the  life  hereafter.  If  one's  father  and  a  Rabbi  be 
carrying  burdens,  the  burden  of  the  Rabbi  must  be  carried 
for  him,  and  not  that  of  the  father.  If  one's  father  and  a 
Rabbi  be  both  in  prison,  the  Rabbi  must  first  be  redeemed, 
and  only  then,  the  father.3  The  common  discourse  of  a 
Rabbi  was  to  be  reverenced  as  much  as  the  Law.4  To  dis- 
pute with  one,  or  murmur  against  him,  was  a  crime  as  great 
as  to  do  the  same  towards  the  Almighty.5  Their  words  must 
be  received  as  words  of  the  living  God.6  As  in  the  blind 
passive  obedience  required  from  the  Jesuits,*  a  scholar  of  the 
Rabbis  was  required  to  accept  what  his  master  taught,  if  he 
said  that  the  left  hand  was  the  right.7  A  scholar  who  did 
not  rise  up  before  his  Rabbi  could  not  hope  to  live  long, 
because  "  he  feareth  not  before  God."  8  It  was  a  principle 
universally  accepted  that  "  the  sayings  of  the  Scribes  were 
weightier  than  those  of  the  Law."  9 

The  transmission  of  the  as  yet  unwritten  opinions  of 
former  Rabbis — forming  an  ever-growing  mass  of  tradition 
— was  the  special  aim  of  the  Rabbis  of  each  age.  In  the 


1  Jost,  vol.  i.  p.  251.  2  Quoted  in  Schiirer,  p.  442. 

3  L'ava  Metzin,  ii.  11,  quoted  by  Gfrorer,  vol.  i.  p.  168. 

4  Eiseiimcnger,  vol.  i.  p.  330. 

*  Eisenmengrr,  vol.  i.  pp.  331,  332.   The  texts  quoted  in  support  of  this 
are  Num.  xx.  13  ;  xxvi.  9. 

6  F.isenmenger,  vol.  i.  pp.  456,  457. 

7  Eisi'iimciifji'r,  vol.  i.  p.  351. 

8  Eccles.  viii.  13.     Eisenmenger,  vol.  i.  p.  335. 

•  Jost,  voL  i.  p.  93. 


THE  "HEDGE"  BOUND  THE  LAW,  233 

course  of  centuries  many  of  the  Mosaic  laws  had  become 
inapplicable  to  the  altered  state  of  things,  and  as  their  literal 
observance  had  become  impossible,  new  prescriptions  began 
to  be  invented,  after  the  Return,  to  perpetuate  their  spirit. 
Many  were  virtually  obsolete:  others  required  careful  ex- 
position by  the  Rabbis.  The  comments  thus  delivered 
formed,  as  time  rolled  on,  a  great  body  of  unwritten  law, 
which  claimed  equal  authority  with  the  law  of  Moses,  and 
was  necassarily  known  in  any  full  degree  only  by  the  pro- 
fessional Rabbis,  who  devoted  their  lives  to  its  study.  It 
might  be  increased,  but  could  never  be  altered  or  superseded 
in  any  particular.  Once  uttered,  a  Rabbi's  words  remained 
law  for  ever,  though  they  might  be  explained  away  and 
virtually  ignored,  while  affected  to  be  followed. 

Uniformity  of  belief  and  ritual  practice  was  the  one  grand 
design  of  the  founders  of  Judaism ;  the  moulding  the  whole 
religious  life  of  the  nation  to  such  a  machine-like  discipline 
as  would  make  any  variation  from  the  customs  of  the  past 
well-nigh  impossible.  A  universal,  death-like  conservatism, 
permitting  no  change  in  successive  ages,  was  established,  as 
the  grand  security  for  a  separate  national  existence,  by  its 
isolating  the  Jew  from  all  other  races,  and  keeping  him  for 
ever  apart.  For  this  end,  not  only  was  that  part  of  the 
Law  which  concerned  the  common  life  of  the  people — their 
Sabbaths,  feast  days,  jubilees,  offerings,  sacrifices,  tithes,  the 
Temple  and  Synagogue  worship,  civil  and  criminal  law, 
marriage,  and  the  like — explained,  commented  on,  and 
minutely  ordered  by  the  Rabbis,  but  also  that  portion  of  it 
which  related  only  to  the  private  duties  of  individuals  in 
their  daily  religious  life.  Their  food,  their  clothes,  their 
journeys,  their  occupations :  indeed,  every  act  of  their  lives, 
and  almost  their  every  thought,  were  brought  under  Rab- 
binical rules.  To  perpetuate  the  Law,  a  "  hedge  "  of  out- 
lying commands  was  set  round  it,  which,  in  Christ's  day,  had 
become  so  "  heavy  and  grievous  a  burden,"  1  that  even  the 
Talmud  denounces  it  as  a  vexatious  oppression.2  So  vast 
had  the  accumulation  of  precepts  become,  by  an  endless 
series  of  refined  deductions  from  the  Scriptures — often  con- 
nected with  them  only  by  a  very  thin  thread  at  best — that 
the  Rabbis  themselves  have  compared  their  laws  on  the 
proper  keeping  of  the  Sabbath  to  a  mountain  which  hangs 
on  a  hair.3 

1  Matt,  xxiii.  4.  2  Sota,  f.  20. 

3  Hausrath,  N.  T.  Z.  G.,  vol.  i.  p.  89. 


234  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

In  the  later  Grecian  age,*  when  heathen  culture  was 
patronized  by  the  Sadducean  high  priests,  and  foreign 
customs  were  in  increasing  favour  with  the  people,  the 
Rabbis,  who  were  the  zealots  or  puritans  of  Judaism,  sought 
to  stem  the  flood  of  corruption,  by  enforcing  increased  strict- 
ness in  the  observance  of  the  multitudinous  precepts  they 
had  already  established.  From  that  time  unconditional 
obedience  was  required  to  every  Rabbinical  law. 

A  system  which  admitted  no  change :  in  which  the  least 
originality  of  thought  was  heresy :  which  required  the 
mechanical  labour  of  a  lifetime  to  master  its  details,  and 
which  occupied  its  teachers  with  the  most  trifling  casuistry, 
could  have  only  one  result — to  degenerate,  to  a  great  extent, 
into  puerilities  and  outward  forms. 

It  would  be  wearisome  and  uninteresting  to  quote,  at  any 
great  length,  illustrations  of  the  working  of  such  a  scheme 
of  ecclesiastical  tyranny,  in  daily  life,  but  an  example  or  two 
will  show  the  system  to  which  Jesus  opposed  the  freedom 
of  a  spiritual  religion.  It  is  difficult  to  realize  the  condition 
of  a  people  who  had  submitted  to  such  mental  and  bodily 
bondage. 

One  of  the  great  questions  discussed  by  the  Rabbis  was 
ceremonial  purity  and  defilement,  a  subject  so  wide  that  it 
gave  rise  to  countless  rules.  Uncleanness  could  be  con- 
tracted in  many  ways ;  among  others,  by  the  vessels  used  in 
eating,  and  hence  it  was  a  vital  matter  to  know  what  might 
be  used,  and  what  must  be  avoided.  In  hollow  dishes  of 
clay  or  pottery,  the  inside  and  bottom  contracted  and  caused 
uncleanness,  but  not  the  outside,  and  they  could  only  be 
cleansed  by  breaking.  The  pieces,  however,  might  still 
defile,  and  hence  it  was  keenly  discussed  how  small  the 
fragments  must  be  to  ensure  safety.  If  a  dish  or  vessel  had 
contained  a  log  of  oil,  a  fragment  could  still  defile  that  held 
as  much  oil  as  would  anoint  the  great  toe ;  if  it  had  held 
from  a  log  to  a  seah,  the  fragment,  to  be  dangerous,  must 
hold  the  fourth  of  a  log ;  if  it  had  held  from  two  or  three 
Beahs  to  five,  a  piece  of  it  could  defile  if  it  held  a  log.  As, 
however,  hollow  earthen  vessels  contracted  uncleanness  only 
on  the  inside,  not  on  the  out,  some  could  not  become  unclean 
— as,  for  instance,  a  flat  plate  without  a  rim,  an  open  coal 
shovel,  a  perforated  roaster  for  wheat  or  grain,  brick-moulds, 
and  so  on.  On  the  other  hand,  a  plate  with  a  rim,  a  covered 
coal  shovel,  a  dish  with  raised  divisions  inside,  an  earthen 
spice-box,  or  an  inkstand  with  any  divisions,  may  become 


THE   LAWS  OF  LEVITICAL   PUEITT.  235 

unclean.  Flat  dishes  of  wood,  leather,  bone,  or  glass,  do  not 
contract  nncleanness,  but  hollow  ones  might  do  so,  not  only 
like  earthen  ones,  inside,  but  also  outside.  If  they  are 
broken  they  are  clean,  but  the  broken  part  is  unclean  if 
large  enough  to  hold  a  pomegranate.  If  a  chest,  or  cup- 
board, wants  a  foot,  it  is  clean,  whatever  its  size,  and  a 
three-footed  table,  wanting  even  two  feet,  is  clean,  but  it 
may  be  made  unclean  if  wanting  the  whole  three  feet,  a:  id 
the  flat  top  be  used  as  a  dish.  A  bench  which  wants  one 
of  the  side  boards,  or  even  the  two,  is  clean,  but  if  a  piece 
remain  a  handbreadth  wide,  it  may  defile.  If  the  hands  are 
clean,  and  the  outside  of  a  goblet  unclean,  the  hands  are  not 
defiled  by  the  outside,  if  the  goblet  be  held  by  the  proper 
part.  Every  thing  of  metal,  that  has  a  special  name,  may 
defile,  except  a  door,  a  door  bolt,  a  lock,  a  hinge,  or  a  door 
knocker.  Straight  blowing  horns  are  clean ;  others  may 
defile.  If  the  mouthpiece  is  of  metal,  it  may  defile.  If  a 
wooden  key  have  metal  teeth,  it  may  defile,  but  if  the  key 
be  of  metal  and  the  teeth  of  wood,  it  is  clean. 

The  removal  of  uncleanness  was  no  less  complicated. 
Even  the  kind  of  water  to  be  used  for  the  different  kinds  of 
cleansing,  for  sprinkling  the  hands,  for  dipping  vessels  into, 
and  for  purifying  baths  for  the  person,  caused  no  little  dis- 
pute. Six  kinds  of  water  were  distinguished,  each  of  higher 
worth  than  the  other.  First — A  pool,  or  the  water  in  a  pit, 
cistern,  or  ditch,  and  hill  water  that  no  longer  flows,  and 
collected  water,  of  not  less  quantity  than  forty  seahs,1  if  it 
has  not  been  defiled,  is  suitable  for  preparing  the  heave- 
offering  of  dough,  or  for  the  legal  washing  of  the  hands. 
Second — Water  that  still  flows  may  be  used  for  the  heave- 
offering  (Teruma),  and  for  washing  the  hands.  Third — 
Collected  water,  to  the  amount  of  forty  seahs,  may  be  used 
for  a  bath  for  purification,  and  for  dipping  vessels  into. 
Fourth— A  spring  with  little  water,  to  which  water  that  has 
been  drawn  is  added,  is  fit  for  a  bath,  though  it  do  not  flow, 
and  is  the  same  as  pure  spring  water,  in  so  far  that  vessels 
may  be  cleansed  in  it,  though  there  be  only  a  little  water. 
Fifth — Flowing  water  which  is  warm,  or  impregnated  with 
minerals,  cleanses  by  its  flowing ;  and  lastly,  sixth — Pure 
spring  water  may  be  used  as  a  bath  by  those  who  have  sores, 
or  for  sprinkling  a  leper,  and  may  be  mixed  with  the  ashes 
of  purification. 

1  A  srah  was  1-|  gallons. 


236  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

These  general  principles  formed  the  basis  of  an  endless 
detail  of  casuistry.  Thus,  the  Mischna  discourses,  at  weari- 
some length,  under  what  circumstances  and  conditions 
"  collected  water  " — that  is,  rain,  spring,  or  flowing  water, 
that  is  not  drawn,  but  is  led  into  a  reservoir  directly,  by 
pipes  or  channels — may  be  used  for  bathing,  and  for  the 
immersion  of  vessels ;  and  the  great  point  is  decided  to  be 
that  no  drawn  water  shall  have  mixed  with  it.  A  fourth 
of  a  log l  of  drawn  water  in  the  reservoir,  beforehand,  makes 
the  water  that  afterwards  falls  or  runs  into  it  unfit  for  a 
bath,  but  it  requires  three  log  of  drawn  water  to  do  this,  if 
there  were  water  already  in  the  reservoir.  If  any  vessels 
are  put  under  the  pipe  emptying  itself  into  the  bath,  it 
becomes  drawn  water,  and  is  unfit  for  a  bath.  Shammai's 
school  made  it  the  same  whether  the  vessel  were  set  down 
on  purpose,  or  only  forgotten ;  but  Hillel's  school  decided 
that  if  it  had  been  forgotten,  the  water  might  still  be  used 
for  a  bath.  If  drawn  water  and  rain  water  have  mixed,  in 
the  court-yard,  or  in  a  hollow,  or  on  the  steps  of  the  bath- 
room, the  bath  may  be  used,  if  most  of  the  water  be  fitting, 
but  not  if  the  proportion  be  reversed.  This,  however,  only 
takes  effect  if  they  have  mixed  before  entering  the  bath.  If 
both  flow  into  the  bath,  the  bath  may  be  taken,  if  it  be 
known  certainly  that  forty  seahs  of  proper  water  ran  in 
before  three  log  of  unsuitable  water,  but  otherwise  it  must 
not  be  taken.  There  was  endless  discussion,  also,  whether 
snow,  hail,  hoarfrost,  ice,  and  the  like,  could  be  used  to  fill 
up  a  bath.  So  simple  an  act  as  the  washing  of  one's  hands 
before  eating  entailed  the  utmost  care  not  to  transgress 
some  Rabbinical  rule.  The  water  could  only  be  poured  from 
certain  kinds  of  vessels,  it  must  be  water  of  a  special  kind, 
or.ly  certain  persons,  in  certain  legal  conditions,  could  pour 
it,  and  it  was  a  momentous  point  that  the  water  should  be 
poured  neither  too  far  up  the  arm  nor  too  low  towards  the 
hand.2 

This  ceremonial  slavery  owed  its  rise  to  the  reaction  from 
the  Syrian  attempts  to  overthrow  the  national  faith.  The 
Rabbis  of  the  austere  but  noble  puritan  party,  which  had 
delivered  their  country,  sought  to  widen  the  gulf,  for  the 
future,  between  Judaism  and  all  other  creeds,  by  laying  a 
fresh  stress  on  legal  purity  and  the  reverse,  and  their 
scholars  strove  to  keep  their  rules  as  strictly  as  possible. 

1  L  log  was  a  half-pint.  a  Schiirer,  pp.  491-495. 


EISE    OF   THE    PHAEISEES.  237 

The  dread  of  touching  anything  unclean,  and  the  consequent 
self- withdrawal  from  the  mass  of  the  people,  and  from  the 
ordinary  intercourse  of  life,  soon  showed  itself  in  the  name — • 
Parush,  or  Pharisee — for  those  thus  "  separated."  In  the 
hands  of  this  party,  cleanness  and  uncleanness  steadily  grew 
to  a  system  of  endless  refinements. 

Ceremonial  purity  had,  at  first,  been  strictly  observed  only 
by  the  priests,  for  the  people  at  large  were  hardly  in  a  posi- 
tion to  attend  to  the  many  details  required.  After  the 
Maccabaean  revival,  however,  greater  carefulness  was  de- 
manded. A  priest,  or  Levite,  lost  the  privileges  of  his  caste 
if  he  hesitated  to  fulfil  any  of  the  ritual  obligations  it 
entailed,  and  a  proselyte  was  rejected  who  would  not  under- 
take all  that  was  required  from  an  Israelite.  For  Israelites 
themselves,  these  ceremonial  rules  were  greatly  extended, 
and  any  neglect  of  them  was  noted  unfavourably.  The 
tithes,  etc.,  were  strictly  demanded  from  all  produce,  and 
were  either  entirely  forbidden  to  be  eaten,  or  could  be  so 
only  under  fixed  conditions,  while  a  wide  sweep  of  injunc- 
tions and  rules  was  introduced  as  to  the  use  of  different 
kinds  of  food,  and  even  in  every  detail  of  family  life. 

Those,  including,  of  course,  the  Rabbis,  who  undertook  to 
observe  all  these  rules,  henceforth  formed  a  kind  of  union  OJF 
"  Comrades,"  or  "  Haberim,"  which  any  one  might  enter — • 
all  who  did  not  join  them  being  stigmatized  as  ignorant 
Am-haaretzin,  or  boorish  rabble. 

It  was  to  this  league  that  the  amazing  development  of 
legalism  was  latterly  due.  Careful  inquiry  was  everywhere 
instituted  to  ascertain  if  all  dues  for  priests,  Levites,  or  the 
poor  were  regularly  paid.  An  indefinite  due  (Teruma)  for 
the  priests,  and  a  tithe  for  them  and  the  Levites,  were  re- 
quired each  year  from  every  kind  of  farm  or  garden  produce 
even  the  smallest,1  and  from  all  live  stock,  and  property, 
of  any  kind,  and  a  second  tenth  each  third  year  for  the  poor. 
Nor  were  these  demands  confined  to  Israelites  living  in  the 
strictly  Jewish  territory ;  they  were,  after  a  time,  extended 
over  those  neighbouring  countries  in  which  Jews  had  settled. 
These  material  results  were  only  a  subordinate  advantage  of 
this  widely  extended  claim ;  it  established  an  organized 
system  of  all-pervading  influence  in  social  intercourse,  and 
on  the  private  life  of  every  household.  Part  of  the  dues 
was  lioly,  and  to  use  anything  holy  was  a  mortal  sin.  Every 

1  Matt,  xxiii.  23. 


238  THE   LIFE   OF  CHEIST. 

purchaser  had,  therefore,  to  make  certain  beforehand  whether 
they  had  been  paid  from  what  he  proposed  to  friy,  though 
many  things  in  the  markets  came  from  abroad,  or  had  been 
grown  or  made  by  others  than  Jews,  or  were  under  other 
complications  as  regarded  their  liability  to  tithe  and  gift. 

To  save  heavy  loss  it  was  conceded  that  the  Teruma 
should  be  strictly  separated,  but  the  various  tithes  were 
apparently  left  to  be  paid  by  the  buyer,  though  the  assurance 
of  an  owner  that  everything  had  been  tithed  could  only  be 
taken  if  the  seller  could  prove  his  trustworthiness.  Failing 
this,  all  produce,  and  whatever  was  made  from  it,  was  re- 
garded as  doubtful,1  and  the  Teruma,  or  holy  portion,  was  to 
be  taken  from  it  before  it  could  be  used.  The  second  tithe 
might  be  turned  into  money,  that  it  might  be  the  more  easily 
consumed  in  Jerusalem.  It  was  not  obligatory,  however,  to 
separate  the  first  tithe,  or  that  for  the  poor,  since  a  doubt 
hung  on  the  matter,  and  so  the  Levite  or  the  poor  must 
pro\e  their  claim.  These  harassing  regulations  shut  off  strict 
Jews  from  either  buying  or  accepting  hospitality  from  any 
but  their  own  nation,2  and  made  it  imperative  on  every  fruit 
or  food  seller  to  establish  his  trustworthiness,  by  joining  the 
union  of  the  "  Comrades,"  or  "  Separated " — that  is,  the 
"  Pharisees."  It  required  for  this,  only  a  declaration  before 
three  of  the  Rabbis,  and  afterwards  before  three  "  trust- 
worthy "  persons,  that  one  would  henceforth  abstain  from  all 
that  had  not  been  tithed.  Henceforth,  not  only  was  personal 
trustworthiness  established,  but  that  of  all  the  members  of 
his  family,  and  even  of  his  descendants,  so  long  as  no  ground 
of  suspicion  was  raised  against  his  wife,  children,  or  slaves. 

The  nation  was  thus  gradually  divided  into  Haberim  and 
Am-haaretzin — strict  followers  of  the  Rabbis  and  despised 
rabble, — and  intercourse  and  hospitality  between  the  two 
classes  became  steadily  more  circumscribed,  till  it  well-nigh 
ceased,  as  the  laws  of  the  Rabbis  grew  more  exacting.  It 
was  difficult,  for  instance,  when  from  home,  to  ascertain 
the  conscientiousness  of  a  host,  companion,  or  tradesman ; 
scruples  rose  whether  produce  that  might  be  foreign  was 
liable  to  dues ;  how  far  purchases  not  intended  for  eating 
might  be  used  without  tithing,  and  so  on,  till  all  social 
freedom  was  utterly  hampered,  and  cases  of  conscience 
accumulated  which  afterwards  filled  whole  volumes,  and 
meanwhile  gave  constant  anxiety. 

1  Demoi  =  Food  for  the  people.       2  Matt.  ix.  11.   Mark  ii.  16.   Luke  xv.  2. 


GEADES   OF  LEVITICAL   PURITY. 

This  self-isolation  from  the  community  at  large  of  tho 
members  of  the  "  League  of  the  Law,"  procured  them  the 
name  of  Perushim,  or  Pharisees — that  is,  the  separated — • 
and  introduced  different  grades  of  purity  even  among  them, 
according  to  the  greater  or  less  strictness  in  the  observance 
of  the  multitudinous  Rabbinical  rules.  Religiousness  con- 
sisted, above  everything,  in  avoiding  ceremonial  defilement, 
or  removing  it,  if  at  any  time  contracted,  by  prescribed 
washings  and  bathing.  Rules  for  preserving  Mosaic  purity 
multiplied  the  risks  of  defilement  as  casuistry  increased,  and 
thus  a  graduated  scale  of  "  holiness  "  was  introduced,  rising 
to  the  harshest  asceticism  in  its  highest  development.  To 
partake  of  anything  from  which  the  due  tithes  had  not  been 
separated,1  or  of  the  tithe  itself,  or  the  priest's  portion,3  the 
hands  must  be  washed.  Before  eating  parts  of  sacrifices  or 
offerings,  a  bath  had  to  be  taken,  and  a  plunge  bath  was 
required  before  the  sprinkling  with  water  of  purification, 
even  if  only  the  hands  were  "  unclean."  But  he  who  bathed 
in  order  to  partake  of  what  was  as  yet  untithed,  had  not  the 
right  to  make  use  of  the  tithe  ;  he  who  took  a  bath  to  qualify 
him  to  enjoy  the  tithe  could  not  touch  the  priest's  portion; 
he  who  could  touch  that,  could  not  eat  what  was  holy,  while 
he  who  might  touch  it,  must  yet  keep  from  water  of  purifica- 
tion. The  higher  grades,  on  the  other  hand,  included  the 
less  holy.  Even  to  touch  the  clothes  of  a  "  common  man," 
defiled  a  Pharisee ;  the  clothes  of  an  ordinary  Pharisee 
were  unclean  to  one  who  could  eat  tithes  ;  those  of  an  eater 
of  tithes  to  an  eater  of  offerings  ;  and  his,  again,  to  one  who 
enjoyed  the  sprinkling  of  the  water  of  purification.  Some 
gained  one  grade,  some  another,  but  few  the  highest.  A 
special  initiation,  training,  and  time  of  trial  was  required 
for  each  grade,  from  thirty  days  for  the  lowest,  to  twelve 
months  for  the  highest. 

Religiousness  was  thus  measured  by  the  more  or  less  com- 
plete observance  of  ten  thousand  Rabbinical  rules  3  of  cere- 
monial purity,  and  fanatical  observance  of  them  was  secured, 
not  less  by  religious  pride,  than  by  their  appeal  to  a  spurious 
patriotism,  and  to  self-interest.  This  severe  and  inflexible 
discipline,  which  regulated  every  act  of  life,  foresaw  (very 
contingency,  and  interfered  with  common  liberty,  at  every 
stop,  from  the  cradle  to  the  grave,  had  been  slowly  elaborated 

^  Called  Cholin.  2  The  Teruma. 

:  Delitzsch,  Jud.  HandwcrJcerleben,  p.  36. 


240  THE   LIFE    OF   CHEIST. 

by  the  Rabbis,  to  isolate  the  Jew  from  all  other  nations. 
His  very  words  and  thoughts  were  prescribed ;  he  was  less  a 
man  than  a  mechanical  instrument.  Any  deviation  in  word 
or  deed,  or  even  in  thought,  from  Rabbinical  law,  was  re- 
garded as  impious  .d 

Theocracies  have  enforced  in  all  ages  a  similar  isolation 
on  their  adherents.  "  The  kings  of  Egypt,"  says  Diodorus, 
"  could  not  act  as  they  would.  Everything  was  ruled  by 
laws,  not  only  in  their  public,  but  even  in  their  most  private 
life.  The  hours  of  the  day  and  night  at  which  special  duties 
must  be  performed,  were  fixed  by  law.  Those  for  sleep,  fof 
rising,  for  bathing,  for  sacrifice,  for  reading,  for  meals,  for 
walking,  and  much  beside,  were  inflexibly  prescribed.  It 
was  no  less  rigidly  settled  what  they  were  to  eat  at  each 
meal,  and  what  amount  of  wine  they  were  to  drink." l  The 
Brahmin  is  under  the  same  rigid  and  all-embracing  tyranny  of 
religious  forms.  His  whole  life  is  covered  with  the  meshes 
of  a  vast  net  of  rites  and  ceremonies.  The  law  of  Manu 
prescribes  how  he  is  to  eat,  and  what,  how  he  is  to  clothe 
himself,  drink,  wash  his  feet,  cut  his  nails,  and  hair,  bathe, 
and  perform  even  the  most  private  functions.  It  fixes  the 
rights  and  duties  of  each  caste  and  subdivision  of  caste,  the 
washers,  the  weavers,  the  tillers  of  the  soil,  etc.8  Such 
systems  annihilate  individuality,  and  reduce  whole  popula- 
tions to  a  single  type,  which  perpetuates  itself  with  an  un- 
changing and  almost  indestructible  constancy,  begetting, 
besides,  a  fanaticism  which,  at  any  moment,  may  burst  into 
flames,  especially  when  identified,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Jews, 
with  patriotism.  Life  under  the  Jewish  law  had  already 
kindled  this  spirit  of  scarcely  veiled  revolution  long  before 
our  Lord's  birth. 

An  additional  illustration  of  the  working  of  Rabbinical 
rules  in  Jewish  daily  life  is  afforded  by  those  for  the  proper 
observance  of  the  Sabbath.  In  Exodus  xvi.  5,  it  is  com- 
manded that  food  for  the  Sabbath  be  prepared  on  the  sixth 
day,  no  doubt  with  the  design  that  the  rest  of  the  servant 
should  be  as  sacred  as  that  of  her  master  or  mistress.  The 
Rabbis,  pondering  this  command,  raised  the  question  whether 
an  egg  which  a  hen  had  laid  on  a  Sabbath  could  be  eaten 
OK  the  sacred  day,  and  decided  it  by  a  strict  negative,  if  it 
had  been  laid  by  a  hen  kept  to  lay  eggs ;  because,  in  that 
case,  it  was  the  result  of  work  begun  on  a  week-day,  and 

1  Died.  Sicul.,  i.  70, 


ADAM,   ACCORDING   TO   THE   EABBIS.  241 

brought  to  an  end  on  the  Sabbath.  On  this  the  Rabbis 
were  unanimous.  But  how  would  it  be  if  the  hen  were  one 
intended  not  to  lay  eggs,  but  for  eating,  and  how,  if  a  Sab- 
bath, and  a  feast  day  observed  as  a  Sabbath,  should  come 
together?  On  this  point  Shammai,  one  of  the  two  gieat 
Rabbis  of  the  day,  was  disposed  to  be  liberal,  and  decided 
that  it  was  lawful  to  eat  the  egg  of  a  hen,  itself  destined  to 
be  eaten,  on  whichever  day  the  egg  had  been  laid.  But 
Hillel,  the  other  great  Rabbi,  argued  as  follows  : — Since  the 
egg  has  come  to  maturity  on  a  Sabbath  or  feast  day,  and  is 
therefore  of  unlawful  origin,  it  is  not  allowed  to  make  use 
of  it ;  and  though  it  would  be  lawful  to  make  use  of  the 
egg  of  such  a  hen,  laid  on  a  feast  day  or  Sabbath,  not 
followed  or  preceded  by  another  similarly  sacred  day,  yet  it 
must  not  be  eaten  if  two  such  days  come  together,  because, 
otherwise,  there  would  be  a  temptation  to  use  it  on  the 
second  holy  day.  And  since  it  is  forbidden  even  to  carry 
unlawful  food  from  one  place  to  another,  such  an  egg  must 
not  only  not  be  eaten,  but  must  not  be  touched,  to  put  it 
away.  The  conscientious  man,  therefore,  is  not  to  put  a 
finger  on  it,  for  that  might  lead  to  his  taking  it  altogether 
into  his  hand,  and  is  not  even  to  look  at  it,  for  that  might 
possibly  make  him  wish  he  could  eat  it.1  Hillel's  opinion 
carried  the  day,  for,  says  the  Talmud,  "  There  came  a  voice 
from  heaven,  saying — '  The  words  of  both  are  the  words  of 
the  living  God,  but  the  rule  of  the  school  of  Hillel  is  to  be 
followed.' " 

These  worthless  puerilities  were  in  keeping  with  the  fan- 
tastic exaggerations  in  which  many  of  the  Rabbis  delighted. 
What  shall  we  say  of  a  learned  order,  which  has  treasured 
in  that  great  repertory  of  its  sayings  and  acts,  the  Talmud, 
such  wild  Eastern  inventions  as  that  Adam  when  created, 
was  so  tall,  that  his  head  reached  heaven,  and  so  terrified 
the  angels  by  his  gigantic  size,  that  they  all  ascended  to  the 
upper  heavens,  to  God,  and  said,  "  Lord  of  the  world,  two 
powers  are  in  the  earth  !  "  and  that  on  this,  God  put  His 
hand  on  the  head  of  Adam,  and  reduced  his  height  to  only 
a  thousand  cubits — over  fifteen  hundred  feet !  '2  We  are  told 
that  there  were  sixty  thousand  towns  in  the  mountains  of 
Judea,  each  with  sixty  thousand  inhabitants ;  that  there  is 

1  Erubin  13  b,  quoted  in  Delitzscli's  Jesus  u.  Hillel,  p.  22. 
3  Bartolocci's  Bibliotheca  Rabbinica,   quoted   in    Brunet's  Erangilei 
Apocryphcs,  p.  171.    Lightfoot's  Hora;  Hcbraica:,  vol.  i.  p.  28,  etc. 

17 


242  THE   LIFE   OF   CHKIST. 

a  bird  so  large  that  when  it  flies  it  intercepts  the  light  o£ 
the  sun ;  that  when  the  Messiah  comes,  Jerusalem  will  have 
ten  thousand  palaces,  and  the  same  number  of  towers,  that 
there  will  be  a  hundred  and  eighty  thousand  shops  of  vendors 
of  perfumes  alone ;  that  Adam  had  two  faces  and  a  tail ; 
that  from  one  shoulder  to  the  other  Solomon  measured  uofc 
less  than  sixty  cubits  ;  and  that  at  one  blow  of  an  axe  David 
killed  two  hundred  men. 

The  form  of  teaching  in  the  schools  of  the  Rabbis  was  by 
question  and  answer.  The  teacher  propounded  questions  of 
legal  casuistry  to  the  scholars,  and  let  them  give  their 
opinions  adding  his  own,  if  he  thought  fit.  The  scholars 
also  could  propose  questions  in  their  turn.1  They  sat,  during 
class  time,  on  the  ground,  the  teacher,  on  a  raised  seat, 
known  as  the  seat  of  Moses.2  As  all  the  knowledge  of  the 
Law  was  strictly  traditional  and  oral,  teacher  and  scholar 
alike  had  to  depend  entirely  on  memory,  the  one  faculty  of 
supreme  importance  to  both.3  To  attain  high  fame,  a  Rabbi 
must  have  the  reputation  of  knowing  the  whole  immense 
mass  of  tradition  down  to  his  day,  by  heart,  so  as  to  be  able 
to  cite  authorities  for  any  possible  question.  Originality 
was  superstitiously  dreaded,  and  nothing  more  shrinkingly 
avoided  than  the  giving  any  opinion  unsupported  by  that  of 
some  former  Rabbi.  To  forget  a  single  word  he  had  heard 
from  his  teacher  was  an  inexpiable  crime  on  the  part  of  a 
scholar.4 

The  feats  of  memory  produced  by  such  a  system  were  so 
amazing,  that  we  may  readily  credit  the  tradition  of  the 
whole  Talmud  having  been  learned  by  heart,  in  sections,  by 
the  disciples  of  a  Persian  Rabbi,  who  feared  that  all  the 
copies  of  it  would  be  destroyed,  in  a  local  persecution,  in  the 
seventh  century.5  The  mass  of  the  Rabbis,  to  use  a  Jewish 
phrase,  must  have  been  mere  book-baskets  ;  6  grown  children, 
full  of  the  opinions  of  others,  but  piously  free  from  any  of 
their  own — the  ideal  of  pedants. 

Officially,  they  were  both  jurists  and  preachers.  They  ex- 
plained, defined,  and  taught  the  Law  in  their  schools  ; '  gave 

1  Horee  Hel>raicts.     Luke  ii.  46. 

8  Acts  xxii.  3.     Jost,  vol.  i.  p.  231.     Dereribourg,  p.  65.     Matt,  xxiii.  2. 

*  Jost,  vol.  i.  p.  255. 

*  Aboth,  iii.  8.     Schiirer,  p.  446.     Gfrorcr,  vol.  i.  p.  06. 

*  Quoted  in  Gfrorer.  vol.  i.  p.  167.  '    Duke's  Blumenlcse.  p.  228. 
7  A  school  of  the  P.abbis  was  called  Beth-ha-inidrasch — the  house  of 

study,  the  academy. 


JEWISH  INTEBPRETATION   OF   SCEIPTUEE.         243 

judicial  opinions  and  decisions  on  it  in  their  official  meet- 
ings, and  delivered  expositions  of  Scripture,  in  their  own 
style,  to  the  people  in  the  synagogues.  Their  systems  of 
interpretation  were  peculiar.  The  professional  statement 
of  Rabbinical  Law,  on  one  point  or  other,  occupied  them 
chiefly  ;  for  every  Rabbinical  precept  had  to  be  justified,  not 
only  by  precedents,  but  by  some  reference  to  the  written 
Law.  and  this  often  required  both  tediousness  and  ingenuity. 
There  was  no  end  of  points  on  which  a  legal  opinion  was 
volunteered  from  the  synagogue  pulpit,  and  trifles  infini- 
tesimal to  any  but  Jews,  served  for  ceaseless  wrangling  in 
the  schools.1 

The  interpretation  of  Scripture  gave  even  more  scope  to 
Rabbinical  fancy.  Three  modes  were  in  vogue :  the  using 
single  letters  to  explain  whole  words  or  clauses  ;  what  was 
called  the  practical  exposition  ;  and  what  bore  the  name  of 
the  "  Mystery  " — an  elucidation  of  the  lofty  secrets  of  the 
Creation,  the  world  of  angels,  and  such,  transcendental  mat- 
ters, from  the  most  improbable  sources.  Rules  were  provided 
for  the  treatment  of  these  different  methods,  but  the  utmost 
license  prevailed,  notwithstanding.  The  nature  and  value 
of  the  instruction  thus  given  may  be  judged  from  some 
illustrations  of  the  teaching,  in  the  days  of  our  Lord, 
respecting  the  secret  power  of  numbers. 

lu  the  first  and  last  verses  of  the  Bible  the  first  letter 
Aleph  (K),  occurs  six  times,  and  as  six  alephs  are  equal  to 
our  figures  6,000 — for  the  Jews  used  letters  for  figures — it 
was  held  to  be  proved  by  this  that  the  world  would  last 
6.000  years.1  Words  in  a  verse  might  be  exchanged  for 
others  whose  letters  were  of  equal  numerical  value.  Thus 
the  statement,  which  greatly  offended  the  Rabbis,  that 
Moses  had  married  an  Ethiopian  woman2 — in  violation  of 
his  own  law  3 — was  explained  as  a  figure  of  speech  which 
hid  an  orthodox  meaning.  The  letters  •  of  the  word 
"Cushith"  nV'13,  an  "Ethiopian  woman,"  when  added 
together  as  figures,  represented  736,  and  the  letters  of  the 
much  more  flattering  words,  "  fair  of  face,"  4  made  the  same 
sum,  and,  therefore,  they  were  clearly  the  true  meaning ! 

Another  fancy  was  to  explain  texts  by  putting  the 
numerical  value  of  a  word  in  the  place  of  the  word  itself. 

1  Schiirer,  p.  444  ff.  8  Num.  xii.  1. 

8  Exod. .  xxxiv.  16      Dent.  vii.  3,  4  ;  xxiii.  3. 
4  flip.O  n§'.    Targnm  of  Onkelos  on  the  verse. 


244  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

Thus,  in  Proverbs  viii.  21,  the  word  which  we  have  trans- 
lated —  "  substance  "  —  was  read  as  the  number  310,  its  value 
in  figures,  and  the  doctrine  educed  from  it  that  God  will 
give  310  worlds  to  every  just  man  as  his  inheritance  ! 

This  strange  system  was  so  much  in  vogue  in  the  days  of 
our  Lord  that  it  occurs  even  in  the  New  Testament,  and 
in  early  Christian  writings.  In  the  book  of  Revelation  the 
name  of  "  the  Beast  "  is  veiled  from  common  eyes  by  the 
mystical  number  666,  but  the  reason  for  its  being  so  becomes 
very  apparent  when  we  find  that  it  is  a  cypher  for  the  letters 
of  the  name  of  NERO.*  The  early  Christians  imagined  that 
God  had  already  revealed  the  doctrine  of  the  Cross  to 
Abraham  in  the  number  of  his  servants  —  318  :  for  18  is 
written  in  Greek  letters  IH  —  the  symbol  of  the  word  Jesus, 
and  300  is  the  letter  T,  which  means  the  Cross  !  l  With  the 
same  liking  for  mystery,  801  was  used  as  the  symbol  for 
Christ,  because  the  Greek  word  for  dove  (Trepiorcpa.)  makes 
that  cypher,  and  so  do  the  letters  Alpha  and  Omega. 

This  love  of  the  mystical  prevailed  in  all  Rabbinical 
teaching.  Thus  the  account  of  the  Creation  and  Ezekiel's 
vision  of  the  Wheel  were  made  the  foundation  of  the  wildest 
fancies.  "Ten  things,"  we  are  told,  "were  created  in  the 
twilight  of  the  first  Sabbath  eve  :  —  The  abyss  below  the 
earth  (for  Korah  and  his  company)  ;  the  mouth  of  the 
spring  (of  Miriam,  which  gave  the  tribes  water  in  the  wilder- 
ness) ;  the  mouth  of  Baalam's  she  ass  ;  the  rainbow  ;  the 
manna  in  the  wilderness  ;  the  rod  of  Moses  ;  the  schamir 
(a  worm  which  cleaves  rocks)  ;  alphabetical  characters  ;  the 
characters  of  the  Tables  of  the  Law  ;  and  the  Tables  of  stone 
themselves.  Some  Rabbis  add  to  these  —  evil  spirits,  the 
grave  of  Moses,  and  the  ram  that  was  caught  in  the  thicket.2 

Such  was  the  teaching  of  the  Rabbis,  as  a  whole  ;  though 
even  in  such  sandy  wastes  there  were  not  wanting  specks  of 
verdure,  as  one"  still  sees  in  the  Talmud.  Finer  minds  here 
and  there,  for  a  moment  ;  gave  a  human  interest  to  these 
teachings,  or  touched  the  heart  by  poetry,  and  simple  feel- 
ing. But,  as  a  rule,  the  "  Law,"  to  the  study  of  which  the 
youth  of  Israel  were  summoned  so  earnestly,  was  a  dreary 
wilderness  of  worthless  trifling.  The  spell  of  the  age  was 
on  all  minds,  and  bound  them  in  intellectual  slavery.  On 
every  side,  Christ,  in  His  childhood  and  youth,  heard  such 
studies  extolled  as  the  sum  of  wisdom,  and  as  the  one  pur- 


Epis.  Tlnrnnl).  c.  9. 


CONTEAST   BETWEEN   CHEIST  AND   THE   EABBIS.  245 

supremely  pleasing  to  God.  Yet  He  rose  wholly  above 
them,  and  with  immense  originality  and  force  of  mind, 
valued  them  at  their  true  worthlessness,  leaving  no  trace  of 
their  spirit  in  the  Gospels,  but  breathing,  instead,  only  that 
of  the  most  perfect  religious  freedom.  It  has  been  some- 
times insinuated  that  He  only  followed  the  teachers  of  His 
nation :  that  He  was  indebted  to  Hillel,  or  to  the  Pharisees 
as  a  class  :  h  but  enough  has  been  said  to  show  that  the  latter 
were  the  representatives  of  all  that  He  most  utterly  opposed, 
and  the  distance  between  Him  and  Hillel  may  be  measured 
by  their  respective  estimates  of  the  sanctity  of  the  marriage 
bond,  which  the  Rabbi  treated  so  lightly  as  to  sanction 
divorce,  if  a  wife  burned  her  husband's  dinner.1 

1  Delitzsch's  Hillel  u,  Jesus,  p.  27.     See  it  passim,  for  further  illustra- 
tions of  Hillel's  morality. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

JUDEA  UNDEB  AECHELAUS  AND  EOME. 

1 1  iHE  death  of  Herod  removed  the  strong  hand  that  for 
-*-  more  than  a  generation  had  repressed  alike  the  hatreds 
and  the  hopes  of  the  nation.  Fanaticism  Lad  muttered  in 
secret,  and  had  at  last  burst  out  in  the  tumults  at  the 
Temple,  just  before  he  died  ;  but  when  he  was  gone,  there 
was  no  one  to  hold  the  wild  forces  in  check  that  had  so  long 
been  pent  up. 

His  reign  had  served  the  purpose,  in  Providence,  of  delay- 
ing the  breaking  up  of  the  Jewish  people  and  its  being 
scattered  among  the  nations,  and  made  its  dissolution  easier 
in  the  end ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  it  had  called  forth  the 
sympathies  of  heathenism  for  Judaism  more  strongly,  and 
had  conquered  lasting  rights  for  it  among  the  nations,  as 
in  a  sense  the  salt  of  the  earth  and  the  forerunner  of 
Christianity.1 

The  rejoicings  of  the  nation,  that  the  scandal  of  an 
Edomite  sitting  on  the  throne  of  David  was  past,  knew 
no  bounds.  A  negro  conqueror,  at  the  White  House  in 
Washington,  in  the  days  of  slavery,  would  scarcely  have 
raised  such  indignant  hatred,  or  have  been  so  revolting  to 
the  national  instincts  of  the  white  population  of  America,  as 
an  Edomite  reigning  on  Mount  Zion  was  to  the  Jews.  Even 
the  founders  of  the  two  races  had  been  mortal  enemies,  as 
the  twin  sons  of  Isaac,  and  Jewish  tradition  embittered 
the  story  of  Genesis,  by  adding  that,  at  last,  Esau  killed 
Jacob  with  an  arrow  from  his  bow.3  When  Israel  was 
coming  from  Egypt,  Edom  had  refused  it  a  passage  through 
its  territory,  and  had  entailed  on  it  the  dreary  years  of 
wandering  in  the  wilderness.3  The  Edomites  had  been 

1  Keim,  Art.  Herodes,  Schenkel's  Bilcl  Lexicon. 
»  JubiL,  c.  37. 

•  Num.  xx.  14-21.  Jnd.  xi.  17,  18.  The  act  of  Etlom  was  the  occasion 
used  by  Providence  in  carrying  out  the  threat  in  Num.  xiv.  33. 


HATBED   OF  EDOM  BY  THE   JEWS.  247 

mortal  enemies  of  its  first  king.1  David  had  conquered 
them,  and  he  and  Solomon  had  reigned  over  them.  In  the 
decline  of  Israel  under  its  later  kings,  they  had  been  its 
deadliest  and  most  implacable  foes.  They  had  joined  the 
Chaldeans  in  the  final  conquest  of  Judea  under  Nebuchad- 
nezzar, and  had  rejoiced  over  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem, 
in  the  hope  of  getting  possession  of  its  richer  territory,  and 
adding  it  to  their  own  wild  mountain  land.  The  prophets, 
from  Amos  and  Joel,  in  the  ninth  century  before  Christ, 2 
had  denounced  them  as  the  bitterest  enemies  of  the  theo- 
cracy. "  Edom  shall  be  a  desolate  wilderness,"  cried  Joel, 
"  for  their  violence  against  the  children  of  Judah ;  because 
they  have  shed  innocent  blood  in  the  land."3  "For  three 
transgressions  of  Edom,  and  for  four,  saith  Jehovah,"  cried 
Amos,  "  I  will  not  turn  away  the  punishment  thereof,  be- 
cause he  did  pursue  his  brother  with  the  sword,  and  did 
cast  off  all  pity,  and  his  anger  did  tear  perpetually,  and  he 
kept  his  wrath  for  ever.  But  I  will  send  a  fire  upon  Teman, 
which  shall  devour  the  palaces  of  Bozrah."4  Obadiah,  after 
the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  by  Nebuchadnezzar,  taunted 
them5  with  having  been  among  the  enemies  of  Israel,  in  the 
day  when  strangers  carried  away  captive  the  force  of  the 
land,  and  foreigners  entered  its  gates  and  cast  lots  on  Jeru- 
salem, and  with  having  rejoiced  over  the  children  of  Judah 
in  the  day  of  their  destruction.  Jeremiah  and  Ezekiel  had 
denounced  the  wrath  of  God  against  them,6  and,  indeed, 
every  prophet  had  proclaimed  them  the  enemies  of  God, 
whom  Israel  was  one  day  to  crush  with  an  utter  destruction. 
During  the  exile  they  took  possession  of  great  part  of  the 
territory  of  Judah,  and  were  only  finally  driven  back  by 
John  Hyrcanus,7  who  conquered  them  130  years  before 
Christ,  and  compelled  them  to  submit  to  circumcision.  The 
deadly  hatred  of  centuries  was  intensified  by  such  a  history. 
"  Thou  hatest  me,"  says  Jacob  to  Esau,  in  the  book  of 
Jubilees,  "  thou  hatest  me  and  my  sons  for  ever,  and  no 
brotherly  love  can  be  kept  with  thee.  Hear  this,  my  word, 
which  I  say — When  I  can  change  the  skin  and  the  bristles 
of  a  swine  to  wool,  and  when  horns  spring  from  its  head 
like  the  horns  of  a  sheep,  then  will  I  have  brotherly  love  to 

1  1  Sam.  xiv.  47. 

2  Amos  B.C.  825.     Joel  B.C.  810.     Under  Jehoash  and  Jeroboam  II., 
Kings  of  Israel,  and  Amaziah  and  Uzziah,  Kings  of  Judah. 

3  Joel  iii.  19.        4  Amos  i.  11,  12.         5  Obad.  ver.  10.     B.C.  about  585. 
6  Jer.  xlix.  7-22.  Ezek.  xxxv.  13.  See,  also.Ps.  cxxxvii.  7.   7  B.C.  135-10^ 


248  THE  LIFE   OF   CHKIST. 

thee ;  and  when  wolves  make  peace  with  lambs,  that  they 
shall  not  devour  them  or  spoil  them,  and  when  they  turn 
their  hearts  to  each  other  to  db  each  other  good,  then  shall 
I  be  at  peace  with  thee  in  my  heart ;  and  when  the  lion  is 
the  friend  of  the  ox,  and  goes  in  the  yoke  and  ploughs  with 
him,  then  will  I  make  peace  with  thee ;  and  when  the  raven 
grows  white,  then  shall  I  know  that  I  love  thee,  and  shall 
keep  peace  with  thee.  Thou  shalt  be  rooted  out,  and  thy 
sons  shall  be  rooted  out,  and  thou  shalt  have  no  peace."1 
It  is  thus  that  a  Jew  speaks  of  Edom,  apparently  in  the 
very  days  of  Herod,2  and  it  is  only  the  natural  culmination, 
when  he  prophesies,  in  the  next  chapter,  that  the  sons  of 
Jacob  will  once  more  subdue  and  make  bond-slaves  of  the 
hated  race.3 

Yet  one  of  this  execrated  and  despised  people  had  for 
more  than  a  generation  ruled  over  Israel !  His  death  was 
the  removal  of  a  national  reproach,  that  had  been  bitter 
beyond  words.  The  hope  of  the  land  now  was  that  the 
abhorred  usurper  might  prove  the  last  of  his  race  on  the 
throne  of  Judah.  Archelaus  in  his  stead  was  even  worse 
than  to  have  had  Herod,  for  he  was  not  only  of  Idumean- 
blood,  but  his  mother  was  of  the  equally  hated  race  of  the 
Samaritans  !  Rome,  rather  than  Edom  or  Samaria ! 

Palace  intrigues,  and  especially  the  systematic  whisper- 
ings of  Antipater,  who  hated  his  brothers  as  rivals,  had 
caused  Herod  to  change  his  will  once  and  again  in  his  last 
years.4  In  the  end  nothing  seemed  likely  to  put  an  end  to 
the  rivalries  of  his  family  but  the  breaking  up  of  the  king- 
dom which  it  had  been  the  work  of  his  life  to  create.  His 
latest  gained  territories  beyond  the  Jordan  were  left  to 
Philip,5  the  son  of  Cleopatra,  a  maiden  of  Jerusalem,  whom 
Herod  had  married  for  her  beauty.  Galilee,  with  Perea,  he 
left  to  his  son  Antipas,6  and  Judea,  Idumea,  and  Samaria, 
with  the  title  of  king,  to  Archelaus,7  both  sons  of  Malthace. 
He  had  at  one  time  intended  to  have  left  the  whole  kingdom 
to  Herod,  son  of  the  second  Mariamne,  as  successor  to  Anti- 
pator,  but  the  complicity  of  the  mother  of  that  prince  in  iiie 

1  JuUl.,  c.  37. 

8  Dillmann,  Pseudepigraplicn.     Herzog,  vol.  xii.  pp.  300-336. 

*  JuML,  c.  38. 

4  B.C.  4.    Jesus  Christ  perhaps  2  or  3  j-ears  old. 

*  Born  about  B.C.  22  or  21.     Age  now  17  or  18. 

*  Born  about  B.C.  20.     Age  now  16. 

7  Born  about  B.C.  22  or  21.     Age  now  17  or  18. 


THE  FUNEBAL  OF  HEEOD  THE  GEEAT.     249 

intrigues  of  the  Rabbis  was  fatal  to  him.1  Salome,  Herod's 
sister,  the  ruthless  enemy  of  the  Maccaba?an  family,  received 
the  gift  of  the  towns  of  Jamnia  and  Ashdod  in  the  Philistine 
plain,  and  of  Phasaelis,  in  the  palm  groves  of  the  Jordan 
valley. 

As  soon  as  Herod  was  dead "  his  sister  Salome  and  her 
husband  set  free  a  multitude  of  the  leading  men  of  the  Jews, 
whom  Herod  had  summoned  to  Jericho,  that  he  might  have 
them  butchered  at  his  own  death.  They  next  assembled  the 
army  and  the  people  in  the  amphitheatre  at  Jericho,  and 
having  read  a  letter  left  by  the  dead  king  for  the  soldiers, 
opened  his  will,  which,  with  his  ring,  was  to  be  carried 
forthwith  to  Caesar,  that  the  settlements  might  be  confirmed, 
and  the  due  acknowledgment  of  dependence  made.  Mean- 
while, the  soldiers  hailed  Archelaus  as  king,  and  forthwith 
took  the  oath  of  allegiance  to  him.  It  was  noted,  however, 
that  Archelaus  held  a  grand  feast  on  the  night  of  his  father's 
death.3 

This  over,  the  funeral  of  Herod  followed,  after  due  pre- 
paration.4 All  the  magnificence  of  the  palace  had  been  laid 
under  contribution.  The  body  lay  on  a  couch  of  royal  pur- 
ple ;  a  crown  and  diadem  on  its  head ;  a  sceptre  in  its  right 
hand ;  a  purple  pall  covering  the  rest :  the  couch  itself 
standing  on  a  bier  of  gold,  set  with  a  great  display  of  the 
most  precious  stones.  Herod's  sons  and  a  multitude  of  his 
kindred  walked  on  each  side,  or  followed.  Next  came  the 
King's  favourite  regiments:  the  body  guard  given  him  by 
Augustus  at  Cleopatra's  death ;  the  Thracian  corps ;  the 
German  regiment ;  and  the  regiment  of  Gauls,  all  with  their 
arms,  standards,  and  full  equipments  ;  then  the  whole  army, 
horse  and  foot,  in  long  succession,  in  their  proudest  bravery. 
Five  hundred  slaves  and  freedmen  of  the  court  carried  sweet 
spices  for  the  burial,  and  so  they  swept  on,  amidst  wailings 
of  martial  music,  and,  doubtless,  of  hired  mourners,  by  slow 
stages,5  to  the  new  fortress  Herodium,  ten  miles  south  of 
Jerusalem,  where  the  dead  king  had  built  a  grand  tomb  for 
himself.  But  if  there  were  pomp  and  pageantry  to  do  him 
honour,  there  was  little  love  on  the  part  either  of  the  nation 
or  of  his  family,  for  Archelaus,  who  had  prepared  all  this 
magnificence,  quarrelled  with  his  relations,  on  the  way,  about 

1  Bell.  Jud.,  i.  30.  7.  *  B.C.  4. 

1  Ant.,  xvii.  9.  4.  4  Jesus  at  least  4  years  old. 

•  Ant.,  xvii.  8.  3.     Bell,  Jud.,  i.  33.  9. 


250  THE   LIFE   OP   CHRIST. 

the  succession,  and  scarcely  had  the  corpse  reached  the  first 
half-hour's  stage,  before  disturbances  broke  out  in  Jeru- 
salem.1 

Archelaus  paid  the  customary  reverence  of  a  seven  days' 
mourning  after  the  burial,  closing  them  with  a  magnificent 
funeral  feast*  to  the  people.  He  then  laid  aside  his  robes  of 
mourning  and  put  on  white,  and  having  gone  up  to  the 
Temple,  harangued  the  multitude  from  a  throne  of  gold, 
thanking  them  for  their  ready  submission  to  him,  and 
making  great  promises  for  the  future,  when  he  should  be 
confirmed  in  the  kingdom  by  Augustus.  The  crowds  heard 
him  peaceably  till  he  ended,  but  he  had  no  sooner  done  so, 
than  some  began  to  clamour  for  a  lightening  of  the  taxes, 
and  others  for  the  liberation  of  those  in  prison  on  account 
of  the  late  religious  insurrection.  All  this  he  readily  pro- 
mised, and  retired  to  the  palace.  Towards  evening,  how- 
ever, crowds  gathered  at  the  gates,  and  began  lamenting  the 
Rabbis  and  youths,  who  had  been  put  to  death  by  Herod  for 
cutting  down  the  golden  eagle  over  the  Temple,  in  the  late 
tumult,  and  demanding  that  the  officials  who  had  executed 
Herod's  commands  should  be  punished ;  clamouring,  besides, 
for  the  deposition  of  Joazar,  of  the  house  of  Boethos,  whom 
Herod,  in  compliment  for  having  married  into  the  family, 
had  appointed  high  priest  in  the  place  of  Mattathias,  a 
friend  of  the  national  cause.2  More  dangerous  still,  they 
demanded  that  Archelaus  should  at  once  rise  against  the 
Romans,  and  drive  them  out  of  the  country.3  His  utmost 
efforts  to  appease  them  were  vain.  Each  day  saw  a  greater 
tumult,  and,  to  make  matters  worse,  the  city  was  filling 
with  countless  multitudes  coming  to  the  Passover,  now  at 
hand.  Force  alone  could  restore  order,  and  this  he  was  at 
last  compelled,  most  reluctantly,  to  use.  A  bloody  street 
battle  followed,  in  which  3,000  were  slain,  and  the  Passover 
guests  were  shut  out  of  the  city,  and  returned  home  without 
having  being  able  to  keep  the  feast.  The  winds,  long 
chained  by  Herod,  had  broken  loose.b 

Archelaus  forthwith  set  off  for  Rome,  leaving  Philip  regent 
in  his  absence.  Doris,  Herod's  wife,  Salome,  his  sister,  and 
other  members  of  the  family,  went  with  him,  ostensibly  to 
support  his  claims,  but  in  reality  to  oppose  him,  for  the 
family  hated  him  as  the  son  of  a  Samaritan,  and,  even  more, 

J  Kfim,  Art.  Herodes,  in  Schenkel's  Bibel  Lexicon. 

*  Ant.,  svii.  6.  5.          3  Xicol.  Dam.  in  iliiller,  Fragm.,  vol.  iii.,  p.  353. 


ARCHELAUS   AND  ANTIPAS,   AT  HOME. 

as  a  second  Herod.  Antipas,  also,  started  for  Rome,  to 
plead  his  own  claims  to  the  kingdom,  on  the  strength  of  a 
former  will,  and,  as  the  elder,  was  secretly  supported  in  his 
enterprise,  with  refined  treachery,  even  by  those  who  escorted 
Archelaus. 

The  family  would  have  liked  an  oligarchy,  in  which  s  11 
could  share,  rather  than  any  king,  but  preferred  a  Roman 
governor  to  either  Archelaus  or  Antipas  ;  but  if  one  of  these 
two  must  be  chosen,  they  wished  Antipas  rather  than  his 
brother,  whom  they  all  hated.  At  Rome  the  two  claimants 
canvassed  eagerly  among  the  Senators,  in  favour  of  their 
rival  causes,  and  lowered  their  dignity  by  unseemly  dis- 
putes. Meanwhile,  a  deputation  of  fifty  Jews  arrived  from 
Jerusalem  to  protest  against  Archelaus  being  made  king, 
and  to  ask  the  incorporation  of  Judea  with  Syria,  as  part  of 
a  Roman  province,  under  a  Roman  governor,  thinking  that 
Rome  would  be  content  with  their  submission  and  tribute, 
and  leave  the  nation  independent  in  its  religious  affairs. 
The  embassage  was  received  with  great  enthusiasm  by  the 
Jews  of  Rome,  eight  thousand  of  whom  escorted  them  to  the 
Temple  of  Apollo,  where  Augustus  gave  them  audience.1 
All  possible  charges  against  Herod,  though  now  dead,  were 
detailed  at  length — his  wholesale  proscriptions  and  confisca- 
tions ;  his  adorning  foreign  cities,  and  neglecting  those  of  his 
own  kingdom ;  his  excessive  taxation,  and  much  more ;  the 
petitioners  adding  that  they  had  hoped  for  milder  treatment 
from  Archelaus,  but  had  had  to  lament  3,000  of  their  country- 
men slain  by  him  at  the  Temple,  at  his  very  entrance  on 
power.  The  people,  they  said,  wished  only  one  thing,  de- 
liverance from  the  Herods,  and  annexation  to  Syria.  The 
whole  scene  of  the  audience  was,  erelong,  widely  reported 
in  Judea,  and  stamped  itself  deeply  on  the  national  memory, 
especially  the  fact  that  Archelaus,  adding  the  last  touch  to 
the  humiliation  to  which  both  brothers  had  stooped,  threw 
himself  at  Caesar's  feet  to  implore  his  favour.2  Many  years 
after,  Jesus  needed  to  use  no  names,  in  His  parable  of  the 
pounds,3  to  tell  whom  He  meant,  when  He  spoke  of  a  king, 
against  whom  his  people  clamoured  before  a  foreign  throna 
— "  We  will  not  have  this  man  to  rule  over  us." 

Archelaus  was  only  in  part  successful.  A  few  days  after 
the  pleadings,  from  respect  to  Herod's  will,4  and,  doubtless, 

1  Ant.,  xvii.  11.  1,  2.  *  Ant.,  xvii.  9.  7. 

•  Luke  xix.  12.  *  Ant.,  xviii.  8.  L 


252  THE   LIFE    OF   CHRIST. 

influenced  by  a  bequest  of  ten  millions  of  drachmae  in  it  to 
himself,  a  gift  equal  to  about  £375,000,  besides  jewels  of 
gold  and  silver  and  very  costly  garments,  to  Julia,  his  wife, 
Csesar  raised  the  suppliant  from  his  feet,  and  appointed  him 
ethnarch  of  the  part  of  the  kingdom  left  him  by  Herod ; 
promising  to  make  him  king  hereafter,  if  he  were  found 
worthy.  Idumea,  Judea,  and  Samaria,  with  the  great  cities, 
Jerusalem,  Samaria,  Caasarea,  and  Joppa,  were  assigned  him  ; 
but  Gaza,  Gadara,  and  Hippos,  as  Greek  cities,  were  incor- 
porated with  the  province  of  Syria.1  His  revenue  was  the 
largest,  for  it  amounted  to  600  talents,  or  about  £120,000. 
Antipas  had  only  a  third  part  as  much,  and  Philip  only  a 
sixth.2  The  immense  sum  of  money  left  him  by  Herod, 
Caesar  returned  to  the  sons,  reserving  only  a  few  costly 
vessels,  as  mementoes. 

While  these  strange  scenes  were  enacting  at  Rome,  things 
were  going  on  very  badly  in  Palestine.  As  soon  as  Archelaus 
had  sailed,  the  whole  nation  was  in  uproar.  The  massacre 
at  his  accession  had  been  like  a  spark  in  explosive  air,  and 
the  flame  of  revolt  burst  out  at  once.  The  moment  seemed 
auspicious  for  the  re-erection  of  the  theocracy,  with  God  for 
the  only  king,  as  in  early  days.  The  rich,  and  such  as  had 
no  higher  wish  than  the  material  advantages  of  trade  and 
commerce,  which  they  would  bring,  desired  government  by 
a  Roman  procurator.  They  regarded  religion,  government, 
law,  and  constitution,  with  equal  indifference,  setting  their 
personal  ease  and  gain  before  anything  else.  But  for 
generations  there  had  been  a  growing  party  in  the  land, 
whose  ideas  and  aims  were  very  different.  From  Ezra's 
time,  the  dream  of  a  restored  theocracy  had  been  cherished, 
through  all  the  vicissitudes  of  the  nation,  with  undying 
tenacity,  by  a  portion  of  the  people.  The  political  system 
of  the  Pentateuch  was  their  sacred  ideal.  Kings  over  Israel 
were,  in  their  eyes,  usurpers  of  the  rights  of  Jehovah,  against 
whom  Samuel,  the  great  prophet,  had,  in  His  name,  protested. 
The  heathen  could  no  more  be  tolerated  now  than  the 
Canaanites  of  old,  whom  God  had  commanded  their  fathers 
to  drive  out.  The  land  was  to  be  sacred  to  Jehovah  and  His 
people,  under  a  high  priesthood  only,  to  the  exclusion  of  all 
foreign  or  kingly  rule.  The  impossibility  of  restoring  such 
a  state  of  things,  after  the  changes  of  so  many  centuries, 
may  have  been  felt,  but  was  not  acknowledged.  It  stood 

1  Ant.,  xviii.  11.  4.  '  Hid. 


PLOTS   OF   THE   JEWISH  ZEALOTS.  253 

commanded  in  the  Holy  Books,  and  that  was  enough.  Their 
fathers  had,  murmured  under  Persian  domination,  and  had 
eage'rly  grasped  at  the  promises  of  the  Greek  conqueror, 
demanding,  however,  that  they  should  include  the  safety  of 
their  special  institutions.  When  Grecian  supremacy,  in  its 
turn,  "became  corrupt,  and  threatened  the  destruction  of  the 
"  Law,"  the  "  pious  "  l  revolted,  and  fought,  under  the  Mac- 
cabees, for  the  true  religion,  but  still  in  the  form  of  a  theo- 
cracy. They  continued  faithful  to  the  great  patriot  family, 
as  long  as  it  maintained  the  high  priesthood  as  the  highest 
dignity  of  the  state,  but  they  had  taken  up  arms  only  to  de- 
fend the  faith,  and  as  soon  as  they  were  able  once  more  to 
practise  its  rites,  and  to  give  themselves  up  again  to  religious 
study,  they  forsook  the  ranks  of  the  Maccabaeans,  unwilling 
to  take  any  part  in  the  consolidation  of  a  political  power  to 
which  they  attached  no  value.3  In  the  end,  Judas  had  been 
well-nigh  deserted,  and  could  gather  only  a  handful  of  3,000 
followers,  and  his  brother,  who  succeeded  him,  had  to  flee  with 
a  remnant  of  their  adherents,  to  the  fens  and  reed  beds  of 
Lake  Merom,  or  the  wilds  of  Gilead.  The  long  peace  which 
prevailed  in  the  reign  of  John  Hyrcanus,  after  his  wars  were 
ended,  was  devoted  by  the  Rabbis  to  the  creation  of  the 
famous  "  hedge "  round  the  Law,  to  prevent  for  ever  the 
religious  apostasy  and  decay  which  had  almost  ruined 
Judaism  under  the  Syro- Greek  dynasty.  From  this  time 
we  hear  of  the  "  unsociability  "  of  the  Jews  towards  other 
nations.3  Pharisaism,  or  separation,  was  erected  into  a 
system,  and  was  pushed  to  its  ultimate  and  most  rigorous 
consequences  with  a  zeal  and  fanaticism  that  excite  wonder. 
The  extreme  party  became  known  as  the  "  Separation,"  * 
while  the  courtly  party  round  the  king,  who  were  contented 
to  follow  the  Law  as  written,  conscientiously  and  rigorously, 
were  called  in  irony  the  Saddouk,5  or  "  righteous,"  or,  as  we 
call  them,  the  Sadducees. 

The  indifference  of  the  Pharisaic,  or  ultra  party,  to  politi- 
cal affairs,  and  their  concentration  on  the  observance  and 
elaboration  of  the  Law,  became,  in  the  end,  the  characteristic 
of  the  people  at  large.  During  the  civil  war  between  Hyr- 
canus and  Aristobulus,  the  two  Asmonean  brothers,  they 
stood,  as  much  as  possible,  aloof.  The  Jew  is  democratic  by 
nature,  and  seeks  equality,  whether  under  a  foreign  or  native 

1  The  DTPD.  Hasidim.         2  Derenbourg,  p.  65. 
»  Derenbourg,  p.  76.  4  t^DS  Pharush.  *  See  page  63. 


254  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

government.  "  The  holy  nation,"  "  the  kingdom  of  priests," 
recognised  no  other  distinction  than  that  of  superior  piety 
and  knowledge  of  the  Law,  which  are  only  personal  virtues, 
and  cannot  be  transmitted.  The  Asmonean  family,  once 
on  the  throne,  lost  much  of  the  popular  sympathy,  and  the 
priestly  aristocracy  which  formed  the  court,  became  objects 
of  aversion.  From  the  last  years  of  John  Hyrcanus  to  the 
death  of  Jannaeus,  the  Rabbis,  living  in  retirement,  attracted 
to  themselves  more  and  more  the  vital  force  of  the  nation ; 
and  during  the  nine  sunny  years  of  royal  patronage,  under 
Alexandra,  instead  of  busying  themselves  in  heaping  up 
wealth  and  increasing  their  power,  they  laboured  to  found  a 
legal  system  which  should  secure  the  triumph  of  their  ideas. 
Disinterestedness  is  always  attractive,  and  it  had  its  reward 
in  creating  a  fanatical  devotion  to  the  Rabbis,  which  knew 
no  limits.  "  Love  work,  keep  apart  from  politics,  and  have 
nothing  to  do  with  office,"  was  the  maxim  of  Shemaia,  the 
successor  of  Simeon  Ben  Shetach.  The  struggle  between 
Hyrcanus  and  Aristobulus  had  no  interest  to  the  Pharisees. 
The  Talmud,  which  embodies  Rabbinical  feeling,  never  men- 
tions even  the  names  of  any  of  the  five  Maccabees — not  even 
that  of  Judas, — and  the  spelling  and  meaning  of  the  word 
Maccabee  were  alike  unknown  to  its  compilers.1  The  history 
of  the  nation  was  utterly  ignored  by  these  dreamy  transcen- 
dentalists,  who  recognised  no  earthly  power  whatever. 

But  even  among  the  Rabbis,  and  the  blindly  fanatical 
people,  there  was  an  ultra  party  of  Irreconcilables.  From 
the  first,  even  Rabbinical  sternness  and  strictness  were  not 
stern  and  strict  enough  for  some,  and  there  appeared,  at 
times  within  the  circle  of  the  Rabbis,  at  others,  outside, 
men  of  extreme  views,  who  would  tolerate  no  compromises 
such  as  the  Pharisees  were  willing  to  accept.  They  would 
acknowledge  neither  prince  nor  king,  far  less  any  foreign 
heathen  power.  Already,  in  the  days  of  John  Hyrcanus,  they 
had  begun  to  mutter  discontentedly,  and  their  voices  rose 
louder  under  Alexander  Jannseus,  who  tried  to  crush  them 
by  the  fiercest  persecution.  But  when  Pompey  came,  aa 
conqueror,  and  arbiter  of  the  national  destiny,  they  01  ce 
more,  by  their  earnest  protests,  showed  that  their  party  was 
slill  vigorous.  In  the  civil  wars,  many  of  them  fought  for 
the  Asmonean  princes ;  but,  under  Herod,  they  were  so 
mercilessly  held  down  that  no  political  action  on  their  part 

1  Derenlinury,  p.  58. 


ROMAN  TYRANNY  IN  JEEUSALEM.  255 

was  possible,  and  they  had  to  devote  themselves  to  the  eager 
study  of  the  Law,  which  made  his  reign  the  Augustan  age 
of  Rabbinism.  But  in  their  schools  they  could  at  least  kindle 
the  zeal  of  the  rising  youth,  and  this  some  of  them  did 
only  too  effectively.  Even  in  the  sternest  days  of  Herod's 
reign,  moreover,  some  had  not  been,  wanting  to  maintain  a 
fierce  protest  against  his  usurpation  of  the  throne,  which 
they  believed  belonged  only  to  God.  The  so-called  robbers, 
crushed  by  him  at  Arbela,  seem  to  have  been  rather  patriotic 
bands,  wrong  it  may  be  in  the  means  pursued,  but  noble  in 
their  aims,  who  sought  to  carry  out  the  theocratic  dream. 
The  foremost  leader  of  these  fierce  zealots  had  been  that  Heze- 
kiah  whom  Herod,  with  much  difficulty,  had  secured  and  put 
to  death.  His  son  Judas,  the  Galilsean,  was  now,  in  his  turn, 
to  raise  the  standard  of  national  liberty  and  institutions. 

Quintilius  Varus,  the  future  victim,  with  his  legions,  of 
Arminius,  in  Germany — now  governor  of  Syria — had  come 
to  Jerusalem,  on  account  of  the  disturbances  at  the  accession 
of  Archelaus.  After  some  executions,  supposing  that  he 
had  restored  order,  he  returned  to  Antioch,  leaving  behind 
him  in  Jerusalem,  under  Sabinus,  a  whole  legion  instead  of 
the  garrison  that,  in  peaceful  times,  would  have  been  thought 
sufficient.  He  could  hardly  have  done  worse  than  put  such 
a  man  as  Sabinus  in  command,  for,  like  Roman  governors 
in  general,  in  that  day,  he  was  a  man  of  no  principle,  bent 
only  on  making  a  fortune,  even  by  the  vilest  means,  while 
he  had  opportunity.  He  infuriated  the  Jews  by  forcing 
the  surrender  of  the  castles  of  Jerusalem  into  his  hands,  to 
get  possession  of  Herod's  treasures,  which  he  at  once  appro- 
priated to  his  own  use.  Plunder  was  his  one  thought,  and 
to  secure  it,  no  act  of  lawless  violence  was  too  audacious. 
Extortion  and  robbery  drove  the  people  to  fury.  Not  only 
the  city,  but  the  country  everywhere  seethed  with  excite- 
ment. It  seemed  a  fitting  moment  to  strike  for  their  long 
lost  national  liberty,  and  to  set  up  the  theocracy  again, 
under  the  Rabbis,  after  having  driven  out  the  heathen. 
Their  fanaticism  knew  no  caution  or  prudence,  nor  any  cal- 
culation of  the  odds  against  them.  Miracles  would  be 
wrought,  if  needed,  to  secure  their  triumph,  and  was  not  the 
Messiah  at  hand  ?  It  was,  moreover,  the  time  of  Pentecost,1 
and  an  immense  body  of  men  from  Galilee,  Idumea,  Jericho, 
and  Perea,  but  above  all,  from  Judea,  taking  advantage  of 

1  B.C.  4. 


256  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

the  feast,  hurried  up  to  Jerusalem  to  join  issue  with  the 
greedy  robber0  plundering  the  city.  Dividing  themselves 
into  three  camps,  they  forthwith  invested  the  city,  and 
Sabinus,  in  terror,  withdrew  to  the  fort  Phasaelis.  But  the 
storm  soon  burst  on  him.  Crowding  the  roofs  of  the  Temple 
cloisters,  the  Jews  rained  down  a  storm  of  missiles  on  the 
Roman  soldiers  sent  to  dislodge  them,  till  at  last  these,  find- 
ing other  means  useless,  fired  and  nearly  destroyed  the 
cloisters, — the  dry  cedar  of  the  roofs,  and  the  wax  in  which 
the  plates  of  gold  that  covered  them  were  bedded,  feeding 
the  flames  only  too  readily.  The  Temple  itself  was  now 
at  the  mercy  of  the  assailants,  who  avenged  themselves  by 
plundering  its  treasures,4  Sabinus  himself  securing  400 
talents — about  £83,000 — for  his  share.1  But  this  only  in- 
furiated the  people  still  more,  and  even  Herod's  army  was 
so  outraged  by  it,  that  all  the  troops,  except  the  Samaritan 
regiments — numbering  3,000  men — went  over  to  the  popular 
side.  Meanwhile,  the  flame  of  revolt  spread  over  the  whole 
country.  The  discharged  soldiers  of  Herod  began  plunder- 
ing in  Judea,  and  2,000  of  them  got  together  in  Iduinea  and 
fought  stoutly  against  the  new  king's  party,  driving  Herod's 
cousin,  Achiab,  who  was  sent  against  them,  to  take  refuge 
in  the  fortresses,  while  they  held  the  open  country.  Across 
the  Jordan,  in  Perea,  one  Simon,  who  had  been  a  slave  of 
Herod,  put  himself  at  the  head  of  a  great  band,  who  acknow- 
ledged him  as  king,  and  doubtless  hoped,  by  his  means,  to 
deliver  their  country,  and  restore  its  religious  freedom. 
Betaking  themselves  to  the  defile  between  Jerusalem  and 
Jericho,  they  burned  Herod's  palace  at  the  latter  city,  and 
carried  flame  and  sword  to  the  homes  of  all  who  did  not 
favour  them.  A  corps  of  Roman  soldiers  sent  out  against 
Simon  soon,  however,  scattered  his  followers,  and  he  himself 
was  slain. 

Further  north,  Athronges,  a  shepherd  of  the  wild  pastures 
beyond  the  Jordan,  put  himself  at  the  head  of  the  popular 
excitement.  He  was  a  man  of  great  size  and  strength,  and 
with  four  brothers,  all,  like  him,  of  lofty  stature,  strove  in 
his  own  wild  way  to  avenge  his  country.  Gathering  a  vast 
multitude  of  followers,  he  kept  up  a  fierce  guerilla  warfare 
against  the  troops  sent  out  to  put  him  down,  and  was  able 
to  keep  the  field  for  years,  so  well  was  he  supported  by  the 
people. 

1  Bell.  Jud.,  ii.  3.  2,  3, 4. 


JUDAS   THE   GAULONITE,   OB   GALILEAN.  257 

But  the  most  alarming  insurrection  broke  out  in  Galilee, 
the  old  head-quarters  of  the  Zealots,  under  Hezekiah,  in  the 
last  generation.  Judas,  Iiis  son,  born  on  the  other  side  of 
the  Jordan,  but  known  as  the  Galilaean,  had  grown  to  man- 
hood full  of  the  spirit  of  his  father.  The  same  lofty  ideal, 
of  restoring  the  land  to  God  as  its  rightful  king,  had  become 
the  dream  of  his  life.  The  time  seemed  to  favour  his  rising 
for  "  God  and  the  Law,"  as  his  father,  and  the  heroes  of 
his  nation,  had  done  in  the  past.  The  brave  true-hearted 
Galilasans,  ever  ready  to  fight  at  the  cry  that  the  Law  was 
in  danger,  rallied  round  him  in  great  numbers,  and  at  their 
head  he  ventured  on  an  enterprise  which  made  him  the  her>o 
of  the  day,  in  every  town  and  village  of  the  land.  Sepphoris, 
a  walled  hill  city,  over  the  hills  from  Nazareth,  was  the 
capital  of  Galilee,  and  the  great  arsenal  in  the  north.1 
This  fortress,  sitting  on  its  height  like  a  bird,  as  its  name 
hints,  Judas  took  by  storm,  and  its  capture  put  in  his 
hands  arms  of  all  kinds  for  thousands,  and  a  large  sum  of 
money. 

How  long  he  was  able  to  keep  the  field  is  not  known. 
The  Romans  lost  no  time  in  taking  steps  to  crush  him  and 
the  other  rebels.  Varus,  afraid  of  the  safety  of  the  troops 
he  had  left  in  Jerusalem,  set  off  southward  from  Antioch 
with  two  more  legions,  and  four  regiments  of  cavalry,  iu 
addition  to  the  auxiliary  forces  supplied,  as  was  required  of 
them,  by  the  local  princes  round.  As  he  passed  through 
Berytus,  that  city  added  its  quota  of  1,500  men,  and  Aretas, 
king  of  Arabia  Petrsea,  sent  him  a  large  contingent  of 
irregulars,  in  the  shape  of  wild  Arab  horsemen  and  foot 
soldiers.  The  whole  force  rendezvoused  at  Ptolemais,2  and 
from  this  point  Varus  sent  his  son,  with  a  strong  division, 
into  Galilee,  while  he  himself  marched,  by  way  of  Esdraelon 
and  Samaria,  to  Jerusalem.  Samaria  having  been  loyal — for 
it  would  have  been  the  last  thing  its  citizens  would  have  done 
to  join  the  hated  Jews  in  a  war  for  their  Law — was  left 
untouched,  Varus  pitching  his  camp  at  a  village  called  Arus, 
which  the  Arab  auxiliaries  set  on  fire  as  they  left,  out  of 
hatred  to  Herod.  As  they  approached  Jerusalem,  Emmaus, 
where  a  company  of  Roman  soldiers  had  been  attacked  and 
partly  massacred  by  Athronges,  was  found  deserted,  and 
was  burned  to  the  ground,  in  revenge  for  the  insult  that 
had  been  offered  to  the  army  of  Rome.  Reaching  the 

1  See  page  155.  *  Acre. 

18 


258  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

neighbourhood  of  the  capital,  the  besieging  force  of  the 
Jews  at  once  dispersed,  and  Varus  marched  in  without  a 
blow.  With  keen  dissimulation,  the  Jerusalem  Jews  forth- 
with laid  all  the  blame  of  the  troubles  on  the  Passover 
crowds,  asserting  that  they  had  been  as  much  besieged  as 
Sabinus.  Meanwhile,  the  troops  scoured  the  country  for 
fugitives,  2,000  of  whom  were  crucified  along  the  roadsides 
near  Jerusalem.  A  Jewish  force  of  10,000  men,  still  afoot, 
disbanded  itself,  and  the  revolt  in  Judea  was  for  the  moment 
suppressed.  Several  of  the  relations  of  Herod  who  had  taken 
part  in  the  rising,  and  had  been  sent  prisoners  to  Home,  were 
the  last  victims  for  the  time. 

The  force  under  the  son  of  Varus  had  meanwhile  been  busy 
in  the  north.  Sepphoris  was  retaken,  its  inhabitants  sold 
as  slaves,  and  the  town  itself  burned  to  the  ground,  but 
Judas  escaped  for  the  present,  to  begin  a  still  more  terrible 
insurrection  a  few  years  later. 

Peace  was  thus,  at  length,  restored,  and  the  young  princes 
entered  on  their  inheritances,  thanks,  once  more,  to  Rome. 
But  the  land  had  been  desolated :  the  bravest  of  its  youth 
had  died  on  the  battle-field :  cities  and  villages  lay  smoulder- 
ing in  their  ashes.  Samaria  alone  profited  by  the  attempted 
revolution ;  for  not  only  did  it  suffer  nothing,  but  a  third  of 
its  taxes  were  remitted  and  laid  on  Judea — a  new  ground  of 
hatred  towards  the  "  foolish  people  "  of  Shechem. 

The  sensual,  lawless,  cruel  nature  of  Archelaus,  with  his 
want  of  tact,  which,  together,  had  turned  both  his  family 
and  his  father's  wisest  counsellors  against  him,  leave  us  little 
doubt  of  the  character  of  his  reign.  The  general  estimate 
of  him  was  that,  of  all  his  brothers,  he  was  most  like  his  father. 
He  returned  from  Rome  degraded  in  his  own  eyes  by  having 
had  to  beg  his  kingdom  on  his  knees,  and  by  the  people,  and 
all  his  relations,  except  the  just  and  honourable  Philip,  having 
tried  to  prevent  his  success  with  Augustus.  His  one  thought 
was  revenge.  Jesus,  though  an  infant  when  Archelaus  began 
his  reign,  must  have  often  heard  in  later  years  of  his  journey 
to  Rome  and  its  humiliations,  and  of  the  savage  reprisals  on 
his  return ;  for,  as  I  have  said,  He  paints  the  story  un- 
mistakably in  the  parable  of  the  great  man  who  went  into  a 
far  country,  to  receive  a  kingdom  ;  whose  citizens  hated  him, 
and  sent  after  him  protesting  that  they  would  not  have  him 
to  reign  over  them.  The  fierce  revenge  of  Archelaus  could 
not  fail  to  rise  in  the  minds  of  those  who  heard,  in  the  parable, 
how  the  lord,  on  his  return,  commanded  his  servants  to  be 


UNPOPULARITY  OF  ARCHELAUS.  259 

called,  and  rewarded  the  faithful  richly,  but  stripped  the 
doubtful  of  everything,  and  put  to  death  those  who  had 
plotted  against  him.1 

Archelaus  began  his  reign  by  such  a  reckoning  with  hia 
servants  and  enemies.  When  he  took  possession  of  his 
monarchy,  says  Josephus,  he  used,  not  the  Jews  only,  but 
the  Samaritans,  barbarously.2  In  Jerusalem  he  deposed  the 
high  priest  of  the  Boethos  family,  on  the  charge  of  having 
conspired  against  him.  But  though  this  might  have  pleased 
the  Pharisees  and  the  people,  who  counted  the  Boethos  high 
priest  nnclean,3  he  only  roused  their  indignation  by  filling 
the  office  with  two  of  his  own  creatures  in  succession.4  His 
treatment  of  his  people  generally  was  so  harsh,  that  Jews 
and  Samaritans  forgot  their  mutual  hatred  in  efforts  to  get 
him  dethroned.  His  crowning  offence,  however,  was  marry- 
ing Glaphyra,  the  widow  of  his  half-brother  Alexander,  to 
whom  she  had  borne  children.  She  had  gone  back  to  lier 
father,  the  friend  of  Herod  and  Antony,  after  the  death  of 
aer  second  husband,  King  Juba,  of  Libya,  when  Archelaus 
met  her  on  his  way  back  from  Rome,  and  falling  violently  in 
love  with  her,  married  her  after  divorcing  his  wife.  Her 
former  career  in  Jerusalem  might  have  made  him  hesitate  to 
bring  her  back  again,  for  her  haughtiness,  keen  tongue,  and 
affected  contempt  of  Salome,  and  Herod's  family  generally, 
had  been  one  great  cause  of  her  first  husband's  death,5  while 
her  training  her  children,  as  she  did,  in  heathen  manners,  had 
made  her  hateful  to  the  people.6  Her  incestuous  marriage, 
now,  involved  both  her  and  Archelaus  in  the  bitterest  un- 
popularity. But  she  did  not  live  long  to  trouble  any  one. 
It  seemed  as  if  the  return  to  the  scene  of  her  early  marriage 
life  had  waked  only  too  vivid  recollections  of  her  murdered 
husband.  Soon  after  it  she  dreamed  that  he  came  to  her  and 
accused  her  of  her  infidelity  to  him  in  marrying  Archelaus, 
and  the  dream  so  affected  her  that  she  sickened,  and  in  a  few 
days  died.7 

Archelaus  had  not  the  same  taste  for  heathen  architecture 
or  public  games  as  his  father,  and,  perhaps  to  his  own  hurt, 
was  much  less  an  adept  at  public  flattery  of  the  Emperor  and 
his  ministers,  and  he  was  wise  or  timid  enoiigh  to  put  no  hea- 
then or  objectionable  impress  on  his  coins.8  At  Jericho  he 

1  Luke  xix.  11-27.  2  Bell.  Jud.,  ii.  7.  3.  •  Ant.,  xvii.  9.  1. 

4  Ant.,  xvii.  6.  4  ;  9.  1 ;  13.  1.  5  Bell.  Jud.,  i.  24.  2. 

*  Ant.,  xviii.  5.  4.  7  Ant.,  xvii   13.  4. 

*  De  Saulcy,  IL'chci  cites  sur  la  Xuiuisin  Judalquc.  Paris,  1854,  p.  133. 


260  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

rebuilt,  with  great  magnificence,  the  palace  burned  down  by 
Simon,  and  he  founded  a  town  on  the  western  hill-slopes  of 
the  Jordan  valley,  in  Samaria,  calling  it  Archelais,  after  him 
self,  and  embellishing  it  with  fine  conduits,  to  water  the  palm 
groves  in  his  gardens,1  but  beyond  this  he  left  no  monuments 
of  his  reign.  His  time  and  heart  were  too  much  engrossed 
with  vice  and  drunkenness  to  leave  much  interest  for  any- 
thing else. 

The  hatred  of  the  people  and  of  their  leaders,  the  Phari- 
sees, which  had  striven  to  prevent  his  getting  the  throne  at 
first,  grew  only  fiercer  with  time.  The  struggle  continued, 
with  true  Jewish  pertinacity,  for  nine  years,  fanned  more  or 
less  openly  by  the  ethnarch's  relations,  and  their  factions  at 
court.  At  last,  in  the  beginning  of  the  year  A.D.  6,  things 
came  to  a  crisis.3  Judea  and  Samaria,  whom  common  oppres- 
sion had,  for  the  moment,  made  friendly,  sent  a  joint  embassy 
to  Rome,  to  accuse  the  tyrant,  before  his  master,  of  having 
affronted  the  imperial  majesty,  by  not  observing  the  modera- 
tion commanded  him.  Archelaus  was  thoroughly  alarmed. 
Superstitious,  like  his  dead  wife,  he  dreamed  that  he  saw  ten 
ears  of  wheat,  perfectly  ripe,  presently  eaten  by  oxen,3  and 
at  once  taking  the  dream  as  an  omen,  was  told  by  one  Simon, 
an  Essene,  that  the  ten  heads  of  wheat  were  ten  years,  and 
marked  the  length  of  his  reign.4  Such  a  forecast  was  only 
too  easy.  The  embassy  to  Rome  had  done  its  work.  Csesar 
was  indignant,  and  ordered  the  Roman  agent  of  Archelaus, 
a  man  of  the  same  name,  to  sail  at  once  for  Palestine,  and 
summon  his  master  to  the  imperial  presence.5  Five  days 
after  the  dream  the  messenger  reached  Jerusalem,  and  found 
Archelaus  feasting  with  his  friends.  The  imperative  summons 
brooked  no  delay,  and  the  vassal  instantly  set  out  for  Italy. 
There  his  fate  was  speedily  decided.  Accusers  and  accused 
were  brought  face  to  face,  and  Archelaus  was  sentenced  to 
perpetual  banishment,  and  the  confiscation  of  all  his  property 
to  the  Emperor.  The  place  of  his  exile  was  fixed  at  Vienne, 
in  Gaul,  a  town  on  the  Rhone,  a  little  south  of  the  modern 
Lyons,  in  what,  long  afterwards,  became  the  province  of 
Dauphine.6  Here  he  lived  in  obscurity  till  his  death,  amid 
the  vines  of  southern  France,  perhaps  a  wiser  and  happier 
man  than  in  the  evil  years  of  his  greatness.  His  reign  was 

1  Ant.,  xvii.  13.  1.  *  Jesus  about  10  or  12. 

'  Ant.,  rvii.  13.  3.  *  Autumn,  A.D.  6. 

*  Ant.,  zvii.  13.  2.  •  Age  of  Archelans,  28. 


THE   RABBI  HILLEL.  261 

the  beginning  of  the  end  of  Herod's  kingdom,  his  dominions 
being  forthwith  incorporated  with  Syria,  as  part  of  that 
Roman  province.1  The  wish  of  the  Jews  was  at  last  gratified, 
but  they  were  soon  to  feel  how  bitterly  they  had  deceived 
themselves  in  supposing  that  incorporation  with  Rome  meant 
religious  independence.  The  Castle  at  Jericho,  and  the  palm 
groves  and  buildings  of  Archelais,  were  the  only  memorials 
of  the  ethnarch,  except  the  bitterness  written  on  every  heart 
by  his  cruelties  and  oppressions. 

A  man  of  unspeakably  greater  importance  in  his  influence 
on  the  nation — Hillel,  the  gentle,  the  godly,  the  scholar  of 
Ezra,2  appears  to  have  passed  away  in  these  last  months  of 
excitement,  at  the  age,  it  is  said,  of  120.  Born  among  the 
Dispersion,  in  Babylon,  he  had  come  to  Jerusalem,  long 
years  before,8  to  attend  the  famous  schools  of  Abtalion  and 
Shemaiah,  which  Herod's  proscriptions  would  have  well- 
nigh  crushed  in  later  years,  destroying  Rabbinism  with 
them,  but  for  the  genius  who  had  been  trained  in  their 
spirit.  Already  a  married  man,  he  had  no  income  but  the 
daily  pittance  of  half  a  denarius,*  earned  as  a  light  porter 4 
or  day  labourer,5  though  his  one  brother  was  a  great  Rabbi 
and  president  of  the  school  at  Babylon,  and  his  other  was 
growing  to  be  a  wealthy  man  in  Jerusalem.  But  the  rich 
one  did  not  trouble  himself  about  him,  and  affected  to  de- 
spise him,6  and  the  other,  though  eminent,  was,  very  likely, 
himself  poor.  Unable,  one  day,  to  pay  to  the  doorkeeper 
of  the  school  the  trifling  fee  for  entrance,  Hillel  was  yet 
determined  to  get  the  knowledge  for  which  his  soul  thirsted. 
It  was  a  Sabbath  eve  in  winter,  and  the  classes  met  on  the 
Friday  evening,  continuing  through  the  night,  till  the  Sab- 
bath morning.  To  catch  the  instruction  from  which  he  was 
shut  out,  Hillel  climbed  into  a  window  outside,  and  sat 
there,  in  the  cold,  for  it  was  bitter  weather,  and  snow  was 
falling  heavily.  In  the  morning,  says  the  tradition,  She- 
maiah said  to  Abtalion :  "  Brother  Abtalion,  it  is  usually 
light  in  our  school  by  day  ;  it  must  be  cloudy  this  morning 
to  be  so  dark."  As  he  spoke,  he  looked  up  and  saw  a  form 
in  the  window  outside.  It  was  Hillel,  buried  in  the  snow, 
and  almost  dead.  Carrying  him  in,  bathing  and  rubbing 

Ant.,  xvii.  13.  5.  *  Sota,  9.  6. 

Cir.  B.C.  50.    Delitzsch,  Hillel  u.  Jesus,  p.  10. 

Arnold's  Art,  Hillel  in  Herzog. 

Delitzsch,  p.  11.    Hausrath,  vol.  i.  p.  290.    Jost,  vol.  i.  p.  254. 

Arnold,  as  above. 


262  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

him  with  oil,  and  setting  him  near  the  hearth,  he  gradually 
revived.  "  It  was  right  even  to  profane  the  Sabbath  for 
such  an  one,"  said  the  teachers  and  students.1 

Five  or  six  years  after  the  beginning  of  Herod's  reign, 
Hillel  rose  to  be  the  head  of  the  Rabbinism  of  Jerusalem,  as 
the  only  man  to  be  found  who  had  studied  under  Abtalion 
and  Shemaiah.  After  a  time,  a  rival  school  rose  under 
Shammai.  Hillel,  though  a  strict  Jew,  had  still  a  leaning 
ko  charitable  and  liberal  ideas  in  some  directions  ;  Shammai 
was  the  embodiment  of  the  narrow  ultra-Pharisaic  spirit, 
and,  as  such,  much  more  numerously  followed  than  his 
milder  rival.  Hillel's  weakness,  as  well  as  strength,  lay  in 
his  love  of  peace,  for  he  too  often  gave  up  principle  to  main- 
tain quiet.  Many  of  his  sayings  are  preserved,  but  most  of 
them  are  inferior  to  those  left  by  Epictetus  or  Seneca.2  His 
summary  of  the  Law ;  to  a  heathen,  is  the  best  known, — 
"  What  you  would  yourself  dislike,  never  do  to  your  neigh- 
bour— that  is  the  whole  Law ;  all  else  is  only  its  application."3 
But,  like  all  the  Rabbis,  his  religious  system  was  radically 
unsound.  Its  central  principle  was  the  belief  in  strict  re- 
taliation, or  recompense,  for  every  act.4  Like  for  like  was 
the  sum  of  his  morality.  Seeing  a  human  skull  floating  on 
a  stream,  Hillel  cried  out,  "  Because  thou  hast  drowned 
(some  one),  thou  thyself  art  drowned,  and  he  who  has 
drowned  thee  will  himself  some  day  also  be  drowned."5  The 
same  way,  he  believed,  would  it  be  at  the  final  judgment. 
"  He  who  has  gained  (the  knowledge  of)  the  Law,"  said  he, 
"  has  also  gained  the  life  to  come."  6  Service  and  payment, 
his  fundamental  motive  to  right  action,  inevitably  led.  to 
formalism  and  selfish  calculation,  fatal  to  all  real  merit. 

The  banishment  of  Arehelaus  found  Jesus  a  growing 
boy  of  about  ten  or  twelve,  ?  living  quietly  in  the  Galilean 
Nazareth,  among  the  hills.  It  proved  a  momentous  event  in 
the  declining  fortunes  of  the  nation,  for  its  results  presently 
filled  the  land  with  terror,  and  paved  the  way  for  the  final 
crisis,  sixty  years  later,  which  destroyed  Israel  as  a  nation. 

The  troubles  of  Herod's  time,  and  the  dreams  of  the 
Rabbis,  had  excited  a  very  general  desire,  at  his  death,  for 
direct  government  by  Rome,  under  the  proconsul  of  Syria. 

1  b.  Joma,  35  b;  quoted  by  Delitzsch. 

8  See  the  collection  of  them  in  Keim's  Jesus  von  Nazara,  vol.  i.  p.  238. 

8  Shabbath,  fol.  31  a.  *  See  Matt.  v.  38. 

6  Pirke  Alt.,  ii.  6.  6  Pirke  Ab.,  ii.  7,  14.  »  A.D.  6. 


PUBLIUS   SULPICIUS   QUIKIXITJS.  263 

The  deputation  sent  to  Augustus,  when  Archelaus  was 
Beeking  the  throne,  had  prayed  for  such  an  arrangement, 
thinking  they  would  be  left  under  their  high  priests,  to 
manage  their  national  affairs  after  their  own  customs,  as 
the  Phenician  cities  were  allowed  to  do  under  their  Archons, 
and  that  Rome  would  only  interfere  in  taxation  and  military 
matters.  Their  wish,  however,  was  the  only  ground  of  their 
expectation,  for  Rome  never  left  large  communities  like  the 
Jewish  nation  thus  virtually  independent,  though  they  might 
indulge  towns  or  cities  with  such  a  privilege. 

When  Archelaus,  at  the  entreaty  of  the  people,  had  been 
banished,  their  hopes  revived  of  the  restoration  of  the 
theocracy  under  the  high  priests  and  the  Rabbis,  with  a 
nominal  supremacy  on  the  part  of  Rome.  The  exile  of  the 
tyrant,  therefore,  was  greeted  with  universal  joy ;  but  the 
news  that  a  procurator,1  or  lieutenant-governor,  as  he  might 
be  called,  had  been  appointed  in  his  stead,  and  that  Judea 
was  henceforth  to  be  incorporated  into  the  province  of 
Syria,  with  its  proconsul,  or  governor-general,  as  supreme 
head,  under  the  Emperor,  soon  dispelled  their  dreams  of 
theocratic  liberty. 

The  proconsul,1  or  governor-general,  of  Syria,  at  the  tinje. 
was  Publius  Sulpicius  Quirinius,  a  brave  soldier,  and  faithful 
servant  of  the  Emperor,  accustomed  to  command  and  to  be 
obeyed.  Ordered  to  incorporate  Judea  with  his  province,  no 
thought  of  consulting  Jewish  feelings  in  doing  so  crossed  his 
mind.  From  comparative  obscurity  he  had  risen,  through 
military  and  diplomatic  service,  till  Augustus  had  named  him 
consul.2  He  had  made  a  successful  campaign  in  Asia  Minor, 
against  some  tribes  of  savage  mountaineers,  whom  he  suc- 
ceeded in  subduing,  by  blockading  the  mountain  passes,  and 
after  starving  them  into  submission,  had  secured  their  future 
quiet  by  carrying  off  all  the  men  able  to  bear  arms  ;  banish- 
ing some,  and  drafting  the  rest  into  his  legions.  For  this 
he  had  gained  the  honour  of  a  triumph.  When  Caius,  the 
young  grandson  of  Augustus,  was  treacherously  wounded  in 
Armenia,  he  had  managed  affairs  for  him  so  much  to  the 
satisfaction  of  the  Emperor,  that  he  got  the  province  of 
Syria  as  a  reward.  With  all  this,  he  bore  a  bad  character 
with  those  who  knew  him,  or  were  any  way  under  him,  as 
not  only  malignant  and  grasping,  but  mean  and  revengeful. 
As  a  proof  of  this  it  was  instanced,  that  he  kept  a  charge  of 

1  P.  Sulpicius  Quirinius,  A.D.  6  or  7-11.  *  B.C.  12. 


264  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

attempted  poisoning  over  his  wife's  head,  for  twenty  years 
after  he  had  divorced  her. 

The  procurator,  or  lieutenant-governor,  appointed  over 
Judea  by  Quirinius,  was  Coponius,  a  Roman  knight,  un- 
known except  from  this  office.  He  and  Quirinius  made 
their  appearance  in  Jerusalem  together,  as  soon  as  Archelaus 
had  been  condemned,  to  take  possession  of  his  effects  for 
Augustus.  They  lodged  in  the  palace  of  Herod,  which, 
henceforth,  was  called  the  Preetorium,  and  became  the 
residence  of  the  procurators  when  they  were  in  Jerusalem 
at  the  time  of  the  feasts,  for,  except  then,  they  lived  in 
Caesarea.  The  Herod  family  had  to  content  •  themselves 
with  the  old  castle  of  the  Maccabtean  kings,  near  the 
Xystus. 

Any  golden  dreams  of  a  restored  theocracy  were  soon 
dispelled.  Hardly  had  the  inventory  of  the  possessions  of 
the  crown  been  finished,  before  Quirinius  announced  that  his 
next  duty  was  to  take  a  census  of  the  people,  and  a  return 
of  their  property  and  incomes,  as  the  basis  for  introducing 
the  Roman  taxation  common  to  all  subject  provinces  of  the 
empire.  There  could  be  no  clearer  proof  that  the  nation 
had  deceived  itself.  Rich  and  poor  alike  resented  a  measure 
which  announced  slavery  instead  of  freedom,  and  ruinous 
extortion  instead  of  prosperity.  In  every  country  the  in- 
troduction of  a  new  fiscal  system,  with  its  intrusion  into 
private  affairs,  its  vexatious  interferences  with  life  and 
commerce,  its  new  and  untried  burdens,  and  the  general 
disturbance  of  the  order  of  things  which  custom  has  made 
familiar,  is  always  unpopular.  But  in  this  case  patriotic 
and  religious  feeling  intensified  the  dislike.  It  was  at  once 
the  direct  and  formal  subjection  of  the  country  to  heathen 
government,  the  abrogation  of  laws  with  which  religious 
ideas  were  blended,  and  the  fancied  profanation  of  the  word 
of  Jehovah  and  of  His  prophets,  that  Israel  would  be  as  the 
sand  on  the  sea-shore,  which  cannot  be  numbered.1  It  was 
recalled  to  mind,  moreover,  that  when  the  wrath  of  God 
turned  against  Israel,  He  moved  David  to  give  the  command, 
*'  Go  number  Israel  and  Judah."  2  It  ran  also  from  mouth 
to  mouth  that  old  prophecies  foretold  that  the  numbering 
of  the  people  would  be  the  sign  of  their  approaching  fall  as 
a  nation.  To  the  fanaticism  of  the  Jew  the  census  was  a 
matter  of  life  and  death  ;  to  Quirinius,  who  could  not  com- 

1  Gen.  xxxii.  12.     Hosea  i.  10.  a  2  Sam  sxiv.  1. 


THE   EOMAN   TAXATION.  265 

prehend  such  a  state  of  feeling,  it  was  the  simplest  matter 
in  the  world.  The  very  first  step  in  the  Roman  government 
of  Judea  brought  it  into  conflict  with  the  people. 

The  systematic  and  direct  taxation  of  the  country  by 
Borne  was,  from  this  time,  an  inextinguishable  subject  of 
hatred  and  strife  between  the  rulers  and  the  ruled.  The 
Romans  smiled  at  the  political  economy  of  the  Rabbis,  who 
gravely  levied  a  tax  of  half  a  shekel  a  head  to  the  Temple, 
to  avert  a  national  pestilence,1  and  proposed  that  a  census  of 
the  people,  calculated  by  the  number  of  the  lambs  slaughtered 
in  Jerusalem  at  the  last  Passover,  should  be  the  basis  of  the 
imperial  fiscal  registration.  But  if  this  was  ridiculous  to 
the  Roman,  it  was  a  matter  so  sacred  to  the  Jew,  that  it  led 
to  ever-fresh  revolts,  after  thousands  of  patriots  had  died  to 
maintain  it.  The  Jewish  law  recognized  taxes  and  free  gifts 
only  for  religious  objects,  and,  according  to  the  Rabbis,  the 
very  holiness  of  the  land  rested  on  eveiy  field  and  tree  con- 
tributing its  tithe,  or  gift  of  wood,  to  the  Temple.  How,  it 
was  asked,  could  this  sacredness  be  maintained,  if  a  heathen 
emperor  received  taxes  from  the  sources  consecrated  to  Jeho- 
vah by  these  tithes  and  gifts  ?  Hence  the  question  rose, 
"  whether  it  was  lawful  to  pay  tribute  to  Cassar  or  not  ?  " — 
a  question  to  be  solved  only  by  the  sword,  but  rising  ever 
again,  after  each  new  despairing  attempt  at  resistance. 
Every  "  receipt  of  custom  "  at  the  gate  of  a  town,  or  at  the 
end  of  a  bridge,  was  a  rock  against  which  the  Jew  who 
honoured  the  Law  felt  his  conscience  wrecked,  or  a  battle- 
field marked  by  deadly  strife. 

This  sullen  antipathy  to  imperial  taxation  was,  moreover, 
intensified  by  the  evils  of  the  Roman  system.  The  chief 
imposts  demanded  were  two — a  poll  and  a  land  tax,  the 
former  an  income  tax  on  all  not  embraced  by  the  latter.2 
The  income  tax  was  fixed  by  a  special  census,  and  was  rated, 
in  Syria  and  Cilicia,  at  one  per  cent.  All  landed  property 
of  private  individuals  was  subject  to  the  ground  tax,  while 
the  Jewish  crown  possessions  were  confiscated  entirely  to  the 
imperial  exchequer.  The  tax  amounted  to  a  tenth  of  all 
grain,  and  a  fifth  part  of  wine  and  fruit,  and  was  thus  very 
oppressive.  Both  imposts  were  in  the  hands  of  "  publicans,"  3 
who  bought  from  the  censors  at  Rome  the  right  of  collect- 


1  Exod.  xxx.  13. 

*  Ant.,  viii.  4.  3.     Tac.  Ann.,  i.  78  ;  xiii.  50-59.    Liv.,  xxv.  8. 

*  Publican!. 


266  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

ing  the  taxes  for  five  years.  These  publicani  farmed  the 
revenue  from  the  State',  giving  security  for  the  payment  of  a 
fixed  sum  for  the  province  whose  taxes  they  bought.  There 
were,  however,  extraordinary  taxes  and  local  imposts,  besides 
the  two  great  ones.  If  corn  ran  short  in  Italy  the  provinces 
had  to  supply  it  at  fixed  prices,  and  the  procurator  at  Csesarea 
had  the  right  to  demand  for  himself  and  his  attendants  what 
supplies  he  required. 

The  customs  and  excise  duties,  moreover,  were  levied  for 
the  imperial  government — and  the  tolls  on  bridges  and 
roads,  the  octroi  at  the  gates  of  towns,  and  the  custom-houses 
at  the  boundaries  of  districts  or  provinces,  which,  also,  were 
farmed  by  the  publicani,  gave  additional  room  for  arbitrary 
oppression.  The  whole  system  was  radically  bad,  like  its 
counterparts  under  the  Ancien  Regime  in  France,  and  in 
Turkey,  now.  The  Roman  knights  who  took  contracts  for 
provinces,  sub-let  them,  by  districts,  to  others,  and  these 
again  had  sub-contractors  to  smaller  and  smaller  amounts. 
The  worst  result  was  inevitable  where  self  interest  was  so 
deeply  involved.  Each  farmer  and  sub-farmer  of  the  revenue 
required  a  profit,  which  the  helpless  provincials  had,  in  the 
end,  to  pay.  The  amount  assessed  by  Rome  was  thus  no 
measure  of  the  ultimate  extortion.  The  greed  and  oppor- 
tunity of  the  collectors,  in  each  descending  grade,  alone 
determined  the  demand  from  the  taxpayer.8 

Nor  was  there  a  remedy.  The  publicani  were  mostly 
Roman  knights,  the  order  from  which  the  judges  were 
chosen.  They  were  the  capitalists  of  the  empire,  and  formed 
companies  to  take  up  the  larger  contracts,  and  these  com- 
panies, like  some  even  in  the  present  day,  were  more  con- 
cerned about  the  amount  of  their  dividends  than  the  means 
of  obtaining  them.  Complaints  could  only  be  laid  before  an 
official  who  might  himself  intend  to  farm  the  same  taxes  at 
a  future  time,  or  who  was  a  partner  in  the  company  that 
farmed  them  at  the  moment.  Thus,  safe  from  the  law,  the 
oppression  and  extortion  practised  by  the  collectors  were 
intolerable.  The  rural  population  were  especially  ground 
down  by  their  exactions.  A  favourite  plan  was  to  advance 
money  to  those  unable  to  pay  demands,  and  thus  make  the 
borrowers  private  debtors,  whose  whole  property  was  erelong 
confiscated  by  the  usurious  interest  required. 

Caesar  has  left  us  a  vivid  picture  of  the  fate  of  a  Roman 
province  in  matters  of  taxation.  Speaking  of  Pius  Scipio, 
the  proconsul  of  Syria  in  B.C.  48,  he  tells  us  that  he  made 


KOMAN   PEOVINCIAL   GOVERNORS.  267 

large  requisitions  of  money  on  the  towns,  and  besides  exact- 
ing from  the  farmers  of  the  taxes  the  amount  of  two  years' 
payment,  then  due  to  the  Roman  treasury,  demanded  as  a 
loan  the  sum  which  would  be  due  for  the  next  year.  All 
this  extortion,  we  may  be  sure,  would  have  to  be  more  than 
made  up  by  the  unfortunate  provincials.  Having  brought 
his  troops  to  Pergamum,  one  of  the  chief  cities  of  the  pro- 
vince of  Asia,  he  quartered  them  for  the  winter  in  the  richest 
cities,  and  quieted  their  discontent  by  great  bounties,  and  by 
giving  up  the  towns  to  them  to  plunder. 

The  money  requisitions  levied  by  him  on  the  province 
were  exacted  with  the  utmost  severity,  and  many  devices 
were  invented  to  satisfy  the  proconsul's  rapacity.  A  head 
tax  was  imposed  on  all,  both  slave  and  free  :  taxes  were  laid 
on  columns  and  doors  ;  corn,  soldiers,  arms,  rowers,  military 
engines  and  conveyances,  were  taken  by  requisition.  If 
anything  could  be  thought  of  as  a  pretext  for  a  new  tax, 
the  tax  was  imposed.  Men  with  military  authority  were  set 
over  cities,  and  even  over  small  villages  and  petty  fortified 
places  ;  and  he  who  used  his  power  most  harshly  and  remorse- 
lessly, was  thought  the  best  man  and  the  best  citizen.  The 
province  was  full  of  lictors  and  bailiffs ;  it  swarmed  with 
officials  and  extortioners,  who  demanded  more  than  was  due 
for  the  taxes,  as  gain  for  themselves.  In  addition  to  all  this, 
enormous  interest  was  asked,  as  is  usual  in  time  of  war,  from 
all  who  had  to  borrow,  which  many  needed  to  do,  as  the  taxes 
were  levied  on  all.  Nor  did  these  exactions  spare  the  Roman 
citizens  of  the  province,  for  additional  fixed  sums  were  levied 
on  the  several  communes,  and  on  the  separate  towns.1  Cicero, 
on  his  entry  on  the  proconsulate  of  Cilicia,  found  things 
equally  sad  in  that  province.  He  tells  us  that  he  freed  many 
cities  from  the  most  crushing  taxation,  and  from  ruinous 
usury,  and  even  from  debts  charged  against  them  falsely. 
The  province  had  been  nearly  ruined  by  the  oppressions  and 
rapacity  of  his  predecessor,  whose  conduct,  he  says,  had  been 
monstrous,  and  more  like  that  of  a  savage  wild  beast  than  a 
man.1  Such  pictures,  by  Romans  themselves,  leave  us  to 
imagine  the  misery  of  the  wretched  provincials  under  pro- 
consuls and  procurators,  and  account  in  no  small  degree  for 
the  recklessness  of  Judea  under  the  Roman  yoke. 

Jesus  grew  up  to  manhood  amidst  universal  murmurs 
against  such  a  system,  the  discontent  becoming  more  serious 

1  Bell.  Civ.,  iii.  31,  32.  «  Cic.  ad  Fam.,  xv.  4.  2. 


288  THE   LITE   OF   CHEIST. 

year  by  year.h  At  last  the  Senate,  on  the  recommendation 
of  tlie  Emperor  Tiberius,  sent  Germanicus,  the  Emperor's 
nephew,  to  Syria,  as  a  necessary  step  towards  calming  the 
popular  excitement.1  The  Jews  had  already  sent  a  deputa- 
tion to  Rome,  to  represent  the  ruin  brought  on  their  country 
by  the  crushing  weight  of  the  taxes.  The  deepening  ex- 
haustion of  Palestine  by  the  fiscal  oppression  of  the  Romans, 
and  of  Herod's  family,  is  incidentally  implied  in  many 
passages  of  the  Gospels.  One  of  the  most  frequent  allusions 
in  Christ's  discourses  is  to  the  debtor,  the  creditor,  and  the 
prison.  The  blind  misrule  that  was  slowly  destroying  the 
empire  fell  with  special  weight  on  an  agricultural  people 
like  the  Jews.  In  one  parable,  Jesus  represents  every  one 
but  the  king  as  bankrupt.  The  steward  owes  the  king,  and 
the  servant  owes  the  steward.2  The  question  what  they 
should  eat  and  what  they  should  drink  is  assumed  as  tbe 
most  pressing,  with  the  common  man.  The  creditor  meets 
the  debtor  in  the  street,  and  straightway  commits  him  to 
prison,  till  he  pay  the  uttermost  farthing,  and,  if  that  fails, 
sells  him,  his  wife,  his  children,  and  all  that  he  has,  to  make 
up  his  debt.3  Oil  and  wheat,  the  first  necessaries  of  life, 
are  largely  claimed  by  the  rich  man's  steward.4  Buildings 
have  to  be  left  unfinished  for  want  of  means.5  The  mer- 
chant invests  his  money,  to  make  it  safe,  in  a  single  pearl, 
which  he  can  easily  hide.6  Many  bury  then1  money  in  the 
ground,  to  save  it  from  the  oppressor.7  Speculators  keep 
back  their  grain  from  the  market,  and  enlarge  their  barns.8 
Instead  of  a  field  which  needed  the  plough,  the  spade  suffices. 
"  What  shall  I  do  ?  "  says  the  ruined  steward,  "  I  cannot 
dig,  I  am  ashamed  to  beg." 9  In  the  train  of  scarcity  of 
money  comes  the  usurer,  who  alone  is  prosperous,10  speedily 
increasing  his  capital  five  or  even  ten  times.  This  state  of 
things  is  constantly  assumed  in  the  Gospels,  and  it  grew 
worse  and.  worse  through  the  whole  life  of  our  Lord,  cul- 
minating in  a  great  financial  crisis,  throughout  the  empire,  a 
few  years  after  the  Crucifixion. 

1  A.D.  19.  2  Luke  vii.  41.     Matt,  xviii.  23. 

•  Luke  xii.  58.  Matt.  v.  25.     Matt,  xviii.  25.  4  Luke  xvi.  6. 

•  Luke  xiv.  29.  6  Matt.  xiii.  46.  1  Matt.  xiii.  44. 
8  Luke  xii.  16.                    •  Luke  xvi.  3.                       w  Luke  xix.  23. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

THE  EOMAN  PEOCUEATOKS. 

rpHE  material  ruin  which.  Rome  had  brought  on  the  land, 
-*-  naturally  increased  the  prevailing  excitement,  and  the 
bands  of  fierce  religionists  which  lurked  in  the  hill-country, 
constantly  received  additions  from  those  whom  ^the  evil 
times  had  beg-gared.1  The  popular  mind  was  kept  in  per- 
manent agitation  by  some  tale  of  insult  to  the  Law  on  the 
part  of  the  Romans.  At  one  time  they  had  "defiled  the 
feasts,"  at  another  a  military  standard  had  been  shown  in 
Jerusalem,  or  a  heathen  emblem  brought  into  the  Temple, 
or  a  votive  tablet  set  up  on  Mount  Zion,  or  a  heathen  sculp- 
ture had  been  discovered  on  some  new  public  building. 
Real  or  imagined  offences  were  never  wanting.  Now,  it 
was  heard,  with  horror,  that  a  procurator  had  plundered 
the  Temple  treasures ;  then,  a  Roman  soldier  had  torn  a 
copy  of  the  Law ;  or  a  heathen  had  passed  into  the  for- 
bidden court  of  the  Temple,  or  some  Gentile  child,  in  his 
boyish  sport,2  had  mocked  some  Jew.  The  most  trifling 
rumours  or  incidents  became  grave  from  the  passion  they 
excited,  and  the  hundreds  or  thousands  of  lives  lost  in  the 
tumults  they  kindled.  The  heart  of  the  whole  country 
glowed  at  white  heat,  and  ominous  flashes  continually  warned 
Caesar  of  the  catastrophe  approaching. 

The  excitement  caused  by  the  inquisitorial  census  of 
persons  and  property  by  Quirinius  was  intense.  Herod  and 
Archelaus  in  their  taxation  had  been  careful  to  avoid 
direct  similarity  to  the  Temple  tenth,  and  possibly  it  waa 
because  the  revenue  had  to  be  raised  in  any  circuitous  way, 
to  prevent  collision  with  the  popular  prejudices,  that  the 
imposts  these  princes  had  levied — tolls,  house  tax,  excise, 

1  Pell.  Jud.,  ii.  12.  5  ;  14.  1 ;  iv.  8.  2. 

1  l^l!.  Jud.,  ii.  9.  4  ;  14.  6  ;  12.  2.  Acts  xxi.  28.  BeU.  Jud.,  ii.  12.  1; 
14  5. 


270  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

market  tax,  head  tax,  salt  tax,  crown  tax,  and  custom  dries, 
— had  pressed  on  the  nation  so  heavily.  Augustus  had 
•waived  the  introduction  of  the  Roman  modes  of  taxation, 
from  similar  motives  of  prudence,1  and  Herod,  while  he  had 
taxed  produce,  took  care  to  avoid  requiring  a  tenth.2  But 
Quirinius  had  no  such  scruples,  and  at  once  kindled  the 
fiercest  resistance.  The  whole  nation  saw  in  the  tithe  on 
grain  and  the  two-tenths  on  wine  and  fruit,  an  encroach- 
ment on  the  rights  of  Jehovah.  A  leading  Rabbi — Zadok — 
headed  the  opposition  in  his  class,  and  joined  Judas,  the 
Gralilsean,  who  again  appeared  in  the  field,  calling  on  all  to 
take  arms.  The  Rabbis  inveighed  against  the  proposals  of 
Quirinius,  but  he  cared  nothing  for  their  theology,  and  as  he 
had  broken  the  mountaineers  of  Cilicia  by  starvation,  he 
felt  no  doubt  that  he  could  keep  order,  in  spite  of  resistance, 
among  the  Jews.  Ambition,  love  of  money,  and  military 
rule,  engrossed  the  thoughts  of  the  rough,  coarse  soldier. 

At  first  it  seemed  as  if  he  would  succeed.  The  high 
priest,  Joazer,  a  Herodian  of  the  house  of  Boethos,  openly 
took  his  side,  and  persuaded  the  people  in  Jerusalem  to  let 
the  census  and  registration  go  on  quietly.  The  Rabbis 
temporized,  and  seemed  inclined  to  take  the  safer  side.  But 
this  did  not  content  the  whole  body.  The  more  determined 
were  weary  of  the  endless  discussions  and  trifling  of  the 
Synagogue,  and  broke  away  from  their  brethren  to  found 
a  new  school — that  of  the  "  Zealots  " — which  henceforth 
carried  in  its  hand  the  fate  of  the  nation.  The  fanatics  of 
Judaism — their  one  sleepless  thought  was  war  with  Rome.* 
They  were  the  counterparts  and  representatives  of  the  stern 
puritans  of  the^  Maccabaean  times,  and  took  their  name,  as 
well  as  their  inspiration,  from  the  words  of  the  dying  Matta- 
thias — "  Be  ZEALOUS,  my  sons  for  the  Law,  and  give  your 
lives  for  the  covenant  of  your  fathers."  3  The  exhortations 
of  their  brethren,  to  submit  quietly  to  the  government, 
were  answered  in  the  words  of  the  early  patriots — "  Who- 
ever takes  on  him  the  yoke  of  the  Law  is  no  longer  under 
that  of  man,  but  he  who  casts  off  the  Law,  has  man's  yoke 
laid  on  him."  4  Thus,  the  foreboding  that  this  numbering 
of  the  people,  Like  that  of  David,  would  bring  death  in  its 
train,  was  not  unaccomplished.  The  fierce  ruin  broke  forth 

1  Ant.,  xiv.  10.  1-6.  *  Ant.,  xv.  9.  1. 

*  1  Mace.  ii.  50.    In  2  Mace.  iv.  2.  we  have  "  a  zealot  for  the  law." 

*  2  Mace.  iv.  2. 


EISE   OF   THE   ZEALOTS.  271 

from  Gamala,  on  the  Sea  of  Gennesareth,  a  district  in  which 
the  census  was  not  to  be  taken  ;  and  the  destroying  angel 
who  passed  through  the  land  was  Judas  the  Galilsean. 

Judas  is  one  of  those  ideal  forms  which  have  an  abiding 
in  fluence  on  the  imagination ;  an  enthusiast,  raised  above 
all  calculations  of  prudence  or  possibility,  but  so  grand  in 
his  enthusiasm,  that  while  he  failed  utterly  in  his  immediate 
aim,  he  more  than  triumphed  in  the  imperishable  influence 
of  his  example.  He  was  the  first  of  the  stern  Irreconcilables 
of  his  nation,  and  from  his  initiative  sprang  the  fierce  and 
pitiless  fanatics  whose  violence  led,  two  generations  later, 
to  the  frightful  excesses  of  the  great  revolt,  and  to  the 
ruin  of  the  nation.  The  cry  which  drew  round  him  the 
youth  of  the  country,  had  been,  in  part,  the  inarticulate 
longing  of  countless  noble  souls,  though  mingled  with  a 
spirit  of  proscription  they  would  have  repudiated.  "  No 
Lord  but  Jehorah :  no  tax  but  to  the  Temple  :  no  friend 
but  a  Zealot."  It  was  idolatry  to  pay  homage  to  Caesar ; 
idolatry  to  pay  dues  to  a  heathen  government ;  it  was  de- 
filement of  what  was  pure,  to  give  tithes  or  custom  from  it 
to  the  Unclean,  and  he  who  demanded  them  was  the  enemy 
of  God  and  of  Israel,  worthy  of  double  punishment  if  a  Jew. 
War  with  Rome,  and  with  their  brethren  willing  to  live  at 
peace  with  it,1  were  alike  proclaimed.  Fire  and  sword 
wasted  the  land.  The  country  house  of  the  rich  Sadducee, 
and  the  ricks  and  barns  of  the  well-to-do  friend  of  Rome, 
everywhere  went  up  in  flames,  at  the  first  conflict  of  the 
rude  but  fiercely  brave  patriots  with  the  Roman  soldiery. 
Like  our  own  Fifth  Monarchy  men,  they  believed  that  the 
kingdom  of  God  could  be  set  up  only  by  the  sword.  In  the 
stern  spirit  of  the  Old  Testament,  they  thought  only  of 
hewing  Agag  in  pieces  before  the  Lord,  believing  themselves 
God's  instruments  to  rid  the  land  of  His  enemies,  ranking 
as  such,  in  effect,  all  but  themselves  and  their  supporters. 
He  was  a  jealous  God,  who  would  suffer  no  other  lords 
in  His  inheritance,  and  His  will  was  a  war  of  extermination 
on  the  heathen  invaders,  like  that  of  Joshua  against  the 
Canaanites. 

From  the  Nazareth  hills,  Jesus,  as  a  growing  boy,  saw 
daily  the  smoke  of  burning  villages,  and  in  Joseph's  cottage, 
as  in  all  others  in  the  land,  every  heart  beat  fast,  for  long 
weeks,  at  the  hourly  news  of  some  fresh  story  of  blood. 

1  Ant.  si.  8.  10. 


272  THE   LIFE   OP   CHRIST. 

But  the  insurrection  was,  erelong,  suppressed  :  Judas  djing 
in  the  struggle.  The  terrible  story,  however,  wa-s  never 
forgotten.  Many  years  after,  Gamaliel  could  remind  the 
authorities 1  how  "  the  Galilean  drew  away  much  people 
after  him  but  perished,  and  as  many  as  obeyed  him  were 
dispersed."  Even  the  Romans  learned  a  lesson,  and  never 
attempted  another  census ;  for  the  proconsul  Gestius  Gal- 
lus,  so  late  as  the  reign  of  Nero,  was  content  to  reckon  in 
the  Jewish  manner,  by  the  number  of  Passover  lambs.2  To 
the  people  at  large,  Judas  and  his  sons  were  a  new  race  of 
Maccabasan  heroes  ;  for  the  sons — Jacobus,  Simon,  Menahem, 
and  Eleazar — in  after  years,  carried  out  the  work  of  their 
father  with  a  splendid  devotion.  None  of  the  four  died  in 
bed.  They  either  fell  in  battle  against  Rome,  or  by  their 
own  hand,  to  prevent  their  being  taken  alive.  When  all 
Judea  had  been  lost  but  the  rock  of  Masada,  it  was  a  grand- 
son of  Judas  who  was  in  command  of  that  last  citadel  of  his 
race,  and  boasted  to  his  comrades  that  as  his  family  were 
the  first  who  rose  against  the  heathen,  so  they  were  the  last 
who  continued  to  fight  against  them,  and  it  was  he,  who, 
when  all  hope  had  perished,  slew,  by  their  own  consent,  the 
900  men  who  were  shut  up  with  him,  and  set  the  fortress  in 
flames,  that  Rome  might  find  nothing  over  which  to  triumph 
but  ashes  and  corpses.  The  grand  self-immolation  of  Judas 
became  a  deathless  example,  and  kept  Rome  uneasy  for 
seventy  years,  nor  is  Josephus  wrong  in  saying  that  though 
the  insurrection  lasted  hardly  two  months,  it  kindled  a 
spirit  which  reduced  Palestine  to  a  desert,  destroyed  the 
Temple,  and  scattered  Israel  over  the  earth.  Galilee  and 
Judea  never  showed  their  lofty  idealism  more  strikingly  than 
in  producing  such  leaders,  or  in  continuing  to  believe  in 
them  after  their  disastrous  end. 

Meanwhile  Quirinius  had  gained  his  point  in  a  measure, 
and  the  poll  and  ground  taxes  were  imposed  on  the  Roman 
plan,  by  the  close  of  the  year.3  But  nothing  was  done  to 
lighten  the  previous  burdens,  of  which  the  house  and  market 
taxes,  especially,  were  hateful  to  the  people.  The  fiscal 
result,  however,  was  far  below  Roman  expectations.  Al- 
though Herod  had  been  regarded  as  the  richest  king  of  the 
East,  the  estimate  forwarded  by  Quirinius  to  the  Emperor, 
of  the  value  of  all  the  taxes,  amounted  to  less  than  a  twelfth 
part  of  the  sum  derived  from  Egypt.  The  computation  was 

1  Acts  T.  37.  »  Bell.  Jud.,  vi.  9.  8.  *  A.P.  7. 


THE   ROMAN  TAX-GATHEREBS.  273 

sent  for  each  tax,  that  Augustus  might  sanction  it,  and  let 
it  be  put  up  for  sale  to  the  publican!. 

The  opposition  to  this  heathen  taxation,  though  thus  out- 
wardly suppressed,  was  only  nursed  the  more  closely  in  the 
hearts  of  all.  The  Rabbis  still  taught  that  the  land  was 
defiled  by  dues  paid  to  a  heathen  emperor,  and  attributed 
every  real  or  fancied  natural  calamity  to  the  displeasure  of 
the  Almighty  for  its  being  so.  "  Since  the  purity  of  the 
land  was  destroyed,"  said  they,  "  even  the  flavour  and  smell 
of  the  fruit  are  gone."  The  Roman  tithe  soon  told  fatally 
on  that  which  had  hitherto  been  paid  to  the  Temple,  and 
this  the  Rabbis  especially  resented.  "  Since  the  tithes  are 
no  longer  regularly  paid,"  said  they,  "  the  yield  of  the  fields 
has  grown  less."  1  Hence  the  question  constantly  passed 
from  mouth  to  mouth,  not  whether  the  Roman  tax  should 
be  paid,  but  whether  it  was  lawful  at  all  to  pay  it.2 

The  hatred  and  contempt  for  those  of  their  countrymen 
who,  under  such  circumstances,  took  service  as  collectors, 
under  the  associations  of  publicani  farming  the  odious 
taxes,  may  be  imagined.  The  bitter  relentless  contempt 
and  loathing  towards  them  knew  no  bounds.  As  the  Greeks 
spoke  of  "  tax-gatherers  and  sycophants,"  the  Jews  had  always 
ready  a  similarly  odious  association  of  terms  such  as  "  tax- 
gatherers  and  sinners,"  "  tax-gatherers  and  heathen,"  "  tax- 
gatherers  and  prostitutes,"  "  tax-gatherers,  murderers,  and 
highway  robbers,"3  in  speaking  of  them.  Driven  from 
society,  the  local  publicans  became  more  and  more  the 
Pariahs  of  the  Jewish  world.  The  Pharisee  stepped  aside 
with  pious  horror,  to  avoid  breathing  the  air  poisoned  with 
the  breath  of  the  lost  son  of  the  House  of  Israel,  who  had 
sold  himself  to  a  calling  so  infamous.  The  testimony  of  a 
publican  was  not  taken  in  a  Jewish  court.  It  was  forbidden 
to  sit  at  table  with  him  or  to  eat  his  bread.  The  gains  of 
the  class  were  the  ideal  of  uncleanness,  and  were  especially 
shunned,  every  piece  of  their  money  serving  to  mark  a 
religious  offence.  To  change  coin  for  them,  or  to  accept 
alms  from  them,  defiled  a  whole  household,  and  demanded 
special  purifications.4  Only  the  dregs  of  the  people  would 
connect  themselves  with  a  calling  so  hated.  Cast  out  by 
the  community,  they  too  often  justified  the  bad  repute  of 
their  order,  and  lived  in  reckless  dissipation  and  profligacy.5 

1  Misclma  Sofa,  ix.  12,  13.  *  Matt.  xxii.  17.     Luke  xx.  22. 

*  Matt.  ix.  10  ;  xi.  19  ;  xviii.  17  ;  xxi.  31.     Mischna  Nedart  iii.  4 
4  Miichna  Baba  Kama,  x.  1.  *  Matt.  xi.  19 ;  xxi.  31. 

IS 


274  THE   LIFE    OF  CHRIST. 

To  revenge  themselves  for  the  hatred  shown  them,  their 
only  thought,  not  seldom,  was  to  make  as  much  as  they 
could  from  their  office.  The  most  shameless  imposition  at 
the  "  receipts  of  custom,"  and  the  most  hardened  reckless- 
ness in  the  collection  of  excessive  or  fraudulent  charges, 
became  a  daily  occurrence.  They  repaid  the  war  against 
themselves  by  a  war  against  the  community.1 

Amidst  such  a  state  of  feeling  between  rulers  and  ruled, 
Jesus  grew  up  to  manhood  and  spent  His  life.  The  sleepy 
East  could  not  endure  the  systematic  and  restless  ways  of 
the  West,  now  forced  upon  it,  and,  still  less,  the  regular 
visit  of  the  tax-gatherer,  especially  under  such  a  vicious 
system  as  that  of  Rome.  War,  as  far  as  possible,  became 
the  chronic  state  of  things,  if  not  in  the  open  field,  yet  in 
never-ending,  ever-beginning  resistance,  all  over  the  land. 
Even  the  mild  school  of  Hillel  justified  the  use  of  any  means 
of  escape  from  the  robbery  of  the  "publicans,"  and  the 
Rabbis  at  large  made  the  subject  a  standing  topic  in  their 
schools.  Controversies  sprang  up  in  connection  with  it. 
The  Irreconcilables,  as  I  may  call  the  Zealots,  could  not 
brook  even  the  slight  concessions  to  Rome  of  the  hitherto 
popular  Pharisees.  It  was  made  a  matter  of  reproach  to 
them  that  they  put  the  name  of  the  Emperor  along  with 
that  of  Moses  in  letters  of  divorce,  and  the  dispute  was 
ended  only  by  Hillel's  party  reminding  its  opponents  that 
this  was  already  sanctioned  by  Scripture  itself,  which  allowed 
the  name  of  Pharaoh  to  stand  beside  that  of  Jehovah.2 

Before  Quirinius  left  Jerusalem,3  b  he  yielded  one  point 
to  the  people,  by  sacrificing  to  their  hatred  the  instru- 
ment of  his  tyranny — the  high  priest,  Joazar.  After 
helping  to  get  the  census  carried  out,  and  thus  losing  all 
popular  respect,  the  time-serving  priest  was  stripped  of  his 
dignity  by  the  master  who  had  despised  even  while  he  made 
use  of  him,  and  it  was  given  to  Hannas,  the  son  of  Seth,4  in 
whose  family  it  was  held,  at  intervals,  for  over  fifty  years. 
But  though  his  house  was  thus  permanently  ennobled,  its 
taking  office  under  the  Romans,  no  less  than  its  belonging  to 
the  party  of  the  Sadducees,  made  it,  henceforth,  of  no  weight 
in  the  destiny  of  the  nation.  The  Zealots  were  steadily 


1  Luke  iii.  12;  xii.  58;  xix.  8.  *  Exod.  v.  1, 

*  A.D.  6.     Age  of  Jesus  about  10.     Assuming  B.C.  4  as  His  birth-year. 
4  A.D.  6-15.    Approximate  age  of  Jesus  from  about  10  to  19.      Tin 
exact  year  of  our  Lord's  birth  is  uncertain. 


JEWISH  PATEIOTISM.  275 

rising  to  be  a  great  party  in  the  land.  The  noblest  spirits 
flocked  to  their  banner  most  readily,  as  we  may  judge  when 
we  remember  that  one  of  the  Apostles  had  been  a  Zealot,  and 
that  the  young  Saul  also  joined  them.1  The  young  men, 
especially,  swelled  their  numbers.  "  Our  youth,"  laments 
Josephus,  "  brought  the  state  to  ruin,  by  their  fanatical 
devotion  to  the  ferocious  creed  this  party  adopted."  2  Its 
principles  were,  indeed,  destructive  of  all  government,  as 
things  were.  "  He  who  was  under  the  Law,"  it  was  held, 
"  was  free  from  all  other  authority."  Its  members  were 
pledged  to  honour  Jehovah  alone  as  King  of  Israel,  and 
neither  to  shrink  from  death  for  themselves  nor  from  mur- 
dering their  nearest  kin,  if  it  promised  to  serve  the  cause 
of  liberty,  as  they  understood  it.3  The  family  of  the  fallen 
Judas  remained  at  the  head  of  these  fierce  patriots.  Two  of 
his  sons  were  afterwards  crucified  for  raising  an  insurrec- 
tion,4 and  while  his  third  son,  Menahem,  by  the  taking  of 
Masada,  was  the  first  to  begin  the  final  war  against  Floras,5 
his  grandson,  Eleazar,  was  the  last  who  fought  against  the 
Romans,  burying  himself,  as  has  been  told,  and  the  wreck  of 
the  Zealots,  beneath  the  ruins  of  the  fortress,  rather  than 
surrender.6  It  is  noteworthy,  moreover,  that  from  the  date 
of  the  census,7  no  part  of  Palestine  was  less  safe  than  that 
which  was  directly  under  Roman  authority.  If  the  traveller 
between  Jericho  and  Jerusalem  fell  among  robbers,8  what 
must  have  been  the  danger  in  the  lonely  and  desolate  valleys 
beyond  Hebron? 

The  first  seven  years  after  the  annexation  were,  not- 
withstanding, comparatively  happy  times  for  the  Jews.9 
Augustus  made  it  his  maxim  to  spare  rather  than  destroy 
the  provinces,  so  far  as  he  could  safely  do  so ;  and  he 
furthered  this  policy  by  frequent  change  of  the  procurators. 
As  to  the  burning  religious  questions  raised  by  the  decay 
of  heathenism,  and  the  spread  of  Eastern  religions  in  the 
empire,  he  took,  by  advice  of  Maecenas,  a  middle  course.  He 
supported  the  Roman  religion,  but,  at  the  same  time,  pro- 
tected the  special  faith  of  each  country.  Hence,  although 
he  personally  despised  foreign  religions,  and  offered  no  sacri- 
fices when  in  Jerusalem,10  even  while  asking  with  interest 

1  Matt.  x.  4.    Mark  Hi.  18.     Acts  xxii.  3.  *  Ant.,  xviii.  1.  1. 

3  Ant.,  xviii.  1.  6.  4  Ant.,  xx.  5.  2.  8  Bell.  Jud.,  ii.  17.  8. 

6  Bell.  Jud.,  vii.  8.  1 ;  ii.  17.  9.  7  A.D.  7.    Age  of  Jesus  about  1L 

•  Luke  x.  30.     Bell.  Jud.,  iv.  8.  2.     Ant.,  xx.  5.  1,  2,  3,  4  ;  6.  1,  eto. 

•  Mommsen's  Honum.  Ancyr,  vol.  iii.  p.  14.  10  B.C.  20. 


276  THE   LIFE   OF   CHBIST. 

about  the  Jewish  God,  and  though  he  praised  his  grandson, 
the  young  Cains  Caesar,  for  passing  through  Jerusalem1 
like  a  Roman,  without  making  an  offering,  yet,  like  Caesar 
and  Cicero,  elsewhere,  he  would  by  no  means  do  any  vio- 
lence to  the  Jewish  religion.  On  the  contrary,  he  yielded 
to  the  wish  of  Herod,  by  taking  the  Jews  of  the  Disper- 
sion under  his  protection,  as  Caesar  had  done,  and  sanc- 
tioned the  remittance  of  the  Temple  money  from  all  parts. 
Besides  this,  he  acted  with  the  greatest  consideration  towards 
the  Jews  in  Rome ;  for  since  the  campaigns  of  Pompey 
and  Gabinius,2  they  had  been  so  numerous  in  the  capital 
that  they  formed  a  great  "  quarter "  on  the  farther  side 
of  the  river.  Treating  them  as  clients  of  Caesar,  he  acted 
with  marked  thoughtfulness  in  all  connected  with  their 
religion,  their  morals,  or  their  prosperity.  He  formally  sanc- 
tioned the  Jewish  Council  in  Alexandria,  and,  after  the 
annexation  of  Judea,  he  ordered  a  permanent  daily  sacrifice 
of  an  ox  and  two  lambs  to  be  offered  at  his  expense,  and,  in 
conjunction  with  the  Empress  Livia,  and  other  members  of 
his  house,  sent  gifts  of  precious  jars  and  vessels  for  the  use 
of  the  drink-offering. 

This  policy  was  not  without  its  effect.  Augustus  got  the 
fame  in  Rome  of  being  the  patron  of  the  Jews,  and  in 
the  provinces,  even  among  the  Jews  themselves,  of  being 
the  magnanimous  protector  of  their  religion.  His  tolerance, 
moreover,  served  an  end  which  he  did  not  contemplate.  It 
secured  the  slow  but  certain  conquest  of  the  West,  first  by 
Judaism,  the  pioneer  of  a  new  and  higher  faith,  and  then 
by  Christianity — the  faith  for  which  it  had  prepared  the  way. 

But  in  spite  of  every  desire  on  the  part  of  Augustus  to 
humour  their  peculiarities,  the  Jews  were  still  in  a  state  of 
chronic  excitement.  The  Samaritans  seeing  their  oppor- 
tunity, raised  their  heads  more  boldly.  They  were  no  longer 
dependent  on  Jerusalem,  since  the  banishment  of  Archelaus. 
Their  elders  rejoiced  in  political  consequence  long  denied 
them.  But  the  light  and  giddy  masses  of  the  people  could 
not  make  a  right  use  of  liberty.  Under  Coponius,  the  first 
procurator  after  Archelaus  was  deposed,3  it  was  discovered 
that  they  had  defiled  the  Temple  at  Jerusalem  on  the  night 
before  the  Passover.  The  Temple  doors,  as  was  the  custom, 
bad  been  opened  at  midnight,  before  the  feast,  and  some 

1  About  the  date  of  the  birth  of  Christ.       2  B.C.  63,  and  B.C.  57-55. 
*  A.D.  6-9.     Age  of  Jesus  about  10-13. 


THE   HIGH  PRIESTHOOD.  277 

Samaritans,  knowing  this,  and  having  previously  smuggled 
themselves  into  Jerusalem,  had  crept  up  to  the  Temple  in  the 
darkness,  and  strewed  human  bones  in  the  courts,  so  that  the 
high  priest  Hannas  had  to  turn  away,  from  the  polluted  sanc- 
tuary, the  worshippers  who  in  the  morning  thronged  the  gates. 
Nothing  remained  for  the  vast  multitudes  but  to  go  back 
embittered  to  their  homes,  leaving  the  Temple  to  be  purified, 
but  nothing  is  said  of  any  punishment  of  the  Samaritans. 
The  procurator  seems  only  to  have  told  the  Jews  that  they 
should  have  kept  a  better  watch.1 

Little  is  known  of  the  two  procurators — Marcus  Ambivius 
and  Annius  Bufus,2  who  followed  Coponius — except  that 
Judea,  exhausted  by  its  burdens,  implored  their  diminution, 
and  that,  under  the  first,  Salome,3  Herod's  sister,  died,  while 
Augustus,  himself,  died  4  under  the  second. 

The  new  emperor,  Tiberius,  on  his  accession,  sent  a  fresh 
procurator,  Valerius  Gratus,  whom,  with  his  dislike  of 
change,  he  retained  in  office  for  eleven  yea.rs.5  Under  him 
things  went  from  bad  to  worse.  During  his  period  of  office 
he  changed  the  high  priests  five  times,  deposing  Hannas,  and 
giving  the  office  alternately  to  one  of  his  family,  and  to  a 
rival  house  of  the  small  band  of  Sadducean  Temple  nobility. 
Large  sums  no  doubt  filled  his  coffers  at  each  transaction, 
but  such  a  degradation  of  their  highest  dignitaries  must 
have  exasperated  the  Jews  to  the  quick.  After  the  crafty 
Hannas  came,  as  his  successor,  one  Ismael,  but  his  reign 
was  only  one  year  long.  Hannas'  son,  Eleazer,  next  won 
the  pontifical  mitre  for  a  year;  then  came  Simon,  but  he, 
too,  had  to  make  way  for  a  successor,  Caiaphas,  son-in- 
law  of  Hannas,  afterwards  the  judge  of  Jesus.  Simon  is 
famous  in  Rabbinical  annals  for  a  misfortune  that  befell  him 
in  the  night  before  the  Day  of  Atonement.  To  while  away 
the  long  hours,  during  which  he  was  not  permitted  to  sleep, 
he  amused  himself  by  conversation  with  an  Arab  sheikh,  but, 
to  his  dismay,  the  heathen,  in  his  hasty  utterance,  let  a  speck 
of  spittle  fall  on  the  priestly  robe,  and  thus  made  its  wearer 
unclean,  so  that  his  brother  had  to  take  his  place  in  the  rites 
of  ^.he  approaching  day.6  Changes  so  violent  and  corrupt 
had  at  last  degraded  the  high  priesthood  so  much  in  the  eyes 

1  Ant.,  xviii.  2.  2. 

2  Marcus  Ambivius  A.D.  9-12.    Annius  Eufus  A.D.  12-15.     Tac.  Armal., 
li.  42.     Age  of  Jesus  about  13-19. 

3  Between  A.D.  10  and  13.  *  A.D.  14.     Age  of  Jesus  a.botit  18. 
*  A.D.  15-26.    Age  of  Jesus  about  19  to  30.  6  Dcrenbourg,  p.  197t 


278  THE   LIFE   OF  CHRIST. 

of  all,  that  the  deposed  Hannas,  rather  than  his  successors, 
•was  still  regarded  as  its  true  representative. 

Meanwhile,  the  load  of  the  public  taxes  became  so  un- 
endurable that  a  deputation  was  sent  to  Rome  in  the  year  17,1 
to  entreat  some  alleviation  of  the  misery.  Syria,  as  a  whole, 
indeed,  seemed  on  the  brink  of  an  insurrection,  from  the 
oppression  of  the  publicans.  Germanicus,  the  Emperor's 
nephew,  one  of  the  noblest  men  of  his  day,  was  sent  to  the 
East  to  quiet  the  troubles  ;  but,  unfortunately,  with  him  was 
sent,  as  Governor- General  of  Syria,  Cneius  Piso,  his  deadly 
enemy,  who  soon  involved  him  in  personal  disputes  that 
well-nigh  excited  a  war  between  them.3  Tiberius,  able  and 
cautious,  and  not  yet  fallen  to  the  hatefulness  of  his  later 
years,  saw  no  remedy  for  this  state  of  things  but  in  pro- 
longing the  reign  of  the  procurators.  "  Every  office,"  he 
was  wont  to  say,  "induces  greed,  and  if  the  holder  enjoy  it 
only  for  a  short  time,  without  knowing  at  what  moment 
he  may  have  to  surrender  it,  he  will  naturally  plunder  his 
subjects  to  the  utmost,  while  he  can.  If,  on  the  other  hand, 
he  hold  it  for  a  lengthened  term,  he  will  grow  weary  of 
oppression,  and  become  moderate  as  soon  as  he  has  extorted 
for  himself  what  he  thinks  enough."  "  On  one  of  my  cam- 
paigns," he  would  add,  by  way  of  illustration,  "  I  came  upon 
a  wounded  soldier,  lying  on  the  road,  with  swarms  of  flies 
in  his  bleeding  flesh.  A  comrade,  pitying  him,  was  about  to 
drive  them  off,  thinking  him  too  weak  to  do  it  himself.  But 
the  wounded  man  begged  him  rather  to  let  them  alone, '  for,' 
said  he,  '  if  you  drive  these  flies  away  you  will  do  me  harm 
instead  of  good.  They  are  already  full,  and  do  not  bite  me 
as  they  did,  but  if  you  frighten  them  off,  hungry  ones  will 
come  in  their  stead,  and  suck  the  last  drop  of  blood  from 
me.'  "  3  The  heartless  cynic  in  the  purple  had  no  pity,  and 
was  far  enough  from  a  thought  of  playing  the  Good  Samari- 
tan, by  binding  up  the  wounds  of  any  of  the  races  under 
him,  far  less  those  of  the  hated  Jews.  In  Rome  itself  he 
treated  them  with  the  bitterest  harshness,  and  his  example 
reacted  on  those  in  Palestine.  In  the  year  19  he  drove 
the  Jews  out  of  Rome.4  "  Four  thousand  freedmen  infected 
with  this  superstition"  (Judaism),  says  Tacitus,  "being  able 
to  carry  arms,  were  shipped  off  to  the  island  of  Sardinia  to 
put  down  the  robber  hordes.  If  they  perished  from  the 

1  Age  of  Jesus  about  21.  *  Tac.  Annal.,  ii.  42,  43. 

*  Ant.,  xviii.  G.  5.  *  Age  of  Jesus  about  23. 


THE   PKOCUBATOK,   PILATE.  279 

climate  it  was  little  loss.  The  rest  were  required  to  leave 
Italy,  if  they  did  not  forswear  their  unholy  customs  by  a 
certain  day."  l  Suetonius  says  that  Tiberius  even  compelled 
them  to  burn  their  sacred  robes  and  utensils,2  but  Josephus 
boasts  that  those  drafted  into  the  legions  preferred  dying  as 
martyrs,  to  breaking  the  Law.3 

In  Judea,  these  measures  were  attributed  to  the  influence 
of  Sejanus,  the  hated  favourite  of  Tiberius.  It  was,  doubt- 
less, with  no  little  alarm  that  the  news  came  in  the  year 
26,  when  the  influence  of  Sejanus  was  at  its  height,  that 
Valerius  Gratus  had  at  length  been  recalled,  and  Pontius 
Pilate  appointed  in  his  stead.4  The  client  was  worthy  of  the 
patron.  Yenal,  covetous,  cruel,  even  to  delighting  in  blood, 
without  principle  or  remorse,  and  yet  wanting  decision  at 
critical  moments,  his  name  soon  became  specially  infamous 
in  Judea.  He  bore  himself  in  the  most  offensive  way 
towards  the  people  of  Jerusalem.  The  garrison  of  Antonia 
had  hitherto  always  left  the  ornaments  of  their  military 
standards  at  the  head-quarters  in  Csesarea,  since  the  Jews 
would  not  suffer  the  Holy  City  to  be  profaned  by  the  presence 
of  the  eagles  and  the  busts  of  the  emperors,  of  which  they 
mainly  consisted.  But  Pilate,  apparently  on  the  first  change 
of  the  garrison,  ordered  the  new  regiments  to  enter  the  city 
by  night  with  the  offensive  emblems  on  their  standards,  and 
Jerusalem  awoke  to  see  idolatrous  symbols  planted  within 
sight  of  the  Temple.  Universal  excitement  spread  through 
the  city,  and  the  Rabbis  and  people  took  mutual  counsel  how 
the  outrage  could  be  removed.  The  country  soon  began  to 
pour  in  its  multitudes.  The  violent  party  counselled  force, 
but  the  more  sensible  prevailed  as  yet,  and  a  multitude  of 
the  citizens  hurried  off  to  Pilate  at  Csesarea,  to  entreat  him 
to  take  away  the  cause  of  such  bitter  offence.  I3ut  Pilate 
would  not  listen,  and  treated  the  request  as  an  affront  to  the 
Emperor.  Still  the  crowds  continued  their  appeal.  For 
five  days  and  five  nights  they  beset  the  palace  of  Herod  in 
which  Pilate  resided,  raising  continually  the  same  cry,  that 
the  standards  might  be  removed.  Determined  to  end  the 
matter,  he  at  last  summoned  them  to  meet  him  on  the  seventh 
day  in  the  circus.  Meanwhile,  he  had  filled  the  spaces  round 
the  arena  with  soldiers,  and  when  the  Jews  began  to  raise 
fchoir  mutinous  cries  again,  on  his  refusing  to  yield,  he 

1  Tac.  Annal.,  ii.  85.  *  Tib.,  36. 

8  Ant.,  xviii.  3,  5.  4  Age  of  Jesus  about  30. 


280  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

ordered  the  troops  to  enter  with  drawn  swords.  But  he  had 
miscounted  their  fanatical  earnestness.  Baring  their  throats, 
and  kneeling-  as  if  to  meet  the  sword,  the  multitude  cried 
out  that  they  would  rather  part  with  their  life  than  their 
Law.  Pilate,  dreading  the  anger  of  the  Emperor  if  he  com- 
manded a  wholesale  massacre,  had  to  yield,  and  the  standards 
were  withdrawn  from  Jerusalem. 

The  power  of  Pilate  over  the  people  was  henceforth  broken. 
They  had  conquered  his  will  by  stronger  wills  of  their  own. 
From  this  time  they  knew  how  to  extort  concessions  from 
him.  Persistent  clamour,  that  would  take  no  refusal,  was, 
henceforward,  their  most  trusted  reliance,  as  we  see  only  too 
strikingly  in  the  last  hours  of  Jesus.  But  Pilate  could  not 
learn  by  any  lesson,  however  severe.  Furious  at  his  defeat, 
he  resolved  to  hide  it  by  a  fresh  innovation,  which  he  fancied 
he  could  carry  out.  The  Rabbis  had  contended  that  their 
law  did  not  allow  the  erection  of  images,  but  there  seemed 
nothing  to  prevent  votive  tablets  being  set  up  in  Jerusalem, 
like  those  dedicated  to  the  Emperor  by  other  officials.  He, 
therefore,  hung  golden  shields  of  this  kind  on  the  palace 
on  Mount  Zion,  where  he  lived,  inscribed  simply  with  his 
own  name  and  that  of  Tiberius.  A  terrible  commotion  was 
the  result.  At  the  next  feast,  the  Jews,  with  the  four  sons 
of  Herod,  Philip,  Antipas,  Herod  Boethos,  and  Phasael,  at 
their  head,  declared  that  such  symbols,  which  were  equiva- 
lent to  altars,  were  less  endurable  than  the  emblems  on  the 
standards.  "  Cease,"  cried  they,  as  he  fiercely  dismissed 
them,  "  to  stir  up  war  and  commotion.  The  Emperor  is  not 
honoured  by  insults  offered  to  the  Law.  It  is  the  will  of 
Tiberius  that  our  laws  shall  be  respected,  but  if  not,  show 
us  the  edict,  or  new  rescript,  which  says  otherwise,  that  we 
may  send  an  embassy  respecting  it  to  him."  1  Pilate  trem- 
bled when  he  heard  of  a  complaint  to  Tiberius,  for  he  was 
afraid,  as  Philo  tells  us,  that  a  deputation  to  Rome  would 
reveal  all  his  crimes,  "  the  venality  of  his  sentences,  his 
rapacity,  his  having  ruined  whole  families,  and  all  the  shame- 
less deeds  he  had  done,  the  numerous  executions  he  had 
ordered  of  persons  who  had  not  been  condemned  by  any 
tribunal,  and  the  excess  of  cruelties  of  every  kind  committed 
by  him."  He  had  gone  too  far,  however,  to  retreat,  and  had 
to  leave  matters  to  the  decision  of  the  Emperor;  but  as 
Herod  Antipas  had  the  ear  of  Tiberius,  and  willingly  sided 

1  Philo,  Leg.  ad  Caium.,  1003-1035.     Ant.,  xviii.  5.  1 ;  xvii.  1.  3. 


MASSACKE   OF   THE   JEWS.  281 

with  the  people,  the  procurator  was  defeated  once  more. 
The  command  of  Tiberius  was  directly  against  him,  and 
he  was  ordered  to  take  away  the  shields,  and  hang  them  up 
in  the  temple  of  Augustus,  at  Ca3sarea.  The  Jews  consoled 
themselves  that  the  Emperor  was  gravely  offended  at  Pilate's 
folly.  Henceforth,  the  clamour  of  the  multitude  nearly 
always  succeeded. 

Before  long  he  found  himself  involved  in  another  conflict 
with  the  people,  in  carrying  out  a  work  which  was  unques- 
tionably of  the  highest  value  to  Jerusalem,  and  for  which  he 
had  already  obtained  the  sanction  of  the  Jewish  authorities. 
The  conduit  which  supplied  the  city  and  the  Temple  with 
water,  had  grown  ruinous  from  age,  and  Pilate  undertook  to 
build  a  grand  new  aqueduct,  twenty-five  miles  in  length,1 
which  should  bring  a  full  and  pure  supply  for  the  Temple 
and  the  citizens.  As  the  Temple  was  to  be  benefited,  he 
naturally  thought  that  he  might  defray  the  expense  from 
its  treasury,  forgetting  that  the  money  was  Corban,  or  con- 
secrated to  Grod.  Hardly  had  the  news  of  his  intention 
spread,  than,  at  the  next  feast,  a  frantic  cry  rose  that  the 
Temple  was  to  be  plundered,  and  thousands  streamed  to  the 
palace,  to  repeat  the  tactics  of  Caesarea.  But  the  procurator 
had  this  time  prepared  himself  beforehand.  He  had  scattered 
numbers  of  his  soldiers,  dressed  as  Jews,  among  the  crowds, 
and  no  sooner  had  the  tumultuous  cries  begun,  than  these 
assailed  those  round  them  with  clubs,  and  speedily  drove 
them  off  in  wild  terror,  leaving  many  of  their  number, 
severely  wounded,  behind.  Perhaps  it  was  about  this  time, 
when  the  works  had  been  pushed  almost  to  the  Pool  of 
Siloam,  that  the  tower,  there,  fell  and  killed  eighteen  men  ; 
a  calamity  attributed  by  the  Rabbis  to  the  wrath  of  God  at 
the  secularization  of  the  Temple  treasures.2  Pilate's  aque- 
duct suffered  no  more  hindrance  in  its  completion. 

1  Ant.,  xviii.  3.  2.    Bell.  Jud.,  ii.  9.  4.  a  Luke  xiii.  i. 


CHAPTER  XX. 
HEROD  ANTIPAS  AND  CHRIST'S  OWN  COUNTRY. 

the  death  of  his  father  Herod,  Galilee  fell  to  the  lot  of 
Herod  Antipas,  who  ruled  over  it  during  all  the  remain- 
ing lifetime  of  our  Lord,  and  for  six  years  after  His  death.1 
His  mother  was  the  Samaritan,  Malthace,  so  that  he  was 
a,  full  brother  of  Archelaus,  who  was  about  a  year  older. 
He  had  been  sent  to  Rome,  for  his  education,  with  Archelaus 
and  his  half-brother  Philip,  when  a  boy  of  about  thirteen, 
and  the  three  had  been  entrusted  there  to  the  care  of  a 
private  guardian.  The  evil  genius  of  their  house,  their  half- 
brother  Antipater,  who  was  much  their  senior,  was  already 
living  in  the  imperial  city.  He  had  always  hated  Archelaus 
and  Philip,  as  rivals  in  his  hopes  of  the  throne,  and  now  took 
every  opportunity  to  slander  them  to  their  father,  so  that, 
perhaps  in  consequence  of  this,  they  were  recalled  to  Jndea 
in  the  year  B.C.  5.  But  this  only  made  Antipater  the  more 
deadly  in  his  hatred,  and  he  succeeded  in  so  poisoning  their 
father's  mind  against  them,  that  they  almost  dreaded  sharing 
the  fate  of  the  two  sons  of  Mariamne,  who  had  fallen 
through  the  same  fatal  influence.  Antipas,  who  had  escaped 
Aiitipater's  wiles,  seemed  likely  to  profit  most  by  the  mis- 
fortune, for,  in  his  second  will,  made  after  the  execution  of 
Antipater,  Herod,  unable  to  clear  his  mind  of  the  prejudice 
against  them,  had  passed  over  both  Archelaus  and  Philip, 
and  named  Antipas,  the  youngest,  as  his  successor.  Kindlier 
thoughts,  however,  returned  before  he  actually  died,  and  a 
third  will  was  made,  in  which  Archelaus  was  named  king, 
and  Antipas  and  Philip  tetrarchs,  their  father's  dominions 
being  divided  between  them. 

Antipas  had  received  his  name  in  honour  of  his  paternal 
great-grandfather,  as  Antipater,  his  half-brother,  had  received 
that  of  his  grandfather.  In  Rome,  by  a  strange  fortune,  he 

1  B.C.  4  to  A.D.  39.  Antipas  was  born,  apparently,  about  the  year 
B.c.  20. 


THE   RULE   OF  ANTIPAS.  283 

had  for  a  companion  and  fellow-scholar,  one  whose  after-life 
was  very  different  from  his  own — a  lad  named  Manaen,1 
who  afterwards  became  a  Christian  teacher  in  Antioch. 
Antipas  stayed  at  school,  in  Rome,  after  Archelatis  and  Philip 
had  been  recalled  to  Judea  ;  his  quiet,  peace-loving  disposition 
having  protected  him,  in  some  measure,  from  the  slanders  of 
Antipater,  and  from  the  distrust  of  his  father.  He  was, 
however,  by  no  means  wanting  in  ability,  else  so  shrewd  a 
man  as  Herod  would  never  have  thought  of  making  him  his 
sole  successor ;  nor  could  he,  otherwise,  have  been  supported, 
as  he  was,  before  Augustus,  by  Salome  and  the  family,  and 
by  the  leading  men  of  Herod's  government,  in  his  suit  for 
the  crown,  in  preference  to  Archelaus.  That  prince,  hated 
by  nearly  every  one,  found  himself  vigorously  opposed  by 
Antipas,  and  gained  his  cause  only  with  mortifying  abase- 
ments. Salome  and  Herod's  counsellors  may  have  put 
Antipas  forward  to  serve  their  own  ends,  but  he  had,  himself, 
shown  in  the  management  of  his  claim,  that,  if  quiet,  he  was 
none  the  less  ambitious  in  a  peaceful  way. 

When  he  entered  on  his  government,  in  the  year  B.C.  4, 
he  was  about  seventeen  years  old.2  His  provinces  were  wide 
apart,  for  Galilee  was  in  the  north-west,  and  Perea  in  the 
south-east  of  the  country ;  the  territory  of  the  free  towns, 
known  as  Decapolis,  separating  them  completely.3  They 
were  both,  however,  so  rich,  especially  Galilee,  that  they 
ranked  as  second  in  the  paternal  inheritance. 

Under  the  wise  guidance  of  his  father's  counsellors, 
Irenaeus  and  Ptolemy,  the  care  of  Antipas  was  first  turned 
to  the  repair  of  his  kingdom — which  had  been  sadly  injured 
by  the  Romans  and  Arabs  in  the  wars — and  to  the  necessary 
security  of  his  throne.  In  the  south  of  Galilee  he  rebuilt 
and  strongly  fortified  the  town  of  Sepphoris, — which  lay  on 
an  isolated  hill,  only  two  hours  north  of  Nazareth, — mak- 
ing it  his  capital,  and  at  once  the  ornament  of  his  kingdom, 
and  its  protection  against  Syro-Phenician,  or  even  Roman 
attack.  It  had  been  taken  and  burned  to  the  ground  by  the 
son  of  the  proconsul  Varus,  who  had  marched  against  it  from 
the  neighbouring  garrison  town,  Ptolemais,4  in  the  summer 
of  the  year  B.C.  4,  on  occasion  of  the  insurrection  of  Judas, 
the  son  of  that  Hezekiah  whom  Herod  had  put  to  death  when 
he  routed  his  band  in  the  caverns  of  the  800  feet  high  cliffs 

1  Or,  Menahem.     Acts  xiii.  1.  *  Jesus  was  then  an  infant. 

*  Meuke's  Bibcl  Allot.  *  Acre. 


284  THE   LIFE   OF   CHKIST. 

of  Arbela,  on  the  Sea  of  Gennesareth.  Varus  had  sold  the 
inhabitants  as  slaves,  but  Antipas  brought  others  and  re- 
peopled  it.1  Jesus,  in  His  eai'ly  childhood,  must  have  seen 
the  town  in  building,  for  it  lay,  full  in  view,  at  a  short  dis- 
tance from  the  hill-top  behind  Nazareth,  to  which  He  often 
wandered. 

Having  thus  secured  his  northern  frontier,  he  turned  to 
the  opposite,  outlying  extremity,  where  Perea  bordered  the 
Nabatean  kingdom,  and  was  exposed  to  the  Arabs,  about 
half-way  down  the  eastern  edge  of  the  Dead  Sea.  Among 
the  precipitous  volcanic  cliffs  and  peaks  of  that  region,  he 
strengthened  the  fortress  of  Machaerus  by  high  walls  and 
towers,  adding  a  residence  for- himself  within  its  circuit. 
The  defences,  built  at  first  by  Alexander  Jannseus,  but 
destroyed  by  the  Romans  in  the  old  Asmonean  wars,  were 
now  made  almost  impregnable,  and  Antipas  could  boast  of 
having  secured  his  kingdom  at  another  of  its  weakest  points. 
He  little  thought  that  he  himself  was  to  earn  his  darkest 
stain  by  the  execution  of  a  lonely  prisoner  within  its  walls. 
But  he  did  not  trust  to  strong  walls  alone.  He  dreaded  the 
neighbouring  Arab  prince  Aretas  as  his  most  probable  enemy, 
and  allied  himself  with  him  by  marrying  his  daughter. 
To  natter  the  empress-mother,  Livia,  whom  Salome,  at  her 
death,  about  A.D.  10-13,  had  made  her  heir,  and  his  neigh- 
bour, he  built  a  town  which  he  called  Livias,  on  the  site  of 
the  old  Beth  Harum,  at  the  upper  end  of  the  Dead  Sea. 
From  Salome,  Livia  had  obtained,  besides,  the  town  of 
Jamnia  and  its  district,  in  the  Philistine  plain,  and  Phasaelis 
and  Archela'is  in  the  valley  of  the  Jordan,  close  to  the 
dominions  of  Antipas,  so  that  he  wished  to  be  on  good 
terms  with  her.2  Besides,  Livia  was  at  the  time  in  favour 
with  the  Jews,  for  having  given  golden  jars  and  dishes,  and 
other  costly  offerings  to  the  Temple.3 

In  the  first  part  of  his  reign,  under  Augustus,  from  the 
year  A.D  4  to  14,  Antipas  maintained  a  prudent  restraint,  for 
he  had  had  no  success  in  the  single  attempt  he  ventured 
towards  a  more  intimate  relation  with  the  Emperor.  On 
the  banishment  of  Archelaus  he  had  sought  to  become  his 
heir,  and  to  get  his  father's  dominions  as  a  whole,  as  had 
been  intended  in  the  second  will,  and  seemingly  had  made 
himself  chief  accuser  of  his  fallen  brother,  and  of  his  govern- 

1  Ant.,  xvii.  10.  9  ;  xviii.  2.  1. 
2  Ant.,  xviii.  2.  1,  2.  •  Thilo,  ad  Caium. 


BUILDING   OF  TIBERIAS.  285 

ment.1  But  the  answer  of  Augustus  was  the  annexation 
of  Judea  to  Syria,  leaving  Antipas,  as  his  one  consolation, 
the  thought  that  as  he  was  now  the  only  Herod,  he  might 
assume  the  name,  as  he  seems  by  his  coins  to  have  done,  from 
this  date.2 

His  relations  with  Tiberius  were  more  flattering.  By 
countless  proofs  of  dependence  and  obedient  fidelity,  shown, 
doubtless,  in  part,  by  treacherous  reports  and  espionage  on 
the  proconsuls,  such  as  the  suspicious  and  despotic  emperor 
loved,  he  succeeded  at  last,  after  a  probation  of  a  good  many 
years,  in  gaining  great  favour  with  him.3  To  show  his 
gratitude,  Antipas,  who  had  grown  tired  of  Sepphoris  for 
his  capital,  far  off  among  the  hills  of  Galilee,  on  the  borders 
of  his  tetrarchy,  and  among  a  proud  and  independent  people, 
determined  to  build  a  new  one  on  the  Sea  of  Gennesareth, 
near  the  hot  springs  of  Emmaus.  It  was  the  finest  part  of 
his  territory,  alike  for  richness  of  soil  and  beauty  of  land- 
scape.4 The  city  was,  of  course,  planned  in  the  Roman 
style,  and  as,  under  the  former  emperor,  every  third  town 
was  called  Coesarea,  or  Sebaste,  the  Greek  equivalent  of 
Augustus,  the  new  metropolis  was  to  be  called  Tiberias. 
The  site  chosen  was  one  of  the  most  beautiful  on  the  lake, 
on  a  southerly  bend  of  the  shore,  washed  on  its  eastern  side 
by  the  waves.5  Yet  it  was  not,  for  the  time,  a  fortunate  one, 
for  the  reedy*  strand  made  it  unhealthy,  and,  still  worse, 
traces  of  an  old  burial-place  were  found  as  the  streets  were 
being  laid  out — a  discovery  which  at  once  brought  forward 
the  Rabbis  'with  entreaties  that  the  spot  might  be  abandoned, 
as  thus  at  once  unclean  and  unholy.  But  Herod  paid  no 
attention  to  the  clamour,  and,  as  soon  as  some  streets  were 
ready,  filled  the  houses  with  whatever  strangers  were  willing 
to  take  them.  Erelong,  however,  he  had  to  use  force  to  get 
inhabitants,  for  no  strict  Jew  would  settle  of  his  own  accord 
in  a  place  known  to  be  polluted.  He  was  even  driven  to 
give  slaves  and  beggars  building  and  garden  ground,  and 
to  raise  houses  for  them,  and  grant  them  special  privileges, 
before  he  got  his  capital  peopled.  But  a  prejudice  clung  to 
it,  which,  even  in  after  years,  made  all  unclean  for  seven 
days  after  visiting  it,  and  required  rites  of  purification  bcforo 


1  Ant.,  xvii.  3.  2.     Dio  Cassius,  Iv.  27. 

2  Keim,  in  Bibel  Lexicon,  Art.  Hcrodes  Sohne. 

8  Ant.,  xviii.  2.  3.  *  Ant.,  xviii.  2.  3. 

•  Ant.,  xviii.  2.  3.    Jic.ll.  Jud..  iii.  10. 1.     Furrer,  Wanderungen,  p.  314. 


THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

the  defilement  could  be  removed.1  Tiberias  is  only  once 
mentioned  in  the  Gospels,2  and  there  is  no  trace  of  Jesus 
having  ever  entered  it.  But,  in  spite  of  all  opposition, 
Herod  transferred  his  residence  to  it  from  Sepphoris,  and 
lavishly  decorated  his  palace,  to  the  grief  of  the  people, 
with  heathen  ornaments.  The  fa9ade,  which  was  adorned 
by  sculptures  of  animals,  was  especially  offensive  to  the 
Rabbis.  The  interior  was  furnished  with  almost  imperial 
splendour,  and  it  was  long  reported  how  the  ceilings  were 
gilded,  and  what  wonderful  candelabra  and  furniture  of 
precious  metal  dazzled  the  eyes.  When  the  palace  and 
castle  were  stormed  by  the  people,  at  the  outbreak  of  the 
final  war,  lustres  of  Corinthian  brass,  splendid  tables,  and 
whole  table -services  of  solid  silver,  were  carried  off  as 
plunder.3  Close  to  this  castle-palace,  to  the  additional 
horror  of  the  Jews,  he  built  an  amphitheatre,  still  to  be 
traced,  spacious  enough  for  the  greatest  assemblies.4  The 
city  was  adorned,  besides,  with  Grecian  colonnades  and 
marble  statues,6  and,  even  at  this  day,  ruins  of  fine  buildings 
strew  the  beach — granite  columns  and  blocks  of  costly  marble, 
porphyry,  and  syenite,  the  wreck  of  the  splendid  villas  of  the 
great  ones  of  Herod's  day,  when  no  heathen  luxury  had  been 
wanting  6 

Still,  with  all  this  Roman  magnificence,  the  Jews  were 
not  quite  forgotten.  A  synagogue,  large  enough  for  the 
greatest  congregation,  was  built,  apparently  by  Herod,  in 
the  spacious  hall  of  which,  two  generations  later,  the  wild 
revolutionary  gatherings  of  the  Galilseans  were  held  during 
the  great  war  with  Rome.  The  archives  of  the  province 
were  transferred,  with  the  seat  of  government,  to  Tiberias, 
and  a  castle,  in  whose  arsenals  arms  were  stored  for  70,000 
men,  was  built  for  the  garrison.7  For  the  next  fifty  years, 
Tiberias  was  the  undisputed  capital  of  Galilee,  and,  Ca3sarea 
excepted,  the  finest  city  of  Palestine.  Its  building  was  the 
great  theme  of  local  curiosity  and  interest  in  the  north,  for 
the  five  years  after  Jesus  had  reached  His  majority,  for  it 
was  begun  between  A.D.  16  and  19,  and  was  ready  for  inha- 
bitants, at  latest,  by  the  year  22,  and  it  lay  only  fifteen  or 
eighteen  miles  from  Nazareth.  Sepphoris  was  henceforth, 
till  Nero's  days,  only  the  second  town  of  the  province. 

1  Ant,.,  xviii.  2.  3.  *  John  vi.  2.  *  Vita,  xii.  13. 

«  Bell.  Jud.,  ii.  21.  6.  «  Vita,  xii.  13.  •  Furrer,  p.  316. 

1  Ant.,  xviii.  7.  2. 


THE   PROVINCE   OF   GALILEE.  287 

Galilee  has  a  surpassing  interest  as  the  special  scene  of  the 
ministry  of  Jesus,  and  the  district  in  "which  He  spent  nearly 
all  His  life.  It  was  through  its  cities  and  villages  that  He  is 
recorded  to  have  passed,  once  and  again,  teaching  and  preach- 
ing,1 and  it  was  in  Galilee  that  He  had  most  popular  support. 
To  know  something  of  a  land  whose  air  He  thus  breathed  so 
long,  amongst  whose  people  He  was  wont  to  mingle,  and  by 
whose  best  characteristics  He  must  have  been  affected, 
almost  unconsciously,  is  essential  to  a  vivid  realization  of 
His  life. 

The  province  lay  wholly  inland,  with  Phenicia  as  its 
western,  and  partly  its  northern  neighbour,  the  small  state 
of  Ulatha  reaching,  from  where  Phenicia  ended,  to  the  Sea 
of  Merom,  on  the  north-eastern  border.  The  Jordan  marked 
its  eastern  limit,  and  Decapolis,  with  the  territory  of  Samaria, 
defined  its  southern  border.  Its  whole  extent  was  incon- 
siderable, for  it  measured  little  more  than  seven-and-twenty 
miles  from  east  to  west,  and  five-and-twenty  from  north 
to  south,3  its  whole  area  being  nearly  the  same  as  that  of 
Bedfordshire,  one  of  the  smallest  of  our  English  counties.*1 
Its  boundaries  varied,  indeed,  at  different  times,  but,  at  the 
largest,  it  was  rather  like  a  moderate  county  than  a  province. 
The  Talmud  includes  Cassarea  Philippi,  twelve  and  a  half 
miles  north  of  the  Sea  of  Merom,  in  it,3  which  would  bring 
it  in  a  line  with  the  precipitous  mountain  bed  of  the  swift 
Leontes,  where  that  river  turns  westward,  at  a  right  angle 
to  its  former  course,  and  rushes  straight  to  the  ocean.  In 
Christ's  day,  however,  Csesarea  Philippi  seems  to  have 
belonged  to  the  dominions  of  Philip,  rather  than  those  of 
Antipas,  and  this  was  the  case,  also,  with  the  neighbouring 
district  of  Ulatha,  though  both  form  the  natural  boundary 
of  the  Galilean  region. 

Under  these  steep  northern  slopes  extends  a  marshy  plain, 
overgrown  with  tall  reeds  and  swamp  grass,  and  left  unin- 
habited, from  its  pestilential  air.  South  of  this  the  waters 
gather  to  form  Lake  Merom,  or  el  Huleh,  overgrown  with 
thick  reeds,  through  which  the  Jordan  slowly  makes  its  way. 
The  people  of  Galilee  never  came  to  this  district  except  to 
huvt  the  wild  boar  and  the  buffalo,  which  roamed  through 
the  reed  beds  in  troops.  It  was  shunned  on  account  of  the 

1  Matt.  iv.  23  ;  ix.  35. 

8  Menke's  Bibel  Atlas,  plate  5. 

»  Neubauer,  La  Geographic  du  Talmud,  pp.  178,  236,  242. 


288  THE   LIFE   OP  CHRIST. 

robbers  and  fugitives,  who  were  wont  to  hide  among  ita 
inaccessible  morasses  and  reed  forests.  Population  recom- 
mences only  when  this  region  is  passed,  increasing  as  the 
point  is  reached  where  the  caravan  road  between  Damascus 
a,nd  Acre  crosses  the  Jordan,  near  the  spot  now  called  Jacob's 
bridge,  and  stretches  southward  towards  Tiberias. 

The  Sea  of  Tiberias,  on  which  that  city  stood,  was  rightly 
called  the  Eye  of  Galilee.  In  the  days  of  Christ,  even  more 
than  now,  all  the  splendour  of  nature  in  southern  lands  was 
poured  on  its  shores.  Culture,  which  left  no  spot  unpro- 
ductive, encircled  the  blue  waters,  even  yet  so  enchanting 
a  contrast  to  the  yellow  chalk  hills  that  mostly  fringe  them. 
The  western  shore  is  still  bright  with  many-coloured  vegeta- 
tion, while,  on  the  east,  the  steep  hills  that  sink  to  the  water's 
edge  are  bare  and  gloomy  volcanic  rocks.  The  richest  spot 
on  the  lake  is  the  plain  of  Gennesareth,  where,  in  our  Lord's 
day,  all  the  fruits  of  Palestine  abounded.  Even  the  hills 
were  then  covered  with  trees.  Cypresses,  oaks,  almonds, 
firs,  figs,  cedars,  citrons,  olives,  myrtles,  palms,  and  balsams, 
are  enumerated  by  a  contemporary  of  Jesus 1  as  adorning  the 
valleys  or  hills.  The  now  bare  landscape  was  then  a  splendid 
garden.2  Oleander  bushes,  with  flowers  of  the  loveliest 
colours,  figs,  vines,  grain-fields,  and  soft  meadows  fringed 
the  banks,  and,  while  fruit-trees  and  olives  covered  the  hills, 
the  shores  were  dotted  with  waving  palms.3 

The  lake  is  shaped  almost  like  a  pear,  the  broad  end 
towards  the  north.  Its  greatest  width  is  six  and  three- 
quarter  miles,  and  its  extreme  length  twelve  and  a  quarter. 
In  Christ's  day,  the  western  shore  was  thickly  dotted  with 
towns  and  villages,  which  the  Gospels  will,  hereafter,  bring 
repeatedly  before  us.  The  eastern  side  has  always  been  less 
populous,  but  even  it  had  towns  at  every  opening  of  the 
dark  basaltic  hills,  the  outworks  of  the  Gaulonitish  range, 
which  press  close  to  the  water's  edge. 

East  of  the  Jordan,  and  half-way  down  the  eastern  side 
of  the  lake,  a  strip  of  upland  plateau,  about  four  miles  in 
width,  and  thirteen  long,  was  included  in  Galilee,  but  it  was 
of  little  value.  South-west  of  the  lake,  between  the  north- 
ern uplands  and  the  range  of  Carmel,  stretched  out  the  plain 
of  Esdraelon,  the  market  of  Galilee.  Beyond  other  parts  of 
the  province,  this  great  plain  was  crowded  with  life,  and 

1  Book  of  Jubilees,  p.  19.  8  Bell.  Jud.,  i.  15.  5. 

8  Bell.  Jud.,  in.  10.  7,  8. 


THE   FEETILITY  OF   GALILEE.  289 

covered  with,  fruitful  fields,  vineyards,  and  orchards,  in  the 
days  of  our  Lord.  Jewish  writers  are  never  tired  of  prais- 
ing Galilee  as  a  whole.  Its  climate,  they  said,  was  a  well- 
nigh  perpetual  spring,  its  soil  the  most  fertile  in  Palestine,1 
its  fruits  renewed  for  their  sweetness.2  For  sixteen  miles 
round  Sepphoris,  and,  therefore,  round  Nazareth,  its  near 
neighbour,  the  land,  it  was  boasted,  flowed  with  milk  and 
honey.3  The  whole  province,  in  fact,  was,  and  is,  even  still, 
full  of  verdure,  and  rich  in  shade  and  pleasantness  ;  the  true 
country  of  the  Song  of  Songs,  and  of  the  lays  of  the  well- 
beloved.4  It  was  in  a  region  where  rich  woods  crowned  the 
higher  hills  and  mountains ;  where  the  uplands,  gentle 
slopes,  and  broader  valleys,  were  rich  in  pastures,  cultivated 
fields,  vineyards,  olive  groves,  and  orchards,  and  the  palm 
groves  of  whose  warmer  parts  were  praised  even  by  foreign- 
ers,5 that  Jesus  spent  nearly  all  His  life. 

The  main  products  of  this  delightful  province,  in  the  days 
of  Christ,  were  the  fish  of  Gennesareth,  and  the  wheat, 
wine,  and  olive  oil,  which  the  whole  land  yielded  so  richly. 
Gischala,  a  town  in  northern  Galilee,  owed  its  name  to  the 
"  fat  soil " 6  of  its  district,  and  the  plain  of  Esdraelon,  on 
part  of  which  Nazareth  looked  down,  was  famous  for  its 
heavy  crops  of  wheat.  Jesus,  indeed,  lived  in  the  centre  of 
a  region  famous  for  its  grain  and  oil.  Farmers,  and  grape- 
and  olive-growers  formed  the  richer  classes  around  Him, 
and  He  was  familiar  with  noisy  market  days,  when  buyers 
came  from  all  parts  to  the  towns  and  villages,  to  trade  for 
the  teeming  rural  wealth.  Magdala,  on  the  Lake  of  Gen- 
nesareth, drove  a  flourishing  trade  in  doves,  for  the  sacri- 
fices ;  no  fewer  than  three  hundred  shops,  it  is  said,  being 
devoted  to  their  sale.7  There  were  indigo  planters  also  in 
its  neighbourhood,  then,  as  now.  Woollen  clothmaking  and 
dyeing  throve  in  it,  for  it  had  eighty  clothmakers,  and  a 
part  of  the  town  was  known  as  that  of  the  dyers.8  Arbela, 
not  far  off,  beside  the  hill  caves,  was  no  less  noted  for  its 

1  Eitter's  Geog.  of  Palest.,  vol.  ii.  p.  240.      Jost,  Gesch.  d.  Israel,  vol.  i. 
p  34. 

2  Neubauer,  p.  180.  *  Neubauer,  p.  185. 

4  Kenan's  Vie  de  Jesus,  p.  96.  See  also  the  testimony  of  Josephus,  Bell. 
Jud.,  iii.  2.  3. 

*  Tnc.  Hist.,v.  6. 

6  22  n  KJ-13  Gush  Chaleb,  fat  soil — Buxtorf.  It  is  equivalent  etymo- 
logically  to  Homer's  figure— The  Udder  of  the  Land. 

'  Neubauer,  p.  218.  8  Ibid.,  p.  218. 

20 


290  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

clotlimaking.1  Flax  was  grown  widely,  and  woven  by  womeri 
into  the  finest  kinds  of  linen.2  Kefr  Hananiah—  the  village 
of  Hananiah — in  the  centre  of  Galilee,3  was  the  pottery 
district  of  the  province,  and  was  famous  for  its  earthenware> 
and  especially  for  its  jars  for  olive  oil,  which  were  necessarily 
in  great  demand  in  so  rich  an  oil  country. 

Shut  in  from  the  sea-coast,  as  the  Jewish  territory  had 
been  in  all  ages,  the  Galilaean,  looking  down  from  his  hills, 
saw,  to  the  west,  the  home  of  another  and  a  very  different 
race.  The  glittering  white  sand  on  the  shore,  and  the 
smoking  chimneys  of  the  glass  manufactories  rising  from 
many  points  ;  the  dingy  buildings  of  Tyre,  a  contrast  to  the 
white  walls  of  his  own  mountain  home,  and  a  sign  of  the  busy 
industries,  the  weaving,  dyeing,  and  much  else  which  there 
flourished ;  the  ceaseless  traffic,  both  by  sea  and  land,  to  and 
from  this  great  centre  of  commerce,  reminded  him  that  the 
Hebrew  world  ended  with  his  hills,  and  that  on  the  coast 
plain  beneath  them  that  of  the  Greco-Phenician  race  began. 
Yet,  there  were  many  cities,  and  market  towns,  and  villages, 
in  his  own  hills  and  valleys — Gischala  on  the  northern 
slopes  of  the  4,000  feet  high  Djebel  Djermak,  and  Rama  on 
the  southern ;  Sepphoris  crowning  its  hill  of  900  feet ;  the 
strong  hill  fortress  of  Jotapata,  overlooking  the  plain  of 
Battauf  on  the  north  side  of  the  Nazareth  ridge ;  with  Cana 
of  Galilee  on  its  northern  edge,  and  Bimmon  on  its  southern. 
All  these,  or  the  heights  under  which  they  nestled,  were 
every-day  sights  to  Jesus  from  the  round  summit  behind  His 
own  highland  Nazareth,  and  they  were  only  a  few  that  might 
be  named.  Looking  south,  over  the  plain  of  Esdraelon,  on 
its  further  edge  lay  Legio,  the  old  Megiddo,  where  the  good 
king  Josiah  fell  in  battle,4  amidst  such  slaughter  and  lamen- 
tation, that  Zechariah,  more  than  a  hundred  years  later, 
could  find  no  better  picture  of  "  the  land  mourning,  every 
family  apart,"  than  the  "  mourning  in  the  valley  of  Megid- 
don," 5  and  that  even  the  Apocalypse  places  the  great  final 
conflict,  in  Armageddon, — the  Hill  of  Megiddo.6  The  wind- 
ings  of  the  torrent  Kishon  carried  with  it  the  memories 
of  another  great  historical  battle,  when  the  host  of  Sise  ra, 
thrown  helpless  by  a  sudden  flood,  perished  before  Barak 
and  Deborah.7  In  the  east  of  the  plain  rose,  on  its  slope, 

1  Neubauer,  p.  213.  *  Neubauer,  p.  181. 

1  Liglitfoot,  vol.  i.  p.  127. 

4  2  Chron.  xxxv.  22-25.  «  Zcch.  xii.  11,  12. 

*  HJP  "ID  Har  Megiddo.  Rev.  xvi.  1C.  7  j,uig.  T.  15. 


VIEW   OF   NAZAEETH.  291 

the  pleasant  Jezreel,1  once  Ahab's  capital,  where  Naboth  had 
his  vineyard,  and  the  dogs  licked  the  blood  of  the  haughty 
Jezebel.  Clustered  round  a  spur  of  the  hills  of  Gilboa, 
which  rose  1,800  feet  above  the  sea-level,  halfway  between 
Jezreel  and  Tabor,  lay,  on  the  different  sides,  the  village  of 
Siinem,  where  Elisha  lived  with  the  Shunammite  widow,** 
and  the  birthplace  of  Abishag,3  the  fairest  maiden  in  the 
kingdom  of  David — Nain,  where  the  young  man  was  one 
day  to  rise  up  again,  alive,  from  his  bier — and  Endor — "  the 
fountain  of  the  people  round  " — where  Saul  saw  the  shade 
of  Samuel.  Close  to  the  hill,  on  its  southern  side,  bubbling 
up  in  a  hollow  of  the  rock,  was  the  Spring  of  Trembling,4 
where  Gideon's  test  sent  away  all  but  the  stout-hearted 
three  hundred  who  won  the  great  "  day  of  Midian,"  5  the  pro 
phetic  prototype  of  the  triumph  of  the  "  Prince  of  Peace." 
On  the  south  side  of  the  ravine  down  which  the  spring 
flowed,  rose  the  hills  of  Gilboa,6  where  Saul  and  his  three 
sons  fell  in  battle.7  Where  the  rocky  gorge,  sinking  steeply, 
opens  a  few  miles  beyond,  to  the  east,  into  a  pleasant  moun- 
tain valley,  watered  by  Gideon's  spring, now  swollen  to  abrook, 
lay  the  town  of  Bethshean  or  Scythopolis,  to  the  walls  of  which 
the  bodies  of  Saul  and  of  his  three  sons,  Jonathan  among 
them,  were  hung  up  in  triumph  by  the  victorious  Philistines. 
The  view  from  the  Nazareth  hills  swept  over  all  this  land- 
scape, but  it  embraced  much  more.  Josephus  says  that  there 
were  two  hundred  and  forty  towns  and  villages  in  Galilee, 
and  fifteen  fortresses.  Tabor,  Sepphoris,  and  Jotapata,  were 
among  them,  in  Christ's  own  district,  and  Safed  and  Caesarea 
Philippi  within  the  sweep  of  His  view.  St.  Mark  speaks  of 
towns,  villages,  and  farmhouses  on  the  Galilasan  hill-sides.8 
Not  a  spot  of  ground  was  left  idle,9  and  the  minute  division 
of  the  soil,  from  the  dense  population,  had  caused  the  plough 
often  to  give  way  to  the  spade.10  Pasture  land  was  turned  into 
fields,  as  more  profitable  than  cattle  or  even  flocks,  which 
were  left  to  graze  the  mountains  of  Syria,  and  the  barren 
hills  of  Judea.11  The  rich  dark  soil  of  Esdraelon  bore  mag- 
nificent Indian  corn  and  wheat,  and  the  hill-slopes  on  ita 
aides  were  noted  for  their  wine,  and  the  rich  yield  of  their 

429  feet  above  the  sea-level.  2  2  Kings  iv.  8.     8  1  Kings  i.  3. 

Judg.  vii.  1.     Harod,  from  Tin  to  tremble.  6  Isa.  ix.  3. 

1,700  feet  above  the  sea-level.  7  1  Sam.  xxxi.  8,  12. 

e.g.  Mark  iv.  3  ;  i.  35,  45  ;  xii.  9  ;  ii.  23  ;  vi.  6,  36,  56. 
Bell.  Jud.,  iii.  3.  2.  10  Luke  xvi.  3. 

11  Talmud;  quoted  by  Hausrath,  vol.  i.  p.  8. 


292  THE   LIFE   OP   CHEIST. 

olive  gardens  and  vineyards.1  The  Rabbis,  in  their  hyperbo- 
lical way,  say  that  one  waded  in  oil  m  Galilee.  "  It  never 
suffers  from  want  of  people,"  says  Josephus,  "  for  its  soil  is 
rich,  with  trees  of  all  kinds  on  it,  and  its  surpassing  fertility 
yields  a  splendid  return  to  the  farmer.  The  ground  is 
worked  with  the  greatest  skill,  and  not  a  spot  left  idle.  The 
ease  with  which  life  is  supported  in  it,  moreover,  has  over- 
spread it  with  towns  and  well-peopled  villages,  many  of  them 
strongly  fortified.  The  smallest  has  over  fifteen  thousand 
inhabitants."2  The  ease  with  which  Josephus  levied  100,000 
Galilaean  troops  seems  to  indicate  a  population  of,  perhaps, 
two  millions,3  and  the  general  prosperity  is  shown  in  the 
readiness  with  which  Herod  raised  a  Roman  contribution  of 
100  talents  in  Galilee,  as  compared  with  Judea. 

The  pictures  in  the  Gospels  support  this  description. 
Everywhere  the  scene  is  full  of  life.  Busy  labour  enlivens 
the  vineyard,  or  ploughs  the  field,  or  digs  the  garden.4  In 
the  towns,  building  is  going  on  vigorously :  the  extra  mill- 
stone lies  ready  beside  the  mill :  the  barns  are  filled  and  new 
ones  about  to  be  built :  vineyards  stretch  along  the  terraced 
hillsides,  and  outside  the  town  are  seen  the  whitewashed 
stones  of  the  cemeteries.5  On  the  roads,  and  beside  the 
hedges,  the  blind  and  cripple  await  the  gifts  of  passers  by : 
labourers  are  being  hired  in  the  market-places,  and  the  farm 
servant  wends  homewards  in  the  evening  with  his  plough : 
the  songs  and  dance  of  light-hearted  youth  on  the  village 
green  are  heard  from  a  distance:  the  children  play  and 
strive  in  open  places  of  the  towns :  visitors  knock  at  closed 
doors  even  late  in  the  night :  and  the  drunken  upper  servant 
storms  at  and  maltreats  the  maids.6  From  morning  to  night 
the  hum  of  many-coloured  lusty  life  everywhere  rises :  the 
busy  crowds  have  no  time  to  think  about  higher  things.  One 
has  bought  a  field  and  must  go  to  see  it,  another  has  to  prove 
a  new  yoke  of  oxen,  and  a  third  has  some  other  business — a 
feast,  a  marriage,  or  a  funeral.7  To  use  our  Lord's  words,  they 

1  Bell.  Jud.,n.  21.  2. 

»  Bell.  Jud.,  iii.  3.  2.     Vita,  45.    Bead  1,500  for  15,000. 
*  Bell.  Jud.,  ii.  20.  6. 

4  Matt.  xx.  8.    Luke  ix.  62.     Mark  iv.  4.     Matt.  xxi.  28. 
4  Matt.  vii.  25.    Luke  xiv.  30.    Mark  ix.  42.    Luke  xii.  17,  18.    Matt, 
xxiii  27. 

6  Luke  xiv.  23.    Matt.  xx.  8.    Luke  xvii.  7  ;  xv.  25.     Malt.  si.  1& 
Luke  xiii.  25. 

7  Luke  xiv.  18. 


GALILEE  IN  THE  DATS  OF   CHRIST.  293 

ate,  they  drank,  they  bought,  they  sold,  they  planted,  they 
builded,  they  married  wives  and  were  given  in  marriage,5  as 
full  of  the  world  in  its  ambitions,  cares,  labours  and  pleasures, 
as  if  the  little  moment  of  their  lives  were  to  last  for  ever, 

1  Luke  ivii.  29.     On  tliia  whole  subject  see  Eausrath,  vol.  i.  pp.  8,  fl. 


CHAPTER  XXI. 
THE  GALILEANS  AND  THE  BOEDER  LANDS. 

GALILEE  got  its  name*  as  the  circle  or  region  of  the 
Gentile  nations,  and  hence,  to  the  southern  Jews  of 
Isaiah's  days,  it  was  "  the  heathen  country."  It  included  the 
districts  assigned  to  Asher,  N"aphtali,  Zebulon,  and  Issachar. 
But  these  tribes  never  obtained  entire  possession  of  their  ter- 
ritories, and  contented  themselves  with  settling  among  the 
Canaanite  population,  whom  they,  in  some  cases,  made  tribu- 
tary,— the  Jewish  colonies  remaining  centres  of  Judaism  in 
places  which  retained  their  old  heathen  names.  Kedesh  in 
Naphtali,  near  Lake  Merom,  the  birthplace  of  Barak,  with 
twenty  small  cities  lying  round  it,  was,  originally,  "  the  land 
of  Galilee  "  in  Joshua's  time,  and  in  the  days  of  the  kings,1 
from  the  population  mainly  belonging  to  the  neighbouring 
Phenicia,  but  the  mixed  character  of  the  people,  which  was 
a  necessary  consequence  of  Galilee  being  a  border-land,  ex- 
tended the  name,  in  the  end,  to  the  whole  of  the  province. 
Even  in  Solomon's  time  the  population  was  mixed.  The  hilly 
district,  called  Cabul — "  dry,  sandy,  unfruitful  " — which  he 
gave  to  Hiram,  king  of  Tyre,  as  a  niggardly  return  for 
service  rendered  in  the  building  of  the  Temple,  contained 
tAventy  towns,2  inhabited  chiefly  by  Phenicians,  but  was  so 
worthless  that  Hiram,  in  contemptuous  ridicule,  playing  on 
the  name  of  the  district,  called  it,  in  Phenician,  Chabalon3 — 
"  good  for  nothing."  The  separation  from  the  House  of 
David,  and  from  Jerusalem,  under  the  kings  of  Israel,4  and 
the  Assyrian  captivity  at  a  later  date,  further  affected  the 
northern  population.  To  the  prophet  Isaiah  they  were  the 
people  "  that  walked  in  darkness  and  dwelt  in  the  land  of  the 
shadow  of  death,"  5  alike  from  their  separation  from  Jeru- 
salem, their  living  among  the  heathen,  and  their  national 

»  Josh.  xx.  7  ;  xxi.  32.     2  Kings  xv.  29.  *  1  Kings  ix.  11,  13. 

a      an  4  B.C.  975.  fc  Isaiah  ix.  1. 


THE   HEATHEN  ELEMENT  IN   GALILEE.  295 

calamities,  though,  he  anticipates  a  bright  future  for  them  in 
the  light  of  the  Messiah.  After  the  exile  two  great  changes 
took  place.  Jewish  colonists  gradually  spread  over  the  land 
once  more,  and  the  name  Galilee  was  extended  to  the  whole 
north  on  this  side  of  the  Jordan,  so  that  the  territory  of  the 
tribe  of  Issachar,  with  the  plain  of  Esdraelon  ;  Zebulon,  with 
the  southern  part  of  the  Sea  of  Gennesareth ;  and  Naphtali, 
and  Asher,  were  included  in  it.  The  new  Jewish  settlers 
had  no  longer  any  political  jealousy  of  Jerusalem,  and  once 
more  frequented  the  Temple,  while  the  fact  that  they  were 
surrounded  by  heathen  races,  made  them  perhaps,  more  loyal 
to  Judaism  than  they  otherwise  would  have  been ;  just  as  the 
Protestants  of  Ireland  are  more  intensely  Protestant  because 
surrounded  by  Romanism.  Still,  though  faithful,  their  land 
was  "  denied  "  by  heathen  citizens  and  neighbours,  and  the 
narrow  bigotry  of  Judea  looked  askance  at  it  from  this  cause.1 
Besides  Jews,  it  had  not  a  few  Phenicians,  Syrians,  Arabs, 
and  Greeks  settled  in  it.2  Carmel  had  become  almost  a 
Syrian  colony,  and  Kedesh  retained  the  mixed  population  it 
had  had  for  ages,3  while  the  eastern  end  of  the  Esdraelon 
valley  was  barred  to  the  Jew  by  the  Gentile  town  of  Scy- 
thopolis,b — the  ancient  Bethshean.4  Moreover,  the  great 
caravan  road,  from  Damascus  to  Ptolemais,  which  ran  over 
the  hills  from  Capernaum,  through  the  heart  of  Galilee, 
brought  many  heathen  into  the  country.5  The  great  trans- 
port of  goods  employed  such  numbers  of  them,  as  camel 
drivers,  hostlers,  labourers,  conductors,  and  the  h'ke,  that  the 
towns  facing  the  sea  were  little  different  from  those  of  Phe- 
nicia.  Thus  Zebulon  is  described  as  "  a  town  with  many  very 
fine  houses,  as  good  as  those  of  Tyre,  or  Sidon,  or  Berytus."  6 
The  places  created  or  beautified  by  the  Herods  in  Roman 
style,  could  hardly  have  been  so  if  the  population  had  been 
strict  Jews.7  The  attempt  to  build  heathen  cities  like 
Tiborias,  or  the  restored  Sepphoris,0  would  have  excited  an 
insurrection  in  Judea,  but  the  less  narrow  Galilaeans  allowed 
Antipas  to  please  his  fancy  ;  nor  was  there  ever,  apparently, 
such  a  state  of  feeling  caused  by  all  his  Roman  innovations 
as  was  roused  by  the  amphitheatre  at  Jerusalem  alone. 
Separated  by  Samaria  from  the  desolate  hills  of  Judea,  the 


1  Matt.  xxvi.  73.     John  i.  47;  vii.  41,  52.    Acts,  ii.  7,  9. 

3  Matt.  iv.  15.     Jos.,  Vita,  12.  i  Bell.  Jud.,  ii.  18.  1. 

4  Jos.,  Vita,  6.     Bell.  Jud.,  iii.  3.  1.  5  Matt.  iv.  15;  x.  5. 
«  Bell.  Jud.,  ii.  18.  9.                       '  Ant.,  xviii.  2.  1.     Vita,  22. 


296  THE   LIFE    OF   CHEIST. 

home  of  the  priests  and  Rabbis,  the  Galileans  were  less 
soured  by  the  sectarian  spirit  paramount  there,  and  less 
hardened  in  Jewish  orthodoxy,  while,  in  many  respects,  they 
had  caught  the  liberal  influences  round  them  in  the  north. 
Hence  their  Judaism  was  less  exclusive  and  narrow  than  that 
of,  perhaps,  any  other  section  of  the  Jewish  world. 

But  though  less  bigoted  than  their  southern  brethren,  the 
Galiloean  Jews  were  none  the  less  faithful  to  the  Law.  They 
frequented  the  feasts  at  Jerusalem  in  great  numbers;1  and 
were  true  to  their  synagogues,  and  to  the  hopes  of  Israel. 
Pharisees  and  "  doctors  of  the  Law  "  were  settled  in  every 
town,2  and  their  presence  implies  an  equally  wide  existence 
of  synagogues.  In  the  south,  tradition  was  held  in  supreme 
honour,  but  in  Galilee  the  people  kept  by  the  Law.3  In 
Jerusalem  the  Rabbis  introduced  refinements  and  changes, 
but  the  Galilaeans  would  not  tolerate  novelties.4  Our  Lord's 
wide  knowledge  of  Scripture,  His  reverence  for  the  Law, 
and  His  scorn  of  tradition,  were  traits  of  His  countrymen 
as  a  race. 

Nor  did  their  forbearance,  in  the  presence  of  heathen 
fashions  and  ways  of  thought,  affect  their  morals  for  evil,  any 
more  than  their  religion.  In  many  respects  these  were 
stricter  than  those  of  Judea :  much,  for  example,  was  for- 
bidden in  Galilee,  in  the  intercourse  of  the  sexes,  which  was 
allowed  at  Jerusalem.5  Their  religion  was  freer,  but  it  was 
also  deeper  ;  they  had  less  of  the  form,  but  more  of  the  life. 

"  Cowardice,"  says  Josephus,  "  was  never  the  fault  of  the 
Galilaeans.  They  are  inured  to  war  from  their  infancy,  nor 
has  the  country  ever  been  wanting  in  great  numbers  of  brave 
men."  The  mountain  air  they  breathed  made  them  patriots,6 
but  their  patriotism  was  guided  by  zeal  for  their  faith. 
While  warmly  loyal  to  Herod,  in  gratitude  for  his  subduing 
the  lawless  bands  who  had  wasted  their  country,  after  the 
civil  wars, — and  quiet  and  well-disposed  to  Antipas,  during 
the  forty- three  years  of  his  reign,  they  were  none  the  less 
fixed  in  their  abhorrence  of  Rome,  the  heathen  tyrant  of  their 
race.  In  revolt  after  revolt  they  were  the  first  to  breast  the 
Roman  armies,  and  they  were  the  last  to  defend  the  ruins  of 
Jerusalem,  stone  by  stone,  like  worthy  sons  of  those  ancestors 


1  Mark  iii.  22.  *  Luke  v.  17.  »  Geiger,  Urschrift,  p.  155. 

4  Neubauer,  pp.  184,  186. 

•  Lightfoot,  vol.  i.  p.  1G9.     Delitzsch,  Handwerkerlcben,  p.  40. 

•  Bell.  Jud.,  iii.  3.  2. 


THE   JEWS   OF   THE   SOUTH.  297 

•who  "  jeopardised  their  lives  tmto  the  death  in  the  high  places 
of  the  field." l  There  were  families  like  that  of  the  Zealot 
Hezekiah,  and  Jndas  the  Galilaean,  in  whom  the  hatred  of 
Borne  was  handed  down  from  father  to  children,  and 
which,  in  each  generation,  furnished  martyrs  to  the  national 
cause.2  A  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  of  the  youth  of  Galilee 
fell  in  the  last  struggle  with  Rome,  and  few  narratives  are 
more  stirring  than  the  defence  of  the  Galilaean  fortresses,  one 
after  another,  in  the  face  of  all  odds.  Even  Titus  appealed 
to  the  magnificent  heroism  of  these  defenders  of  their  freedom 
and  their  country,  to  rouse  the  ardour  of  his  own  army.3 
Nor  was  their  devotion  to  their  leaders  less  admirable. 
Josephus  boasts  of  the  heartiness  and  trust  the  Galilaeans 
reposed  in  him.  Though  their  towns  were  destroyed  in  the 
war,  and  their  wives  and  children  carried  off,  they  were  more 
concerned  for  the  safety  of  their  general  than  for  their  own 
troubles.4 

The  Jew  of  the  south,  wrapped  in  self-importance,  as  living 
in  or  near  the  holy  city,  amidst  the  schools  of  the  Rabbis,  and 
under  the  shadow  of  the  Temple,  and  full  of  religious  pride 
in  his  assumed  superior  knowledge  of  the  Law,  and  greater 
purity  as  a  member  of  a  community  nearly  wholly  Jewish, 
looked  down  on  his  Galilaean  brethren.  The  very  ground  he 
trod  was  more  holy  than  the  soil  of  Galilee,  and  the  repug- 
nance of  the  North  to  adopt  the  prescriptions  of  the  Rabbis 
was,  itself,  a  ground  of  estrangement  and  self-exaltation. 
He  could  not  believe  that  the  Messiah  could  come  5  from  a  part 
so  inferior,  for  "  the  Law  was  to  go  forth  from  Zion,  and  the 
word  of  the  Lord  from  Jerusalem."6  Jesus  found  willing 
hearers  and  many  disciples  in  the  cities  and  towns  of  Galilee, 
but  He  made  little  impression  on  Judea. 

Yet,  Galilee,  from  the  earliest  times,  had  vindicated  its 
claims  to  honour,  for  the  intellectual  vigour  of  its  people. 
Not  only  physically  and  morally,  but  even  in  mental  freshness 
and  force,  it  was  before  the  narrow  and  morbid  South,  which 
had  given  itself  up  to  the  childish  trifling  of  Rabbinism, 
The  earliest  poetry  of  Israel  rose  among  the  Galiloean  hills, 
when  Barak  of  Naphtali  had  triumphed  over  the  Canaanites. 
The  Song  of  Songs  was  composed  in  Galilee  by  a  poet  of 
nature,  whose  heart  and  eyes  drank  in  the  inspiration  of  the 

1  Judg.  v.  18.          8  Ant.,  xx.  5. 2  ;  xvii,  10.  5.      Bell.  Jud.,  ii.  17. 8. 
•*  IMl.  Jud.,  iii.  1.  33  ,  10.  2.  «  Vita,  6. 

*  John  i.  47.  '  Isaiah  ii.  3. 


298  THE  LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

bright  sky  and  the  opening  flowers,  and  who  could  tell .  how 
the  fig-tree  put  forth  its  leaves,  and  the  vine  sprouted,  and 
the  pomegranate  opened  its  blossoms.1  Hosea,  the  prophet, 
belonged  to  Issachar ;  Jonah  to  Zebulon  ;  Nahum  came  from 
Elkosh  in  Galilee ;  and  in  the  Gospels  a  noble  band  of 
Galilaeans  group  themselves  round  the  central  figure — Peter, 
the  brave  and  tender-hearted — James  and  John — Andrew 
and  Philip — and  Nathanael,  of  Cana,  not  to  speak  of  others, 
or  of  the  women  of  Galilee,  who  honoured  themselves  by 
ministering  to  Christ  of  their  substance.2  It  was  from 
Galilee,  moreover,  that  the  family  of  the  great  Apostle  of  the 
heathen  emigrated  to  Tarsus,  in  Cilicia,  for  they  belonged  to 
Gischala,  a  Galilaean  tovrn,  though  their  stock  originally  was 
of  the  tribe  of  Benjamin. 

The  Talmud  sketches,  in  a  few  words,  the  contrast  be- 
tween the  two  provinces — "  The  Galilsean  loves  honour,  and 
the  Jew  money."  3  The  Rabbis  admit  that  the  Galilaeans, 
in  their  comparative  poverty,  were  temperate,  pure,  and 
religious.  Their  fidelity  to  their  faith  was  shown  by  their 
fond  and  constant  visits  to  the  Temple,  in  spite  of  the 
hostile  Samaritan  territory  between,  and  it  was  through 
their  zeal  that  the  Passover  was  celebrated  for  eight  days 
instead  of  seven.  When  Christ  appeared,  they  threw  the 
same  ardour  and  fidelity  into  His  service.  In  their  midst 
the  Saviour,  persecuted  elsewhere,  took  constant  refuge. 
They  threw  open  their  land  to  Him,  as  a  safe  shelter  from 
the  rage  of  the  Jews,  almost  to  the  last.  He  went  forth 
from  among  them,  and  gathered  the  first-fruits  of  His 
kingdom  from  them,  and  it  was  to  a  band  of  Galilfeans  that 
He  delivered  the  commission  to  spread  the  Gospel  through 
the  world,  after  His  death. 

The  district  of  Perea,  on  the  east  of  the  Jordan,  was  in- 
cluded, with  Galilee,  in  the  section  ruled  over  by  Herod 
Antipas,  and  was  the  scene,  in  part,  of  the  ministry,  first  of 
John  the  Baptist,  and  then  of  Jesus.4  It  was  larger  than 
Galilee,  extending,  north  and  south,  from  the  city  of  Pella, 
to  the  fortress  of  Machaems — that  is,  from  opposite  Scytho- 
polis,  half-way  down  the  Dead  Sea — and,  east  and  west,  from 
the  Jordan  to  Philadelphia,  the  ancient  Rabbath  Ammou. 
It  was  thus  about  seventy-five  miles  in  length,  by,  perhaps, 

1  Hausrath,  vol.  i.  p.  12.  2  Lnke  viii.  3. 

1  Quoted  by  Sepp.,  Lcben  Jesu,  vol.  ii.  p.  20. 
4  Bell.  Jud.,  iii.  3.  3. 


THE   DISTRICT   OF  PEREA  299 

thirty  in  breadth.,  though,  the  boundaries  seem  to  have 
varied  at  different  times.1  It  was  much  less  fertile  than 
Galilee.  "  The  greater  part  of  it,"  says  Josephus,  "  is  a 
desert,  rough,  and  much  less  suitable  for  the  finer  kinds  of 
fruits  than  Galilee.*  In  other  parts,  however,  it  has  a  moist 
soil,  and  produces  the  widest  variety,  and  its  plains  are 
planted  with  trees  of  all  sorts ;  though  the  olive,  the  vine, 
and  the  palm-tree  are  cultivated  most.  It  is  well  watered 
in  these  parts  with  torrents,  which  flow  from  the  mountains, 
and  are  never  dry,  even  in  summer."  Towards  the  des'erts, 
which  hemmed  it  in  along  its  eastern  edge,  lay  the  hill 
fortress  and  town  Gerasa,  1,800  feet  above  the  sea  level.2  It 
was  on  the  caravan  road  through  the  mountains,  from  Bozra, 
a  place  of  considerable  trade ;  while  its  magnificent  ruins 
yet  show  that,  in  Christ's  day,  it  was  the  finest  city  of  the 
Decapolis.  Two  hundred  and  thirty  pillars,  still  standing, 
and  the  wreck  of  its  public  buildings, — baths,  theatres, 
temples,  circus,  and  forum,  and  of  a  triumphal  arch — make 
it  easy  to  recall  its  former  splendour.  The  line  of  the  outer 
walls  can  be  easily  traced.  From  the  triumphal  arch,  out- 
side the  city,  a  long  street  passes  through  the  city  gate  to 
the  forum,  still  skirted  by  fifty-seven  Ionic  columns.  Colon- 
nades adorned  mile  after  mile  of  the  streets,  which  crossed 
at  right  angles,  like  those  of  an  American  town. 

It  must  have  been  a  gay,  as  well  as  a  busy  and  splendid 
scene,  when  Jesus  passed  through  the  country  on  His  Perean 
journeys.3 

But  the  tide  of  civilized  life  has  ebbed,  and  left  Gerasa 
without  an  inhabitant  for  many  centuries. 

About  twenty-five  miles  south  of  Gerasa,  and,  like  it, 
between  twenty  and  thirty  miles  east  of  the  Jordan,4  lay 
Philadelphia.  It  was  the  old  capital  of  Ammon,  and  in 
Christ's  day,  the  southern  frontier  post  against  the  Arabs. 
Though  two  thousand  five  hundred  feet  above  the  sea,5  it 
sheltered  itself  in  two  narrow  valleys,  each  brightened  by 
flowing  streams — the  upland  "  city  of  the  waters,"  with 
hills  rising  on  all  sides  round  it.  The  main  stream,  faced 
with  a  long  stone  quay;  terraces  rising  above,  lined  by 

•  Menke's  BH>el  A  tlas,  v. 

•  Kiepert's  Hand  Kane.    Capt.  Warren,  Eep.  Pal.  Fund,  vol.  vi.  p, 
809. 

8  Rev.  A.  E.  Northey,  Pal.  Fund  Reports,  April,  1872,  p  69. 
4  Kiepert's  Hand  Karte. 

•  Capt.  Warren,  Pal.  Fund  Eep.,  vol.  vi.  p.  309. 


300  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

rows  of  pillars  ;  the  citadel,  seen  far  and  near,  on  a  height 
"between  the  two  valleys,  give  us  a  glimpse  of  it.  The 
old  city  which  Joab  besieged,  and  where  Uriah  fell,  had 
given  place  to  a  Roman  one.  Fine  temples,  theatres,  and 
public  and  private  buildings,  long  ruined,  were  then  alive 
with  motley  throngs,  but  the  whole  scene  has  now,  for  ages, 
been  utterly  deserted,  and  rank  vegetation  rises  in  its 
long  silent  streets,  and  in  the  courts  of  its  temples  and 
mansions. 

Hesbon,  about  fifteen  miles  nearly  south  of  Ammon,  on 
the  Roman  road  which  ran  from  Damascus,  through  Bozra 
and  Ammon, — branching  from  Hesbon,  west,  to  Jericho,  and 
south,  to  Edom, — was  the  third  and  last  frontier  town  of 
Perea.  It  lay  among  the  Pisgah  mountains,  three  thousand 
feet  above  the  level  of  the  sea,  amidst  brown  hills,  fretted 
with  bright  green  lines  along  the  course  of  numerous 
streamlets,  oozing  from  the  limestone  rocks.1  Its  ruins  lie 
in  great  confusion,  and  serve  only  to  tell  of  wealth  and 
prosperity  long  since  passed  away.  In  the  valley  below,  a 
great  volume  of  water  gushing  from  the  rock,  once  filled 
the  famous  pools  of  Hesbon, — to  the  writer  of  the  Song  of 
Songs,  like  the  laughing  eyes  of  his  beloved.2  From 
Hesbon,  the  eye  ranges  over  a  wide  table-land  of  undulating 
downs,  bright  with  flowers,  or  rough  with  prickly  shrubs, 
seamed  with  gorges  sinking  abruptly  towards  the  Jordan, 
and  noisy  with  foaming  streams  which  leap  from  ledge  to 
ledge  in  their  swift  descent,  between  banks  hidden  by  rank 
vegetation. 

These  three  towns  lie  on  the  outer  edge  of  the  lofty 
plateau,  east  of  the  Jordan,  where  the  long  wall  of  the 
limestone  hills  of  Gilead  and  Ammon  begins  to  sink  towards 
the  desert.3  On  the  western  edge  of  the  plateau  itself, 
nearer  the  Jordan,  and  at  the  north  of  the  district,  lay  Pella, 
on  a  low  flat  hill,  only  250  feet  above  the  sea-level ;  rich  in 
living  waters,  and  embosomed  in  other  higher  hills.  Built 
as  a  military  post,  by  veterans  of  Alexander's  army,  it  bore 
the  name  of  their  own  Macedonian  capital.  It  was  after- 
wards famous  as  the  retreat  of  the  Christians  before  the  fall 
of  Jerusalem  ;  and  as  the  home  of  the  relations  of  Christ,  the 
last  of  whom  died  as  fifteenth  bishop  of  the  local  church.* 

1  Kiepert  and  Warren,  Karte  and  Report.        3  Solomon's  Song  vii.  4. 
'  Gapt.  Warren,  Pal.  Fund  Rep.,  vol.  vi.  p.  310. 
4  Eubeb.,  H. A.'.,  iii.  5. 


THE   HILLS   OF   GILEAD.  301 

The  storm  of  the  great  war,1  which  wasted  Perea  on  every 
side,  passed  harmlessly  by  Pella,  leaving  it  and  the  infant 
Church  untouched.  With  what  fond  regards  must  Jesus 
have  often  looked  from  across  the  Jordan,  on  the  spot  which 
one  day  was  to  shelter  His  servants. 

North  of  Pella,  twelve  hundred  feet  above  the  sea-level, 
or>  the  edge  of  the  deep  cleft  through  which  the  Hieromax 
flows  to  the  Sea  of  Tiberias,  stood  Gadara,  a  place  famous 
in  Christ's  day  for  its  hot  sulphurous  baths.  It  had  been 
rebuilt  by  Pompey,  after  having  lain  for  a  time  in  ruins, 
and  gloried  in  its  streets  paved  with  basalt,  its  colonnades 
of  Corinthian  pillars,  and  its  massive  buildings  in  Roman 
style,  amidst  which  Jesus  may  have  walked, — for  it  was  in 
the  neighbourhood  of  this  town  that  He  cured  the  two  men 
possessed  with  devils.2  Numerous  tombs  hewn  in  the  hills 
around,  still  illustrate  a  striking  feature  of  the  Gospel 
narratives. 

Gradara  and  Pella  are  both  on  the  western  side  of  the 
long  range  of  the  mountains  of  Gilead — the  old  territory  of 
Reuben  and  Gad — which  stretch  along  the  eastern  side  of 
the  Jordan  valley,  till  they  merge  in  the  Pisgah  range  at  the 
north  of  the  Dead  Sea.  Rocky  glens  and  valleys,  whose 
lower  slopes  are  often  terraced  for  vines  ;  rolling  highlands, 
for  the  most  part  clothed  with  forests  of  ilex,  oak,  and 
terebinth ;  open  plains  and  meadows ;  rushing  streams, 
fringed  with  rich  vegetation  ;  still  justify  the  choice  of  the 
two  tribes.  The  limestone  hills  are  identical  with  those  of 
western  Palestine,  but  the  abundance  of  water  makes  the 
whole  region  much  richer.  Jesus  must  often  have  wandered 
amidst  its  wheat  fields,  olive  grounds,  vineyards,  and  fig 
and  pomegranate  orchards,  and  under  its  leafy  forests, — for 
He  once  and  again  visited  these  districts.  The  road  stretches 
north  from  the  ford  of  the  Jordan,  near  Jericho,  up  the 
green  Wady  Scha'ib  to  Ramoth  Gilead,  2,700  feet  above  the 
sea,  past  Djebel  Oscha,  the  hill  of  the  prophet  Hosea,  800 
feet  higher,  to  Wady  Zerka,  the  ancient  river  Jabbok — thence 
to  the  heights  of  Kala'at  er  Robod,  where  Saladin  in  after 
days  built  a  castle.  Resting  here,  Christ's  eye  would  range 
over  Palestine  far  and  near,  from  the  north  end  of  the  Dead 
Sea,  along  the  whole  Jordan  valley,  the  river  gleaming 
occasionally  in  its  windings.  Part  of  the  Sea  of  Galilee 
would  be  before  Him  to  the  north,  and,  to  the  west,  Ebal 

1  Rev.  xii.  6,  14.  «  Matt.  viii.  28.     Mark  v.  1. 


302  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

and  Gerizim,  with.  Mount  Tabor,  and  the  ridge  of  Carmel 
stretching  into  the  misty  distance,  beyond  the  wide  plain  of 
Esdraelon.  Towards  the  north,  He  would  see  the  hills  of 
Safed,  across  the  Sea  of  Galilee,  and  far  away,  in  the  blue 
haze,  the  snow-sprinkled  peaks  of  Hermon.  From  this  point 
His  road  would  lie  through  Pella,  across  the  Jordan,  on  the 
western  side  of  which  the  steep  gorge  of  the  Wady  Farrah 
led  up  to  the  plain  of  Esdraelon  and  His  own  district. 

With  the  mountains  of  Pisgah,  on  the  east  of  the  Dead 
Sea,  a  wild  inaccessible  region  begins,  counting  among  its 
peaks  Beth  Peor,  from  which  Balaam  once  blessed  Israel, 
as  it  lay  encamped  below  in  the  open  meadows  opposite 
Jericho,  and  where  Anfcipas,  in  Christ's  day  built  the  town 
of  Livias,  in  honour  of  the  Empress-mother.  Mount  Nebo, 
where  Moses  was  buried  in  an  unknown  grave,  and  the 
summit  from  which  he  surveyed  the  land  he  was  not  to 
enter,  are  in  this  range,  and  it  was  in  a  cave  in  their  secluded 
valleys  that  Jewish  tradition  believed  Jeremiah  to  have 
hidden  the  ark,  and  the  sacred  vessels  of  the  Temple,  till  the 
coming  of  the  Messiah,  in  a  secrecy  known  only  to  God  and 
the  angels. 

The  Jewish  population  in  Perea  was  only  small,  the 
heathen  element  greatly  prevailing.  In  the  northern  parts, 
the  Syrian  races  were  in  the  majority;  in  the  southern,  the 
people  were  largely  Arab. 

The  cities  were  in  most  cases  independent,  with  a  district 
belonging  to  each  of  them,  and  thus,  though  in  the  terri- 
tories of  Antipas,  were  not  part  of  his  dominions.  Under 
the  name  of  the  Decapolis, — "the  ten  cities,"1 — Philadelphia, 
Gadara,  Hippos,  Damascus,  Raphana,  Dio,  Pella,  Gerasa,  and 
Kanatha,  were  confederated,  under  direct  Roman  govern- 
ment, with  Scythopolis,  on  the  west  side  of  the  Jordan,  in 
a  league  of  peace  and  war  against  native  robber  bands  and 
the  Bedouin  hordes  ;  and  this  made  them  virtually  a  distinct 
state.  Antipas,  apparently,  had  only  so  much  of  the  district 
as  did  not  belong  to  these  cities.2 

Above  Perea,  in  Christ's  day,  the  tetrarchy  of  Philip 
reached  to  the  slopes  of  Hermon  on  the  north,  and  away 
to  the  desert  on  the  east.  It  included  the  provinces  of 
Gaulonitis,  Iturea,  Trachonitis,  Auranitis,  and  Batanea. 

Gaulonitis — still  known  as  Golan3 — reached  from  Caesarea 

1  S^KO.  (ten),  ir6\is  (a  city).         *  Holtzman  in  Bib.  Lex.,  Art.  DecapoHs. 
8  From  the  ancient  city  of  Golan,  in  Bashan     jjtj  an  exile  (Ges,),  a 
district  (Fiirst'j. 


GAULONITIS  AND   ITUREA.  303 

Philippi,  or  Panias,  on  the  slopes  of  Mount  Hermon,  to  the 
Hieromax,  at  the  south  of  the  Sea  of  Galilee,  stretching  back 
twenty  to  thirty  miles  in  barren  uplands  of  volcanic  origin, 
to  the  green  pastures  of  Batanea  or  Bashan,  the  oasis  of 
the  region,  with  the  district  of  Iturea  on  its  north,  the 
lava  plateau  of  Trachonitis1  on  its  east,  and  the  equally 
waste  tract  of  Auranitis,  or  the  Hauran,2  on  the  south. 
Gaulonitis,  which  we  know  Jesus  to  have  visited,  looked 
over  towards  Galilee  from  a  range  of  hills  running  parallel 
with  the  Jordan,  north  and  south  ;  a  second  and  third  ridge 
rising  behind,  in  their  highest  peaks,  to  the  height  of  4,000 
feet.  Besides  Cassarea  Philippi,  at  its  extreme  north,  the 
province  boasted  the  town  of  Bethsaida,  rebuilt  by  Philip, 
and  called  Julias,  after  the  daughter  of  Augustus.  It  lay 
in  a  green  opening  at  the  upper  end  of  the  Lake  of  Galilee. 
On  the  hills  overlooking  the  lake,  towards  its  southern  end, 
lay  the  town  of  Gamala,  and  in  the  valley  at  the  south 
extremity  was  Hippos,  one  of  the  cities  of  the  Decapolis. 

Iturea3  —  north  of  Gaulonitis,  on  the  lower  slopes  of 
Hermon  —  was  a  region  of  inaccessible  mountain  fastnesses, 
and  intricate  defiles,  which  favoured  and  helped  to  per- 
petuate the  lawlessness  which  the  first  settlers  may  have 
derived  from  their  Arab  ancestor.  In  the  south  it  has  a 
rich  soil,  watered  by  numerous  streams  from  Hermon,  but 
the  north  is  a  wild  region  of  jagged  rocks,  heaped  up  in 
uttermost  confusion,  or  yawning  in  rents  and  chasms.  The 
Itureans,  fonder  of  plunder  than  industry,  had,  till  Herod 
tamed  them,  an  evil  name,  as  mere  robbers,  issuing  from 
their  savage  retreats  to  prey  upon  the  caravans  passing  from 
Damascus  to  the  Sea.  "  The  hills,"  says  Strabo,  "  are 
inhabited  by  Itureans  and  Arabs,  who  are  mere  hordes  of 
robbers  ;  the  plains  by  a  farming  population,  who  are  con- 
stantly plundered  by  the  hill  people,4  and  thus  always  need 
help  from  outside."  5  Gathering  in  the  recesses  of  Lebanon 
and  Hermon,  the  mountain  banditti  organized  raids  as  far  as 
Sidon  and  Berytus  on  the  coast,  and  to  the  gates  of  Damascus 
on  the  east.  Famous  as  archers  and  bold  riders,  they  were 
largely  enrolled  in  the  Roman  army,  in  which  their  skill 
became  proverbial;  but  the  legions,  nevertheless,  looked 


(oil  region),  Fiirst.  *  JTl.n  (the  cave  region). 

3  "Vlt3*  (Jetur,  a  son  of  Ishmael).  Gen.  xxv.  15,  16. 

4  Strabo,  xvi.  2  (753-756). 

&  Cic.,  Pliilipp  ,  ii.  8.  44  ;  xiii.  8.  Lucan.,  PJiarsal.,  vii.  2CO,  514. 


304  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

askance  at  them  as  the  worst  set  in  the  service.  Their 
boundaries  varied,  like  their  fortune  in  war,  and  hence  are 
seldom  described  alike.1 

Trachonitis  was  the  name  given  to  the  district  east  and 
south  of  Iturea,  though  the  two  seem,  at  times,  to  be  inter- 
changeable names  for  nearly  the  same  region.  Iturea  often 
embraces  the  tract  usually  known  as  Trachonitis,  the 
"  Argob,"  or  "  Stony,"  of  the  Bible ;  Trachonitis  being 
apparently  a  mere  translation  of  this  older  name.  It  was 
part  of  the  kingdom  of  Og,  conquered  by  the  Israelites 
before  they  entered  Canaan,  and  was  assigned  to  the  half- 
tribe  of  Manasseh.  Extending  about  twenty-two  miles  from 
north  to  south,  and  fourteen  from  east  to  west,  it  marks  the 
focus  of  ancient  volcanic  energy  in  the  district.  It  is  a  vast 
ocean  of  basalt,  cracked  and  rent  into  innumerable  fissures 
in  cooling,  and  offering  in  its  countless  chasms  an  almost 
impenetrable  shelter  to  whole  armies.  "In  its  rough, 
and  almost  inaccessible  rocks,"  says  Strabo,  "are  hidden 
spaces  in  which  a  thousand  men  could  assemble  for  a  foray 
against  the  merchants  of  Damascus." 2  The  chief  town, 
Kanatha,  on  the  caravan  route,  belonged  to  the  Decapolis, 
and  was  protected  from  the  robber  population  around  by 
strong  Roman  fortifications.  As  a  whole,  it  was  a  terribly 
wild  region.  "The  inhabitants  of  the  country,"  says 
Josephus,3  "live  in  a  mad  way,  and  pillage  the  district  of 
the  Damascenes,  their  rulers  at  times  sharing  the  plunder. 
It  is  hard  to  restrain  them,  for  robbery  has  long  been  their 
profession,  and  they  have  no  other  way  of  living,  for  they 
have  neither  any  city  of  their  own,  nor  any  lands,  but  only 
some  holes  or  dens  of  the  earth,  where  they  and  their  cattle 
live  together.  They  contrive,  however,  to  secure  water, 
and  store  corn  in  granaries,  and  are  able  to  make  a  great 
resistance  by  sudden  sallies,  for  the  entrances  of  their  caves 
are  so  narrow,  that  only  one  person  can  enter  at  a  time, 
though  they  are  incredibly  large  within.  The  ground  over 
their  habitations  is  not  very  high,  but  rather  a  plain,  while 
the  rocks  are  very  difficult  of  entrance  without  a  guide." 
Herod  did  his  utmost  against  them,  but  his  success  was  only 
passing,4  till  at  last  he  settled  several  military  colonies  in 
the  district,  and  by  their  incessant  patrols  managed  to  keep 
the  robbers  in  check. 5 

1  Kiepert's  Hand  Karte.    Menke's  Bibel  Atlas,  v. 

3  Strabo,  xvi.  2.  *  Ant.,  xv.  10.  1  -.  xvi.  9.  1. 

4  Ant.,  xvi.  9.  2 ;  xvii.  2.  1.         *  Pal.  Fund  Rep.,  Oct.  1872,  183. 


AUEANITIS.  305 

South,  of  this  fierce  and  lawless  region  lay  Auranitis,  now 
known  as  the  Hauran,  a  high  plateau  of  treeless  downs,  of 
the  richest  soil,  stretching  from  Gilead  to  the  Desert,  and 
from  the  Ledja  to  the  uplands  of  Moab  on  the  south.  Not 
a  stone  is  to  be  seen,  and  the  great  caravans  of  well-fed 
camels,  laden  with,  corn  and  barley,  constantly  met  with  on 
the  way  to  Damascus,1  show  what  it  must  have  been  in 
the  days  of  Christ.  Even  now,  however,  no  one  can  travel 
through  it  safely,  unarmed,  and  the  fellahin,  except  close 
to  towns,  have  to  plough  and  sow  with  a  musket  slung  at 
their  back.  It  is  the  granary  of  Damascus,  and  the  ruins 
of  numerous  towns,  built  of  basalt,  even  to  the  doors  of  the 
houses,  show  that  the  population  must  have  been  great. 

Batanea,  the  ancient  Bashan,  was  a  mountainous  district 
of  the  richest  type,  abounding  in  forests  of  evergreen  oaks, 
and  extremely  rich  in  its  soil.  The  hills,  which,  in  some 
cases,  reach  a  height  of  6,000  feet,  and  the  cattle  which  fed 
in  the  rich  meadows,  are  often  alluded  to  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. Desolate  now,  it  was  densely  peopled  eighteen  hundred 
years  ago,  as  the  ruins  of  towns  and  cities  of  basalt,  as  in 
Auranitis,  thickly  strewn  over  its  surface,  and  still  almost  as 
perfect  as  when  they  were  built,  strikingly  prove. 

In  the  lifetime  of  Christ,  a  large  Jewish  population  lived 
in  all  these  districts,  in  the  midst  of  much  larger  numbers  of 
Syrians,  Arabs,  Greeks,  and  Phenicians,2  under  the  rule  of 
Philip,  the  son  of  Herod  and  of  Cleopatra  of  Jerusalem.  He 
was  between  Archelaus  and  Antipas  in  age,  and  had  been 
educated  with  them  in  Rome,  but  kept  entirely  aloof  from 
family  intrigues,  and  was  true-hearted  enough  to  plead  the 
cause  of  Archelaus  before  Augustus.  The  best  of  Herod's 
sons,  he  retained  not  only  the  good-will  of  his  family,  but 
was  held  in  high  esteem  by  the  Romans,  and  the  Jews  espe- 
cially honoured  him  as  sprung  from  a  daughter  of  Zion, 
and  no  son  of  a  Samaritan.  During  a  reign  of  thirty-seven 
years,  he  was  no  less  gentle  to  his  subjects  than  peaceful 
towards  his  neighbours.  "  He  showed  himself,"  says  Jose- 
phu«,  "  moderate  and  quiet  in  his  life  and  government.  He 
constantly  lived  in  the  country  subject  to  him,  and  used  to 
travel  through  it,  continually,  to  administer  justice ;  his 
official  seat — the  sella  curulis — accompanying  him  every- 
where ;  always  ready  to  be  set  down  in  the  market  place,  or 

1  Bell.  Jud.,  ii.  18.  1-6.     Ant.,  xvii.  11.  4. 
«  Vita,  65.     Ant.,  xvii.  11.  4.     Bell.  Jud.   ii.  18.  1,  f>. 
21 


306  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

the  road,  to  hear  complaints,  without  any  one  suffering  from 
delay."1  His  court  consisted  only  of  a  few  friends,  whom, 
he  seldom  changed,  and  it  is  recorded  of  him,  that  in  his  care 
for  his  people  he  levied  almost  fewer  taxes  than  he  needed. 
Modest  in  his  ambitions,  he  cared  more  for  the  peaceful 
triumph  of  discovering  the  sources  of  the  Jordan  than  for 
uoisy  fame.2  The  neighbourhood  of  the  romantic  city  he 
built  on  the  edge  of  Hermon  was  the  scene  of  the  Trans- 
figuration ;  but  he  is  not  mentioned  in  the  Gospels,  though  it 
is  a  noble  tribute  to  him  that  Jesus  once  and  again  took  refuge 
in  his  territories,  from  the  craft  of  His  own  ruler,  Antipas, 
and  the  hate  of  the  Galilsean  Pharisees.  He  married  his  niece 
Salome,  daughter  of  Herod-Philip,  his  uncrowned  brother, 
and  of  the  too  well-known  Herodias.  His  reign  continued 
through  the  whole  life  of  our  Lord,  and  he  finally  died  child- 
less, a  year  or  so  after  the  Crucifixion,  in  JBethsaida,  or 
Julias,  on  the  Lake  of  Galilee,  and  was  laid  in  a  tomb  which 
he  himself  had  built  as  his  last  resting-place. 

On  the  southern  side  of  the  plain  of  Esdraelon,  the 
country  rises  again  into  rounded  hills,  which  extend  from 
the  great  coast  plain,  across  the  deep  chasm  of  the  Jordan, 
till  they  sink  away  in  the  east,  while  towards  the  south  they 
end  only  in  the  wilderness  of  et  Tih,  or  the  Wanderings. 
The  northern  part  of  these  hills,  on  the  west  of  the  Jordan, 
was  the  land  of  the  Samaritans.  Their  country  began  at 
En  Gannim — "  the  fountain  of  gardens  " — at  the  south  end 
of  Esdraelon,  and  ended,  in  the  south,  at  the  mountain  pass 
of  Akrabbi — or,  the  "  Scorpions,"  north  of  Shiloh.  The 
whole  region  is  a  network  of  countless  valleys  running  in 
every  direction,  but  mainly  east  and  west. 

In  these  valleys  lived  the  descendants  of  the  heathen 
colonies,  which  Esarhaddon  had  sent  to  occupy  the  place  of 
the  Ten  Tribes  whom  he  had  carried  away,  and,  with  them, 
the  children  of  such  of  these  tribes  themselves  as  escaped 
deportation,  or  had  found  their  way  back,  and  of  Jews  who 
had  fled  thither  from  time  to  time,  from  any  cause,  from 
Judea.  The  growth  of  the  new  Jewish  kingdom  on  the  south 
had  encroached  greatly  on  the  Samaritan  territory,  but  it 
was  still  a  desirable  land,  and  far  more  fruitful  than  Judea 
itself. 

The  soft  limestone  or  chalky  hills  of  Samaria,  unlike  those 
farther  south,  are  not  without  many  springs.  Fertile  bottoms 

1  Ant.,  xviii.  4,  6.  '  Ant.,  xvii.  10.  7. 


SAMAEIA.  307 

of  black  earth  are  not  infrequent,  and  rich  fields,  gardens, 
and  orchards,  alternate  in  the  valleys,  while  vineyards  and 
trees  of  different  kinds  spread  np  the  slopes,  and  woods  of 
olives  and  walnut  crown  the  soft  outline  of  many  of  the 
hills.  The  meadov/s  and  pasture  land  of  Samaria  were 
famous  in  Israel. 

Such  was  the  territory  which  lay  between  Christ  in 
Galilee,  and  the  hills  of  Judea.  Of  the  people,  I  shall  have 
occasion  to  speak  at  a  future  time. 


CHAPTER  XXTT. 
BEFORE    THE    DAWN. 

NO  power  ever  stowed  so  great  a  genius  for  assimilating 
conquered  nations  to  itself  as  Rome.  Its  tributary  pro- 
vinces habitually  merged  their  national  life,  ere  long,  in  that 
of  their  conqueror.  Her  laws,  language,  and  religion,  more 
or  less  completely  took  root  wherever  her  eagles  were  perma- 
nently planted,  and  have  left  the  records  of  their  triumphs  in 
the  wide  extent  of  the  so-called  Latin  race,  even  at  this  day. 
But  it  was  very  different  in  Palestine.  There  Rome  met  a 
state  of  things  unknown  elsewhere ;  which  she  neither  cared, 
nor  was  able  to  comprehend.  The  Spaniard  or  Gaul  had 
given  no  trouble  after  he  was  once  subdued,  but  readily 
accepted  her  arts,  civilisation,  and  laws.  It  was  reserved  for 
the  mountaineers  of  Judea  to  refuse  any  peaceable  relations 
to  the  mistress  of  the  world  ;  to  treat  her  proudest  sons  with 
haughty  contempt,  and  to  regard  their  very  presence  in  the 
country  as  a  defilement. 

The  discipline  of  the  centuries  before  the  Roman  conquest 
of  Palestine  by  Pompey,  had  formed  a  nation  every  way 
unique.  The  religious  institutions  of  its  ancestors  had 
become  the  object  of  a  passionate  idolatry,  which  claimed, 
and  willingly  received,  the  whole  of  life  for  its  service.  The 
tragedy  of  the  Exile,  the  teaching  of  the  leaders  of  the  Return, 
and  of  their  successors,  and  the  fierce  puritanism  kindled 
by  the  Syrian  persecutions,  and  deepened  by  the  Maccabsean 
struggle,  had  formed  a  people  whose  existence  was  interwoven 
with  that  of  their  law ;  who  would  endure  any  torture,  or 
let  themselves  be  thrown  to  beasts  in  the  circus,  rather  than 
alter  a  word  which  their  law  forbade 1 — whose  women  would 
bear  the  agonies  of  martyrdom  rather  than  eat  unclean 
food,  and  whose  men  would  submit  to  be  cut  down  without 
an  attempt  at  resistance,  rather  than  touch  the  sword  on  a 
Sabbath.2  Their  whole  life  was  a  succession  of  rites  and 

1  e.  Ap.,  i.  8  ;  ii.  31,  32  ;  33,  38.       a  1  Mace.  ii.  27-38.     Ant.,  xii.  6.  2. 


CEREMONIAL   PURITY.  309 

observances,  as  sacred  in  their  eyes  as  the  details  of  his  caste 
to  a  Brahmin.  Intercourse  with  other  nations  was  possible 
only  to  the  most  limited  extent.  They  shrank  from  all 
other  races  as  from  fonlness  or  leprosy.  The  common  Jew 
shunned  a  heathen  or  Samaritan ;  the  Pharisee  shrank  from 
the  common  Jew ;  the  Essene  ascetic  withdrew  from  mankind 
into  the  desert.  The  dread  of  ceremonial  defilement  made 
solitude  the  only  security,  till  the  desire  for  it  became  morbid, 
like  that  of  the  Samaritan  settlers  of  the  islands  of  the  Red 
Sea,  who  implored  any  stranger  to  keep  at  a  distance.1  The 
very  country  consecrated  by  so  many  purifications  was  sacred, 
and  hence  there  could  be  no  greater  shock  to  the  feelings  of 
the  nation  than  that  any  who  were  ceremonially  unclean 
should  pollute  it  by  their  presence.  Even  among  themselves, 
constant  care  was  required  to  maintain  or  restore  their  purity  ; 
but  the  presence  of  heathen  among  them  made  daily  defile- 
ment almost  inevitable.  What,  then,  must  have  been  the 
horror  of  the  nation  when  even  the  Holy  of  Holies,  which  the 
high  priest  alone  could  enter,  and  that  only  once  a  year, 
after  endless  purifications,  was  polluted  by  Pompey,  and 
when,  as  in  the  days  of  the  Prophet,2  that  name  which  a 
Jew  dared  not  even  utter,  was  blasphemed  every  day  by  the 
heathen  soldiery  ?  The  cry  of  the  Psalmist  in  times  long 
past,  was  once  more  that  of  every  Jew,  "  0  God,  the  heathen 
are  come  into  Thine  inheritance :  Thy  Holy  Temple  have 
they  defiled."3 

Such  a  calamity  could  be  regarded  only  as  a  judgment 
from  Jehovah  on  the  nation.  In  words  which  were  constantly 
read  in  the  synagogues,  they  sighed  to  hear  that  "  The  wrath 
of  Jehovah  was  so  kindled  against  His  people  because  they 
were  defiled  with  their  own  works,  that  He  abhorred  His  in- 
heritance, and  had  given  it  into  the  hand  of  the  heathen,  and 
let  them  that  hated  them  rule  over  Israel."4  The  very  land 
seemed  under  a  curse.  It  appeared  as  if  the  dew  of  blessing 
no  longer  fell ;  as  if  the  fruits  had  lost  their  fragrance  and 
taste,  and  the  fields  refused  their  harvests.5  The  practical 
Roman  could  not  understand  such  an  idealistic  race ;  with 
him  law  was  no  less  supreme  than  it  was  with  the  Jew,  but 
his  law  was  that  of  the  empire ;  with  the  Jews  that  of  an 
unseen  God ;  his  had  for  its  aim  external  order  and  material 
civilisation,  that  of  the  Jew  ignored  material  progress,  and  was 

1  Jost.,  vol.  i.  p.  74.  s  Isaiah  lii.  5.  *  Ps.  Ixxix.  1. 

*  Ps.  cvi.  40,  41         •  Mischna  ;  quoted  by  Gfrorer,  vol.  ii.  p.  196. 


310  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

at  war  with  the  first  conditions  of  political  submission.  Lite 
the  Jew,  the  Roman  started  from  the  idea  of  duty,  but  it  was 
the  duty  owed  to  the  state  :  the  Jew  repudiated  any  earthly 
authority,  and  owned  allegiance  only  to  a  theocracy.  The 
Roman  cared  only  for  the  present  life ;  to  the  Jew  the  present 
was  indifferent.  The  one  worshipped  the  Visible,  the  other 
the  Unseen.  To  the  Jew,  the  Roman  was  unclean  and 
accursed ;  to  the  Roman  the  Jew  was  ridiculous  for  his 
religion,  and  hateful  for  his  pride.  Each  despised  the 
other.  Pompey  had  begun  by  treating  their  most  sacred 
prejudices  with  contempt,  and  his  successors  followed  in  his 
steps.  The  murderer  of  their  royal  house,  and  the  friend  of 
the  hated  Samaritans,  was  made  king  in  Jerusalem,  and  at 
a  later  day,  Roman  procurators  sucked  the  very  marrow  from 
the  land,  oppressed  the  people  to  the  uttermost,  and  paid  no 
regard  to  their  tenderest  sensibilities.  The  government  was 
as  ruthless  as  that  of  England  in  India  would  be  if  it  trampled 
under  foot,  in  the  pride  of  strength,  every  Hindoo  prejudice 
it  found  in  its  way.  Roman  religion  was  faith  in  the  magic 
of  the  Roman  name,  and  the  irresistibleness  of  the  Roman 
arms ;  a  worship  only  of  brute  force,  hard,  unfeeling,  coarse : 
which  could  not  understand  anything  transcendental  like  the 
creed  of  the  Jew,  or  the  possibility  of  men  caring  for  an  idea, 
far  less  of  their  dying  for  it. 

It  was  no  wonder  that  the  Rabbis  saw,  in  such  a  power, 
the  fourth  beast  of  the  Book  of  Daniel — "  a  beast  diverse 
from  all  the  others,  exceeding  dreadful,  whose  teeth  were  of 
iron  and  his  nails  of  brass,  which  devoured,  brake  in  pieces, 
and  stamped  the  remnant  of  God's  people  with  its  feet."1 
"  Thou  madest  the  world  for  our  sakes,"  says  one  of  the 
latest  Jewish  seers,  who  himself  had  seen  the  miseries  of 
these  times  ;  "  As  for  the  other  people  " — the  Romans  and  all 
mankind  besides — "who  also  come  from  Adam,  Thou  hast 
said  they  are  nothing,  but  are  like  spittle,  or  the  droppings 
from  a  cask.  And  now,  0  Lord,  behold  these  heathen,  who 
have  ever  been  counted  as  nothing,  have  begun  to  be  lords 
over  us,  and  to  devour  us.  But  we,  Thy  people,  whom 
Thou  hast  called  Thy  first  born,  Thy  only  begotten,  and  tho 
object  of  Thy  fervent  love,  are  given  into  their  hands.  If 
the  world  now  be  made  for  our  sakes,  why  do  we  not  possess 
our  inheritance  over  the  world  ?  How  long  shall  this  en- 
duro  ?  "  8  "  Hear,  thou,  I  will  talk  with  thee,"  He  makes  the 

»  Dan.  vii.  19.  2  4  Esdras  vi.  55,  59. 


ROMAN   HATEED   OF   THE   JEWS.  311 

Messiah  say  to  the  Roman  Eagle,  "  Art  thou  not  the  last  of  the 
four  beasts  which  I  made  to  reign  in  my  world,  who  hast  over- 
come all  the  beasts  that  were  past,  and  hast  power  over  the 
world  with  great  f earfulness,  and  much  wicked  oppression  ? 
For  thou  hast  afflicted  the  meek,  thou  hast  hurt  the  peace- 
able, thou  hast  loved  the  Faithless  and  hated  the  Faithful, 
and  destroyed  the  towns  of  those  who  brought  forth  fruit, 
and  the  walls  of  those  who  did  thee  no  harm.  Thy  wrongful 
dealings  have  gone  up  to  the  Highest,  and  thy  pride  to 
the  Mighty  one.  Therefore,  0  eagle,  thou  shalt  perish  with 
thy  fearful  wings,  thy  baleful  winglets,  thy  ferocious  heads, 
thy  tearing  claws,  and  all  thy  foul  body ;  that  the  earth  may 
be  refreshed,  and  be  delivered  from  thy  violence,  and  that 
she  may  hope  in  the  justice  and  mercy  of  Him  that  made 
her."1 

Such  concentrated  hatred  and  bitter  contemptuous  scorn 
from  a  people  so  feeble  and,  to  a  Roman,  in  many  ways 
so  ridiculous,  was  naturally  met  by  equal  dislike,  and  if 
possible,  greater  contempt.  The  Jews  of  Rome  had  been 
originally,  for  the  most  part,  slaves,  and  their  numbers  were 
increased  yearly  by  the  sales  of  the  slave  market.  But 
buyers  had  found  that  Jew  slaves  were  more  trouble  in  a 
household,  about  their  law,  than  they  were  worth,  and  hence 
they  were  allowed  to  buy  their  own  freedom  at  a  very  low 
price.  A  vast  number  of  Jewish  freedmen  had  thus  gra- 
dually accumulated  in  Rome,  to  the  horror  of  the  Romans 
at  large,  by  whom  they  were  reckoned  one  of  the  greatest 
plagues  of  the  city.  The  Acts  of  the  Apostles 2  show  how 
frequent  must  have  been  the  tumults  they  caused.  Squalid, 
dirty,  troublesome,  repulsive,  yet  sneering  at  the  gods  and 
temples  of  their  masters,  and  constantly  aggressive  in  the 
hope  of  making  proselytes,  they  were  the  special  objects,  by 
turns,  of  the  ridicule,  loathing,  and  hatred  of  the  haughty 
Romans,  and  this  hatred  was  intensified  by  the  favour  their 
religion  had  found  with  some  of  the  Roman  wives  and 
daughters.3  The  officials  who  went  from  Rome  to  Judea  to 
rule  the  Hebrews,  carried  with  them,  already,  a  scorn  and 
abhorrence  for  the  nation,  which  found  its  expression  in  a 
ready  belief  of  reports  so  revolting  and  incredible  as  that 
they  worshipped  the  head  of  an  ass,  as  a  god,  in  their  Temple.4 

1  2  Esdras  ii.  38-46. 

*  ix.  23  ;  xiii.  45,  50  ;  xiv.  1 ;  xvi.  19  ;  xvii.  5 ;  xviii.  12  ;  xxi.  30. 

*  See  page  65.  4  Tacit.  Hist.,  55. 


312  THE   LIFE   OP   CHKIST. 

What  treatment  they  might  expect  from  Roman  governors 
is  shadowed  in  many  utterances  of  different  classes.  Speak- 
ing of  the  Jews  sent  to  the  pestilent  climate  of  Sardinia,  to 
put  down  the  robbers  there,  Tacitus  adds,1  "  If  they  perished 
by  the  climate  it  was  no  loss."  Apollonius  of  Tyana  io 
made  to  say  to  Vespasian,  in  Alexandria — "  When  one  came 
from  the  scene  of  war  and  told  of  30,000  Jews  -whom  you  had 
killed  in  one  battle,  and  of  50,000  in  another,  I  took  the 
speaker  aside,  and  asked  him,  '  What  are  you  talking  about ; 
have  you  nothing  more  worth  telling  than  that  ?  '  "  3  Even 
the  calm  and  lofty  Marcus  Aurelius,  at  a  later  day,  is  credited 
with  an  expression  of  the  common  hatred  of  the  Jews,  which, 
in  its  biting  contempt,  surpasses  all  others.  "0  Marcomanni! 
O  Quadi !  0  Sarmatians ! "  cried  the  Emperor,  when  he 
passed  from  Egypt  into  Palestine,  and  found  himself  among 
the  Jews,  "  I  have  found  a  people,  at  last,  who  are  lower  than 
you !  "  3 

The  feelings  of  the  Jews  towards  the  Romans  had 
originally  been  those  of  admiration  and  respect,  for  their 
bravery  and  great  deeds.  Judas  Maccabaeus  had  sought 
their  alliance,  and,  even  so  late  as  the  reign  of  John  Hyr- 
canus,*  the  nation  retained  kindly  feelings  towards  them.  It 
was  the  fault  of  Pompey  that  so  great  and  sudden  a  revulsion 
took  place.  The  treachery  by  which  he  got  possession  of  the 
country  and  the  capital ;  the  insolent  contempt  with  which 
he  defiled  the  Holy  of  Holies,  and  the  vanity  which  led  him 
to  carry  off  the  royal  family,  who  had  put  themselves  confid- 
ingly under  his  protection,  to  grace  his  triumph,  filled  the 
race  with  an  abiding  hatred  of  the  very  name  of  Rome.  A 
writer  of  the  times  has  left  us  the  impressions  made  by  such 
acts  : — "  My  ear  heard  the  sound  of  war,  the  clang  of  the 
trumpet  which  called  to  murder  and  ruin !  The  noise  of  a 
great  army,  as  of  a  mighty  rushing  wind,  like  a  great  pillar 
of  fire,  rolling  hitherward  over  the  plains  !  Jehovah  brines 
Tip  hither  a  mighty  warrior  from  the  ends  of  the  earth.  He 
has  determined  war  against  Jerusalem  and  against  His  land  ! 
The  princes  of  the  land  went  out  to  him  with  joy,  and  said, 
'  Thou  art  welcome,  come  in  peace.'  They  have  made  smooth 
the  rough  ways  before  the  march  of  the  stranger;  they 
opened  the  gates  of  Jerusalem.  They  crowned  the  walls  with 
garlands.  He  entered,  as  a  father  enters  the  house  of  his 

1  Anna!.,  ii.  85.  »  Philost.  Ap.,  T.  33. 

3  Amr.i.  Marcdl.,  xxiii.  2.  «  B.C.  loo-106. 


THE   PSALMS   OF   SOLOMON.  313 

sons,  in  peace.  He  walked  abroad  in  perfect  security.  Then 
he  took  possession  of  the  towers  and  the  walls  of  Jerusalem, 
for  God  had  led  him  in  safety,  through  her  folly.  He 
destroyed  her  princes,  and  every  one  wise  in  counsel,  and 
poured  out  the  blood  of  Jerusalem  like  unclean  water.  He 
led  her  sons  and  daughters  into  captivity.1  The  strange 
people  have  gone  up  to  the  altar,  and,  in  their  pride,  have  not 
taken  off  their  shoes  in  the  holy  places."  2 

"  In  his  haughty  pride,"  cries  the  singer  in  his  second 
psalm,  which  throws  light  on  the  corruption  of  Israel  in  the 
half  century  before  Christ,  and  on  Jewish  thought  at  large, 
"the  sinner  has  broken  down  the  strong  walls  with  the 
ram,  and  thou  hast  not  hindered.3*  Heathen  aliens  have 
gone  up  into  Thy  holy  place;  they  have  walked  up  and 
down  in  it,  with  their  shoes,  in  contempt.41*  Because  the 
sons  of  Jerusalem  have  defiled  the  holy  things  of  the  Lord, 
and  have  profaned  the  gifts  consecrated  to  God,  by  their 
transgressions  of  the  Law.  For  this,  He  has  said,  '  Cast 
forth  these  things  from  me,  I  have  no  pleasure  in  them.' 
The  beauty  of  holiness  have  they  made  vile  ;  it  has  been  pro- 
faned before  God  for  ever  ! 

"  Your  sons  and  your  daughters  are  sold  into  woeful 
slavery; 5  they  are  branded,  as  slaves,  on  their  necks,"  in  the 
sight  of  the  heathen.  For  your  sins  hath  He  done  this ! 
Therefore  gave  He  them  up  into  the  hands  of  those  that 
were  stronger  than  they,  for  He  turned  away  His  face 
from  pitying  them, — youth,  and  old  man,  and  child  together, 
because  they  all  sinned,  in  not  hearing  His  voice.  The 
heavens  scowled  on  them,  and  the  earth  loathed  them,  for  no 
man  on  it  had  done  as  they. 

"  God  has  made  the  sons  of  Jerusalem  a  derision.  Every 
one  gave  himself  up  to  the  sin  of  Sodom.6  They  flaunted 
their  wickedness  before  the  sun.  They  committed  their 
evil  deeds  before  it.  They  made  a  show  of  their  guilt. 
Even  the  daughters  of  Jerusalem  are  profane,  according  to 
Thy  judgment,  for  they  have  defiled  themselves  shamelessly 
with  the  heathen.  For  all  these  things  my  heart  mourns. 

"  I  will  justify  Thee,  0  God,  in  uprightness  of  heart,  for 
in  Thy  judgments,  0  God,  is  seen  Thy  righteousness.  For 
Thou  givest  to  the  wicked  according  to  their  works,  accord 

1  Ps.  Sal.  viii.  1-24.  Fritzsche,  Lib.  Apoc.  Vet.  Test. 

•  Ps.  Sal.  ii.  2.  »  Ps.  Sal.  ii.  2-5.                 «  4  Esdras  ii.  1. 

•  Hell.  Jnd.,  i.  7.  6.  Ant.,  xiv.  5.  4.    Ps.  Sal.  ii.  6-35. 

•  Bom.  i.  26,  27. 


314  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

ing  to  the  great  evil  of  their  doings.  Thou  hast  reveled 
their  sins,  that  Thy  judgment  may  be  seen.  Thou  blottest 
out  their  memory  from  the  earth.  The  Lord  is  a  righteous 
judge,  and  regardeth  no  man's  countenance.  He  has  dragged 
down  her  beauty  from  the  throne  of  glory.  For  Jerusalem 
has  been  put  to  shame  by  the  heathen,  when  they  trampled  it 
under  foot.  Put  on  sackcloth  for  robes  of  beauty,  a  wreath 
of  twisted  rushes  instead  of  a  crown.  God  has  taken  away 
her  mitre  of  glory,  which  He  put  on  her  brow.  Her  pride  is 
cast  down  in  dishonour  on  the  earth. 

"  And  I  looked,  and  prayed  before  the  face  of  the  Lord, 
and  said,  Let  it  suffice  Thee,  0  Lord,  that  Thou  hast  made 
heavy  Thy  hand  upon  Jerusalem,  in  the  coming  against  her 
of  the  heathen.  Because  they  have  treated  her  with  scorn, 
and  have  not  spared  in  their  wrath  and  fury,  and  they  will 
not  bring  this  to  an  end,  unless  Thou,  O  Lord,  reprovest  them 
in  Thy  wrath.  For  they  have  not  done  it  in  zeal  for  Thee, 
but  from  the  wish  of  their  heart,  to  pour  out  their  rage 
against  us  like  furies.  Delay  not,  0  God,  to  smite  them  on 
the  head,  that  the  haughtiness  of  the  dragon  may  sink  down 
in  dishonour. 

"  I  had  waited  but  a  little  till  God  showed  me  his  haughty 
pride  brought  low,  on  the  shores  of  Egypt,  and  his  body  set 
at  nought  by  the  least,  alike  on  land  and  sea, — rotting  upon 
the  waves  in  pitiful  contempt,  and  having  no  one  to  bury  it. 
Because  he  had  set  God  at  nought  and  dishonoured  Him. 
He  forgot  that  he  was  only  a  man :  he  did  not  think  of  what 
might  be  to  come.  He  said,  '  I  shall  be  lord  of  sea  and  land,' 
and  he  did  not  remember  that  God  is  great  and  resistless  in 
His  great  might,  He  is  King  of  Heaven,  and  the  judge  of 
kings  and  rulers,  exalting  His  servant,  and  stilling  the  proud 
in  eternal  dishonour  and  ruin  because  they  have  not  acknow- 
ledged Him."  i d 

Herod's  flattery  of  Rome,  and  his  treachery  to  what  the 
patriots  thought  the  national  cause,  only  intensified  the 
bitterness  of  such  recollections. 

Amidst  all  the  troubles  of  the  nation,  however,  their  hopes 
wore  still  kept  alive  by  a  belief  which,  like  much  else  among 
the  Jews,  is  unique  in  history.  Their  sacred  books  had  from 
the  earliest  days  predicted  the  appearance  of  a  great  deliverer, 
who  should  "  redeem  Israel  out  of  all  his  troubles."  2  "  All 
the  prophets,"  says  the  Talmud,  "prophesied  only  of  the 

1  Ts.  Sal.  ii.  35.  2  Ps.  xxv.  22. 


THE   JEWISH   MESSIAH.  315 

days  of  the  Messiah."1  In  later  days  this  hope  was  inten- 
sified by  a  new  development  of  the  national  literature.  In 
the  second  century  before  Christ,  the  Book  of  Daniel  had 
created  a  profound  sensation  by  its  predictions,  universally 
current,  of  the  destruction  of  the  heathen,  and  the  elevation 
of  the  chosen  people  to  supreme  glory,  under  the  Messiah. 
These  were,  at  that  time,  interpreted  as  applying  to  the 
disastrous  period  of  religious  persecution  under  Antiochus 
Epiphanes,2  which  provoked  the  Maccabasan  revolt,  and 
ultimately  led  to  the  temporary  independence  of  the  nation, 
with  its  short,  bright  glimpse  of  prosperity,  as  if  heralding 
the  Messianic  reign.  The  heathen  were  to  "  devour  the 
whole  earth  for  a  time,  and  tread  it  down  and  break  it  in 
pieces."3  But  "the  kingdom  and  dominion,  and  the  great- 
ness of  the  rule  under  the  whole  heaven,  shall  be  given  to 
the  people  of  the  saints  of  the  Most  High,  whose  kingdom  is 
an  everlasting  kingdom,  and  all  dominions  shall  serve  and 
obey  Him."  In  such  words,  Israel  read  its  future  political 
glory,  as  the  seat  of  a  universal  theocracy,  which  was  to 
replace  the  kings  of  the  heathen,  and  flourish  in  perpetual 
supremacy  over  all  mankind.4  The  head  of  this  world-wide 
empire  they  saw  in  "  the  Son  of  Man,"  who  was  to  "  come  in 
the  clouds  of  heaven  ;  "  dominion  and  glory,  and  a  kingdom, 
that  all  people,  nations,  and  languages  should  serve  Hrm  for 
ever,  being  given  Him  by  the  Ancient  of  Days.5  e 

With  the  paling  of  the  Maccabeean  glory,  after  its  short 
brightness,  and  the  decay  of  religious  enthusiasm,  under  the 
corrupting  influence  of  its  later  kings, — a  reaction  not  unlike 
the  license  of  the  Restoration  as  contrasted  with  the  severe 
Puritanism  of  the  Commonwealth, — a  copious  literature 
sprang  up,  based  on  the  model,  which,  in  the  Book  of  Daniel, 
had  so  profoundly  affected  the  spirit  of  the  age.  With  the 
independence  of  the  nation,  prophecy  had,  long  ago,  gradually 
ceased,  for  the  sphere  of  the  prophet  was  incompatible  with 
the  rule  of  the  enemies  of  his  race.  Zechariah  and  Malachi 
had  appeared  after  the  return  from  exile,  but,  with  the 
latter,  it  was  universally  acknowledged,  the  grand  roll  of 
prophets  had  ended.  The  last  of  the  order  had,  indeed, 
himself,  virtually  announced  its  suspension,  in  pointing  to 
the  coming  of  Elijah,  before  the  great  and  dreadful  day  of 

1  B.  Bf-rach.,  xxxiv.  2.  4.     See  also  Gfrorer,  vol.  ii.  p.  198. 
3  B.C.  175-1(54.  •  Dan.  vii.  23;  xi.  36. 

*  Ch.  vii.  18,  22,  27.  •  Ch.  vii.  13,  14. 


316  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

Jehovah,*  as  its  next  appearance  From  that  time,  it  became 
fixed  in  the  popnlar  mind  that  Elijah,  and  perhaps,  also,  a 
"  prophet  like  unto  Moses,"  2  wonld  herald  the  Messiah  and 
his  kingdom.  The  peculiar  constitution  of  the  State  in- 
evitably  gave  this  glorious  future  a  political,  rather  than 
a  spiritual  character,  for  their  conception  of  the  kingdom 
of  God  was  that  of  a  theocracy,  such  as  God  Himself  had 
founded  amongst  them,  under  Moses — an  earthly  state,  "with 
God  as  king,  and  His  "  anointed  "  as  vicegerent,  to  carry  out 
His  written  law.3  Their  only  idea  of  an  "anointed  one," 
that  is,  a  Messiah,  must  have  been  derived  from  the  illustra- 
tions offered  by  the  earlier  history  of  the  nation.4  They 
knew  of  Moses,  Joshua,  the  judges,  and  the  kings.  The 
patriarchs  were  spoken  of  in  the  Scriptures  as  the  anointed 
of  Jehovah,  or  His  Messiahs,  and  so,  also,  were  high  priests 
and  prophets,  and  their  kings,  and  even  the  Persian  monarch, 
Cyrus.*  Among  the  later  Jews,  of  the  ages  immediately 
before  Christ,  "  The  Messiah "  had  become  the  usual  name 
of  the  Deliverer  predicted  by  the  prophets,8  and  was  almost 
exclusively  restricted  to  Him.  But  at  no  time  had  the 
spiritual  been  separated  from  the  political,  in  its  use.  Indeed, 
the  whole  theory  of  their  national  government,  inevitably 
joined  the  secular  and  the  religious.  The  State  and  the 
Church  were,  with  it,  identical,  the  former  being  but  the 
outward  embodiment  of  the  latter.  Jewish  politics  were  only 
Jewish  religion  in  its  public  relations,  for  God  was  the 
political  as  well  as  religious  Head  o£  the  nation.  It  was, 
hence,  all  but  impossible  for  a  Jew  to  conceive  of  the  Messiah, 
except  as  the  divinely  commissioned  vicegerent  of  God,  in  his 
double  sphere  5  of  earthly  and  heavenly  kingship  in  Israel. 

The  long  silence  of  prophets,  and  the  keen  politico-religious 
enthusiasm  with  which  the  advent  of  a  Messiah  was  expected 
— an  enthusiasm  resting  on  Scripture  throughout,  but  re- 
kindled to  a  passionate  and  abiding  fervour  by  the  Book  of 
Daniel  —  incited  some  nobler  spirits  to  seize  the  pen,  and 
keep  alive  the  national  faith  and  hope,  by  compositions  con- 
ceived in  the  same  spirit.  To  give  these  greater  weight, 
they  were  ascribed  to  the  most  famous  men  of  past  ages,  and 
sent  abroad  in  their  names.  A  Revelation  of  the  future 
glory  of  Israel  appeared  in  the  name  of  the  antediluvian 

1  Mai.  iv.  5.         *  Dent,  xviii.  15.         »  Langen,  Judenthum,  p.  392. 

•  Sclilniermacher,  Leben  Jem,  p.  80. 

'  See  on  this,  Laugen,  Judtn;hum,  p.  392. 


THE   BOOK  OF  ENOCH.  317 

Enoch,  as  one,  of  all  men,  worthy  to  have  been  favoured 
with  Divine  communications.  Another  consisted  of  psalms 
assigned  to  Solomon,  and  a  third  was  said  to  have  been  written 
by  the  great  Scribe,  the  second  Moses — Ezra.  Others  are 
still  preserved  in  the  collection  of  "  Apocrypha  "  till  recently 
bound  up  with  our  English  Bibles.  Of  the  whole,  the  first 
Book  of  the  Maccabees  illustrates  the  fervent  patriotism  and 
stern  puritanism  of  the  war  of  liberty.  The  Wisdom  of  the 
Son  of  Sirach  sets  in  a  striking  light  the  saying  of  Esdras,1 
that,  even  in  these  dark  days,  though  many  "  walked  feignedly 
before  God,  others  feared  His  name  according  to  His  will, 
and  taught  His  law  nobly."  h  No  better  key  to  the  religious 
spirit  of  an  age  can  be  had  than  its  religious  literature.  That 
of  Israel,  as  the  age  of  Christ  drew  near,  was  more  and  more 
concentrated  on  the  expected  Messiah,  and  the  preparation 
needed  for  his  coming.  The  Book  of  Enoch,  the  Psalms  of 
Solomon,  and  the  Fourth  Book  of  Esdras,2  successively 
reveal  the  white  heat  of  the  national  hopes  of  which  they 
were  the  expression. 

Nothing  could  be  more  fitted  to  influence  the  excitable 
imagination  of  an  Oriental  people,  accustomed  to  such  a  style 
in  their  sacred  writings — nothing  more  fitted  to  intensify  a 
fanatical  spiritual  pride  in  themselves  as  the  favourites  of 
heaven,  or  to  deepen  their  hatred  of  all  other  nations — than 
the  mystic  chapters  of  the  BOOK  OP  ENOCH,  of  which  the 
earlier  date  perhaps  forty  years  before  the  entrance  of  the 
Romans  into  Palestine,  while  the  whole  are  as  old  as  the 
reign  of  Herod.  In  one,  Israel  is  painted  under  the  figure 
of  a  flock  of  white  sheep,  while  the  nations  round  are  the 
Egyptian  wolf,  the  Phenician  dog,  the  black  wild  boar 
Edom,  the  Arabian  vulture,  the  Syrian  raven,  and  the 
Grecian  eagle ;  or  are  branded  as  jackals,  kites,  foxes,  and 
swine.  Hyrcanus,  the  sheep  with  the  great  horn,  drives 
away  the  Grecian  eagles,  the  Syrian  ravens,  the  Egyptian 
kites,  the  Arabian  vulture,  and  the  Philistine  dogs,  who 
were  tearing  the  flesh  of  the  sheep  of  the  House  of  Israel.3 
The  Lord  of  the  sheep  comes  to  His  flock,  the  rod  of  His 
wrath  in  His  hand,  and  strikes  the  earth  till  it  quakes,  and 
all  the  beasts  and  birds  flee  from  the  sheep,  and  sink  in  the 
earth,  which  closes  over  them.  A  great  throne  is  then  set 

1  Chap.  viii.  27,  28.  Ed.  Hilgenfeld,  p.  148. 
*  In  our  Apocrypha,  the  2nd  Book  of  Esdra«, 
3  Das  Buch  Henoch,  ch.  xc.  13. 


318  THE  LIFE   OP  CHKIST. 

up  in  the  beloved  land,  and  the  Lord  of  the  sheep  sits  on  it, 
and  opens  the  sealed  books.1  He  will  now  drive  the  kings 
from  their  thrones  and  kingdoms,  and  will  break  the  teeth 
of  sinners,  and,  finally,  chase  out  the  heathen  from  the  con- 
gregation of  His  people,3  and  cast  down  the  oppressors  of 
Israel  into  a  deep  place,  "full  of  fire,  flaming,  and  full  of 
pillars  of  fire."  3  A  "  great  everlasting  heaven  "  will  spring 
forth  from  the  midst  of  the  angels,  and  the  day  of  judgment 
will  begin,  "  when  the  blood  of  the  sinners  will  be  as  high  as 
a  horse's  breast,  and  as  a  chariot  axle,"  and  when  legions  of 
angels  shall  appear  in  the  skies,  and  the  righteous  be  raised 
from  the  .grave.  The  days  of  the  Messiah — "the  Elect," 
"  the  Anointed  One,"  "  the  Son  of  Man,"  who  is  also  "  Son 
of  God  " — will  then  begin.4 

"  The  plants  of  righteousness  "  (the  Jewish  nation)  will 
flourish  for  ever  and  ever5  under  His  reign,  for  He  is  to 
come  forth  from  the  "throne  of  the  majesty  of  God,"  and 
rule  over  all,  as  the  object  of  universal  adoration.6 

The  pictures  given  of  the  blessedness  of  Israel  in  its 
world-wide  empire,  throw  light  on  the  nobler  side  of  the 
Jewish  nature,  for  we  may  seek  in  vain  for  anything  so  pure 
and  lofty  in  the  conceptions  of  any  other  people.  "  Blessed 
be  ye,  O  ye  righteous  and  elect  ones,  for  glorious  will  be 
your  lot !  The  righteous  shall  dwell  in  the  light  of  the  Sun, 
and  the  elect  in  the  light  of  the  Life  Eternal ;  the  days  of 
their  life  shall  have  no  end,  and  the  days  of  the  holy  ones 
shall  be  countless.  And  they  shall  seek  the  light,  and  find 
righteousness  beside  the  Lord  of  Spirits.  The  righteous 
shall  have  peace  with  the  Lord  of  the  World.7  They  will 
dwell  beside  the  Water  of  Life,8  in  the  gardens  of  righteous- 
ness,9 and  shine  like  the  light  for  ever  and  ever.10  Their 
hearts  will  rejoice,  because  the  number  of  the  righteous  is 
fulfilled,  and  the  blood  of  the  righteous  avenged.111 

The  PSALMS  OF  SOLOMON,  written  at  the  time  of  Pompey's 
invasion,  look  forward  confidently  to  the  coming  of  the 
Messiah,  and  the  setting  up  of  the  everlasting  kingdom  of 
God,  when  the  sons  and  daughters  of  Jerusalem  will  be 
brought  back  again  from  the  east  and  the  west,  because 
Jehovah  has  had  compassion  on  her  affliction.12  The  17th 
and  18th  Psalms,  especially,  bring  before  us,  with  equal 

1  Das  Buch  Henoch,  oh.  xc.  20.      2  Ch.  xlv.       8  Ch.  xlv.  24.      *  Ch.  c. 
•  Ch.  xciii.  2.  «  xlvi.  1 ;  lv.  4 ;  Ixix.  29 ;  xlviii.  5  ;  Ixii.  6. 

1  Ch.  v.  8.  •  Ch.  xvii.  »  Ch.  xxxii.  ™  Ch.  xxxviii 

11  CL.  xlv.  »  Pnalmi  Salomonis,  ed.  Iritzsche:  Ps.  xi.  17. 


THE   PSALMS   OF   SOLOMON.  319 

vividness  and  beanty,  the  hopes  that  glowed  in  the  national 
breast  in  the  days  of  Christ,  and  broke  out  into  wild  violence 
in  the  religious  revolt  of  Judas  the  Galilsean.  Joseph,  in 
his  cottage  at  Nazareth,  may  often  have  listened  to  them,  or 
read  them,  foi  they  were  familiar  to  every  Jew,  and  many  a 
group  of  Galilsean  villagers  gathered,  from  time  to  time,  to 
hear  them  repeated,  in  Eastern  fashion,  by  some  reader  or 
reciter.  They  ran  thus : — 

"  Lord,  Thou  alone  art  our  King  for  ever  and  ever,  and 
in  Thee  shall  our  souls  make  their  boast.  What  is  the  span 
of  man's  life  upon  earth  ?  According  to  the  time  fixed  by 
the  Lord,  and  man's  hope  upon  Him !  But  we  hope  in  God 
our  Saviour,  because  the  power  of  our  God  is  with  mercy, 
for  ever,  and  the  kingdom  of  our  God  is  over  the  heathen, 
for  judgment,  for  ever. 

"  Thou,  0  Lord,  didst  choose  for  Thyself  David,  to  be  king 
over  Israel,  and  didst  swear  to  him,1  respecting  his  seed  for 
ever,  that  there  would  never  fail  a  prince  of  his  house  before 
Thee,  for  ever.  But  for  our  sins,  the  wicked  have  risen  up 
against  us ;  they  (the  Asmonean  party),  whom  Thou  hast 
not  sent  forth,k  have  done  violence  against  us,  and  have 
gotten  the  power  over  us.  They  have  put  away  Thy  name 
with  violence,  and  have  not  glorified  it,  though  it  be  above 
all  in  majesty;  they  have  set  up  a  king  over  them.1  They 
have  laid  waste  the  throne  of  David,™  with  a  haughty  shout 
of  triumph.  But  Thou,  0  Lord,  wilt  cast  them  down,  Thou 
wilt  take  away  their  seed  from  the  earth,  raising  up  against 
them  an  ah"  en,  who  is  noir  of  our  race.™  After  their  sins 
shalt  Thou  recompense  them,  O  God ;  they  will  receive 
according  to  their  works.  According  to  their  works  will 
God  show  pity  on  them  !  He  will  hunt  out  their  seed,  and 
will  not  let  them  go.0  Faithful  is  the  Lord,  in  all  His  judg- 
ments which  He  performs  in  the  earth. 

"  He  who  has  not  the  Law  p  has  desolated  our  land  of  its 
inhabitants.  He  has  made  the  youth,  and  the  old  man,  and 
the  child  disappear  together.  In  his  fury  he  has  sent  away 
our  sons  to  the  west ;  q  and  our  princes  he  has  made  an  open 
ehow,  and  has  not  spared.'  Our  enemy  has  done  haughtily 
in  his  alien  pride,  and  his  heart  is  a  stranger  to  our  God. 
And  he  did  all  things,  in  Jerusalem,  as  the  heathen  do  with 
their  idols,  in  their  cities.  And  the  sons  of  the  covenant 
have  been  made  to  serve  them,  and  have  been  mingled  among 

1  Ps.  cxxxii.  11,  12.    Jer.  xxxiii.  17. 


320  THE   LIFE   OF   CHBIST. 

heathen  nations.*  There  was  not  one  among  them  who 
showed  pity  or  truth  in  Jerusalem.  Those  who  loved  tho 
synagogues  of  the  saints  fled  from  them ;  they  were  driven 
away  as  sparrows  from  their  nest.  They  wandered  in  deserts, 
that  their  souls  might  be  saved  from  defilement,  and  the 
wilderness  was  lovely  in  their  sight,  in  saving  their  souls. 
They  were  scattered  over  the  whole  earth,  by  those  who 
have  not  the  Law. 

"  Behold,  0  Lord,  and  raise  up  to  Israel,  their  king,  the 
Son  of  David,  at  the  time  Thou,  O  God,  knowest,  to  rule 
Israel,  Thy  child.  And  gird  him,  0  Lord,  with  strength, 
that  he  may  break  in  pieces  the  unjust  rulers.  Cleanse 
Jerusalem,  in  wisdom  and  righteousness,  from  the  heathen 
who  tread  it  under  foot.  Thrust  out  the  sinners  from  Thine 
inheritance ;  grind  to  dust  the  haughtiness  of  the  trangressors ; 
shatter  in  pieces  all  their  strength,  as  a  potter's  vessel  is  shat- 
tered by  a  rod  of  iron.1  Destroy  utterly,  with  the  word  of 
Thy  mouth,2  the  heathen  that  have  broken  Thy  Law ;  at  His 
coming  let  the  heathen  flee  before  His  face,  and  confound 
Thou  the  sinners  in  the  thoughts  of  their  hearts.  And  He 
shall  bring  together  the  holy  race,  and  shall  lead  them  in 
righteousness,  and  He  shall  judge  the  tribes  of  the  holy 
people,  for  the  Lord,  His  God.  And  He  will  not  suffer  un- 
righteousness to  dwell  in  the  midst  of  them,  nor  will  any 
wicked  man  be  let  dwell  among  them.  For  He  will  take 
knowledge  that  they  are  all  sons  of  God,  and  He  will  portion 
them  out  in  their  tribes,  over  the  land.  And  the  stranger 
and  the  foreigner  will  dwell  among  them  no  more.  He  will 
judge  the  people  and  the  heathen,  in  the  wisdom  of  His 
righteousness. 

"  And  He  will  bring  the  peoples  of  the  heathen  under  His 
yoke  to  serve  Him,  and  He  will  exalt  the  Lord  exceedingly, 
in  all  the  earth.  And  He  will  cleanse  Jerusalem  in  righteous- 
ness, so  that,  as  it  was  in  the  beginning,  the  heathen  shall 
come  from  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  earth,  to  see  His  glory, 
and  her  weary,  wasted  sons  shall  return,  bearing  gifts,  to  see 
the  glory  of  the  Lord,  with  which  God  has  glorified  her. 
And  He  shall  be  a  righteous  king  over  them,  taught  of  God. 
And  there  shall  be  no  unrighteousness  in  their  midst  in  His 
days,  because  they  are  all  holy,  and  their  king  is  the  Christ,  the 
Lord.*  For  He  shall  not  trust  in  the  horse,  or  the  chariot, 
or  in  the  bow ;  neither  shall  He  gather  to  Himself  silver  and 

1  Eev.  ii.  27  ;  xii.  5 ;  xix.  15.     Pa.  ii.  9.  «  Isaiah  xi.  4. 


PSALMS   OF   SOLOMON.  321 

gold  for  war,  and  He  shall  not  trust  in  numbers,  in  the  day 
of  battle.  The  Lord,  Himself,  is  His  king,  and  His  trust  in 
the  Mighty  God,  and  HE  shall  set  all  the  heathen  in  terror 
before  Him.  For  He  shall  rule  all  the  earth,  by  the  word  of 
His  mouth,  for  ever.  He  shall  make  the  people  of  the  Lord 
blessed,  in  wisdom  and  in  joy.  And  He,  being  pure  from  sin, 
for  the  ruling  of  a  great  people,  will  rebuke  kings,  and  will 
cut  off  transgressors  by  the  might  of  His  word.  And  He  shall 
not  want  help  from  God,  in  His  days.  For  the  Lord  shall 
make  Him  mighty  in  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  wise  in  counsel,  and 
strong,  and  righteous,  And  the  favour  of  the  Lord  shall  be 
His  strength,  and  He  shall  not  be  weak.  His  hope  is  in  the 
Lord,  and  who  can  do  anything  against  Him  ?  Mighty  in 
His  doings,  and  strong  in  the  fear  of  God ;  feeding,  as  a 
shepherd,  the  flock  of  the  Lord,  in  faith  and  righteousness,  He 
will  let  no  one  among  them  fail  in  the  Law.  He  will  lead  them 
all  in  holiness,  and  there  will  be  no  haughty  oppressing  of 
them  in  His  rule. 

"  This  is  the  glorious  excellence  of  the  King  of  Israel,  which 
is  known  to  God.  He  shall  raise  Him  over  the  House  of 
Israel,  to  instruct  it.  His  words  are  purer  than  the  most 
pure  gold.  He  will  judge  the  people  in  the  synagogues — the 
tribes  of  the  saints.  His  words  will  be  like  words  of  the  holy 
ones,  in  the  midst  of  the  holy  multitudes.  Blessed  are  those 
who  shall  live  in  those  days,  to  see  the  good  things  which  God 
shall  do  for  Israel,  in  the  gathering  together  of  her  tribes. 
God  shall  hasten  His  mercy  towards  Israel.  He  shall  purge 
us  from  the  defilement  of  the  presence  of  our  enemies,  the 
profane.  The  Lord,  He  is  King,  for  ever  and  ever ! l 

"  0  Lord,  Thy  mercy  is  on  the  works  of  Thy  hands  for  ever 
and  ever !  Thy  goodness  to  Israel  is  a  gift  beyond  price. 
Thine  eyes  look  on,  and  nothing  will  fail  of  Thy  promises. 
Thine  ears  will  attend  to  the  supplication  of  the  needy  who 
trusts  in  Thee  Thy  judgments  are  in  all  the  earth,  in  mercy, 
and  Thy  love  is  towards  the  seed  of  Abraham,  the  sons  of 
Israel.  Thou  hast  Thyself  taught  us,  as  Thy  son,  Thine  only 
begotten,  Thy  first  born,2  so  that  we  may  turn  an  obedient 
heart  away  from  ignorance  and  sin. 

"  God  shall  purify  Israel,  against  the  day  of  mercy  and 
blessing,  against  the  day  of  the  calling  forth  of  His  Christ 
(Anointed)  to  rule.  Blessed  are  those  who  shall  live  in  those 
days : "  3u 

1  Ps.  Sal.  xvii.  ed.  Hilyenfeld.  *  Exod.  iv.  22. 

1  Ps.  Sal.  xviii.  ed.  HHgrnfeld  (Messias  Jiuhcorum,  p.  24). 


322  THE  LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

In  the  FOURTH  BOOK  OF  ESDRAS,  which  was  circulating 
among  the  people  at  the  birth  of  Christ,  the  nation  found  its 
strength  and  weakness,  alike,  reflected,  and  all  its  religious 
hopes  flattered  to  the  utmost,  "  If  the  world  be  made  for  our 
sakes,  why  do  we  not  possess  our  inheritance  over  it  ?  " 
asks  the  supposed  Ezra.  In  the  fifth  of  a  series  of  "  Visions 
of  the  Night,"  for  which  he  had  prepared  by  long  fasting,  ho 
sees  an  angel  rise  from  the  sea,  with  twelve  wings  and  three 
heads,  the  mystic  symbol  of  the  triumphant  heathen  power  of 
the  Syro-  and  Egypto-Macedonian  kings,  and  of  that  of  Rome, 
under  Caesar,  Antony,  and  then  Octavian,  who  won  the 
final  victory,  and  universal  monarchy.  After  a  time,  he, 
Octavian  (Augustus)  alone,  as  the  one-headed  eagle,  remains. 
But  now  appears  a  mighty  Lion 1 — the  Messiah — who  calls 
with  a  human  voice  to  the  eagle,  "Art  thou  not  he  who 
remainest  of  the  four  beasts"  (the  four  heathen  world-empires 
of  Daniel),  "  which  I  created  that  they  might  rule  in  my  world, 
that  the  end  of  times  might  come  through  them  ?  Thou  hast 
judged  the  earth,  but  not  in  truth,  for  thou  hast  troubled  the 
peaceful,  and  wronged  the  unoffending ;  thou  hast  loved  liars, 
and  hast  overthrown  the  cities  of  the  industrious,  and  hast 
razed  their  walls,  though  they  did  thee  no  harm.  Thy  wrong- 
ful dealing  has  risen  to  the  Highest,  and  thy  pride  to  the 
Mighty  One.  The  Most  High,  also,  has  remembered  His 
times,  and  behold,  they  are  closed,  and  the  ages  are  ended. 
Therefore,  begone,  0  thou  eagle,  and  be  seen  no  more — with 
thy  fearful  wings,  thy  baleful  winglets,2  thy  ferocious  heads, 
thy  tearing  claws,  and  all  thy  foul  body,  that  the  earth  may 
be  refreshed,  and  may  recover  itself,  when  freed  from  thy 
violence,  and  that  she  may  hope  in  the  justice  and  pity  of  Him 
who  made  her !  "  "  And  I  looked,  and,  behold,  the  eagle  was 
no  more  seen,  and  all  its  body  was  burned  up,  and  the  earth 
grew  pale  with  fear."  Borne,  then  just  entering  on  its  long 
imperial  history,  and  in  the  height  of  its  greatness,  was  to  be 
blotted  out  from  the  earth  by  the  Messiah.  Past  generations 
had  thought  the  Syrian  persecutions  must  be  the  tribulation 
which  was  to  herald  the  coming  of  the  Messiah,  and  to  end 
heathen  domination  on  the  earth  ;  then  the  persecutions  and 
wars  of  the  later  Maccabees ;  then  the  huge  world-turmoil  of 
the  Roman  civil  wars,  in  succession,  seemed  to  proclaim  His 
approach.  But,  now,  the  supposed  Ezra  looked  for  it  in  the 
reign  of  Augustus,  as  men,  a  little  later,  expected  it  on  the 

1  Ch.  xi.  37  ;  xii.  32;  v.  37.  *  The  dependent  kingdoms, 


FOUETH  BOOK  OF  ESDEAS.          323 

death  of  Herod.  The  Lion,  rising  from  the  forest,  would  re- 
buke the  haughty  Roman  eagle,  and  would  sit  in  judgment 
on  the  heathen,  free  His  holy  people,  and  bless  them  till  the 
coming  of  the  end.1 

Nor  was  this  the  only  vision  of  the  Messiah,  presented  by 
the  supposed  Ezra.  "  Behold,"  says  he,  "  a  wind  rose  from 
the  heart  of  the  sea,  and  in  it  the  form  of  a  Man  "  (the  Son 
of  God),  "and  all  its  waves  were  troubled.  And  I  saw,  and 
behold  the  Man  came  on  the  clouds  of  heaven,  and  whereso- 
ever He  turned  His  face  and  looked,  all  things  trembled  before 
Him,  and  all  that  heard  His  voice  melted  like  wax  in  the 
flame.  But  a  countless  host  from  all  parts  of  the  earth  came 
up  tojmake  war  against  Him.  And  He  cut  out  for  Himself, 
by  His  word,  a  great  mountain — which  is  Mount  Zion — and 
stood  on  the  top  of  it,  and  when  the  multitude  pressed  with 
trembling  against  Him,  He  lifted  against  them  neither  hand 
nor  weapon,  but  consumed  them  utterly  with  a  flood  of  fire 
from  His  mouth,  and  the  lightning  flashes  of  the  storm  from 
His  lips,2  and  nothing  remained  of  them  but  smoke  and  ashes. 
Then  He  rose  and  came  down  from  the  mountain,  and  called 
to  Him  a  peaceful  multitude,  some  glad  and  some  sorry,  some 
bound  as  captives,  some  bearing  gifts,  and  these  were  the  ten 
tribes,  whom  He  had  brought  from  their  hiding-place  in  a 
land  beyond  Assyria,  where  never  man  else  dwelt,  cleaving 
the  Euphrates  to  let  them  pass  over,  and  gathering  them  to 
their  own  land  again,  that  their  brethren  there,  and  they  from 
afar,  might  rejoice  evermore  together."3 

To  Esdras,  the  reign  of  the  Idumean  Herod  over  the  Jewish 
people  seems  a  second  note  of  the  culmination  of  heathen 
rule  and  its  speedy  overthrow.  "  The  end  of  this  age,"  says 
he,  "  is  Esau,  and  Jacob  is  the  beginning  of  that  which  is  to 
come ;  "  4  the  death  of  the  Edomite  was  to  mark  the  opening 
of  the  reign  of  the  sons  of  Jacob.  "  During  his  life,  or  at  his 
death,"  says  another  vision,  "  the  Messias  (or  Son  of  God) 
will  descend  from  heaven  with  those  men  who  have  not  tasted 
of  death,5  and  the  books  will  be  opened  before  the  face  of  the 
sky,  and  all  shall  see  them,  and  the  trumpet  shall  sound,  and 
every  cheek  will  grow  pale  at  the  hearing  it.  And  friends 
will  fight  at  that  time  against  friends,  and  the  earth  shall 
tremble  and  all  who  dwell  on  it,  and  the  springs  and  fountains 
shall  cease  running  for  three  hours.  And  the  hearts  of  the 

1  4th  Esdras  xii.  34.  2  Compare  Isaiah  xi.  4. 

*  Lat.  version,  4th  Esdras  xiii.  47,  48.         4  Lat.  version,  ch.  v.  9. 

s  4th  Esdras  vi.  26. 


324  THE   LIFE   OP  CHRIST. 

people  shall  be  changed,  and  they  will  be  turned  into  other 
men.  For  all  sin  and  wickedness  will  be  destroyed,  and  faith 
will  flourish,  and  corruption  shall  be  rooted  out,  and  truth, 
which  had  been  lost  for  a  long  time,  will  reign."  Regions 
hitherto  unknown  and  barren  will  be  planted,  to  shame  the 
heathen,  by  showing  the  greater  glory  of  the  kingdom  of  the 
Messiah  than  of  theirs.  Yet,  this  golden  age  is  to  last  only 
400  years,  at  the  end  of  which  the  Messiah  will  die.1  The 
earth  will  then  pass  away.  The  dead  will  be  raised,  and  the 
great  judgment  held,  after  which  "  the  righteous  shall  go  into 
the  presence  of  God,  and  shine  like  the  sun,  and  dwell  in  the 
midst  of  His  everlasting  light,  and  die  no  more,2  and  a  single 
day  shall  be  as  seventy  years,  and  they  shall  live  for  ever  and 
ever.  But  the  wicked  shall  go  to  everlasting  fire."  3 

Such  a  literature,  widely  diffused,  penetrated  the  nation 
with  its  spirit,  and  coloured  its  destiny.  Nor  were  the  books 
quoted  the  only  writings  of  a  similar  tone  that  everywhere 
formed  the  study,  and  fired  the  soul  of  the  contemporaries 
of  Jesus.  A  succession  of  these  heralds  of  the  Messiah  per- 
petuated the  theme.  After  the  Psalms  of  Solomon  and  the 
Book  of  Esdras,  we  have  the  anticipations  of  the  Targums, 
and  of  Philo,  and  the  pictures  of  the  Book  of  Jubilees.  In 
the  Messiah's  time,  we  read  in  the  latter,  "the  days  will 
begin  to  lengthen,  and  the  children  of  men  will  live  longer, 
from  generation  to  generation,  and  from  day  to  day,  till  their 
lives  come  nigh  to  a  thousand  years.  And  there  will  be  no 
more  any  old,  or  any  weary  of  life,  but  they  will  all  be  like 
children  and  boys,  and  will  fulfil  all  their  days  in  peace  and 
joy,  and  there  will  be  no  accuser  amongst  them,  or  any  cor- 
rupter.  For  all  their  days  will  be  days  of  blessing."  4  x 

The  result  of  influences  so  unique,  is  almost  beyond 
imagination,  to  an  age  so  cold  and  practical  as  our  own.  A 
parallel  may,  perhaps,  be  found  in  the  universal  excitement 
which  pervaded  Christendom  at  the  end  of  the  tenth  century, 
when  the  1,000  years  of  the  Book  of  Revelation5  were 
thought  to  be  closing,  and  the  end  of  the  world  was  believed 
at  hand.  The  consternation  that  then  seized  all,  alike,  made 
men  give  up  everything,  to  be  ready  for  the  descent  of  the 
Judge.  It  was  the  one  thought.  Countless  pilgrims  sold 
all,  and  set  off  to  the  Holy  Land  to  await  the  expected 
Saviour.6  Not  less  deep  or  universal  was  the  expectation  of 

1  Lat.  version,  ch.  vii.  29.  2  Ethiopic  version,  ch.  vi.  69-72. 

Ethiopic  version,  ch.  vi.  1.  *  Ch.  xxiii.  *  Eev.  xx. 

•  Robertson's  State  of  Europe,  p.  213. 


CHAEACTEB   OF   HEROD.  325 

the  Messiah  in  the  days  of  Christ,  rousing  men,  even  against 
hope,  once  and  again,  in  the  literal  use  of  the  words  of  the 
Maccabsean  psalm1 — "to  take  a  two-edged  sword  in  their 
hand,  to  execute  vengeance  on  the  heathen,  and  punishments 
on  the  nations ;  to  bind  their  kings  with  chains,  and  their 
nobles  with  links  of  iron :  to  execute  upon  them  the  judg- 
ments written.  This  was  an  honour  granted  to  all  the 
Saints."  2 

The  effect  of  the  long  reign  of  Herod  on  Jewish  parties 
way  immense.  Sprung  from  a  race  which  the  Jews  detested, 
and  the  son  of  a  hated  father,  he  had  owed  it  to  the  Roman 
Senate  that  he  was  able  to  crush  the  national  liberties  under 
foot,  and  usurp  the  title  of  King  of  Judea,  which  no  stranger 
before  him  had  borne.  His  instincts  were  cruel  and  harsh ; 
his  life  and  tastes,  pagan  and  sensual;  his  whole  nature 
opposed  to  everything  Jewish.  He  had  murdered  member 
after  member  of  his  family,  and  among  others  the  last  of  the 
native  royal  race,  which  the  people  venerated :  he  had  put 
to  death  most  of  the  leading  Rabbis  ;  he  had  filled  the  land 
with  heathen  architecture ;  he  had  defiled  Jerusalem  by  a 
circus  and  theatre ;  he  had  degraded  the  pontificate  by 
putting  two  high  priests  to  death,  after  deposing  them ;  he 
had  violated  the  tomb  of  David,  in  search  of  treasure ;  he 
had  burned  the  national  registers,  so  essential  to  a  people 
among  whom  so  much,  in  their  priesthood  and  common  life, 
turned  on  their  descent ;  in  his  old  age,  he  had  burned  alive, 
two  famous  Rabbis,  and  slain  many  of  the  youth  of  Jeru- 
salem, for  their  zeal  for  the  Law  ;  and,  when  dying,  he  had 
left  a  command,  to  murder,  in  cold  blood,  the  collected  elders 
of  the  nation,  to  fill  the  land  with  sorrow  for  itself,  if  not 
for  him,  when  he  was  gone. 

Against  such  a  master  the  two  great  parties,  Pharisees 
and  Sadducees, — notwithstanding  their  differences,  above  all 
things  Jews, — felt  for  the  time  drawn  closer  together.  Except 
the  high  priests,  who  were  Herod's  creatures,  the  courtiers 
who  worshipped  the  power  of  the  day,  and  the  soldiers  loyal 
to  a  warlike  king,  few  were  for  Herod.  The  Sadducees  for- 
Book  the  court ;  the  high  priesthood  was  for  the  time  taken 
from  their  party.  An  Alexandrian  family  into  which  Herod 
had  married,  received  it  to  ennoble  them, — men  suspected  of 

1  Ps.  cxlix.  6-9. 

3  Hasidim.  The  very  word  used  to  designate  the  ultra-puritans  of  the 
Maccabaean  times. 


326  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

foreign  views,  royalists  by  alliance,  and  opposed  to  the  people 
by  their  origin.1  For  the  first  time  we  hear  of  preachers. 
The  last  martyrs  under  Herod — Judas,  son  of  Saripheus,  and 
Mattathias,  son  of  Margalouth — were  in  reality  tribunes  of 
the  people,  to  whose  stirring  addresses,  the  great  riot  in 
which  the  golden  eagle  in  the  temple  was  thrown  down,  was 
due.  They  were  burned  alive,  but  men  of  the  same  mould 
took  their  place,  allies  and  friends  of  the  multitudes  who  fled 
to  the  hills,  to  emerge  from  time  to  time  from  their  hiding 
places,  to  harass  the  troops  of  Herod.  Revolutionary  times 
always  produce  such  men,  whom  timeservers  of  their  day 
have  been  wont  to  denounce  as  brigands  or  robbers.  They 
were,  however,  in  reality  the  Maccabees  of  their  age.  "  The 
followers  of  Judas  the  Galilsean,"  says  Josephus,2  "  in  all 
their  opinions  are  at  one  with  the  Pharisees — that,  is,  with 
the  nation, — but  they  have  an  inextinguishable  passion  for 
liberty,  and  will  own  none  but  God  as  Master ;  they  count 
any  tortures  that  they  may  endure,  however  dreadful,  as 
nothing,  nor  do  they  heed  the  sufferings  their  parents  or 
friends  may  bear  for  their  sakes," — for  these  were  punished 
if  the  offenders  themselves  were  not  caught, — "  but  nothing 
will  make  then  call  any  man  Master."  It  was  for  putting 
Hezekiah,  the  father  of  Judas,  to  death,  in  the  beginning  of 
his  reign,  that  the  Sanhedrim,  then  still  vigorous,  tried  to 
bring  Herod  to  trial,  which  they  never  would  have  done  on 
behalf  of  a  mere  "  robber."  3  "What  the  nation  thought  of  his 
son  Judas  is  shown  in  the  words  of  a  Rabbi,4  "  In  the  world 
to  come,  God  will  gather  round  Judas  a  multitude  like  him, 
and  will  set  them  before  His  face."  Men  of  the  same  type 
had  appeared  before  Pompey  at  Damascus,  pleading  the  cause 
neither  of  Hyrcanus  nor  Aristobulus,  but  of  the  people  of  God, 
whose  institutions  had  never  favoured  royalty.  But  it  was 
under  Herod,  and  immediately  after  his  death,  that  these  ideas 
first  became  the  cry  of  any  organized  party.  The  people  had 
tired  of  the  dry  and  lifeless  discussions  of  the  Rabbis.  Their 
subtleties  and  legal  distinctions  left  their  hearts  untouched. 
But  men  had  risen  like  Hezekiah,  Judas  of  Galilee,  Mattathias, 
and  Judas,  son  of  Saripheus,  whose  harangues  set  their  souls 
on  fire.  These  earnest  spirits  did  not  trouble  with  barren 
decisions ;  they  preached  and  roused.  They  did  not  dispute 
about  some  obscure  chapter  of  Exodus  or  Leviticus ;  their 

1  Derenbourg,  p.  156.         8  Ant.  xviii.  1.  6.         *  Derenbonrg,  p.  160. 
4  Midrasch  on  Ecclcsiastes  i.  1;  quoted  by  Derenbcnirg,  p.  161. 


THE   HIGH  PEIESTHOOD   OF   THE   DAT.  327 

texts  were  the  inspired  words  of  the  prophets,  the  burning 
and  eloquent  exhortations  of  Isaiah  and  Jeremiah.  These 
they  recited,  commented  on,  and  enlarged,  before  multitudes 
eager  to  hear  them.  The  voice  of  the  ancient  Oracles  had 
retained  all  its  freshness,  and  suited  the  passing  times  as  if 
written  respecting  them.  For  Jehoiakim  men  read  Herod ; 
Rome  took  the  place  of  Babylon  ;  and  the  gloomy  prophecies 
of  Jeremiah  seemed  about  to  be  fulfilled  anew  on  the  second 
Temple.  For  the  last  time,  the  almost  withered  tree  of 
Jewish  nationality  seemed  to  live  again.  In  the  soil  of  the 
Word  of  Grod  it  grew  green  once  more,  and  pushed  out  some 
last  branches,  but  all  the  prophets  through  whose  impulse 
it  thus  revived,  paid  for  the  dangerous  glory  by  a  violent 
death. 

In  the  lifetime  of  Jesus,  parties  had  thus  become  trans- 
formed. The  Boethusians,  or  Alexandrians,  raised  to  the 
pontificate  by  Herod,  became  the  royalists.  They  hoped  to 
be  able,  under  him  and  the  Romans,  to  maintain  ecclesiasti- 
cal matters  as  they  were,  and  keep  hold  of  their  privileges. 
They  were  the  high-priestly  families  whose  harshness  and 
violence  are  handed  down  to  us  in  the  Talmud.  "  A  curse 
on  the  family  of  Boethos,  a  curse  on  their  spears  " — was  the 
anathema  muttered  in  the  streets  of  Jerusalem — "  a  curse  on 
the  family  of  Hannas  ! l  a  curse  on  their  viper-like  hissings  ! 
A  curse  on  the  family  of  Kanthera !  a  curse  on  their  fine 
feathers  !  A  curse  on  the  family  of  Ismael  Ben  Phabi !  a 
curse  on  their  fists  !  They  are  high  priests  themselves,  their 
sons  keep  the  money,  their  sons-in-law  are  captains,  and 
their  servants  smite  the  people  with  their  staves  ;  "  y  "  The 
approaches  of  the  sanctuary,"  continues  the  Talmud,  "  echo 
with  four  cries — '  Depart  hence,  ye  sons  of  Eli,z  you,  pollute 
the  Temple  of  the  Eternal : '  '  Depart  hence,  Issachar  Kefr 
Barkai,  who  think  only  of  yourself,  and  profane  the  con- 
secrated victims,' — for  he  wore  silken  gloves  to  protect  his 
hands  in  his  ministrations.  Then,  in  keen  irony,  comes  the 
cry — '  Open  your  gates,  O  Temple,  and  let  Ismael  Ben  Phabi, 
the  disciple  of  Phinehas,  **  enter,  that  he  may  perform  the 
high-priestly  rites  ; '  and,  finally,  a  fourth  voice — '  Open  wide, 
ye  gates !  and  let  Johanan,  the  son  of  K"ebedia,  the  disciple 
of  gluttons  and  gourmands,  enter,  that  he  may  gorge  on  the 
sacrifices ! '" a  N"o  wonder  this  last  pupil  of  his  Roman 

1  The  Annas  of  the  Gospels. 

*  Pesachim,  57  a,  and  Kerithoth,  28  a.     Derenlourg,  p.  233. 


328  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

masters  won  such  a  name,  if  the  Talmud  may  be  believed  in 
its  statement,  that  he  had  three  hundred  calves,  and  as  many 
casks  of  wine,  and  forty  seahs  of  pigeons,  set  apart  for  hi  a 
kitchen.bb 

The  luxury  and  audacity  of  some  of  the  high  priests  were 
pushed  so  far,  that  it  is  related  of  Ismael  Ben  Phabi  that  his 
mother  made  a  tunic  for  him,  that  cost  a  hundred  mina3 — 
about  £330.  The  mother  of  Eliezer  Ben  Harsom  had  a 
similar  robe  made  for  him,  if  we  may  credit  it,  at  a  cost 
of  20,000  minae — £66,000,  but  it  was  so  fine  that  the  other 
priests  would  not  let  him  wear  it,  because  he  seemed  naked 
from  its  transparency.1  The  exaggeration  is,  doubtless, 
great,  for  the  fortune  of  this  pontifical  millionnaire  is  a 
favourite  theme  of  Rabbinical  fancy,  but  such  exaggeration 
itself  springs  only  from  truth,  striking  enough  to  arrest  the 
imagination.  The  high  priesthood  had,  in  fact,  sunk  to  the 
extremest  corruption.  "  To  what  time,"  asks  Rabbi  Jocha- 
nan,  "  do  the  words  refer — '  The  fear  of  the  Lord  prolongeth 
life  ?  '  2  To  that  of  the  first  Temple,  which  stood  about  four 
hundred  and  ten  years,  and  had  only  eighteen  high  priests 
from  first  to  last.  And  to  what  time  do  the  other  words 
refer — '  And  the  years  of  the  wicked  shall  be  shortened  ?  ' 
To  that  of  the  second  Temple,  which  stood  four  hundred  and 
twenty  years,  and  had  more  than  three  hundred  high  priests : 
for,  deducting  eighty-five  years  for  five  exceptional  reigns, 
less  than  a  single  year  is  left  for  each  of  all  the  other  high 
priests."  3 

The  Pharisees  and  Sadducees,  in  these  dark  years,  had  to 
withdraw  completely  from  political  life,  and  seek  consola- 
tion in  the  study  of  the  Law,  and  in  attracting  the  people  to 
the  schools  where  they  taught  or  discussed.  The  extreme 
party  among  the  former — the  Zealots,  the  Jacobins  of  the 
age,  or  rather  its  Maccabees — were  enthusiastically  popular 
with  the  youth  of  the  nation.4  Stern  puritans,  who  knew  no 
compromise,  they  dreamed  of  triumphing,  in  their  weakness, 
over  the  armies  of  the  mistress  of  the  world,  by  the  help 
of  God,  for  whom  they  believed  they  fought.  No  danger 
appalled  their  magnificent  devotion,  no  sacrifice  daunted 
their  heroism.  They  were  the  rising  party,  from  the  time 
of  Herod's  death. 

Thus,  from  about  the  time  of  Christ's  birth,  religion  be- 

1  Joma,  356.  *  Prov.  x.  27. 

1  Joma,  9  a.  *  Ant.,  xvii.  6.  3. 


POPULAE  FEELING.  329 

came,  once  more,  the  great  factor  of  Jewish  national  life. 
The  bloody  king  had  died  in  the  midst  of  rumours  of  the 
close  approach  of  the  Messiah. 

The  visit  of  the  Magi,  almost  immediately  before,  must 
have  fanned  the  popular  excitement  still  more,  nor  would 
the  massacre  at  Bethlehem  be  without  its  influence  on  the 
public  mind.  The  insurrection  of  Mattathias  and  Judas,  at 
the  head  of  the  youth  of  the  city,  another  incident  of  these 
eventful  months,  had  only  anticipated  the  theocratic  move- 
ment, to  be  made,  as  all  hoped,  with  success,  as  soon  as  the 
tyrant  was  dead.  The  wild  outbreaks  headed  by  Simon  the 
slave  of  Herod,  Judas  the  Galilean,  and  Athronges  the 
Perean  shepherd,  were  all,  more  or  less,  connected  with 
religion.  The  deputation  of  fifty  Jews,  sent  to  Rome  to 
petition  Augustus  to  set  aside  the  Herods,  and  permit  the 
restoration  of  the  old  theocracy,  had  aroused  the  Jewish 
population  of  Rome  itself.  The  Rabbis  martyred  for  de- 
stroying the  golden  eagle,  and  Judas  and  his  colleague  Zadok 
the  Rabbi,  had,  moreover,  by  their  inspiring  harangues  and 
appeals  to  Scripture,  as  well  as  by  their  heroism  and  the 
lofty  grandeur  of  their  aims,  given  such  an  impulse  to  re- 
ligious enthusiasm,  and  created  such  an  ideal  of  patriotic 
devotion,  that  the  youth  of  the  country,  henceforth,  pressed 
ever  more  zealously  in  their  steps.  Even  the  old  looked  on 
them  as  the  glory  of  their  age.  Patriotism  became  more 
and  more  identified  with  fiery  zeal  for  the  Law,  and  war 
with  the  heathen  for  its  sake  became  the  religious  creed  of 
the  multitude. 


CHAPTER  XXin. 
THE  KINGDOM  OF  HEAVEN  IS  AT  HAND. 


years  of  the  life  of  Christ  had  passed  in  the 
J-  seclusion  of  Nazareth.  In  early  youth  He  had  learned 
Joseph's  trade,1  and  had  spent  the  long  years  that  had  in- 
tervened, in  the  duties  of  His  humble  calling,  for  humble  it 
must  have  been  in  a  mountain  village,  where  there  could  be 
no  demand  for  the  skill  required  in  larger  communities,  in 
that  age  of  civic  embellishment.  It  is  well  for  mankind 
that  He  chose  such  a  lowly  lot.  He  could  sympathise  more 
keenly  with  the  humble  poor,  from  having  Himself  shared 
their  burden.  Nor  could  labour  have  been  more  supremely 
honoured  than  by  the  Saviour  giving  Himself  to  life-long 
toil.  Work  —  the  condition  of  health,  the  law  of  progress, 
the  primal  duty  in  Eden,  and  the  safeguard  of  every  virtue 
in  all  ages,  is  touched  with  a  grand  nobility  by  the  spectacle 
of  the  Carpenter  of  Nazareth.  Idleness,  in  any  rank,  be- 
comes doubly  a  vice  from  the  remembrance  of  such  a  lesson. 
How  these  thirty  years  of  obscurity  were  passed  is  left 
untold,  beyond  the  incidental  mention  of  the  calling  Jesus 
pursued.  Joseph,  according  to  old  tradition,2  died  when 
Jesus  was  eighteen  years  old,  and  it  seems  certain,  from  the 
fact  that  He  is  not  mentioned  in  the  Gospels  during  Christ's 
public  life,  that  he  died  at  least  before  that  began.  From 
the  time  of  His  death,  it  is  said,  doubtless  correctly,  Jesus 
supported  His  mother  by  the  work  of  His  hands,  at  least, 
in  common  with  the  others  of  the  household.  It  is  added 
that  He  had  grown  up  with  four  brothers,3  James,  Joseph, 
Simon,  and  Jude,  and  at  least  two  sisters,  whose  names  are 
eaid  to  have  been  Esther  and  Tamar  ;  4  a  but  Jude  and  Simon, 
and  both  the  sisters,  we  are  told,  married  before  Joseph's 
death,  and  settled  in  the  town  of  Nazareth.5  Some  think 

1  Mark  vi.  3.  *  Hofmann,  Das  Leben  Jesu,  p.  274. 

»  Matt.  xiii.  55.   Mark  vi.  3.  «  Base's  Lelen  Jesu,  p.  67. 

•  HoJ'mann,  p.  204. 


THE  RELATIONS  OF  OUR  LOUD.        331 

that  Salome,  the  mother  of  James  and  John,  and  wife  of 
Zebedee,  was  Mary's  elder  sister ;  others  identify  her  with 
the  Mary  b  who  married  Clopas-Alphosus, 1 "  of  Nazareth,  but 
he,  like  Joseph,  appears  to  have  died  before  Jesus  began 
His  ministry.  This  conple  seem  to  have  had  two  sons, 
James  and  Joses,  but  it  is  not  related  whether  they  had  any 
daughters.  The  two  households  formed  the  family  circle  of 
which  Jesus  was  the  wondrous  centre.  Tradition  fills  Tip 
the  outline  of  one  or  two  of  those  thus  honoured — notably 
of  James,  afterwards  the  saintly  head  of  the  Church  of 
Jerusalem d — a  Nazarite  from  his  childhood,  and  a  martyr 
in  his  old  age.  Christ's  brothers,  Simon  and  Jude,  are  also 
mentioned  incidentally ;  the  one  as  head  of  the  Church  of 
Jerusalem  after  James's  death ;  the  other  as  having  left 
descendants  who  were  cited  before  Domitian,  as  belonging  to 
the  kingly  race  of  David.  "  There  were  yet  living  of  the 
family  of  our  Lord,"  says  Eusebius,2  from  Hegesippus,  who 
wrote  about  the  year  160,  "the  grandchildren  of  Judas, 
called  the  brother  of  our  Lord,  according  to  the  flesh. 
These  were  reported  as  being  of  the  family  of  David,  and 
were  brought  to  Domitian.3  For  the  emperor  was  as  much 
alarmed  about  the  appearing  of  Christ  as  Herod  had  been. 
He  put  the  question,  whether  they  were  of  David's  race, 
and  they  confessed  that  they  were.  He  then  asked  them 
what  property  they  had,  or  how  much  money  they  owned. 
And  both  of  them  answered  that  they  had  between  them 
only  nine  thousand  denarii  (under  three  hundred  pounds), 
and  this  they  had,  not  in  silver,  but  in  the  value  of  a  piece 
of  land,  containing  only  thirty-nine  acres,  from  which  they 
raised  their  taxes,  and  supported  themselves  by  their  own 
labour.  They  also  began  to  show  their  hands,  how  they 
were  hard  and  rough  with  daily  toil."  Domitian  then  asked 
them  some  questions  about  Christ,  and,  after  hearing  their 
answers,  dismissed  them  in  contemptuous  silence,  as  simple 
fools  whom  it  was  not  worth  while  to  trouble.  The  momen- 
tary glimpses  still  left  us  of  the  home  circle  of  Nazareth 
thus  show  us  a  group  of  brothers,  partly  working  a  small 
farm,  but  all  in  humble  life,  and  all,  alike,  marked  by  so 
strict  an  observance  of  the  Law,  that,  even  in  their  old  age, 
ihe  Jews  themselves,  and  the  Jewish  Christians,  held  them, 
in  honour  on  this  account. 

Communion  with  His  own  heart ;  the  quiet  gathering  in 

1  Matt.  x.  3.  *  Hist.  Eccl.,  iii.  20.  8  A.D.  81-96. 


332  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

of  all  the  lessons  of  life  and  nature  around ;  deep  study  of 
the  thoughts  and  hearts  of  men;  a  silent  mastery  of  the 
religious  ideas  of  the  day,  and  a  deep  knowledge  of  the 
religious  parties  of  the  people,  were  daily  advancing  with 
Jesus.  But  in  His  spiritual  life,  in  these  years,  as  to  the  end, 
solitary  prayer  and  long  continued  communion  with  God, 
•where  no  eye  saw  and  no  ear  heard  Him,  were,  doubtless, 
His  constant  characteristics.  The  Scriptures  heard  in  the 
synagogues,  or  studied  in  the  household,  were  His  habitual 
delight,  till  His  intellect  and  heart  were  so  saturated  with 
their  words  and  spirit,  that  He  knew  them  better  than  the 
Scribes  and  Pharisees,  who  claimed  to  make  them  the  one 
subject  of  their  thoughts. 

He  must  have  been  a  mystery  to  His  household.  He  had 
been  so  even  to  His  mother,  from  the  time  of  the  Temple 
visit,  and  He  must  have  become,  more  and  more  so  as  He 
went  on  His  own  way,  joining  no  party,  silent,  thoughtful, 
self-contained,  given  to  solitude,  and  with  a  strange  light  in 
His  eyes,  which  looked  as  if  they  saw  into  the  very  soul  of 
those  on  whom  they  were  turned.  His  brothers  and  sisters 
could  not  understand  Him,  even  after  He  had  become  a 
public  teacher.  Alone  in  that  beautiful  world  of  Galilee, 
with  its  skies  filled  with  light — its  green  plains  and  valleys, 
wooded  hills,  and  shining  sea ;  amidst  a  brave,  bright,  fiery, 
noble  people,  and  yet  so  different  from  them — a  faithful 
eon,  a  patient  worker  at  His  daily  toil,  a  friend  of  children 
and  of  the  poor  and  needy,  gentle,  loving,  pure,  and  yet  so 
wholly  apart  by  His  very  perfection — we  may  almost  think 
He  must  have  been  avoided  rather  than  sought. 

Taught  by  Joseph  and  Mary,  and  in  the  synagogue  school, 
Jesus  had  learned  the  Hebrew — which  had  long  ceased  to  be 
a  spoken  language — so  as  both  to  read  and  write  it. 1  Syro- 
Chaldaic  was  the  language  of  the  people,  and  thus  His 
mother  tongue ;  but  He  must  also  have  gained  knowledge 
enough  of  Greek,  from  its  being  spoken  by  so  many  in  the 
different  towns  of  the  country,  to  converse  with  those  who 
knew  no  other  speech  used  in  Palestine — such  as  the  cen- 
turion or  Pilate,  or  the  Greeks  who  sought  an  interview 
with  Him  in  the  last  week  of  His  life. 

Amidst  the  many  homely  engagements  of  such  a  sphere, 
year  after  year  passed  quietly  and  obscurely  away.  Events 
around,  and  in  Judea,  were  not  wanting  to  keep  tongues 

1  Matt.  v.  18.     John  viii.  6. 


JESUS  AT  NAZARETH.  333 

busy  in  the  market  place  or  in  the  streets,  and  thoughtful 
hearts  grew  daily  more  so,  as  to  the  issue  of  all  that  reached 
them  from  the  great  world  outside  their  hills.  Meanwhile, 
the  house  of  Mary  must  have  been  the  ideal  of  a  happy 
home  in  its  relations  with  her  mysterious  Son.  His  child- 
like humility,  sunny  contentment,  stainless  purity,  watchful 
tenderness,  and  transparent  simplicity  of  soul,  would  find 
expression  in  an  ever  ready  delight  in  pleasing,  an  infinite 
patience,  an  attractive  meekness,  and  a  constant  industry. 
The  discipline  by  which  His  human  character  was  perfected 
was  not  confined  to  the  closing  years  of  His  life,  when  He 
came  publicly  before  men,  but  began  with  His  childhood 
and  lasted  to  the  end.  We  grow  firm  and  strong  to  resist 
and  to  do;  we  gain  the  mastery  of  oui salves  which  brings 
superiority,  by  a  patient  use  of  the  incidents  of  daily  life. 
To  rule  one's  own  spirit  on  the  petty  theatre  of  a  private 
sphere,  creates  a  power  which  goes  with  us  to  wider  fields  of 
action.  The  principles  and  graces  which  stand  the  storms 
of  public  life  must  have  been  trained  in  the  school  of  our 
daily  world.  Even  to  have  to  wait  for  thirty  years  before 
the  day  came  to  begin  His  great  work,  was  itself  a  discipline 
to  a  holy  soul.  How  must  He  have  sighed  over  the  evils 
of  the  times ;  over  the  sufferings  of  His  fellow-men ;  over 
the  loss  of  apparent  opportunities ;  over  the  long-permitted 
reign  of  evil.  Enthusiasm  burns  to  go  out  on  its  mission, 
and  frets  at  delay,  blaming  itself  if  a  moment  appear  to  be 
lost.  But  Jesus  learned  at  Nazareth  to  wait  His  Father's 
time.  Till  "His  hour  was  come"  He  could  control  His 
longings,  and  wait  for  the  Divine  sanction,  in  obscurity  so 
complete,  that  even  Nathanael,  at  Cana,  only  a  few  miles 
off,  never  heard  of  Him  till  His  public  ministry  had  begun, 
and  His  fellow-townsmen  had  no  suspicion  of  His  being 
more  than  Jesus,  the  carpenter. 

Thus,  although  retired,  these  years  were  in  no  measure 
lost.  The  Divine  wisdom,  which  marks  out  the  life  of  all 
men,  must  have  especially  watched  and  planned  that  of  the 
Perfect  One  of  Nazareth.  These  unknown  secluded  years 
teach  us  that  the  noblest  lives  may  yet  be  the  most  obscure ; 
that  life,  in  the  highest  sense,  is  not  mere  action,  but  the 
calm  reign  of  love  and  duty,  towards  God  and  man,  in  our 
allotted  sphere — that  the  truest  and  holiest  joy  is  not  neces- 
sarily that  of  public  activity,  far  less  that  of  excitement  and 
noise,  but,  rather,  where  amidst  the  calm  surrounding  God 
and  heaven  are  mirrored  in  an  untroubled  spirit.  Compared 


304  THE  LIFE   OF  CHRIST. 

with  the  last  years  of  His  life,  with  their  agitation  and  cease- 
less labour,  Jesus,  doubtless,  often  looked  back  fondly  on  the 
quiet  days  of  Nazareth,  where  the  skies,  filled  with  cloudless 
light,  or  the  silent  splendour  of  the  stars,  or  the  dream  of 
lovf  liness  in  all  nature,  far  and  near,  were  only  emblems  of 
the  heaven  of  His  own  soul. 

With  the  growth  in  years,  his  riper  faculties  would  find  a 
growing  delight  in  the  highest  knowledge.  Even  as  a  boy, 
He  had  shown  a  Divine  love  of  truth,  and  a  supreme  devotion 
to  God,  which  found  its  natural  joy  in  "  seeking  and  asking," 
wherever  He  could  hope  to  learn,  whether  in  the  school  of 
the  Rabbis,  in  the  Temple,  or  from  townsmen  of  Nazareth. 
He  had  doubtless  a  premonition  of  His  calling,  which  urged 
Him  on.  Each  day  more  loveable,  He  would  each  day  be- 
come more  thoughtful.  He  might  gather  much  from  without, 
but  His  soul  developed  itself  mainly  from  within. 

Meanwhile,  the  time  was  drawing  near  for  His  manifesta- 
tion to  Israel. 

Political  oppression,  by  a  natural  reaction,  had  roused  the 
hopes  of  a  great  national  future,  to  an  intensity  unknown 
before,  even  in  Israel.  But  while,  at  other  times,  similar 
hopes  had  affected  only  the  narrow  bounds  of  Judea,  they 
now  went  beyond  it,  and  agitated  the  whole  world.  They 
fell  in  with  the  instinctive  feeling,  which  in  that  age  pervaded 
all  countries,  that  the  existing  state  of  things  could  not 
continue. 

The  reign  of  evil  throughout  the  world  seemed  to  have 
reached  its  height.  In  Rome,  the  infamous  Sejanus,  long 
the  favourite  of  Tiberius,  had  at  last  fallen,  but  not  till  his 
career  had  filled  the  world  with  horror.  The  enforcement 
of  obsolete  usury  laws  had  spread  financial  ruin  over  the 
empire.  Forced  sales  made  property  almost  worthless. 
Bankruptcy  spread  far  and  near.  The  courts  were  filled 
with  men  imploring  a  repeal  of  the  obnoxious  laws,  and, 
meanwhile,  the  capitalists  kept  back  their  money.  Business 
was  paralyzed  throughout  the  world  Many  of  the  rich 
were  reduced  to  beggary,  and  the  misery  of  the  poor  became 
more  intense.  To  add  to  the  universal  ruin,  informers 
reigned  supreme  at  Rome,  and  even  the  forms  of  law  were 
forgotten.  Multitudes,  both  innocent  and  guilty,  peiished 
in  the  Roman  jails — men,  women,  and  children — their  bodies 
being  thrown  into  the  Tiber.  To  add  to  all,  the  vices  of 
Tiberius,  fraught  with  evil  to  the  world,  grew  daily  more 
monsh-ous.  Old  age  and  debauchery  had  beub  his  body, 


LEGEND    OF    THE    PHCENIX.  335 

and  covered  his  face  with,  ugly  blotches,  but  his  taste  for 
obscene  pleasures  steadily  increased,  and,  to  indulge  them, 
he  shut  himself  up  in  loathsome  retirement.  Virtue  and 
life  were  alike  at  his  mercy :  no  one  was  safe  from  infamous 
delators.  A  reign  of  terror  prevailed.  Legal  murders  and 
remorseless  confiscations  were  increasing ;  immorality  and 
crime  held  high  carnival.  The  most  distant  countries 
trembled  before  Rome,  but  its  rule  may  be  judged  by  the 
guilt,  cruelty,  and  corruption  at  the  centre. 

The  misgoverned  East  was  deeply  agitated  by  the  uneasy 
presentiment  of  an  impending  change.  Not  only  Judea,  but 
the  neighbouring  countries,  were  full  of  restless  expectation. 

Thus,  in  perhaps  the  very  year  in  which  John  the  Baptist 
appeared,  the  Egyptian  priests  announced  that  the  bird 
known  as  the  Phoenix  had  once  more  been  seen.1  Origin- 
ally the  mythological  emblem  of  the  sun,  it  had  gradually 
come  to  be  regarded  as  a  representative  of  the  cycles  of  the 
history  of  the  world,  appearing  at  regular  intervals,  to  con- 
sume itself,  and  rise  anew  from  its  ashes,  in  mystic  indication 
of  the  end  of  one  great  period  and  the  opening  of  another. 
It  had  appeared  under  Sesostris,  under  Amasis,  and  under 
Ptolemy,  the  third  king  of  the  Macedonian  dynasty.  That 
it  should  appear  now,  seemed  strange,  as  the  intervals  of 
its  return  had  hitherto  been  1,461  and  500  years,  but  it  was 
only  250  since  Ptolemy.2  Meanwhile,  the  sacred  colleges  of 
the  capital  confirmed  what  was  announced  by  the  Egyptian 
priests.  If  the  Egyptian  consoled  himself,  amidst  the  op- 
pressions of  the  evil  days  of  Tiberius,  by  the  fond  belief  that 
the  mysterious  bird  was  about  to  bear  away  the  expiring 
age,  the  priestly  college  of  Rome  reckoned  that  the  great 
world-year  was  about  to  end,  and  the  age  of  Saturn  to 
return.  According  to  the  augurs,  the  ninth  world-month, 
and,  with  it,  the  reign  of  Diana,  had  closed  with  Ccesar's 
death,  and  the  last  month,  that  of  Apollo,  had  begun.  As, 
moreover,  the  secular  months  were  of  unequal  length,  it 
seemed  as  if  the  end  of  all  things  were  at  hand.  Virgil,3  in 
the  generation  before  Christ,  had  already  written  his  Fourth 
Eclogue,  with  its  pictures  of  the  coming  golden  age,  borrowed 
from  Isaiah,  through  the  medium  of  the  Jewish  Sibylline 
poems,  then  widely  circulated  throughout  the  world.4  It  seems 
a  satire  on  his  visions  of  future  happy  years,  that  the  child,* 

»  Tac.  Ann.,  vi.  28.  *  Ibid. 

»  B.C.  70-19.  4  Hausrath,  vol.  ii.  pp.  110  ff. 


336  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

of  whom  lie  wrote  in  such  lofty  strains,  not  only  failed  to 
bring  in  a  golden  age,  bnt  died  of  hunger,  under  Tiberius,  in 
the  very  year,  it  would  seem,  in  which  Jesus  was  crucified.  * 
The  legend  of  the  death  of  the  great  god,  Pan,  which,  ac- 
cording to  Plutarch,  happened  in  the  days  of  Tiberius,  shows 
the  same  deep  and  boding  presentiment,  in  the  ancient  world, 
that  a  great  change  was  at  hand. 

"  At  that  time,"  it  relates,  "  a  ship,  when  off  Corfu,  was 
strangely  becalmed,  and,  forthwith,  the  Egyptian  helmsman, 
Thamnus,  heard  a  loud  voice  from  the  Echinadian  Islands 
call  him  by  name,  and  bid  him  say,  when  he  got  to  Palodes,2 
that  the  great  god,  Pan,  was  dead.  The  Egyptian  did  as 
he  was  bidden,  but  scarcely  had  he  called  out  his  message 
over  the  shore  that  had  been  named  to  him,  when  there  rose, 
around,  a  great  sighing,  and  a  sound  as  of  wonder,  that 
filled  the  passengers  with  awe ;  the  story,  when  it  was  told 
in  Rome,  troubling  the  Emperor  Tiberius  and  the  people 
not  a  little."3  The  great  Pan  was,  indeed,  dead,  and  the 
other  gods  wailed  over  his  bier.  The  oracles  and  sacred 
utterances  of  the  time  breathe  a  dark  dread  of  a  coming 
world-catastrophe.  The  bright  day  of  the  Augustan  age 
had  long  passed.  The  air  over  Rome  smelt  of  blood.  Murder 
and  suicide  were  the  fashion,  and  even  women  were  not  safe 
from  the  dagger.*  Financial  distress  brought  want  to  the 
mass.  Even  the  provinces  suffered  by  the  awful  monetary 
crisis.  In  Palestine,  men  saw  their  future  king,  Agrippa, 
reduced  to  the  greatest  straits  for  money,  borrowing  where 
he  could,  glad  to  accept  funds  secretly  offered  to  gain  his 
influence, — for  a  time  dependent  for  his  very  food  on  Herod 
Antipas,  and,  in  the  end,  a  fugitive  from  his  usurious  creditors.5 
The  debtor,  the  creditor,  and  the  jail,  which  recur  so  often 
in  the  parables,  were  illustrations  only  too  vividly  realized 
by  the  people  at  large.  It  was  a  time  of  change,  transition, 
universal  doubt,  uncertainty,  and  expectation.  In  the  heathen 
world,  men  did  not  know  what  to  think  of  the  future ;  in 
Jndea,  they  looked  for  the  sudden  appearance  of  the  Messiah. 
The  ^  drama  of  ancient  society  had  been  played  out ;  a  vast 
empire  had  risen  on  the  ruins  of  the  nationalities  that  had, 
hitherto,  kept  men  apart,  and  its  triumphs  had  discredited 
the  local  gods,  to  whom  men  had  everywhere  looked  for 
protection.  A  calm  had  followed  ages  of  universal  war 

1  A.I>.  33.  8  Just  outside  the  upper  edge  of  the  Gulf  of  Corinth, 

»  Plut.,  dc  Def.  Orac.,  17.         4  Tac.  Ann.,  vi.  9-         *  Ant.,  xviii.  6.  8. 


JOHN   THE   BAPTIST.  337 

between  city  and  city,  and  state  and  state,  and  had  revolu- 
tionized life.  Corruption  and  oppression  had  followed  in 
the  wake  of  dominion,  and  had  filled  the  world  with  vague 
longings  for  a  higher  morality,  and  the  hopes  of  a  nobler 
religion  than  the  decayed  systems  around  them.  The  very 
triumph  of  one  power  over  all  others  had,  indeed,  before  all 
things  besides,  opened  the  way  for  the  new  faith  of  Christ. 
The  isolation  of  hostile  races  had  been  broken  down,  and  the 
dim  but  magnificent  conception  of  a  brotherhood  of  men, 
though,  as  yet,  only  as  subjects  of  a  universal  despotism, 
had  risen  in  the  mind  of  all  peoples.  The  highways  of  Rome 
invited  communication  with  all  lands  ;  her  government  and 
laws  guaranteed  order  and  safety  wherever  they  obtained ; 
but,  above  all,  she  had  prepared  the  world  for  a  religion 
which  should  address  all  humanity,  by  levelling  the  innumer- 
able barriers  of  rival  nationality — with  their  jealousies  and 
impenetrable  prejudices,  and  linking  all  races  into  a  single 
grand  federation,  with  common  sympathies,  and  as  fellow- 
citizens  of  the  same  great  dominion. 

It  was  amidst  such  a  state  of  things,  when  the  fabric  of 
society  seemed  dissolving,  and  the  new  world  had  not  yet 
risen  from  the  chaos  of  the  old,  that  the  destined  herald  of 
a  new  moral  order  was  born,1  apparently,  in  Hebron.  The 
son  of  a  pure  and  worthy  priest — John,  the  future  Baptist, 
was,  from  his  birth,  surrounded  by  the  influences  most  fitted 
to  develope  a  saintly  character.  Of  priestly  descent,  on  his 
mother's  side  as  well  as  his  father's,  he  began  life  with  all  the 
advantages  of  an  ancient  ancestry,  every  link  of  which  in 
the  eyes  of  a  Jew,  was  noble.  In  the  society  of  Hebron, 
his  parents  would  have  a  prominent  position,  and  their  young 
son  must  have  been  surrounded,  on  their  account,  with  the 
respect  which  insensibly  educates  and  refines.  His  early 
education,  received  at  the  hands  of  his  father  and  mother, 
would  take  the  colour  of  their  position  and  training.  The 
child  would  hear,  from  his  infancy,  the  history  of  his  people, 
and  of  the  great  priestly  race  whose  blood  ran  in  his  veins. 
His  genealogy  was  no  doubtful  conjecture,  but  clear  and  well 
established  through  fourteen  centuries,2  lighted  up,  at  in- 
tervals, by  traditions  of  famous  names,  and  as  famous  deeds. 
The  child  of  strict  observers  of  the  Law,  he  would  grow 
np  with  a  religious  reverence  for  its  minutest  prescriptions, 
its  feasts  and  fasts,  its  Sabbaths  and  new  moons,  its  ten 

1  B.O.  5.  *  From  the  Exodus,  cir.  B.C.  1460. 

23 


838  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

thousand  rules  T  on  meats  and  drinks,  dress,  furniture,  dishes, 
conversation,  reading,  travelling,  meeting,  parting,  buying, 
selling,  cooking,  the  washing  of  pots,  cups,  tables,  and  person 
— that  slavery  of  ritualism  to  which  pious  Jews  gave  a  trem- 
bling and  anxious  obedience.  From  his  earliest  years  he 
would  feel  that  he  could  not  eat,  drink,  clothe  himself,  wash 
his  hands  or  feet,  bathe,  or  perform  the  most  secret  function, 
except  by  set  rules.  He  would  be  trained  in  the  ideas  of  the 
system  into  which  he  had  been  born,  which  mapped  out  his 
every  act,  and  word,  and  thought,  and  denounced  every  devi- 
ation from  the  all-embracing  rules  of  Rabbinism  as  a  sin, 
fatal  to  his  caste  as  a  Jew. 

Born  in  the  priestly  rank,  and,  therefore,  himself  a  destined 
priest  hereafter,  John  would  early  learn  all  the  details  of  the 
Temple  service,  and,  doubtless,  often  went  with  his  parents 
to  the  Temple,  the  glittering  pinnacles  of  which  he  could  see 
from  Hebron.  The  countless  pilgrims  at  the  great  feasts  ;  the 
solemnities  of  the  altar,  with  its  turbaned,  white-robed,  bare- 
footed priests ;  the  swelling  music  of  the  Levites,  who,  each 
morning,  sang  the  psalms  of  the  day,  in  the  inner  court,  to 
the  accompaniment  of  citherns,  harps,  and  cymbals,  and  the 
deep  roll  of  the  great  Temple  organ,  whose  music  the  Rabbis, 
with  fond  exaggeration,  spoke  of  as  heard  at  Jericho,2  * — would 
be  familiar  and  dear  to  him,  and  the  splendour  of  the  newly 
built  Temple,  resplendent  in  snowy  marble  and  gold,  would 
kindle  at  once  his  pride  and  affection.  "We  all  rise  to  man- 
hood coloured  by  the  influences  around  us,  and  these  in  his 
case  all  tended  to  the  narrowest  Judaism.  Living  almost 
under  the  shadow  of  the  Temple,  he  was  in  the  centre  of 
whatever  was  most  rigid  and  intolerant ;  unlike  Jesus,  whose 
Galilsean  home  kept  him  in  a  freer  air,  far  from  the  dead 
conservatism  of  the  Temple  city,  and  from  the  bigotry  of  its 
schools  and  people. 

But  though  thus,  by  birth,  education,  and  circumstances, 
naturally  a  strict  and  rigid  Jew,  higher  inspirations  than 
those  of  mere  formalism  surrounded  John  from  his  birth. 
His  father  and  mother  were  both  righteous g  before  God,8 
in  a  higher  sense  than  that  of  Rabbinical  blamelessness. 
Their  religion  was  deep  and  sincere,  for  they  were  among 
the  remnant  in  Israel  who  fulfilled  the  sacred  ideal  of  the 

1  Jnd.  Handwerkerleben,  p.  35. 

*  Delitzsch.  Art.  Psabnen,  Uerzog,  vol.  xii.  p.  28i.  Leyrer,  Art.  Musik. 
in  Herzog,  vol.  x.  p.  131. 
3  Luke  i.  6. 


EAELT  TRAINING  OF   THE   BAPTIST.  339 

Divine  requirements  :  they  did  justly,  loved  mercy,  and 
walked  humbly  with  their  God.1  Their  son  inherited  their 
finest  characteristics.  Even  from  childhood  he  showed  his 
religious  bias.2  The  only  son  of  a  priest,  he  might  have 
passed  through  life  with  nattering  respect,  in  the  enjoyment 
of  a  modest  plenty,  but  he  early  caught  the  spirit  of  the 
heroes  of  his  race,  of  whom  he  heard  and  read  so  much  in  the 
ancient  Scriptures.  Disdaining  self-indulgent  ease,  his  soul 
kindled  under  the  influences  of  home,  of  the  times,  and  of 
religion,  into  a  fervent  enthusiasm,  which  found  its  loftiest 
conception  of  life  in  asceticism  and  joyful  self-sacrifice. 
Always  more  or  less  in  favour  with  his  race,  this  tendency 
was  more  frequent  in  the  Jewish  priesthood  than  in  any  other 
of  antiquity.3  Feeling  the  pulses  of  spiritual  excitement 
which  throbbed  through  the  people  around  him  :  pondering 
their  sufferings,  their  sins,  and  their  hopes,  John  gave  himself 
up,  though  of  priestly  birth,  to  the  higher  mission  of  a  prophet, 
and  devoted  his  life  to  the  reform  of  the  evils  he  so  deeply 
deplored,  and  to  the  revival  of  the  religion  of  his  fathers. 

His  course  was,  doubtless,  in  some  measure,  determined  by 
an  act  of  his  parents  before  his  birth.  They  had  made  a  vow 
in  his  name  that  he  should  be  a  Nazarite  4  all  his  life,  and 
had  thus  marked  him  out  as  one  formally  devoted  to  God, 
and  he  freely  adopted  the  vow.  The  Nazarite,  among  the 
Jews,  was  one,  of  either  sex,  consecrated  to  God  as  peculiarly 
His.  The  conception  was  the  natural  development,  in  earnest 
spirits,  of  the  self -mortification,  for  religious  ends,  by  fasts 
and  the  like,  common  to  all  Eastern  races.  It  had  been 
practised  in  Israel  from  the  earliest  times,  and  is  already  for- 
mulated in  the  Book  of  Numbers 5  as  a  recognised  institution. 
The  ISTazarite  was  required  to  abstain  altogether  from  wine 
and  intoxicating  drinks,  even  from  vinegar,  or  any  syrup  or 
preparation  of  the  grape,  and  from  grapes  themselves,  and 
raisins.  All  the  days  of  his  Nazariteship  he  was  to  eat 
nothing  made  of  the  vine,  from  the  kernels  to  the  husk.6  h 
"  No  razor  was  to  come  upon  his  head ; "  he  was  to  "  bo 
holy,"  and  to  let  the  locks  of  the  hair  of  his  head  grow.7 
To  guard  against  any  legal  defilement  from  a  corpse,  he  was 
to  go  near  no  dead  body,  even  if  it  were  that  of  his  father, 
mother,  brother,  or  sister  8  because  the  consecration  of  God 

1  Micah  vi.  8.  s  Luke  i.  15. 

•  Ewald,  vol.  v.  p.  210.          4  From  "1T3  (nazar),  to  consecrate,  to  vow. 

*  Ch.  vi.  1-21.  •  Num.  vi.  4.  1  Ver.  5.  8  Ver.  7. 


340  THE   LIFE   OP  CHKIST. 

was  on  his  head :  and,  if  by  chance,  death  came  where  he 
was,  the  defilement  could  only  be  removed  by  a  seven  days' 
"  uncleanness,"  to  be  followed  by  shaving  his  head,  and 
presenting  a  special  trespass-offering.  His  vow  was,  more- 
over, regarded  as  broken,  and  he  had  to  begin  its  fulfilment 
again. 

A  Nazarite  vow  was  commonly  made  for  a  fixed  time,1  kut 
parents  might  vow  for  their  infant  or  even  unborn  children, 
that  they  should  be  Nazarites  for  life.  It  was  thus  in  the 
case  of  John ;  it  had  been  so  with  Samuel  and  Samson,  and 
tradition  tells  us  it  was  so  in  the  case  of  James  the  Just,  the 
brother  of  our  Lord.  But  though  consecrated  to  God,  and 
marked  as  such  by  special  signs,  the  Nazarite  was  not  a 
monk  who  withdrew  wholly  from  family,  social,  or  civil  life, 
and  thus  shut  himself  out  from  all  useful  activity.  The 
sound  sense  of  early  antiquity  had  no  conception  of  such 
selfish  devotion.  He  only  shunned  certain  aspects  or  parts 
of  common  life,  though  some,  of  their  own  accord,  earned 
self-denial  farther.2  Not  a  few  retired  into  the  desolation  of 
the  hills  of  southern  Judea,  and  lived  rudely  in  caves,  allow- 
ing themselves  only  the  rough  fare  of  the  wilderness,  and 
the  coarsest  clothing.  Others,  like  James  the  Just,  used  no 
oil  for  anointing,  though  almost  a  necessary  of  life  in  warm 
countries,  and  ate  no  flesh.3  The  shrinking  avoidance  of  all 
Levitical  defilement,  which  dictated  such  mortifications,  was 
held  due  to  their  special  consecration  to  God,  whom  this 
rigid  ceremonial  purity  was  supposed  to  honour.  The  shun- 
ning the  sight  of  the  dead  was  but  a  repetition  of  what  was 
required  from  the  Levitically  holiest  man  of  the  nation — the 
high  priest.4  The  abstaining  from  wine  and  strong  drink 
guarded  against  an  offence  doubly  evil  in  one  who  had  given 
himself  to  God,  and  was  a  security  for  vigour  and  clearness 
of  mind  in  His  service.  The  uncut  hair  was,  perhaps,  a 
visible  sign  of  the  sacred  and  inviolable  surrender  of  the  whole 
man  to  Jehovah.  The  hair  was  the  symbol  of  manly  vigour, 
its  crown  and  ornament ;  and  its  untouched  locks  thus  sym- 
bolized the  consecration  of  the  reason  and  higher  powers  to 
God.  Thus  especially  "  holy,"  the  life-long  Nazarite  stood  on 
an  equality  with  a  priest,  and  might  enter  the  inner  Temple, 
as  we  see  in  the  instance  of  James  the  Just. 

The  Nazarite  vow  was  often  taken  to  secure  some  wish — • 

1  Acts  xxi.  23,  24.  »  Jer.  xxxv.  6,  7. 

»  Euseb.,  U.  E.,  ii.  23.  2.  «  Lev.  xxi.  11. 


THE   NAZAEITES.  341 

for  health,  safety,  or  success — from  God.  But  where  it  was 
life-long,  no  such  selfish  aims  could  be  cherished.  In  lower 
cases,  like  that  of  Samson,  there  might  be  a  vague  craving 
for  special  favour  from  God,  but  in  such  as  that  of  John, 
the  impelling  motive  was  intense  desire  after  the  highest 
religious  attainments.  It  was  in  him  a  visible  and  enduring 
protest  against  the  worldliness  and  spiritual  indifference  of 
mankind  at  large. 

The  time  of  Samson  and  Samuel,  towards  the  close  of  the 
period  of  the  Judges,  seems  to  have  been  that  of  the  greatest 
glory  of  Nazaritism,1  which  prepared  the  way  for  the  grander 
era  of  the  prophets,  beginning  with  Samuel,  and  for  the  great 
spiritual  movement  of  the  reign  of  the  first  kings.  Less 
than  two  hundred  years  after  David,  however,  Amos  laments 
the  mockery  with  which  the  people  treated  it  ?  Yet  Nazarites 
must  always  have  been  numerous  in  Israel,  for  the  duplicity 
of  the  Rabbi  Simeon  Ben  Shetach,  in  regard  to  the  sacrifices 
required  to  discharge  three  hundred  Nazarites  from  their  vow, 
was  the  first  cause  of  his  disastrous  quarrel  with  Alexander 
Jannseus.3  Even  two  hundred  years  before,  the  vitality  of 
the  institution  must  have  declined.  "  I  never,  through  life," 
said  Simeon  the  Just,  at  that  time,4  "  liked  to  taste  the  tres- 
pass-offering of  a  ISTazarite.  Once,  however,  a  man  of  the 
South  came  to  me  who  had  made  the  Nazarite  vow.  I  looked 
at  him.  He  had  glorious  eyes,  a  noble  face,  and  his  hair  fell 
over  his  shoulders  in  great  waving  masses.  '  Why  do  you 
wish  to  cut  off  this  magnificent  hair,  and  be  a  Nazarite  no 
longer  ?  '  I  asked  him.  '  I  am  shepherd  to  my  father,'  said 
he,  'in  the  town  where  I  live.  One  day,  in  drawing  water 
from  the  spring,  I  saw  my  likeness  below,  and  felt  a  secret 
pride.  An  evil  thought  began  to  lay  hold  on  me  and  destroy 
me.  Then,  I  said,  Wicked  creature !  you  would  fain  be 
proud  of  what  is  not  yours,  and  ought  to  be  no  more  to  you 
than  dust  and  worthlessness  ;  I  vow  to  my  God  that  I  shall 
cut  off  my  hair  for  His  glory.' "  "  Forthwith,"  continued 
Simeon,  "  I  embraced  him  and  said,  '  Would  that  we  had 
many  Nazarites  like  thee  in  Israel.'  "  5  * 

The  instinct  which  has  led  men,  in  every  religion,  and  in 
all  ages,  to  adopt  an  ascetic  life,  doubtless  springs  from  the 
belief,  that  self-denial  and  the  subjugation  of  the  body  leave 

1  Ewald,  Alterthiimer,  p.  116.  *  Amos  ii.  11,  etc. 

*  Derertbourg,  p.  96.    Jost,  and  others.  *  About  B.C.  300. 

'  Nedui'im,  i.  1. 


342  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

the  soul  more  free  to  attend  to  its  special  interests.  Buddhism 
is  a  system  of  self-mortification,  and  Brahmanism  has  its 
Yogus,  or  devotees,  who  aspire,  by  the  renunciation  of  all 
that  can  make  life  pleasant,  to  attain  union  with  the  Supreme 
Spirit.  Mohammedanism  has  its  fakirs,  who  seek  to  subdue 
the  flesh  by  their  austerities,  and  to  strengthen  the  soul  by 
contemplation  and  prayer.  The  Egyptian  priests  passed 
their  novitiate  in  the  deserts,  where,  like  John,  they  lived  in 
caves.  "  The  priests  in  Heliopolis,"  says  Plutarch,1  "  bring 
no  wine  into  the  temple,  as  it  is  not  seemly  to  drink  by  day, 
whilst  the  Lord  and  King,  Helios  (the  sun),  looks  on ;  the 
others  drink  wine,  but  very  little.  They  have  many  fasts, 
during  which  they  refrain  from  wine,  and  continuously 
meditate  on  divine  things,  learn,  and  teach  them." 

Reaction  from  the  corruption  around,  the  weariness  of  the 
world,  natural  in  a  period  of  universal  unquiet  and  uncer- 
tainty, and  the  wish  to  follow  out  the  letter  of  the  Law 
exactly,  had  led  to  the  adoption  of  an  austere  life  by  many 
in  Palestine.  As  the  Nazarites  strove  to  attain  ideal  cere- 
monial purity  in  rude  isolation,  others  sought  it  in  brother- 
hoods. Josephus2  classes  as  one  of  the  four  great  parties  of 
his  day,  the  Essenes,k  an  order  numbering  about  4,000  mem- 
bers, in  Syria  and  Palestine,3  more  or  less  devoted  to  an  ascetic 
life.  Like  the  Pharisees,  they  were  a  development  of  the 
zeal  for  the  Law  which  had  first  marked  the  Hasidim,  in  the 
Maccabsean  wars.  The  feverish  anxiety  to  avoid  Levitical 
defilement,  which  had  already  given  rise  to  Pharisaism,  found 
its  extreme  expression  in  these  ultra  rigid  legalists,  who 
hoped,  by  isolation,  to  attain  ceremonial  righteousness,  im- 
possible in  the  open  world.  The  strictness  and  asceticism  of 
others,  appeared  only  a  hypocritical  effeminacy  in  their 
severer  eyes.4  But,  even  with  them,  there  were  grades  of 
strictness,  for  only  the  most  rigid  withdrew  from  society. 
The  Pharisees  had  had  brotherhoods  and  unions  5  for  genera- 
tions, and  in  Egypt  there  were  colonies  of  "Therapeutae," 
who  lived  a  lonely,  contemplative,  idle  life  in  the  desert, 
coming  together  only  for  common  worship  and  holy  meals. 
But  the  Essenes  were  as  far  from  the  saintly  idleness  of  the 
one,  as  from  the  restless  demagogue  activity  of  the  others. 
The  Pharisees,  as  years  passed  on,  had  become  constantly 
less  entitled  to  the  name  of  the  Separated,  since  they  eagerly 

1  his  et  Osiris,  c.  6.  *  Ant.,  xiii.  6,  9.  8  Philo,  876. 

1  Grueiz,  vol.  iii.  p.  4G8.  *  See  page  250. 


THE   ESSENES.  343 

courted  the  multitude,  and  compassed  sea  and  land  to  make 
a  proselyte,  and  frequented  the  street  corners  and  public 
places,  to  make  a  show  of  their  piety.  Ideal  legal  purity 
could  not  be  attained  by  such  a  life,  and  hence  members  who 
aspired  to  a  higher  standard,  withdrew,  to  form  sacred 
colonies  by  themselves. 

The  rise  of  these  desert  colonies  is  not  known,  but  the 
wanderer  over  the  district  between  Jerusalem1  and  the  Dead 
Sea,  in  the  days  of  John,  came, .  here  and  there,  on  such 
settlements,  in  the  narrow,  shady  wadys,  sometimes  green  in 
their  hollows,  which  sink  in  great  numbers  from  the  high 
stony  plateau,  towards  the  Dead  Sea.  The  sad  appearance 
of  these  recluses,  their  life  strictly  regulated  by  the  Law,  in 
the  least  detail,  gave  them  the  air  of  people  weary  of  life, 
who  had  withdrawn  from  the  world  to  prepare  for  death. 
They  seemed  to  have  given  themselves  up  to  a  life-long 
penance,  in  hope  of  gaining  heaven. 

The  upper  valley  of  Engedi,  where  Pliny  tells  us  most  of 
the  Essenes  had  settled,  was  exactly  suited  for  the  monkish 
life  they  had  chosen.  A  zigzag  path  leads  from  the  wilder- 
ness of  Judea,  about  three  hours  north  of  Masada,  by  a  steep 
descent  of  fully  1,500  feet,  over  loose  rocks  and  stones,  to  a 
rich  spring,  which  makes  its  way,  under  a  luxuriant  growth 
of  shrubs  and  bushes,  to  the  Dead  Sea.  The  name  Engedi, 
"  the  goat's  spring,"  may  well  have  been  given  from  the  wild 
goats  having  first  found  out  and  used  the  steep  path.  A 
tropical  vegetation  supplies  the  simple  wants  of  life  almost 
without  labour.  In  the  upper  parts  of  the  wady,  and  in 
others  running  parallel  with  it,  the  Essenes  found  exactly  the 
localities  that  suited  them.  Each  colony  had  its  own  syna- 
gogue, its  common  hall  for  meals  and  assemblies,  and  its 
provision  for  daily  baths  in  running  water.  Besides  these 
settlers,  there  were  lonely  hermits,  living  near  solitary 
mountain  springs,  to  be  able  to  secure  their  ceremonial  purity 
still  better  than  their  brethren,  by  more  frequent  bathing.1 
These  anchorets,  the  precursors  of  the  Christian  monks, 
lived  solely  on  the  wild  plants  of  the  hill-sides,  but,  yet,  were 
frequently  surrounded  by  large  numbers  of  disciples,  who 
adopted  their  painful  discipline.  Colonies  were  also  formed 
in  various  outlying  towns  of  Judea,  the  members  maintaining 
the  same  rites  as  their  brethren,  and  having  always  Levi- 
tically  pure  accommodation  for  them  when  they  wandered 

1  Joe.,  Vita,  6. 


344  THE   LIFE   OP   CHEIST. 

from  the  hills.  It  seems  as  if  the  order  had  originally  lived 
wholly  among  men,  and  had  only  gradually  retired  to  more 
or  less  complete  seclusion,  as  dread  of  defilement  grew  more 
intense.1 

Their  whole  day  was  spent  in  labour  in  the  field,  or  in 
the  care  of  cattle,  or  in  that  of  bees,  and  in  other  usefr.l 
industries.2  They  thus  provided  nearly  all  they  wanted, 
buying  what  little  they  required  besides,  through  a  special 
officer.  They  neither  bought  nor  sold  among  themselves, 
but  exchanged  as  each  required,  and  they  would  hardly  use 
coin,  from  its  bearing  an  image. 

The  supreme  end  of  their  retirement,  either  in  associations 
or  as  solitary  hermits,  was  to  keep  the  Mosaic  law  with  all 
possible  strictness.  They  read  it  not  only  on  the  Sabbath, 
but  day  and  night,  all  other  reading  being  forbidden.  To 
blaspheme  the  name  of  Moses  was  the  highest  crime,  punish- 
able with  death,  and  to  give  up  his  Books  was  a  treachery 
which  no  Essene  would  commit,  even  under  the  agonies  of 
torture  or  death.™ 

The  superstitious  dread  of  defilement,  which  required  the 
cups  and  platters  of  one  company  of  Pharisees  to  be  cleansed 
for  the  use  of  another,3  was  carried  even  further  by  the 
Essencs.  In  imitation  of  the  priestly  meals  in  the  Temple, 
from  which  the  "  unclean  "  were  scrupulously  excluded,  they 
had  common  meals,  morning  and  evening,  before  and  after 
the  day's  work ;  all  novices  till  the  third  year,  and  all  who 
were  not  of  the  order,  being  excluded  as  Levitically  unclean. 
The  dining  hall  was  as  sacred  as  a  synagogue,  the  vessels 
and  dishes  purified  with  sleepless  care,  and  even  the  clothing 
worn  during  the  meals  was  counted  holy.  Priests  invoked  a 
blessing  over  the  food,  and  it  was  eaten  in  reverent  silence. 
Whoever  became  members  of  the  order,  gave  up  all  they 
possessed  to  it,  and  the  common  stock  thus  obtained,  added 
to  the  fruit  and  earnings  of  the  general  labour,  were  shared 
by  all ;  the  old  and  sick  receiving  the  tenderest  care. 

The  earnestness  of  the  order  showed  itself  in  its  principles. 
The  novices  had  to  promise  "  to  honour  God,  to  be  righteous 
towards  man,  to  injure  no  one,  either  at  the  bidding  of 
another  or  of  their  own  accord,  to  hate  evil,  to  promote  good, 
to  be  faithful  to  every  one,  especially  those  in  authority,  to 
love  the  truth,  to  unmask  liars,  and  to  keep  the  hand  from 

1  Bell.  Jud.,  ii.  8.  4.  2  Ant.,  xvii.  1.  5.     Philo,  ii.  457. 

3  Geiger,  Urspmny,  p.  123. 


AN  ESSENE    COMMUNITY.  345 

theft,  and  the  conscience  from  unrighteous  gain."1  Slavery 
was  forbidden,  and  no  oaths  permitted,  save  those  by  which 
members  were  admitted  to  the  order.  War,  and  even  the 
manufacture  of  weapons,  was  held  unlawful,  nor  would  they 
use  animal  food,  since  the  Law  said,  "Thou  shalt  not  kill." 
Trade,  except  so  far  as  their  simple  wants  required,  was 
discountenanced. 

But  if  their  morality,  drawn  from  the  Old  Testament,  was 
pure  and  lofty,  their  slavish  devotion  to  ceremonial  obser- 
vances marked  them  as  the  most  superstitious  of  their  nation. 
There  were  four  grades  of  Levitical  "cleanness,"  through 
which  the  novice  rose  only  by  a  long  and  stern  probation, 
and  the  touching  of  a  member  of  a  higher  grade  by  one  of  a 
lower,  was  defilement  that  needed  to  be  washed  away  by 
a  bath.2  Priests  washed  their  hands  and  feet  before  any 
sacred  rite,  but  the  Essenes  bathed  their  whole  body  in  cold 
water  before  every  meal,  and  all  they  ate  must  be  prepared 
by  one  of  their  own  number.  They  bathed,  also,  each  morn- 
ing, before  uttering  the  name  of  God.  On  Sabbaths,  they 
would  not  even  move  any  vessel  from  its  place,  and  they 
prepared  all  their  food  on  Friday,  to  avoid  kindling  a  fire  on 
the  sacred  day.3  They  refused  to  eat  flesh  or  wine,  partly 
from  fear  of  defilement,  partly  because  they  wished  to  re- 
produce in  their  whole  lives  the  strictness  of  the  Nazarites, 
of  the  priests  during  their  ministrations,  and  of  the  old 
Rechabites.  Thus,  their  only  food  was  that  prescribed  to 
others  for  fasts.  They  kept  aloof  from  the  Temple,  though 
they  sent  the  usual  gifts — for  the  presentation  of  an  offering 
involved  partaking  in  a  sacrificial  meal,  which  would  have 
defiled  them.  In  some  of  their  colonies  women  were  not 
suffered,  from  the  same  dread  of  uncleanness,  and  though 
they  did  not  wholly  forbid  marriage,  the  wife  was  required 
to  undergo  even  more  ceremonial  cleansings  than  the  brethren. 
They  kept  a  watchful  guard  that  no  one  was  defiled  by  the 
spittle  of  another,  and  that  it  did  not  fall  on  the  right  side. 
The  anointing  oil,  which  was  to  other  Jews  a  festal  luxury, 
in  which  the  Psalmist  had  gloried  as  dropping  from  Aaron's 
beard,  was,  to  the  Essene,  an  uncleanness,  which  needed  to 
be  washed  away ;  a  brother,  expelled  from  the  order,  would 
rather  starve  to  death  than  touch  food  prepared  by  a-  common 
Jew,  nor  would  any  Roman  torture  force  him  to  lose  hia 

1  Bell.  Jud.,  ii.  8.  7.     Philo,  ii.  457.     Ant.,  xviii.  1.  5. 
*  Bell.  Jud.,  ii.  8.  5,  8.  8  Bell.  Jtid.t  ii.  8.  9. 


846  THE   LIFE   OP   CHRIST. 

caste.1  The  whole  life  of  an  Essene  was  &  long  terror  of 
defilement.  The  work  of  the  colony  began  before  sunrise, 
with  psalms  and  hymns,  followed  by  prayer  and  washing. 
They  then  went  to  their  day's  work.  At  eleven — the  fifth 
hour — the  scattered  labourers  gathered  again  for  a  common 
batli  in  cold  water.  The  woollen  dress  in  which  they  worked 
was  now  laid  aside,  and  the  consecrated  dress  of  the  order 
put  on,  in  preparation  for  their  eating  together,  and  their 
meal,  which  consisted  only  of  bread  and  a  single  kind  of 
vegetable,  was  eaten  with  prayer,  in  solemn  stillness.  The 
holy  dress  was  then  laid  aside,  and  work  resumed.  In  the 
evening,  the  second  meal  was  taken,  with  the  same  solem- 
nities and  rites,  and  worship  closed  the  day,  that  only  pure 
thoughts  might  fill  their  souls  as  they  retired  to  rest.  One 
day  followed  another,  with  the  monotony  of  pendulum  beats, 
in  precisely  the  same  round  of  unbending  forms. 

The  Essenes,  as  the  mystics  of  Judaism,  naturally  gave 
themselves  to  metaphysical  speculations,  and,  like  the  Rabbis, 
they  revelled  in  fantastic  allegorizing  of  Scripture.  From 
the  philosophic  Judaism  of  Alexandria,  they  borrowed  notions 
on  free  will  and  fate,  and  from  Persia  and  Greece,  with  both 
of  which  their  race  had  been,  for  long  periods,  in  contact, 
they  adopted  various  dogmas.  The  soul,  they  imagined,  was 
a  subtle  ether,  of  heavenly  origin,  drawn  down  to  earth  by  a 
fell  necessity,  and  imprisoned  in  the  body  till  set  free  at 
death.  It  was  then  borne  away,  if  pure,  beyond  the  ocean, 
to  a  region  where  storms  were  unknown,  and  where  the  heat 
was  tempered  by  a  gentle  west  wind,  perpetually  blowing 
from  the  ocean.  If  it  had  neglected  the  Law,  however,  it 
was  carried  off  to  a  dark,  wintry  abyss,  to  dwell  there  for 
ever.2  Every  morning,  the  Essenes  paid  homage  to  the  sun, 
and  they  would  not,  at  any  time,  let  its  beams  fall  on  any 
thing  Levitically  unclean. 

The  community  of  goods  among  them  was  a  necessity  of 
their  mode  of  life,  since  the  order  alone  could  supply  the 
wants  of  its  members.  It  had  the  result  of  enforcing 
simplicity.  An  under  garment,  without  sleeves,  was  their 
only  clothing  in  summer,  and  a  rough  mantle  their  prophet- 
like  winter  garb.  The  inter-relation  of  the  different  colonies 
made  money  useless  in  travelling,  for  there  was  no  need  of 
it  when,  at  each  resting-place,  their  frugal  wants  were  freely 
supplied  by  any  brother.  They  had  no  servants,  and,  as 

1  BeU.  Jul.,  ii.  8.  10.  3  Bell.  Jud.,  ii.  8.  11.     Ant.,  xviii.  1.  5. 


JEWISH  ASCETICISM.  347 

they  recognised  no  distinction  but  that  of  "  clean  and  an- 
dean," they  could  have  no  slaves. 

The  grand  aim  of  this  amaEing  system  of  self-denial  and 
ascetic  endurance  is  told  by  Josephus,  in  a  brief  sentence. 
"  Consecrated,  from  childhood,  by  many  purifications,  and 
familiar,  beyond  thought,  with  the  Holy  Books,  and  the 
utterances  of  the  prophets,  they  claim  to  see  into  the  future, 
and,  in  truth,  there  is  scarcely  an  instance  in  which  their 
prophecies  have  been  found  false."1  The  belief  that  they 
could  attain  direct  communion  with  God,  by  intense  legal 
purification  and  mystic  contemplation,  and  even  pass,  in  the 
end,  to  such  transcendental  vision  as  would  reveal  to  them 
the  secrets  of  the  future,  was  the  supreme  motive  to  endure 
a  life  of  so  much  privation  and  self-denial.  A  similar  course 
had  been  followed,  before  their  day,  as  a  means  of  preparation 
for  Divine  visions,  and  communion  with  higher  powers.  "In 
those  days,"  says  Daniel,  "  I  was  mourning  three  full  weeks. 
I  ate  no  pleasant  bread,  neither  came  flesh  nor  wine  in  my 
mouth,  neither  did  I  anoint  myself  at  all,  till  three  whole 
weeks  were  fulfilled.  And  in  the  four-and-twentieth  day  of 
the  first  month,  as  I  was  by  the  side  of  the  great  river,  which 
is  Hiddekel,"  then  I  lifted  up  mine  eyes,  and  looked,  and  behold 
a  certain  man  clothed  in  linen,  whose  loins  were  girded  with 
fine  gold  of  Uphaz."  In  the  same  way,  Esdras  prepared 
himself,  beforehand,  for  his  visions — "  Go  to  the  flowery  open, 
where  there  is  no  house,"  said  the  angel  to  him,  "  and  eat 
only  the  herbs  of  the  field ;  taste  no  flesh,  drink  no  wine,  but 
eat  herbs  only,  and  pray  unto  the  Highest  continually;  then 
will  I  come  and  talk  with  thee."3 

It  was  universally  believed  that  the  future  was  open  before 
the  aged  members  of  the  order,  who  had  laboured  after 
"  purity "  through  life.  Their  souls  were  supposed  to  be 
well-nigh  freed  from  the  bonds  of  the  flesh,  and  able  to  wan- 
der forth  to  the  world  beyond.  Thus  an  Essene  was  said  to 
have  prophesied  to  the  brother  of  the  first  Aristobulus  that 
prince's  death;3  and  another  to  have  predicted  to  the  boy 
Herod  that  he  would  be  king,  and  that  he  would  have  a  long 
reign,  after  he  had  gained  the  crown.4  This  gift  of  prophecy 
was  believed  by  Herod  and  his  sons,5  no  less  than  among  tho 
people,  and  hence  an  Essene  was  often  sent  for  when  a  bad 

1  Bell.  Jud.,  ii.  8.  12.  »  Dan.  x.  2-5.    2  Esdras  ix.  24,  25. 

*  Bi'll.  Jud.,  i.  3.  5.     Ant.,  xiii.  11.  2.          *  Ant.,  xv.  10.  5. 

•  See  the  case  of  Archelaus  before  his  fall,  page  260.    Bell.  Jud.,  ii.  7. 3, 


348  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

dream  disturbed  royalty,  or  anxiety  for  the  future  troubled 
it.1  With,  such  mystic  claims,  the  expectations  of  Israel  must 
have  been  their  chief  thought.  Their  old  men  dreamed 
dreams,  their  young  men  saw  visions,  and  their  sons  and 
daughters  prophesied,  as  if  in  fulfilment  of  the  prophet's  signs 
of  the  coming  of  the  Messiah.2  Yet  we  have  no  proof  that 
they  anticipated  it  as  near,  or  applied  themselves  in  any 
practical  way  to  a  preparation  of  Israel  for  it.  It  was  only 
a  fond  and  airy  vision  of  the  ideal  future.  They  were  rigid 
Predestinarians,  believing  that  all  things,  in  the  course  of 
nature  and  in  the  life  of  man,  are  fixed  by  fate.3  Where 
there  was  no  moral  freedom,  it  was  idle  either  to  preach  or 
teach,  and  so  they  did  neither. 

As  was  natural  with  minds  occupied  mainly  with  subjects 
above  human  grasp,  the  speculations  of  the  order  became 
wild,  and  often  monstrous.  The  novice  was  required  by  a 
fearful  oath  to  conceal  the  secret  names  of  the  angels,  which 
were  known  to  the  brotherhood,  and  gave  him  who  learned 
them,  power,  by  pronouncing  them,  to  draw  down  these  awful 
beings  from  heaven.  The  Apocryphal  literature  of  the  day 
boasted  of  long  lists  of  the  names  of  angels,  with  their  powers 
and  offices ;  and  the  Essenes,  like  the  Rabbis,  believed  that 
by  secret  spells,  in  which  these  names  played  a  foremost  part, 
they  could  command  their  services  for  good  or  evil,  as  the  ser- 
vices of  the  genii  are  at  the  command  of  the  magicians  in  the 
Arabian  Nights.  They  believed  also,  in  common  with  the  age, 
in  the  secret  magic  powers  of  plants  and  stones,  and  they 
held  much,  besides,  the  disclosure  of  which  was  the  greatest 
of  crimes.  Secrecy  was,  indeed,  a  characteristic  of  the  order. 
The  neophyte  bound  himself  by  a  terrible  oath,  "  neither  to 
conceal  anything  from  the  brotherhood,  nor  to  discover  any  of 
their  doctrines  to  others,  even  if  he  should  have  to  die  for  his 
refusal.  He  had,  moreover,  to  swear  that  he  would  commu- 
nicate their  doctrines  to  no  one,  except  as  he  himself  had 
received  them,  and  that  he  would  keep  inviolably  secret  the 
books  of  the  order,  and  the  names  of  the  angels."  4 

1  See  the  instance  of  Herod  sending  for  Menahem.     Ant.,  xv.  10.  5. 

*  Joelii.  28.  *  Ant.,  xiii.  5.  9.  *  Bell.  Jud.,  ii.  8.  7. 

Authorities  for  this  description  of  the  Essenes  :  Lepsius,  Art.  Essaer, 
Pibel  Lexicon.  Hausrath's  Zeitgeschirhte,  vol.  i.  pp.  132-149.  Jost, 
Geschichte  drs  Jud?nthums,  vol.  i.  pp.  207-214.  Ewald,  Geschidite,  vol. 
iv.  pp.  483  ff.  Keim,  Geschichte  Jesu,  vol.  i.  pp.  282-306.  Derenbourg, 
Histoire  de  la  Palestine,  pp.  166-175,  460-462.  Uhlhorn,  Art.  Esscncrt 
in  Herzog's  Peal  Enry.  Schiirer's  Lchrbuch,  pp.  599-619,  etc. 


CHARACTER   OF  THE   ESSENES.  349 

The  influence  of  Essenism  on  the  age,  however,  was  small, 
for  its  members  were  few  in  proportion  to  the  teeming 
population,  and  made  no  attempt  at  propagandism,  but  lived 
entirely  apart  from  men.  The  natural  product  of  the  times, 
with  its  Messianic  hopes,  its  striving  after  legal  righteousness, 
its  glorification  of  the  past,  and  its  contact  with  heathen 
superstition,  it  served  the  purpose,  in  some  measure,  of 
drawing  away  the  thoughts  from  the  dream  of  national 
political  glory,  and  of  preparing  the  soil  for  the  more  spiritual 
conception  of  the  Messiah,  which  John  and  Jesus  were  to 
introduce.  The  Essenes  came  in  contact  with  the  people  as 
healers,  prophets,  dream-interpreters,  and  exorcists,  not  as 
teachers  or  preachers.  Their  religious  exercises  and  pure 
ideas  were  cherished  in  the  community  without  an  attempt 
to  spread  them  through  the  nation ;  in  marked  contrast  to 
the  Baptist,  whose  life  was  a  fervent  ministry  to  the  masses 
of  his  countrymen,  and,  still  more,  to  Jesus,  for  he  lived  in 
constant  contact  with  men,  even  those  shunned  alike  by 
Essene  and  Rabbi,  as  unclean  :  showed  the  most  perfect 
superiority  to  all  ritual  narrowness  ;  set  light'  by  ceremonial 
purity,  or  superstitious  Sabbath  laws ;  discarded  fasting ; 
took  part  in  the  social  enjoyment  of  feasts,  and  meals,  and 
marriages,  and  left  a  new  code  of  rules  and  maxims  for  His 
disciples.  Essenism  was,  at  best,  only  the  vivid  culmination 
of  the  past,  doomed  to  pass  away. 

From  their  lofty  morality,  the  Essenes  have  been  assigned 
a  rank  among  the  spiritual  forces  of  their  age,  to  which  in 
reality  they  had  no  claim.  If  their  moral  purity  and  spiritual 
depth  breathed  of  the  prophets  rather  than  the  theocracy, 
and  made  their  order,  in  so  far,  a  herald  of  Christianity,  their 
exaggerated  ceremonialism,  their  harsh  austerity,  and  their 
fantastic  and  half-heathen  superstitions,  neutralized,  to  a 
large  extent,  this  healthy  influence.  Still,  in  some  directions, 
they  surpassed  in  true  morality  anything  in  the  last  centuries 
of  Jewish  life.  It  gives  even  their  harsh  asceticism  a  higher 
dignity,  that  it  was  not,  like  that  of  the  Pharisees,  a  mer- 
cenary service  for  external  reward,  but  a  self-denying  attempt 
to  keep  out  evil  from  the  soul,  and  thus  prepare  it  for  that 
high  communion  with  God,  in  whose  sacred  calm  the  still 
small  voice  of  Divine  revelations  grows  audible.  For  the 
first  time  since  the  prophets,  the  spiritual  condition  of  the 
soul  was  declared  to  be  the  end  of  religion.  While  the  Rabbis 
distracted  the  age  with  their  fierce  party  strifes  about  tho 
merely  external,  another  kind  of  life  ripened  in  the  seclusion 


350  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

of  the  colonies  of  Essenes,  which  bore  better  fruit,  because  it 
concerned  itself  with  the  need  of  a  New  Birth,  and  the  cir- 
cumcision of  the  heart ;  not  with  the  theocracy,  the  Temple, 
or  politics.  The  likeness  to  Christianity,  where  it  exists  in 
Essenism,  was  not  in  its  institutions,  but  in  the  quiet  and 
meditative  frame  that  breathed  through  the  community,  in 
its  religious  seriousness  and  priestly  consecration  of  life — 
the  "  daily  keeping  of  Sabbath,"  which  was  also  the  ideal 
of  the  first  Christian  communions.  These  characteristics 
of  the  order  were,  in  some  degree,  common  also  to  those 
who,  after  them,  were  "  the  quiet  and  peaceful  in  the  land," 
although  its  doctrines  and  ideas  offered,  otherwise,  rather  a 
contrast  to  Christianity  than  a  resemblance. 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 
THE   VOICE   IN   THE  WILDERNESS. 

NO  one  is  unaffected  by  the  spirit  of  his  age.  It  is  not 
surprising,  therefore,  that  at  a  time  when  religious 
earnestness  found  expression  in  the  ascetic  self-denial  and 
retirement  from  the  world,  of  Nazarites,  Essenes,  and  even 
of  others  not  connected  with  either,1  the  young  enthusiast 
of  Hebron 3  withdrew  from  his  family  and  mankind,  to  the 
caves  of  the  wilderness  stretching  away  from  his  native 
town.  In  an  age  so  troubled  in  politics  and  religion,  the 
peaceful  simplicity  of  such  a  hermit  life  was  irresistible,  and 
in  its  calm  retirement  men  could  work  out  their  salvation  by 
prayer,  fasts,  washings,  and  rigid  zeal  for  the  Law,  with  no 
one  to  make  them  afraid.  The  weary  heart  found  repose  in 
a  solitude,  where  the  great  world,  with  its  discord,  turmoil, 
and  confusion,  its  cruelty,  selfishness,  and  treachery,  was 
shut  out.3  The  psalm-singing,  the  ceremonies,  and  the  quiet 
industry  of  the  colonies  of  Essenes,  sent  strange  emotions  of 
gentleness  and  awe  into  men's  hearts,  in  an  age  when,  every- 
where else,  wickedness  reigned  triumphant.  In  such  dark 
days  these  spots  shone  with  a  holy  light.  Having  fled,  in 
horror,  from  prevalent  violence  and  sin, — by  the  natural  law 
of  reaction,  the  fugitives  sought  to  extinguish  in  themselves 
the  simplest  instincts  of  human  nature.  It  was  thus,  after- 
wards, in  the  awful  times  of  the  dissolution  of  the  Roman 
empire.  The  deserts  of  Egypt  and  Syria  were  filled  with  a 
strange  population,  fleeing  from  the  wild  tumult  and  com« 
motion  under  which  the  earth  reeled.  It  was  thus,  also,  in 
the  fierce  and  lawless  Middle  Ages,  when  the  cloister  was  like 
a  speck  of  blue  in  a  heaven  of  storm.  Asceticism,  in  these 
different  periods,  as  in  that  of  the  Gospel  history,  was  the 
only  protest  which  told  with  sufficient  force  against  the 
rampant  evil  around.  Eleven  centuries  after  Christ,  a  similar 

1  Schiirer's  Lehrbuch,  p.  617.  3  ScJnirer,  p.  618. 

»  Morrison's  Life  of  St.  Bernard,  pp.  90,  217. 


352  THE   LIFE   OP   CHRIST. 

state  of  society  made  the  ascetic  life  the  ideal  of  the  noblest 
souls,  even  where  they  did  not  withdraw  from  the  world. 
St.  Bernard's  saintly  mother,1  the  model  of  Christian  charity 
and  lowliness,  could  not  rest  satisfied  with  these  graces.  By 
scantiness  of  food,  by  simplicity  of  dress,  by  the  avoidance  of 
worldly  pleasures,  by  fasting,  prayer,  and  vigils,  she  strove 
after  that  vision  of  self-sacrifice  and  humility,  which  alone 
was  attractive  in  that  age.2  Asceticism  is  not  needed  now. 
T'.s  place  has  been  more  nobly  filled  by  the  claims  of  Chris- 
tian work  for  others,  but  in  John  the  Baptist's  day,  and  for 
long  centuries  after,  it  was  a  natural  tendency. 

The  wilderness  to  which  John  withdrew  stretches,  far  and 
near,  over  the  whole  eastern  part  of  Judea,  beginning  almost 
at  Jerusalem,  and  reaching  away,  tinder  different  names,  to 
the  Dead  Sea  and  the  southern  desert,  as  its  distant  limits. 
It  is  a  dreary  waste  of  rocky  valleys ;  in  some  parts  stern 
and  terrible — the  rocks  cleft  and  shattered  by  earthquakes 
and  convulsions,  into  rifts  and  gorges  sometimes  a  thousand 
feet  in  depth,  though  only  thirty  or  forty  in  width ;  in  others, 
stretching  out  in  bare  chalk  hills  full  of  caves,  or  in  white, 
flint-bound  ridges,  and  winding,  muddy  wadys,  with  an  occa- 
sional reservoir,  hewn  in  the  hard  limestone,  to  supply  water 
in  a  country  destitute  of  springs.  One  may  travel  all  day, 
and  see  no  other  life  than  the  desert  partridge,  and  a  chance 
fox  or  vulture.  Only  the  dry  and  fleshy  plants  which  re- 
quire no  water,  grow  on  the  hills,  and  in  the  valleys  the  most 
luxuriant  vegetation  is  the  white  broom  bushes,  which  blossom 
in  March  and  April.  The  whole  district  is,  in  fact,  the  slope 
of  the  midland  chalk  and  limestone  hills,  from  their  highest 
point  of  nearly  3,000  feet,  near  Hebron,  to  1,000  or  1,500 
feet,  at  the  valley  of  the  Dead  Sea.  The  Hebrews  fitly  call 
it  Jeshimon  3 — "  the  appalling  desolation,"  or  "  horror  " — for 
it  is  not  possible  to  conceive  a  more  desolate  region.  Parts 
of  it  are  deserted  even  by  the  Arabs.  On  the  northern  side, 
valleys  of  great  depth,  sinking  towards  the  Dead  Sea,  almost 
pre<  lude  travelling  except  in  their  troughs,  and  farther  south, 
the  country  is  absolutely  impassable.  Huge  perpendicular 
gorges,  of  from  a  thousand  to  fifteen  hundred  feet  in  depth, 
aud  in  some  places  nearly  a  mile  in  width,  have  been  hollowed 

1  A.D.  1091.  *  Morrison's  St.  Bernard,  p.  4. 

»  1  Sam.  xxiii.  19,  24.  flB^!D  (Ha  jeshimon),  from  D$J  and  DO$ 
(yaskam  and  shamam),  to  be  waste,  desolate;  with  the  idea  of  creating 
horror— dismaying. 


ENGEDI,   ON   THE   DEAD   SEA.  353 

out  by  the  great  torrents,  rushing  in  winter  over  the  preci« 
pices,  towards  the  Dead  Sea.  -The  one  natural  site  for  a 
town,  in  the  whole  district,  is  the  opening  at  the  foot  of  the 
pass  of  Engedi,  "the  spring  of  the  wild  goats,"  above  the  shores 
of  the  sea,  and  this  is  reached  only  by  a  narrow,  serpent-like 
path,  down  cliffs  twelve  hundred  feet  high, — well  named  by 
the  Hebrews,  "  the  rocks  of  the  wild  goats,"  1 — which  only  un- 
laden beasts,  by  an  hour's  slow  care,  can  descend  in  safety. 
Excepting  the  spring  at  this  spot,  water  is  to  be  found 
only  in  hollows  of  the  rocks,  or  in  the  very  rare  water- 
cisterns,  hewn  in  past  ages  in  the  limestone,  which  catch 
some  of  the  few  passing  showers  which  visit  this  region. 

This  Spring  of  Engedi — or  Ain  Jidy,  gushes  from  beneath 
a  rock  on  a  little  plateau,  400  feet  above  the  Dead  Sea, 
and  800  feet  below  the  top  of  the  cliffs.  The  water  is 
sweet  and  clear,  but  unpleasantly  warm  to  the  taste.  The 
stream  flows  in  a  long  cascade  over  the  steep  face  of  the  cliff, 
and  is  lost  in  channels  for  irrigation,  beneath, — low  bushes, 
bending  rushes,  and  the  gigantic  leaves  of  the  osher,  the 
yellow  berries  of  the  apple  of  Sodom,  and  the  flat  cedar-like 
tops  of  the  thorny  Darda'ra,  rising  in  a  thicket  along  its 
course.  Bulbuls  and  hopping  thrushes  court  this  shelter, 
and  black  grakles,  with  golden  wings,  and  melodious  note, 
flit  to  and  fro  on  the  cliffs  above.  On  every  side,  below  the 
spring,  ruined  garden  walls  and  terraces,  and  a  large  ter- 
raced mound,  show  the  site  of  the  ancient  town,2  which  had, 
perhaps,  a  thousand  inhabitants.  The  scenery  along  the 
lake  is  magnificent  in  its  wild  and  desolate  grandeur.  Be- 
neath, is  the  blue  water  of  the  Dead  Sea ;  above,  rise  the  tall 
crags  and  castellated  precipices  of  the  great  rock- wall,  which 
runs,  ever  higher  and  steeper,  nearly  to  the  fortress  of 
Masada,  the  square  isolated  mass  of  which,  more  than  1,500 
feet  above  the  Dead  Sea,  forms  a  great  plateau,  cut  off  on 
every  side  by  wide  rifts,  and  vertical  walls  of  rock,  and 
seen  from  Engedi.  On  the  east,  beyond  the  deep  gorges  of 
the  Arnon,  and  lesser  streams  of  the  Blue  Mountains,  the 
white  towers  of  Kerak  look  down  from  a  great  cliff  which 
seems  to  defy  approach.3 

The  town  of  Engedi  was  the  one  minute  living  spot  in 
the  whole  district,  for  the  only  human  habitations  in  the  wild 
region  above  were  the  hill  caves,  in  which  hermits  sought 

1  1  Sam.  xxiv.  2.  2  Keim,  vol.  i.  p.  495. 

•  Lieut.  Claude  Conder,  in  Pal.  Ex.  Fund  Rep.,  July,  1875. 

94- 


354  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

a  miserable  skelter.  Somewhere  in  the  chasm  leading  down 
to  the  spring,  the  Essenes  had  their  little  colony  in  John's 
day,  but  their  strict  isolation  left  the  lonely  anchorite  in  a 
deeper  solitude.  In  the  neighbouring  wilderness,  where  the 
venomous  desert  viper  1  glided  among  the  stones,  and '  the 
scorpion,  the  fox,  the  vulture,  or  the  raven,  were  almost  the 
only  signs  of  life  ;  where  drought  reigned,  and  the  waterless 
hills  and  stony  valleys  were  symbols  of  utter  desolation, — in 
some  cave,  perhaps,  in  the  depth  of  a  deep  and  narrow  ravine, 
that  at  least  gave  shelter  from  the  pitiless  heat  and  glare  of 
an  Eastern  sun, — John  took  up  his  abode,  to  be  alone  with  God 
and  his  own  soul,  and  thus,  the  better  able  to  fulfil  the  life- 
long vow  which  separated  him  from  men.  Bred  up  a  strict 
Jew,  and  trained,  like  St.  Paul,  in  the  perfect  knowledge 
and  observance  of  the  Law,2  he  was  doubtless,  also,  a  zealot 
towards  God  in  all  things  respecting  it.  At  what  age  he 
retired  from  Hebron  to  this  hermit  life  we  have  no  means 
of  knowing,  but  he  had,  apparently,  lived  for  many  years 
apart  from  men  before  his  public  appearance.  The  Gospels 
furnish  us  with  vivid  glimpses  of  his  appearance  and  mode  of 
life.  His  hair  hung  long  about  him,  like  that  of  Samson,  for 
it  had  never  been  cut  since  his  birth.3  His  only  food  was  the 
locusts  which  leaped  or  flew  on  the  bare  hills,  and  the  honey 
of  wild  bees  which  he  found  here  and  there  in  the  clefts  of 
the  rocks,  and  his  only  drink  a  draught  of  water  from  some 
rocky  nollow.  Locusts  are  still  the  food  of  the  poor  in  many 
parts  of  the  East.  "  All  the  Bedouins  of  Arabia,  and  the 
inhabitants  of  towns  in  Nedj  and  Hedjaz,  are  accustomed  to 
eat  them,"  says  Burckhardt.  "  I  have  seen  at  Medina  and 
Tayf,  locust  shops,  where  they  are  sold  by  measure.  In 
Egypt  and  Nubia  they  are  eaten  only  by  the  poorest  beggars. 
The  Arabs,  in  preparing  them  for  eating,  throw  them  alive 
into  boiling  water,  with  which  a  good  deal  of  salt  has  been 
mixed,  taking  them  out  after  a  few  minutes,  and  drying  them 
in  the  sun.  The  head,  feet,  and  wings,  are  then  torn  off,  the 
bodies  cleansed  from  the  salt,  and  perfectly  dried.  They  are 
gometimes  eaten  boiled  in  butter,  or  spread  on  unleavened 
bread  mixed  with  butter."  In  Palestine,  they  are  eaten  only 
by  the  Arabs  on  the  extreme  frontiers ;  elsewhere  they  are 
looked  on  with  disgust  and  loathing,  and  only  the  very 
poorest  use  them.4  Tristram,  however,  speaks  of  them  as 

1  Dent,  xxxii.  10  ;  viii.  15.  »  Acts  xxii.  3. 

.  xvi.  17.  «  The  Land  and  the  Book,  p.  420. 


LOCUSTS  AND  WILD  HONEY. 

"  very  palatable." l  "I  found  them  very  good,"  says  he, 
"  when  eaten  after  the  Arab  fashion,  stewed  with  butter. 
They  tasted  somewhat  like  shrimps,  but  with  less  flavour." 
In  the  wilderness  of  Judea,  various  kinds  abound  at  all  sea- 
sons, and  spring  up,  with  a  drumming  sound,  at  every  step, 
suddenly  spreading  their  bright  hind  wings,  of  scarlet,  crim- 
son, blue,  yellow,  white,  green,  or  brown,  according  to  the 
species.  They  were  "  clean,"  under  the  Mosaic  Law,2  and 
hence  could  be  eaten  by  John  without  offence.  The  wild 
bees  in  Palestine  are  far  more  numerous  than  those  kept  in 
hives,  and  the  greater  part  of  the  honey  sold  in  the  southern 
districts  is  obtained  from  wild  swarms.  Few  countries,  in- 
deed, are  better  adapted  for  bees.  The  dry  climate,  and  the 
stunted  but  varied  flora,  consisting  largely  of  aromatic  thymes, 
mints,  and  other  similar  plants,  with  crocuses  in  the  spring, 
are  very  favourable  to  them,  while  the  diy  recesses  of  the 
limestone  rocks  every  where  afford  them  shelter  and  protection 
for  their  combs.  In  the  wilderness  of  Judea  especially,  bees 
abound  more  than  in  any  other  district,  and  honey  is,  to  this 
day,  part  of  the  homely  diet  of  the  local  Bedouin,  who  squeeze 
it  from  the  combs  and  store  it  in  skins.3 

John's  dress  was  in  keeping  with  the  austerity  of  his  life. 
A  burnouse  of  rough,  rudely  woven  cloth  of  coarse  camels' 
hair,"  such  as  the  Bedouin  still  wear,  bound  round  his  body 
by  the  common  leathern  girdle  still  in  use  among  the  very 
poor,4  was  apparently  his  only  clothing.  His  head-dress  was 
the  triangular  head-cloth,  kept  in  its  place  by  a  cord,  as  is 
still  the  custom  among  the  Arabs,  and  his  feet  were  shod  with 
coarse  sandals.  In  Hebron  he  had  had  around  him  all  that 
could  make  life  pleasant — a  saintly  home,  loving  parents, 
social  consideration,  modest  comforts,  and  an  easy  outlook  for 
the  future.  But  the  burden  of  life  had  weighed  heavy  on  him, 
and  his  heart  was  sad,  and  drove  him  forth  from  men.  The 
enemies  of  his  people  were  strong,  and  the  hand  of  them  that 
hated  them  5  lay  sore  upon  them.  The  cry  of  the  faithful 
in  the  land  rose  to  God,  that  He  would  remember  His  holy 
covenant  and  deliver  them.6  They  sighed  to  be  free  from 
the  presence  of  the  heathen,  that,  once  more  under  God  as 
their  only  king,  with  their-  country  to  themselves,  they  might 
Berve  Him  without  fear,  in  the  homage  of  the  Temple,  and 

1  Natural  Hist,  of  Bible,  p.  308.         *  Lev.  xi.  22. 

*  Tristram,  p.  324.  4  Furrer's  Wanderungen,  p.  28. 

•  Luke  i.  71.  •  Luke  i.  72,  73. 


356  ,  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

the  rites  of  the  Law.1  Israel  had  long  sat  in  darkness,2  with 
no  break  of  light  from  heaven.  The  promises  seemed  to 
tarry.  The  godly  sighed  to  have  their  feet  guided  into  the 
way  of  peace,  but  no  Messiah  had  appeared  to  lead  them.3 

But  if  the  sorrows  of  the  nation  pressed  on  the  heart  of 
John,  so  also  did  their  sins.  If  the  "  shadow  of  death  "  thus 
lay  on  them,4  it  was  through  their  own  sins  and  degeneracy, 
for  God  had  only  forsaken  them  because  they  had  first  for- 
saken Him.  The  courts  of  His  Temple  had  been  turned  into 
a  den  of  thieves  ;  5  the  spiritual  guides  of  the  multitude  were 
deceitful  and  deadly  as  the  viper  of  the  desert ;  blind  leaders 
of  a  blind  people.6  They  who  should  have  been  the  holiest 
of  the  holy — God's  priests — were  a  scorn  and  derision  for 
their  unworthiness.  Before  John  reached  his  majority,  he 
had  seen  the  sacred  mitre  changed  nine  times,  at  the  will 
of  Archelaus,  or  of  a  heathen  governor  from  Rome,  and  the 
puppet  high  priests  had  desecrated  its  awful  dignity  by 
personal  vice,  or  time-serving  policy,  or  indifference  to  its 
highest  obligations,  or  shameful  luxury  and  haughty  pride. 
Two  of  the  house  of  Boethos  of  Alexandria,  raised  by  Herod 
to  dignify  his  marriage  into  the  family,  had  worn  the  high 
priest's  robes,  but  the  people  muttered  curses  on  them,7  for 
having  surrounded  themselves  with  courtly  show  and  military 
violence.  Ismael  the  son  of  Phabi,  had  worn  them,  but  the 
clubs  of  his  retainers  had  become  a  bye-word  in  Jerusalem, 
as  had  his  own  shameful  personal  luxury.8  Three  members 
of  the  family  of  Hannas  had  worn  them — Hannas  himself,9 
Eleazar  his  son,  and,  now,  Caiaphas  his  son-in-law, — and 
Hannas  was  still  the  foremost  man  in  Jerusalem,  but  they 
hated  the  people,  and  the  people  hated  them,  and  maintained 
that  they  hissed  at  them  like  vipers,  in  their  proud  malignity,10 
or  glided  to  their  evil  ends,  like  the  snake.  Their  families 
were  branded  as  sons  of  Eli.  Iniquity  filled  the  high  places 
of  the  Hill  of  God.  Nor  were  the  people  themselves  inno- 
cent ;  for  He  who  was  meek  and  lowly  in  spirit  denounced 
them,  a  year  or  two  later,  as  an  evil  and  adulterous  genera- 
tion, more  hardened  and  hopeless  than  Nineveh,  or  Sodom 
and  Gomorrah,  which  God  had  cursed.11  Earnest  souls,  in 
such  circumstances,  with  the  earth  dark  around  them,  and  no 

I  Lnke  i.  74,  75.        8  Luke  i.  79.         »  Lnke  i.  79.          4  Ibid. 
Mark  xi.  17.  6  Matt.  xv.  14.     1  Page  327.  8  Ibid. 
The  Annas  of  the  Gospels.                 10  Page  327. 

II  Matt.  xii.  39.    Marl;  viii.  38.   Matt.  xii.  41 ;  x.  15  ;  xi.  24. 


JOHN   IN   THE   DESERT.  357 

light  in  the  heavens ; l  feeling  that  hope  could  only  come  with 
national  contrition  and  awakened  spiritual  life,  might  well, 
in  loving,  sad  despair,  withdraw  themselves  from  mankind, 

But  with  John  there  was  also  a  conviction  that  the  Mes- 
siah, long  expected,  must  be  near  at  hand,  and  that  the  fit 
preparation  for  His  advent  was  a  self-denial  and  humiliation, 
which  surrendered  the  whole  present,  and  gave  itself  up  to 
prayer  and  watching,  in  desert  solitudes.  It  was  the  idea  of 
his  age,  and  John  could  be  satisfied  with  nothing  less.  A 
great  sorrow  and  a  great  ideal  alike  drove  him  to  "  keep  his 
body  under,"  as  if  the  least  pleasure  were  sin,  and  the  flesh 
the  enemy  of  the  soul. 

Josephus  gives  us  a  sketch  2  of  one  of  the  recluses  of  the 
desert,  with  whom  he  himself  lived  for  three  years.  "  His 
name  was  Banus,  his  home  the  desert,  his  only  clothing  the 
leaves  or  bark  of  trees,  his  only  food  what  grew  of  its  own 
accord,  his  only  drink  the  brook,  and  his  daily  and  nightly 
practice  to  bathe  in  cold  water."  Not  a  few  such,  no  doubt, 
buried  themselves  in  the  dens  and  caves  of  the  lonely  hills 
round  John,  weary  of  the  world,  as  Pliny  says,  and  seeking, 
by  a  life  of  penitence,  to  cleanse  away  the  defilements  of 
the  flesh. 

With  many,  the  great  motive  might  be  to  save  themselves 
in  the  shipwreck  of  all  besides,  but  no  such  unworthy  im- 
pulse actuated  John.  He  sought  the  wilderness,  at  once  to 
secure  perfect  Levitical  purity — for  he  was  a  strict  Jew — to 
ponder  over  the  mysteries  of  the  long-delayed  kingdom  of  God, 
and  to  aid  in  bringing  about  its  accomplishment.  His  life, 
earnestly  striving  after  meetness  for  the  expected  Messianic 
kingdom,  was  no  vacant  and  idle  solitude.  He  had  nothing 
of  the  Eastern  mystic,  whose  cell  witnesses  only  dreamy  and 
selfish  meditation.  The  straggles  of  soul,  in  all  natures  like 
his,  are  unspeakably  real,  and  we  cannot  doubt  that  his 
days  and  nights  saw  him  pleading,  by  long  earnest  prayer, 
with  many  tears  and  sore  fasting,  that  God,  in  His  mercy, 
would  at  last  send  the  Messiah  to  His  people.  We  know 
how  even  Christ,  "  in  the  days  of  His  flesh,  offered  up  prayers 
and  supplications,  with  strong  crying  and  tears ; "  how  He 
sighed  deeply  in  His  spirit,  and  spent  whole  nights  in  the 
hills,  or  in  the  desert,  in  lonely  prayer,  and  His  herald  must 
have  felt,  in  his  measure,  the  same  all-absorbing  zeal.  The 
prophets  and  Rabbis,  alike,  taught  that  the  "  Kingdom  of 

1  Jer.  iv.  28.  •  Vita,  2. 


358  THE   LIFE   OF   CHKIST. 

Heaven  "  could  only  come  when  Israel  had  prepared  itself 
by  humiliation  and  repentance,  and  John  sought  to  rouse 
men  at  large  to  feel  this,  by  the  protest  against  their  sins 
embodied  in  his  example.  To  rebuke  love  of  riches  would 
have  been  idle,  had  he  lived  in  comfort ;  to  condemn  the 
hollowness  and  unreality  of  life,  he  must  be  clear  of  all  sus- 
picion of  them  himself.  Men  involuntarily  do  homage  to 
self-denying  sincerity,  and  there  could  be  no  question  as  to 
that  of  John.  It  was  felt  that  he  was  real.  Religion  had 
become  a  thing  of  forms.  Men  had  settled  into  a  round  of 
externals,  as  if  all  religion  centred  in  these.  Decencies  and 
proprieties  formed  the  substance  of  human  life.  But  John 
showed  that  there  was,  at  least,  one  man  with  whom  religion 
was  an  everlasting  reality.1 

A  soul  lost,  like  that  of  John,  in  the  greatness  of  eternal 
truths,  may  well  have  risen  to  an  indifference  to  the  comforts, 
or  even  ordinary  wants  of  the  body,  otherwise  almost  im- 
possible. We  have  no  record  of  his  daily  life,  but  the  story 
of  one  who,  in  saintliness  of  spirit,  trod  in  his  steps,  is  still 
preserved.  Saint  Antony,  in  the  deserts  of  Egypt,  was  wont 
to  pass  whole  nights  in  prayer,  and  that  not  infrequently, 
to  the  astonishment  of  men.  He  ate  once  a  day,  after  the 
setting  of  the  sun ;  his  food  was  bread  with  salt,  his  drink 
nothing  but  water.  Flesh  and  wine  he  never  tasted.  When 
he  slept,  he  was  content  with  a  rush  mat,  but  mostly  he  lay 
on  the  bare  ground.  He  would  not  anoint  himself  with  oil, 
saying  that  it  was  more  fit  for  young  men  to  be  earnest  in 
subduing  the  body,  than  to  seek  things  which  softened  it. 
Forgetting  the  past,  he,  daily,  as  if  beginning  afresh,  took 
more  pains  to  improve,  repeating  to  himself,  continually, 
the  Apostle's  words — "  Forgetting  what  is  behind ;  stretch- 
ing forth  to  what  is  before ; "  and  mindful,  too,  of  Elijah's 
saying,  "  The  Lord  liveth,  before  whom  I  stand  " — he  thought 
in  himself,  that  the  ascetic  ought  ever  to  be  learning  his 
own  life  from  that  of  the  great  Elias,  as  from  a  mirror.3 
The  picture  may  not  suit  in  some  particulars,  but  as  a 
glimpse  of  the  mortified  life  of  the  desert,  in  its  best  aspect, 
it  may  serve  to  realize  that  of  John,  in  the  loneliness  of  the 
rough  wilderness  of  Judea. 

In  its  rugged  solitudes,  his  soul  gradually  rose  to  the  con- 
sciousness of  a  -great  mission.  He  believed  that  the-  wrath 
ot  God  was  near  at  hand,  to  take  vengeance  on  the  un- 

1  Robertson's  Sermons,  1st  series,  p.  124. 
•  Kingsley,  Tlie  Hermits,  pp.  39,  40. 


THE   CHARACTER   OF   THE   BAPTIST.  359 

righteousness  of  men,  but  he  knew  that  the  God  of  Abra- 
ham, even  in  wrath,  remembers  mercy,  and  that,  with  the 
judgments,  there  would  come  the  long-promised  Deliverer. 
His  impetuous  nature,  and  a  heart  that  never  feared  the  face 
of  man,  raised  him  to  the  level  of  the  old  prophets,  and 
impelled  him,  like  them,  to  address  his  generation.  Instinct 
with  the  deepest  religious  feeling;  of  a  transparent  sim- 
plicity, and  reverent  truthfulness  of  word  and  bearing ; 
glowing  with  energy ;  a  living  embodiment  of  sincerity  and 
self-denial,  and  in  the  best  position,  from  his  earliest  years, 
to  know  the  age ;  he  was,  above  all  men,  fitted  to  rouse  the 
sleeping  conscience  of  Israel,  and  to  lay  bare  the  self- 
deceptions  and  sins  of  even  the  religionists  of  the  day. 
Though  a  hereditary  priest,  he  had  stood  aloof  from  the 
Temple  service,  for  its  mechanical  rites  gave  him  no  inner 
peace. 

From  the  Temple  aristocracy  he  shrank  with  a  special 
aversion,  for  the  guilt  of  the  nation  culminated  in  them. 
Under  the  mantle  of  legal  purity,  and  behind  the  cheap 
popular  sanctity  of  the  Pharisees,  his  quick  eye  saw,  at  a 
glance,  hateful  ambition,  greed,  and  hypocrisy.  The  nation 
itself  stirred  his  soul,  as  he  saw  it,  in  a  time  so  earnest, 
contenting  itself  with  Pharisaic  righteousness,  and  trusting, 
with  insane  self-complacency,  to  its  being  the  people  of  God.1 
In  his  loneliness,  his  soul  had  communed  much  with  the 
prophets  of  the  Old  Covenant,  and  found  in  their  holy  zeal 
for  Israel  and  God  ;  in  their  demand  for  a  higher  righteous- 
ness of  the  heart  and  life,  instead  of  sacrifices  of  beasts ;  in 
their  lofty  announcement  of  a  Divine  future  for  his  nation, 
if  it  prepared  itself  for  it — the  prophetic  longing  and  prophecy 
of  his  own  spirit.  That  he  never  names  Moses  shows  that  he 
must  have  passed  beyond  the  Law  to  the  Prophets.  Isaiah, 
especially,  had  excited  in  him  a  faith  so  deep  and  intelligent, 
that  Jesus  rebuked  his  fears,  when  perplexed  and  doubting, 
by  a  quotation  from  that  prophet's 2  Messianic  predictions. 
The  few  fragments  left  of  his  preaching  abound  in  figures 
borrowed  from  this,  his  favourite  book — the  viper  brood,  the 
trees  of  God's  vineyard,  the  felling  that  which  was  barren, 
the  consuming  fire,  the  threshing  floor,  the  winnowing  shovel, 
and  the  giving  bread  and  clothing  to  the  poor.3 

1  Mat.  iii.  7  ff.     Luke  iv.  7  ff.  2  Matt.  xi.  5. 

3  Isaiah  lix.  5  ;  v.  7  ;  vi.  13  ;  x.  15  ;  xviii.  33  ;  xl  24 ;  i.  31 ;  ix.  18 : 
x.  17  ;  v.  24 ;  xlvii.  14 ;  xxi.  10  ;  xxviii.  27 ;  xxx.  24  ;  xl.  24  ;  xli.  15  ; 
Iviii.  7. 


360  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

John's  life  in  the  wilderness  seems  to  have  been  no  short 
retirement.  His  whole  later  bearing,  his  mode  of  life,  his 
sad  passionate  earnestness,  and  even  his  lofty  resolve  to  come 
forth  as  a  prophet,  imply  a  long  abode  in  the  solemn  freedom 
of  the  desert,  far  from  the  distracting  and  enfeebling  tumult 
of  life.  But,  though  in  the  same  wilderness,  he  was  no 
Essene.  His  relation  to  the  people  at  large,  his  conception 
of  a  kingdom  of  God  in  their  midst,  his  later  preaching  to 
them,  his  sympathy  even  for  publicans  and  sinners — from 
whom  the  Essenes  and  Pharisees  shrank  as  pollution — even 
his  food,  which,  though  simple,  was  still,  in  part,  of  flesh, 
show  that  he  was  in  no  way  connected  with  that  order.  Like 
its  members,  he  was  unmarried  ;  like  them,  he  denied  himself 
all  indulgence,  and  showed  a  prophet-like  grandeur  in  his 
standard  of  aim  and  practice.  But  though  their  settlements 
were  close  at  hand,  and  were  open  to  him,  he  chose  to  live 
free  and  alone.  It  was  well  he  did  so,  for  this  freedom 
created  an  impulse  before  which  the  nation  trembled  and 
lived,  while  Essenism,  with  no  vital  power  beyond  itself,  left 
it  to  lie  dead. 

The  fundamental  principle  in  John's  seclusion  was,  in  fact, 
exactly  the  reverse  of  that  of  the  recluses  of  his  day.  They 
dwelt  apart  from  men,  to  seek  their  own  spiritual  good  with 
a  pious  and  cynical  selfishness.  John  sought  the  wilderness 
by  an  impulse  which  seemed  like  the  voice  of  God,  to  seek, 
in  its  loneliness,  a  nobler  spiritual  life  than  seemed  possible 
amidst  the  religious  decay  of  the  time.  As  a  Jew,  he  had 
not  risen  above  the  external  and  material  in  religion.  An 
earnest,  strong,  all-embracing  heroism  of  self-denial,  which 
proved  its  depth  by  its  self -inflictions  ;  a  rejection  of  all 
temptations  of  society  and  culture,  with  their  threatening 
possibilities  of  defilement ;  a  strenuous  war  against  nature, 
-in  every  appetite,  to  the  extent  of  enduring  the  privations  of 
hunger,  homelessness,  and  exposure ;  were,  at  once,  the  disci- 
pline by  which  he  struggled  against  the  "  uncleanness  "  he 
still  lamented,  aiid  the  aids  by  which  he  hoped  to  attain 
neat-ness  to  God  Yet  he  was  far  from  caring  only  for  him- 
self His  future  career,  and  his  very  clothing,  which  was 
that  of  an  ancient  prophet,  showed  that  he  carried  the  burden 
of  his  people  on  his  soul,  and  had  fled  from  the  crowd  to  en- 
treat God  for  them,  by  prayer  and  penitence,  and,  in  accord- 
ance with  the  ideas  of  his  time,  to  prepare,  on  behalf  of  all, 
by  holy  fasts,  for  gracious  revelations  from  heaven. 

This  revelation  he,  in  fact,  received.     He  already  saw  that 


THE   PROCURATOR  PILATE.  361 

the  times  were  ripe  for  the  JTI dements  of  God.  The  slavery 
to  heathen  Rome  had  followed  the  agony  of  the  days  of 
Herod,  and  had  dispelled  every  hope.  For  nearly  a  generation 
lie  had  seen  nothing  but  misery  in  the  land.  In  his  boyhood, 
the  census  of  Quirinius  had  drenched  the  country  in  blood, 
and  had  been  followed  by  such  oppression  as  had,  already 
in  his  early  manhood,1  exhausted  the  resources  of  the  nation, 
and  caused  a  despairing  appeal  to  Rome  for  relief.  Rapacious 
and  unjust  governors,  true  Roman  knights,  seeking  only 
their  own  fortune,  and  rioting  in  the  abuse  of  their  power, 
had  added  burdens  for  their  own  advantage  ;  the  officials  and 
soldiers  had  only  too  faithfully  copied  their  lawless  violence ; 
heathen  garrisons  occupied  the  Holy  City  and  the  Temple ; 
the  high  priesthood  had  become  a  mere  sport  of  those  in 
power,  and  all  the  sanctities  of  the  national  life  had  been 
mocked  and  outraged  in  turn.  Since  the  year  26,  Pontius 
Pilate  had  been  governor,  a  man  to  be  compared  only  to  Ges- 
sius  Floras,  the  last  Roman  Procurator,  whose  enormities  in 
the  end  roused  the  war  of  despair  in  which  Jerusalem  perished. 
Pilate  wilfully  set  himself  to  insult  and  violate  the  sacred  cus- 
toms. It  was  beneath  him  to  study  the  people  he  ruled.  Not 
merely  harsh  and  hot-headed — carrying  matters  haughtily 
even  towards  Antipas  and  the  sons  of  Herod — he  was  male- 
volent, and  ever  on  the  watch  to  gratify  by  cunning  and 
venomous  threats,  the  hatred  rankling  in  his  breast  against 
a  race  he  did  not  understand,  and  who  defied  him.  The 
people  of  Jerusalem  suffered  at  his  hands  a  series  of  provoca- 
tions without  end,  of  malicious  injuries,  brawls,  and  massa- 
cres. So  envenomed  was  he,  indeed,  that  even  when  he  saw 
his  mistake  and  trembled  before  Tiberius,  he  would  not  yield, 
because  he  could  not  consent  to  do  his  subjects  a  pleasure. 
Philo,2  his  contemporary,  charges  him  with  accepting  bribes, 
with  acts  of  wanton  violence,  with  robberies,  with  shameful 
treatment  of  many,  wanton  insults  and  threats,  continual 
executions  contrary  to  law,  and  aimless  and  grievous  cruel- 
ties. "  He  was  a  malicious  and  furious  man,"  says  Philo, 
"  unwilling  to  do  anything  that  he  thought  would  please  Ida 
subjects."  The  nation  looked  back  even  on  Herod's  days 
with  regret,  so  much  worse  had  become  its  state,  now  that  it 
was  trodden  under  foot  by  the  Romans,  and  saw  no  hope  of 
relief.  John  had  noted  all  this.  Living  close  to  Jerusalem, 
he  had  been  amidst  it  all ;  unlike  Jesus,  who  had  lived  far 

1  A.D.  17.  *  Philon,  Leg,  1033. 


362  THE  LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

off  in  Galilee.  He  had  shuddered  at  the  spectacle  of  infidel 
high  priests — mere  Saddncees,  culminating  now  in  Caiaphas, 
whom  the  people  hated,1  but  Pilate  liked,  or,  at  least,  en- 
dured. He  had  learned  to  despise  the  bulk  of  the  Rabbis, 
who  tamely  bowed  to  the  shameful  yoke  they  had  invoked, 
and  submitted  to  it  from  interest.  Nor  were  the  people 
better  than  their  leaders.  They  lived  in  the  day  dreams  of 
a  merely  outward  piety,  with  proud  and  mercenary  hopes 
of  a  rich  earthly  reward  for  it  from  the  Messiah. 

Amidst  such  mingled  crime,  wickedness  and  corruption, 
the  soul  of  John  was  filled  with  humiliation  and  grief.  The 
Holy  Law,  given  at  Sinai,  had  sunk  to  a  superstitious  creed, 
and  was  only  tolerated  by  Rome  ;  the  sceptre  of  the  nation 
was  broken  in  pieces,  though  it  had  been  promised  that  it 
would  be  everlasting ;  the  Holy  Hill  had  become  the  citadel 
of  an  uncircumcised  soldiery,  and  the  streets,  which  had 
echoed  to  the  minstrelsy  of  David  and  his  sacred  choir,  were 
invaded  by  the  ensigns  and  music  of  a  Gentile  nation.  It 
seemed  as  if  God  must  presently  appear.  He  had  never 
before  remained  for  centuries  without  baring  His  Mighty 
Arm  ;  He  had  never  before  endured,  thus,  the  derision  of  the 
heathen,  or  the  sin  of  His  people;  He  had  never  before  left 
them  to  perish  as  now.  For  His  own  name  sake  He  would 
assuredly  come.  The  prophecies  of  Daniel  had  predicted 
only  a  short  triumph  to  the  iron  kingdom,  Rome,2  and  it 
had  now  lasted  for  a  generation.  But  even  in  these  last  days, 
had  not  the  curse  on  the  house  of  the  Idumean, — the  destruc- 
tion of  Antipater,  Phasael,  Herod,  Archelaus,  and  many 
others  of  the  hated  race, — shown  that  the  wrath  of  God  was 
kindled,  and  that  His  avenging  judgments  were  on  the  way  ? 
The  indignation  of  God,  foretold  by  the  prophets,  must 
speedily  fall,  alike  on  apostate  Israel,  and  on  her  enemies. 
•  What  John  had  foreboded  in  Hebron  or  Jerusalem,  became 
a  certainty  to  him  in  the  wilderness.  The  lonely  vastiiess 
raised  him  above  anxious  contrasts  of  the  weakness  of  Israel 
and  the  might  of  Rome,  which  might  have  paralyzed  resolu- 
tion, and  bidden  hope  despair.  The  solemn  stillness  of  the 
hills,  and  the  boundless  sweep  of  the  daily  and  nightly 
heavens,  effaced  the  thought  of  man,  and  filled  his  soul  with 
the  majesty  of  God.  What  was  man,  whose  days  were  a  hand- 
breadth,  and  whose  foundation  was  in  the  dust,  before  the 
Mighty  Maker  of  Heaven  and  Earth — the  Rock  of  Israel  ? 

1  Ant.,  xviii.  4.  3.  »  Dan.  vii.  25  ;  xii.  7.     Ant.,  x.  11.  7. 


THE   OFFICE   OF  THE   BAPTIST.  363 

He  had  often  appeared  to  deliver  His  people  when  their  case 
seemed  hopeless.  And  did  not  the  chastisements  of  God,  in 
the  prophets,  always  come  laden  with  hidden  good  ?  Were  not 
cursing  and  blessing,  smiting  and  healing,  death  and  resur- 
rection, always  joined  in  His  visitations  ?  John's  own  history 
in  the  wilderness  gave  him  hope  for  his  race.  His  prayers, 
his  penitence,  his  renunciation  of  the  world,  his  life  devoted 
to  God,  had  removed  the  burden  and  agony  of  his  soul,  and 
he  had  found  peace,  and  rest,  and  grace,  and  heavenly  light. 
What  he  had  felt,  was  possible  for  all  Israel.  If  they  could 
only  be  brought  to  resolve,  to  turn,  to  repent,  to  live  a  new 
life,  their  repentance  would  bring  down  showers  of  blessings, 
as  it  had  always  done  in  the  past,  and  the  lightnings  and 
thunders  of  judgment  would  break  in  wrath  on  their  foes, 
but  in  heavenly  help  to  themselves.  The  repentance  of  Israel 
would  bring  the  Messiah.  He  knew  He  was  near.  It  had 
been  revealed  even  before  his  birth  that  he  himself  was  to  go 
before  Him,  in  the  spirit  and  power  of  Elias,  to  make  ready 
a  people  prepared  for  the  Lord.1  The  call  of  God  rang  in 
his  soul  like  a  trumpet,  to  go  forth  and  preach  to  the  people 
the  coming  of  the  expected  Deliverer,  in  wrath  to  the  im- 
penitent, and  grace  to  the  contrite.  Led  by  the  Divine 
Spirit,  through  long  years  of  spiritual  struggle — his  soul 
turned  inward  on  itself  and  upward  to  God — his  body  subdued 
by  long  exposure  and  privation,  and  his  whole  being  raised  to 
a  lofty  invincibility  of  purpose,  untamed  by  customs,  unweak- 
ened  by  compliances,  but  filled  with  meditation  and  high 
religious  life — he  had,  at  length,  felt  equal  to  taking  the 
sublimest  and  most  terrible  position  into  which  a  frail  man 
could  be  raised  by  the  Almighty,  that  of  the  herald  pre- 
dicted by  his  favourite  Isaiah,  to  pioneer  the  way  for  the 
Messiah  of  God.  He  was  to  fill  up  the  valleys,  and  make  low 
the  mountains  and  hills,  to  make  the  crooked  places  straight 
and  the  rough  places  even  ;  that  is,  to  rebuke  the  lofty  and 
proud ;  to  raise  up  the  humble  and  oppressed  ;  to  spare  none 
of  the  crooked  policies  and  ways  of  men,  and  to  smooth  down 
their  roughness  by  a  hearty  repentance,  so  as  to  fit  them  for 
the  peaceful  entrance  of  the  Christ. 

The  kingdom  of  God,  as  thus  realized  by  John,  was  far 
higher  and  grander  than  previous  conceptions.  In  his 
infancy,  Judas  the  son  of  Saripheus,  and  Mattathias,  had 
sought  to  bring  in  the  reign  of  the  Messiah  by  a  political 

1  Luke  i.  17. 


864  THE  LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

rising,  winch  had  been  quenched  in  blood.  In  his  boyhood, 
Judas  the  Galilaean,  had,  in  the  same  way,  appealed  to  force, 
for  the  same  end,  bat  had  only  covered  the  land  with  mourn- 
ing. Yet  the  party  was  daily  increasing  with  whom  a  re- 
ligious war  with  Rome  had  become  a  fanatical  creed.  Even 
in  Samaria  it  was  proclaimed  that  the  kingdom  of  God  was 
about  to  come,  and  that  it  would  take  an  outward  political 
form.  The  misery  that  had  roused  Judea  had  also  pressed 
heavily  on  the  Samaritans,  and  their  national  jealousy  of  the 
Jews  anticipated  a  share  in  the  expected  Messianic  glory. 
In  their  opinion,  they,  and  not  the  Jews,  held  the  real  Holy 
Land  promised  to  Abraham — the  land  where  the  patriarchs 
had  fed  their  flocks  ;  they  had  the  true  Temple  Mount,  and 
the  true  Law,  free  from  the  corruptions  of  the  prophets  ; 
upon  their  holy  mountain  Moses  had  buried  the  true  vessels 
of  the  Tabernacle,  which  the  Jews  claimed  to  have  possessed 
under  the  Temple  of  Solomon,  and  which,  they  asserted,  had 
been  miraculously  hidden,  after  the  Temple  had  been  de- 
stroyed by  the  Chaldeans.  The  possession  of  these  vessels 
was  all  important,  for,  with  the  fondness  for  outward  em- 
bodiments of  belief  common  to  the  East,  it  was  held  that  the 
place  where  they  were  hidden  would  be  the  scene  of  the 
proclamation  of  the  Messiah.  A  cherished  promise,  they 
avowed,  announced  that  when  the  kingdom  of  the  Messiah 
was  set  up,  the  Ark,  and  these  sacred  vessels,  would  be  again 
brought  forth.  Jeremiah,  so  ran  the  Jewish  tradition,  being 
warned  of  God,  commanded  the  Tabernacle  and  the  Ark  to 
go  with  him  to  Mount  Nebo,  and  there  he  hid  them  and  the 
altar  of  incense  in  a  hollow  cave,  and  stopped  the  door,  which 
none  who  went  with  him  could  afterwards  find.  Jeremiah 
thereon  told  them  that  it  would  be  "  unknown  till  the  time 
when  God  gathers  His  people  again  together,  and  receives 
them  to  mercy.  Then  shall  the  Lord  show  them  these  things 
again,  and  the  glory  of  the  Lord  shall  appear,  and  the  cloud 
also,  as  it  was  shown  unto  Moses."  l  A  fuller  version  of  this 
tradition  introduced  an  angel  as  the  chief  actor,  instead  of 
Jeremiah.  Shortly  before  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem,  it 
went  on,  this  heavenly  being  descended  to  Jerusalem,  alight- 
ing on  the  Temple,  to  save  it.  Having  prepared  the  Taber- 
nacle, the  Ephod  of  the  High  Priest,  the  Ark,  the  Two  Tables 
of  stone  from  Sinai,  the  golden  robes  of  the  High  Priest,  the 
Altar  of  Incense,  the  Urim  and  Thummim,  and  the  holy 

1  2  Mace.  ii.  4-8. 


MESSIANIC   EXPECTATIONS.  365 

vessels,  for  removal,  he  carried  them  to  a  secret  place,  and 
cried  with  a  loud  voice,  "  O  earth,  earth,  earth !  hear  the 
word  of  the  mighty  Lord,  and  receive  what  I  commit  to  thee, 
ar.d  keep  it  to  the  end  of  the  times,  to  restore  it  again  when 
thou  art  commanded,  that  the  stranger  get  not  possession 
of  these  things.  For  the  time  will  come  when  Jerusalem 
shall  arise  again,  to  endure  for  ever !  "  Then  the  earth  opened 
her  mouth,  and  swallowed  up  all.1  A  third  version,  used 
figuratively  in  the  Apocalypse,  supposes  the  holy  vessels  to 
have  been  taken  to  heaven  and  hidden  there.  He  who  over- 
comes is  to  eat  of  the  manna  which  is  hidden  in  heaven,2  and 
when  "  the  Temple  of  God  was  opened  above,  there  was  seen 
in  it  the  Ark  of  the  Covenant."  3 

The  Samaritans,  cherishing  these  fancies  no  less  warmly 
than  the  Jews,  gave  them  a  local  colour,  and  had  persuaded 
themselves  that  the  true  place  of  the  mysteriously  hidden 
treasures  was  the  top  of  Gerizim,  beside  their  own  city — 
the  hill  from  whose  top  the  tribes  of  Israel  had  sounded 
the  blessings  of  the  Law,  on  the  entrance  of  Joshua  into 
Canaan.4 

How  intensely  such  thoughts  were  fermenting  in  the  minds 
of  the  Samaritans  in  these  years,  was  shown  a  little  later, 
when  John's  mission  had  closed  without  bringing  them  the 
results  they  had  expected ;  for  what  then  took  place  was  only 
the  final  outburst  of  feelings  long  pent  up.  "  A  man,"5  says 
Josephus,  "  who  made  nothing  of  falsehood,  and  tickled  the 
multitude  by  whatever  seemed  likely  to  please  them,"  had 
determined,  if  he  could,  to  raise  a  popular  movement,  like 
that  of  John's,  which  had  swept  over  Judea  and  Galilee, 
with  the  hope,  most  probably,  of  being  able  to  turn  it  to 
political  account.  Sending  abroad  a  report  through  the 
valleys  of  Samaria,  that  a  new  prophet  would  reveal,  on  a 
fixed  day,  on  Mount  Gerizim,  the  place  where  Moses  had 
hidden  the  vessels  of  the  Tabernacle,  he  raised  an  uncon- 
trollable excitement.  The  announcement  implied  that  the 
kingdom  of  God  would  on  that  day  appear,  for  the  sacred 
vessels  were  to  remain  hidden  till  it  was  to  begin.  It  was 
a  crafty  scheme,  to  transfer  to  Samaria  the  boastful  hopes 
which  had  been  the  glory  of  Judea,  by  making  open  claim  to 
the  possession  of  the  mysterious  treasures,  and  of  the  Law 

1  Apocalypse  of  Baruch,  in  Ceriani  Monumenta  Sacra  etProf.,  torn.  L 
fasc.  ii.  cap.  6. 
3  Rev.  ii.  17.        3  Rev.  xi.  19.       4  Deut.  xvii.  5-2G.     *  Ant  ,  xviii.  4.  1. 


366  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

in  its  purity.  On  the  day  appointed,  thousands  gathered 
between  Ebal  and  Gerizim.  l^ew  caravans  continually 
brought  fresh  numbers  to  Tirabatha,  the  village  named  by 
the  prophet  as  the  rendezvous,  till  the  matter  became  serious 
in  its  possible  political  results,  since  the  "  elders  "  of  the 
people  identified  themselves  with  the  movement.  Pilate  was 
alarmed,  fearing  that  the  multitude  might  be  easily  led  from 
a  search  for  the  sacred  vessels  to  open  sedition.  His  brutal- 
ity had,  in  fact,  already  prepared  them  for  it.1  He  there- 
fore forbade  the  pilgrimage,  and  placed  posts  of  foot  and 
horse  at  all  the  approaches  to  Gerizim,  to  prevent  any  one 
ascending  it.  But  the  vast  crowds,  many  of  whom  were 
armed,  would  not  be  baulked,  and  tried  to  force  their  way  to 
the  sacred  spot.  Pilate,  on  this,  ordered  the  troops  to  disperse 
them ;  fierce  fighting  followed,  in  which  many  were  killed, 
the  rest  taking  to  flight ;  the  principal  men  among  the 
prisoners,  taken  during  or  after  the  battle,  being  put  to 
death.* 

This  tragical  incident  took  place  a  few  years  after  John's 
appearance,2  but  it  was  of  a  piece  with  the  popular  feeling 
respecting  the  Messianic  kingdom  which  was  mixed  up  with 
the  politics  of  the  day.  John  kept  entirely  aloof  from  such 
views.  If,  as  a  Jew,  he  hoped  that  Israel  would  hereafter  be 
exalted  tinder  the  Messiah,  he  left  that  for  future  disclo- 
sure, and  confined  himself  exclusively  to  the  moral  and 
spiritual.  He  was  no  political  agitator,  no  revolutionary, 
like  Judas  the  Galilaean :  his  Messianic  kingdom,  like  that 
of  Jesus,  was,  at  least  for  the  time,  a  kingdom  not  of  this 
world.3 

1  Ant.t  xviii.  4.  2. 

1  A.D.  35.    Soon  after  the  Crucifixion ;  some,  however,  think  it  hap- 
pened aLout  the  time  of  Christ's  death. 
•  John  xviii.  36. 


CHAPTER  XXV. 
THE  NEW  PEOPHET  IN  THE  WILDERNESS. 

IN  the  fifteenth  year  of  Tiberius,  which  fell  between  August, 
A.D.  28,  and  August,  A.D.  29,  the  Roman  empire  lay  under 
the  shadow  of  the  darkest  years  of  the  tyrant,  now  an  old 
man  of  seventy-one.  Among  those  alive  at  the  time,  and 
remembered  since,  for  good  or  evil,  the  elder  Pliny1 — after- 
wards, when  a  Roman  admiral,  killed  at  the  first  eruption,  in 
historical  times,  of  Mount  Vesuvius — was  a  child  of  four; 
Vespasian,2  hereafter,  with  his  son  Titus,  to  crush  Jerusalem, 
was  full  of  the  ambitions  and  dreams  of  a  youth  of  19  ;  Cali- 
gula,3 one  day  to  horrify  the  world  by  the  spectacle  of  an  in- 
sane despot  at  the  head  of  the  empire,  was  a  lad  of  16;  Claud- 
ius thereafter  to  be  emperor,  was  a  poor,  lame,  trembling  man 
of  38,  and  among  the  marriages  of  the  year  was  that  of  the 
daughter  of  the  ill-fated  Germanicus,  from  which,  nine  years 
later,  was  born  NERO.  Things  were  very  peaceful  throughout 
the  empire,  for  the  only  wars  at  the  moment  were  with  the 
Thracians,  on  the  east  of  Europe,  and  with  the  Frisians,  in  the 
Dutch  swamps  on  the  north-west.  Pontius  Pilate  had  been 
two  years  procurator  of  Samaria,  Judea,  and  Idumea,  Herod 
Antipas  had  reigned  for  about  thirty-two  years  over  Galilee 
and  Samaria,  and  was  now  a  man  of  about  50,  and  Philip 
his  brother,  about  the  same  age,  and  of  the  same  standing  as  a 
ruler,  was  still  tetrach  of  the  rest  of  the  land  beyond  the 
Jordan ;  living  a  quiet  life,  usefully  and  worthily. 

Excepting  the  religious  rising  of  Judas,  and  the  other 
confusions  after  Herod's  death,  and  at  the  time  of  the  census 
by  Quirinius,  Palestine  had  enjoyed  nominal  peace  for  nearly 
sixty  years.5  New  cities  and  towns,  with  all  the  elegancies 
and  splendour  of  Roman  civilization,  had  risen  over  the 
land  — Ccesarea,  with  its  docks,  piers,  warehouses,  and  broad 

1  Born  A.D.  24.  a  Born  A.D.  9.  3  Born  A.D.  12. 

4  Born  B.C.  10.        5  Since  B.C.  29. 


368  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

streets,  on  wliicli  a  splendid  temple  to  Augustus,  seen  far  off 
at  sea,  looked  down.  In  Jerusalem,  the  Temple,  four  huge 
castles,  the  theatre,  the  circus,  and  Herod's  new  palace,  had 
been  built.  Samaria  had  been  restored  with  great  splendour, 
and  re-named  Sebaste,  the  Greek  equivalent  of  Augusta,  after 
the  Emperor.  The  old  Kaphar  Saba,  on  the  inner  edge  of 
the  sea  plain,  behind  Joppa,  had  been  rebuilt,  and  re-named 
Antipatris,  after  Herod's  father.  Near  Jericho,  two  towns — 
Kypros,  named  after  Herod's  mother,  and  Phasaelis,  after 
his  brother, — had  been  founded.  Anthedon,  close  to  Gaza,  on 
the  sea  coast,  had  been  raised  from  its  ruins,  and  called 
Agrippeion,  after  Agrippa,  the  son-in-law  of  Augustus.  Two 
great  fortresses  had  risen,  called  Herodion,  after  Herod, — 
one  in  the  hills  on  the  south  border,  the  other,  three  hours 
from  Jerusalem,  at  the  head  of  the  descent  to  the  Jordan 
valley,  where  Herod  had  once  had  a  sore  sti'uggle  with  the 
rebellious  Jews  who  pursued  him.  The  passion  of  Augustus 
for  obliterating  the  traces  of  the  great  civil  wars  throughout 
the  empire,  had  everywhere  been  flattered  by  creations  which 
at  once  beautified  the  land,  and  defiled  it  by  their  heathen 
accessories.  In  the  far  north,  Philip,  after  his  father's  death, 
had  restored  Paneas,  in  the  green  lap  of  Mount  Hermon,  and 
called  it  Cassarea  Philippi,  in  flattery  of  the  emperor,  and  on 
the  north-east  of  the  Sea  of  Galilee,  he  had  embellished  the 
old  Bethsaida,  and  re-named  it  Julias,  after  the  daughter  of 
Augustus.  In  Galilee,  Herod  Antipas  had  rebuilt  Sepphoris, 
and  surrounded  its  hill  with  strong  walls ;  in  the  sheltered 
green  plain  opposite  Jericho — the  "  Valley  of  the  Acacias," 
of  the  days  of  Joshua1 — he  had  built  a  fine  town  known  as 
Livias,  in  compliment  to  the  unworthy  wife  of  Augustus,  and 
within  the  last  ten  years  he  had  founded  the  splendid  new 
capital  on  the  shores  of  the  Lake  of  Galilee,  and  called  it 
Tiberias,  after  the  new  emperor.  Even  the  gross  and  sensual 
Archelaus  had  copied  to  some  extent  his  father's  example, 
for  a  new  town  had  risen  on  the  west  side  of  the  Jordan, 
amidst  palm  groves  elaborately  irrigated,  and  named  after 
himself,  Archelais. 

The  "  Roman  peace  "  which  was  destined  to  prepare  the 
way  for  Christianity,  by  breaking  down  the  barriers  between 
nations,  and  fusing  the  civilized  world,  for  the  time,  into  one 
mig-hty  commonwealth,  had  thus  borne  fruits  on  all  sides, 
though  misgovernment  was  silently  undermining  the  whole 

1  Alel-Shittim.      D^g>n  *??.     Num.  xxxiii.  49. 


THE  PAKTHIAN  CAVALRY.  369 

imperial  system.  The  East  was  in  profound  peace.  The 
Parthian  cavalry  hosts,  who  were  the  terror  of  the  age,  had 
not  watered  their  horses  in  the  Euphrates,  or  dared  to  cross 
it,  for  two  generations.1  But  they  still  swarmed  over  the 
plains  of  Parthia,  and  only  waited  the  orders  of  the  court  of 
Ctesiphon,  to  dash  in  on  the  exposed  territory  of  Palestine. 
Four  legions,  held  in  reserve  in  Syria,  and  a  strong  line  of 
military  posts  along  the  Euphrates, — at  the  thought  of  being 
ordered  to  which  the  Roman  military  youth  shuddered,  as  a 
banishment  from  the  world,2 — barely  sufficed  to  hold  these 
fierce  Cossacks  of  the  age  in  check.  The  terror  they  had 
inspired  in  their  last  invasion  was  still  unabated,  for  even  St. 
John,  forty  years  later,  in  the  Apocalypse,3  saw  four  destroy- 
ing angels  bound  in  the  great  river  Euphrates,  who  were 
loosed  to  slay  the  third  part  of  men.  Two  hundred  thousand 
horsemen,  in  fiery  blue  and  brimstone-coloured  mail,  rode 
forth  through  the  dried  up  river-bed,  an  army  of  hell,  to 
destroy  mankind — symbols  taken,  unquestionably,  from  the 
remembrance  of  the  Parthians.  The  Roman  historians  use 
language  hardly  less  striking  of  the  endless  rushing  swarms 
of  wild  cavalry — their  terrible  shouts,  like  the  bellowing  of 
beasts,  and  the  hideous  clamour  of  countless  drums,  like  the 
noise  of  thunder;  their  breastplates  and  helmets  of  steel 
glittering  like  lightning,  their  horses  covered  with  brass  and 
steel  trappings,  the  faces  of  the  soldiers  painted,  and  their 
shaggy  hair  gathered  in  a  mass  upon  their  foreheads,  after 
the  Scythian  fashion.  Their  dreadful  lances,  their  feigned 
retreats,  their  resistless  arrows,  the  clouds  of  dust  they  raised 
by  their  charges,  hiding  the  battle-field, — their  spears,  their 
slings,  their  blazing  banners,  gleaming  with  gold  and  silver,4 
are  all  recounted.  John  and  Jesus,  doubtless,  had  both  often 
heard  from  the  men  of  the  generation  before  them,  how  these 
awful  enemies  had  wasted  the  land  once  and  again,  swarm- 
ing on  their  lean  and  untiring  steppe  horses  through  every 
valley,  murdering,  violating,  burning,  and  plundering,  for 
their  squadrons  of  "  Immortals  "  and  "  Freemen,"  especially, 
remained  the  terror  of  after  years,  as  the  symbol  of  treachery, 
greed,  and  ruthless  brutality. 

It  was  in  such  a  state  of  things  that  John  at  last  came 
forth  from  his  retreat,  as  a  prophet  to  his  nation.  The  near- 
ness of  the  wilderness  of  Judea  to  Jerusalem,  and  the  dense 

1  Since  B.C.  38.  8  Horat.  Od.,  ii.  13 ;  i.  12,  19. 

8  Ch.  ix.  14  S.  «  Pint.  Crassus,  ii.  331. 

25 


370  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

population  on  every  side  of  it,  had  no  doubt  led  many  to  risit 
him  from  time  to  time ;  for  the  report  of  a  hermit  of  special 
sanctity,  living  in  any  particular  oistrict,  invariably  attracted 
many  to  see  him  and  receive  his  counsels.  He  made  his  first 
public  appearance  on  the  Lower  Jordan. 

Two  hours  east  of  the  wretched  village  which  is  the  Jericho 
of  the  present,  but  three  hours  from  the  site  of  the  city 
of  John's  day,  and  eight  or  nine  hours  from  Jerusalem, 
the  Jordan  flows  with  a  quick  current  towards  the  Dead  Sea, 
which  is  in  sight,  close  at  hand.  Rising  in  the  spurs  of 
Lebanon,  and  gathering  tributary  springs  and  brooks  at 
Caesarea  Philippi, — from  which  Christ  set  out  on  His  last 
journey  to  Jerusalem — flowing,  ere  long,  through  the  pear- 
shaped,  marshy  Sea  of  Merom,  and  then  through  the  lovely 
Lake  of  Galilee,  the  course  of  the  stream,  from  its  leaving 
the  lake  to  its  passing  Jericho,  is  only  sixty  English  miles 
in  a  direct  line,  but  two  hundred  if  we  follow  its  countless 
twistings  and  turnings.  Near  Jericho  it  has  a  breadth  of 
from  ninety  to  a  hundred  feet,  and  a  varying  depth  of  from 
three  to  seven,  and  hence  can  be  forded  easily,  except  during 
the  time  of  floods,  in  spring,  autumn,  and  winter,  when  to 
attempt  to  cross  is  very  dangerous.1  It  was  at  this  part  of 
the  Jordan  that  Vespasian's  soldiers,  in  the  last  war,  drove 
such  multitudes  of  the  Jews  into  the  stream,  when  swollen  by 
spring  floods,  that  "  the  river  could  not  be  passed  over  on 
account  of  the  dead  bodies  that  were  in  it"  (which  might 
defile  one),  "and  the  Lake  Asphaltitis  "  (the  Dead  Sea) 
"  was  also  full  of  corpses,  carried  down  into  it  by  the  river."  3 
The  waters  flowing  on  towards  the  Dead  Sea,  between  double 
banks,  marking  their  lower  and  higher  levels,  in  November 
and  April — here  muddy,  and  elsewhere  steep — covered  with 
dense  vegetation,  or  with  waving  forests  of  reeds :  the 
rounded  hills  of  Jndea  on  the  west,  giving  way  to  the  lofty 
peaks  of  Ammon  on  the  east, — made  a  scene  well  suited  for 
his  ministrations.  Dense  thickets  of  red  tamarisks,  stately 
sycamores,  with  their  white  stems  and  broad  leaves,  oaks  with 
their  dark,  massy  shadow,  bending  acacias,  pale  green  willows 
and  many-coloured  oleanders,  still  cover  the  upper  terrace, 
varied  by  long,  swampy  tracts  of  reeds,  taller  than  a  tall  man, 
on  the  lower  levels — while  over  the  former,  in  John's  day, 

1  Lord  Nugent's  Lands  Classical  and  Sacred,  pp.  100  ff.      Sepp,  Dot 
Heilige  Land,  pp.  770  ff.    Keim's  Jcsu  von  Nazara,  vol.  i.  p.  497. 
*  Jos.,  Bell.  Jud.,  iv.  7.  6. 


THE   JORDAN   VALLEY.  371 

rose  graceful  clumps  of  palms,  "  the  pride  of  Jordan," 1  in 
which  lions  found  covert  in  the  time  of  the  prophets.  The 
valley  is  about  three-quarters  of  a  mile  broad,  and  is  barren 
wherever  it  rises  beyond  the  reach  of  the  spring  floods.  Above 
it,  a  plain  of  nine  or  twelve  miles  breadth,  and  from  fifty  to 
sixty  feet  higher  than  the  ground  beneath,  stretches,  on  the 
west  side,  to  the  foot  of  the  rugged,  bare,  Jewish  hills,  which 
rise  to  the  height  of  a  thousand  or  twelve  hundred  feet  and, 
on  the  east,  to  the  hills  of  Perea,  two  thousand  to  five 
thousand  feet  high.  This  plain,  the  barren  background  to  a 
fringe  of  verdure,  is  the  once  famous  "  circle  of  the  Jordan,'" 
where  Sodom  and  other  towns  flourished,  till  volcanic  forces, 
as  instruments  of  the  wrath  of  GFod,  destroyed  them.  It  is 
now  known  by  the  name  El  Ghor,  and  is  a  vast,  sandy,  barren 
expanse,  hot  as  a  furnace,  and  very  unhealthy  in  summer, 
from  the  depth  of  the  Jordan  gorge  beneath  the  sea-level. 
Hence,  in  the  time  of  John,  it  formed  a  strong  contrast  to  the 
green  paradise  on  the  western  bank, — "  the  divine  land," 
immediately  around  Jericho,  the  city  of  palms  and  roses, — 
as  it  still  does  to  the  rich  fringe  of  vegetation  skirting  the 
waters,  on  the  eastern  side  of  the  river,  but  vanishing  like  a 
dream  at  only  a  few  paces  from  them.b 

It  was  in  this  region,  beside  the  flowing  stream,  with  the 
wild,  stony  hills  shutting  in  the  view  on  both  sides ;  in  a 
landscape  where  the  narrow  limits  of  the  yearly  floods  drew 
a  sharp  line  between  tropical  luxuriance  and  the  scorched 
and  desert  barrenness  beyond,  that  John — of  whom  Jesus 
could  say,  in  allusion  to  the  waving  cane  beds  on  the  river's 
edge,  that  he  was  no  reed  shaken  in  the  wind,  but  in  very 
truth,  Elias  who  was  to  come,  a  prophet,  and  much  more 
than  a  prophet — lifted  up  his  voice  as  the  messenger  before 
the  face  of  God's  Anointed,  to  prepare  His  way.2  The 
appearance  of  John  was  itself  sufficient  to  arrest  attention. 
His  spare  form,  attenuated  by  meagre  food  and  austerity : 
his  bright  Jewish  eyes,  full  of  the  living  energy  that  burned 
within :  his  long  hair,  uncut  for  thirty  years,  the  mark  of 
Nazarite  consecration :  his  rough  haircloth  garment,0  and 
his  coarse  leathern  girdle,  made  him  the  ideal  of  one  of  the 
ancient  prophets.  The  Scriptures  described  the  greatest  of 

1  Jer.  xii.  5  ;  xlix.  19  ;  1.  44.       Zech.  xi.  3.      The  word   JlN'J  (garni)— 
pride,  glory — is  wrongly  translated  in  the  English  version,  swellings. 

2  Matt.  xi.  7;   xi.  14;  xi.  9,  10;  xvii.  11.     Mark  ix.  12.     Luke  vii. 
2G,  27. 


372  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

the  prophets — Elijah  the  Tishbite,  whom  all  expected  to 
reappear  before  the  Messiah — in  exactly  such  a  guise  as  John 
presented — "  a  long-haired  man,  wearing  a  leathern  girdle ;  "  l 
and  they  knew  from  the  lessons  in  the  synagogue,  if  they 
had  not  read  it  for  themselves,  that  the  rough  haircloth 
mantle  had  been  the  common  dress  of  the  old  prophets  as  a 
class.2  It  was  also,  even  then,3  that  of  grief  and  contrition ; 
adding  to  its  associations  with  the  sacred  past  an  appeal  to 
their  own  sense  of  guilt  and  need  of  repentance. 

The  idea  of  the  wilderness  was  sacred  to  the  Jews.  "  From 
it,"  say  the  Rabbis,  "  came  the  Law,  the  Tabernacle,  the 
Sanhedrim,  the  priesthood,  and  the  office  of  the  Levites. 
Even  the  kingship,  and,  indeed,  every  good  gift  which  God 
granted  Israel,  came  from  the  desert."4  The  invitation  of 
the  people  to  it  was  in  itself  significant,  for  it  recalled  the 
words  of  Isaiah — "  Prepare  ye  the  way  of  the  Lord,  make 
straight  in  the  desert  a  highway  for  our  God."  5  In  connec- 
tion with  the  expectation  of  the  Messiah,  its  influence  was 
immense.  It  was  by  relying  on  its  weight  with  the  people, 
that  Theudas,  a  wild  visionary,  who  assumed  the  part  of  a 
prophet  some  years  after  the  Crucifixion,6  persuaded  the 
multitudes  to  follow  him,  as  a  second  Moses,  over  the  Jordan, 
to  the  wilderness,  where  he  promised  to  perform  miracles, 
and  assured  them  that  God  would  appear  to  deliver  His 
people.  Josephus  speaks  also  of  others  who  induced  the 
people  to  go  out  with  them  into  the  desert,  "  where,  through 
the  help  of  God, they  would  work  open  signs  and  wonders,"7 
and  Jesus  Himself  thought  it  necessary,  before  leaving  His 
disciples,  to  warn  them  that  "  when  it  was  said  the  Christ 
was  in  the  wilderness,  they  were  not  to  go  out  thither." 8 
The  nation  was  daily  expecting  the  appearance  of  "  the  wise 
and  perfect  prophet,"  who  should  bring  back  the  lost  Urim 
and  Thummim,  "  restore  the  tribes  of  Israel,  turn  the  hearts 
of  the  fathers  to  the  children,  reprove  the  times,  and  appease 
the  wrath  of  God,  before  it  broke  out  in  fury."9  Since' 
Ezra's  daj  s  the  feeling  had  grown  even  deeper,  that  repen- 
tance alone  could  save  Israel.  "  If  we  repented  but  one  day," 
said  the  Rabbis,  "  the  Messiah  would  appear."  He  was  to 

1  2  Kings  i.  8.  2  Eev.  xi.  3. 

1  2  Kings  vi.  30.     Job  xvi.  15.     1  Kings  xxi.  27. 

4  Schir.  Ilasch.,  r.  f.  13. 13.    Quoted  by  Sepp,  Leben  Jesu,  vol.  ii.  p.  44. 

*  Isaiah  xi.  3.  8  in  the  reign  of  Claudius,  A.D.  46. 

'  Ant.,  xx.  5.  1 ;  8.  6.  s  Matt.  xxiv.  26. 

9  Ecclus.  xlviii.  10.     Megillath  Taanith,  c.  8. 


THE   JEWISH  IDEAL   OF  A  PROPHET.  373 

lead  all  men  back  to  God  by  repentance.1  "  As  long  as  Israel 
does  not  repent,  it  cannot  expect  the  Savionr,"  said  Rabbi 
Juda.2  But  this  repentance  would  not  happen  till  Elijah 
had  come,  in  fulfilment  of  the  prediction  of  Malachi,  and  he 
was  not  to  do  so  till  three  days  before  the  appearance  of  the 
Messiah,  when  his  voice  would  proclaim  from  one  end  of  the 
earth  to  the  other — "  Salvation  cometh  into  the  world."  3 

A  prophet,  in  the  Jewish  point  of  view,  was  less  a  seei 
than  a  fearless  preacher,  from  whom,  to  use  the  words  ol 
Clement  of  Alexandria,  the  truth  shone  forth,  as  the  light 
streams  from  the  sun.4  He  might  reveal  the  future,  but  his 
great  characteristic  was,  that  he  was  the  mouthpiece  of  God, 
to  utter,  by  resistless  impulse,  the  rebukes  or  commands  of 
the  Almighty,6  as  His  ambassador,  and  the  interpreter  of 
His  will  to  men.  John  realized  this  ideal.  He  startled  the 
people  by  demanding  repentance,  if  they  would  escape  the 
close  approaching  wrath  of  God.  The  Kingdom  of  Heaven  6 
— a  phrase  familiar  to  them  from  the  language  of  Daniel,  of 
the  Psalms  of  Solomon,7  and  of  other  books  then  in  wide 
circulation — was  at  hand,  and  would  bring  with  it  the  terrors 
of  heaven.  The  conscience  of  the  masses  was  roused.  It 
had  sunk  to  sleep  under  Pharisaic  formalism,  Roman  oppres- 
sion, and  Sadducean  indifference.  John's  voice  sounded  like 
a  trumpet  to  alarm  them.  The  popular  excitement  spread. 
Though  he  kept  aloof  from  Jerusalem  and  the  thickly  peopled 
districts,  the  note  he  had  struck  vibrated  through  the  whole 
land.  Crowds  gathered  in  daily  greater  numbers  from  Jeru- 
salem, Judea,  and  the  wide  uplands  of  Perea.8  It  seemed, 
indeed,  as  if  he  were  the  promised  Elias,  the  herald  of  the 
Messiah.  Intensely  real,  he  spoke  nothing  of  Levitical  rites 
or  sacrifices,  or  of  the  Rabbis,  but  demanded  that  the  Law 
should  be  applied  to  the  conscience,  and  carried  out  in  the 
life.  A  spiritual  preparation  would  alone  avert  the  coming 
wrath.  A  second  Elijah,  in  spirit  as  well  as  outward  appear- 
ance, and,  like  him,  witnessing  in  evil  times,  he  came  to 
throw  doAvn,  not  to  build ;  to  startle,  not  to  instruct ;  to  use 

1  Midrasch  on  Song  of  Sol.  vii.  4.    Nork,  Rabbinische  Quellen,  p.  15. 
Jerusalem  Talmud,  Taanith,  fol.  Ixiv.  1. 

2  The  Rabbis,  quoted  by  Nork,  p.  16. 

3  Eisenmenger,  Judenthum  Entdccktes,  vol.  ii.  p.  696. 

4  Clement.  Horn.,  ii.  6. 

*  &023  (nabi),  a  prophet,  from  X23  (naba),  to  boil  up,  or  boil  forth— 
hence  to  pour  forth  words  with  the  fervour  and  inspiration  of  a  prophet. 
6  Dan.  vii.  18.  *  Ps.  Sal.  xvii.  4.  8  Matt.  Hi.  5.     Mark  i.  5. 


374  THE   LIFE   OF   CHKIST. 

the  axe,  not  the  trowel.  The  approach  of  the  judgments  of 
which  the  last  of  the  prophets  had  spoken, — when  the  indig- 
nation of  God  would  bum  as  an  oven,1  and  the  proud  and 
the  wicked  should  be  as  stubble,  and  be  burned  up  till  there 
was  left  neither  root  nor  branch, — was  his  great  theme.  He 
added,  however,  the  comforting  assurance  of  the  prophet, 
that  to  those  who  feared  the  name  of  the  Lord  of  Hosts,  tho 
Sun  of  Righteousness  should  rise,  with  healing  in  His  wing- 
like  beams.  The  whole  strain  of  Malachi  was,  indeed,  only 
an  anticipation  of  John's  preaching.  "  The  Lord,  whom  ye 
seek,  even  the  messenger 'of  the  covenant,  whom  ye  delight 
in,  shall  come,  saith  the  Lord  of  Hosts.  But  who  may  abide 
the  day  of  His  coming?  And  who  shall  stand  when  He 
appeareth  ?  For  He  is  like  a  refiner's  fire,  and  like  fuller's 
soap.  And  He  shall  sit  as  a  refiner  and  purifier  of  silver ; 
and  He  shall  purify  the  sons  of  Levi,  and  purge  them  as 
gold  and  silver ;  and  He  will  be  a  swift  witness  against  the 
sorcerers,  and  the  adulterers,  and  the  false  swearers,  and 
against  those  that  oppress  the  hireling  in  his  wages,  the 
widow,  and  the  fatherless,  and  that  turn  aside  the  stranger 
from  his  right,  and  fear  not  Me,  saith  the  Lord  of  Hosts."  2 
Like  all  the  prophets,  his  message  was  one  of  wrath,  and  yet, 
like  theirs,  it  had  a  conditional  promise  of  Divine  love  and 
pity.  As  befitted  his  office,  he  seemed  ordained,  like  Elijah, 
to  reprove  his  times,  for  like  him,  "  he  was  unmoved  before 
the  face  of  man,  neither  could  any  bring  him  into  subjec- 
tion. 

With  the  call  to  repent,  John  united  a  significant  rite  for 
all  who  were  willing  to  admit  their  sins,  and  promise  amend- 
ment of  life.  It  was  the  new  and  etriking  requirement  of 
baptism,  which  John  had  been  sent  by  Divine  appointment  to 
introduce.  The  Mosaic  ritual  had  indeed  required  washings, 
and  purifications,  but  they  were  mostly  personal  acts  for 
cleansing  from  ceremonial  defilements,  and  were  repeated  as 
often  as  new  uncleanness  demanded.  But  baptism  was  per- 
formed only  once,  and  those  who  sought  it  had  to  receive  it 
from  the  hands  of  John.  The  old  rites  and  requirements  of 
the  Pharisees  would  not  content  him.  A  new  symbol  was 
needed,  striking  enough  to  express  the  vastness  of  the  change 
he  demanded,  and  to  form  its  fit  beginning,  and  yet  simple 
enough  to  be  easily  applied  to  the  whole  people;  for  all, 
alike,  needed  to  break  with  the  past,  and  to  enter  on  the 

1  Mai.  iv.  i.  »  Mai.  iii.  1-3,  5.  »  Ecclus.  xlviii.  12. 


THE   BAPTISM   OF  JOHN.  375 

life  of  spiritual  effort  lie  proclaimed.  Washing  had,  in  all 
ages,  been  used  as  a  religious  symbol,  and  an  impressive  form. 
Naaman's  leprosy  had  been  cleansed  away  in  the  waters  of 
the  Jordan.1  The  priests  in  the  Temple  practised  constant 
ablutions,  and  others  were  required  daily  from  the  people  at 
large,  to  remove  ceremonial  impurity.  David  had  prayed, 
"  W^ash  me  from  mine  iniquity."  2  Isaiah  had  cried,  "  Wash 
ye,  make  you  clean,  put  away  the  evil  of  your  doings."  3 
Ezekiel  had  told  his  countrymen,  to  "  wash  their  hearts  from 
wickedness."4  Ablution  in  the  East,  is  indeed,  of  itself, 
almost  a  religious  duty.  The  dust  and  heat  weigh  upon  the 
spirits  and  heart  like  a  load ;  its  removal  is  refreshment  and 
happiness.  It  was,  hence,  impossible  to  see  a  convert  go 
down  into  a  stream,  travel- worn  and  soiled  with  dust,  and, 
after  disappearing  for  a  moment,  emerge  pure  and  fresh, 
without  feeling  that  the  symbol  suited  and  interpreted  a 
strong  craving  of  the  human  heart.5  It  was  no  formal  rite 
with  John.  "  He  was  a  good  man,"  says  Josephus,6  "  and 
urged  the  Jews  who  were  willing  to  live  worthily,  and  to 
show  uprightness  one  to  another,  and  piety  towards  God,  to 
be  baptized.  For  baptism  was  approved  of  by  him,  not  as  a 
means  of  obtaining  pardon  for  some  sins  only,  but  for  the 
purity  of  the  whole  body,  when  the  soul  had  been  cleansed 
beforehand  by  righteousness."  On  baptism,  in  itself,  he  set 
no  mysterious  sacramental  value.  It  was  only  water,7  a 
mere  emblem  of  the  purification  required  in  the  life  and 
heart,  and  needed  an  after  baptism  by  the  Holy  Spirit.  No 
one  could  receive  it  till  he  had  proved  his  sincerity,  by  a 
humble  public  confession  of  his  sins.8  Baptism  then  became 
a  moral  vow,  to  show,  by  a  better  life,  that  the  change  of 
heart d  was  genuine. 

Bathing  in  Jordan  had  been  a  sacred  symbol,  at  least,  since 
the  days  of  Naaman ;  but  immersion  by  one  like  John,  with 
open  and  contrite  sorrow  for  sin,  sacred  vows  of  amendment, 
and  hope  of  forgiveness,  if  these  proved  lasting,  and  all 
this  in  preparation  for  the  Messiah,  was  something  wholly 
new  in  Israel.  It  marked,  in  the  most  striking  way,  the 
wonderful  moral  revolution  which  had  taken  place  in  the 
hearts  of  the  people.  If,  as  a  school  of  the  Rabbis  contend, 
it  was  even  then  the  custom  to  baptize  proselytes  on  their 

1  2  Kings  v.  10.        2  Ps.  li.  9.        8  Isaiah  i.  16.        4  Ezek.  xxiii.  40. 

§  Robertson's  Scrmnns,  vol.  i.  p.  120.  6  Ant  ,  xviii.  5.  2. 

7  Mark  i.  8.     Matt.  iii.  11.    Luke  iii.  16.          •  Matt,  iii:  6.     Mark  i.  6. 


376  THE   LIFE   OP  CHRIST. 

forsaking  heathenism,  and  seeking  admission  to  the  com- 
munion of  Israel,  the  attitude  of  John  towards  the  nation 
was  startling,  and  their  submission  to  the  rite  a  still 
greater  proof  of  His  power  over  the  popular  mind.  Jn  this 
case,  it  was  no  less  than  the  treatment  of  Israel  as  if  it  had 
become  heathen,  and  needed  to  seek  entrance  again,  on  no 
higher  footing  than  a  Gentile  convert,  to  the  privileges  it 
had  lost. 

But  he  did  not  leave  them  to  their  own  unaided  efforts 
after  purity.  Had  he  merely  summoned  them  to  "  flee  from 
the  wrath  to  come,"  he  would  have  driven  them  to  despair. 
Had  he  invited  them  to  baptism,  and  then  left  them  to 
their  own  efforts  after  holiness,  he  would  have  mocked  them 
by  an  impossible  task  ;  for  man,  if  he  look  no  higher  than  him- 
self, can  never  become  pure.  Avowing  this,  he  gave  meaning 
and  promise  to  his  command  and  invitation,  by  pointing  them 
to  the  coming  Messiah,  the  Lamb  of  God,  who  should  take 
away  the  sins  of  the  world.1 

It  must  have  been  a  strange  scene,  and  it  remained  long  in 
the  popular  memory.  "  What  went  ye  out  into  the  wilder- 
ness to  see  ?  A  man  clothed  in  soft  raiment  ?  "  asked  Jesus, 
in  later  months.  The  sudden  apparition  of  a  "  saint,"  whose 
life,  for  years,  had  been  spent  in  "  the  house  of  thirst,  where 
demons  and  dragons  howl,"  was  fitted  to  startle  the  whole 
community,  already  excited  to  the  uttermost.  Men  of  all 
classes  gathered  to  listen  to  the  new  prophet.  The  move- 
ment, at  first  local,  gradually  spread  through  "  the  whole 
nation." 3  The  nearer  districts — Jerusalem,  Judea,  and 
Perea — gathered  first.  Ere  long,  the  excitable  Galilaeans,  as 
far  as  Lebanon  and  the  East  Jordan  country,  caught  the  en- 
thusiasm, and  moved  towards  the  Jordan  valley.  Caravans, 
with  their  numerous  beasts,  must  have  covered  the  Galilaean 
and  Jewish  roads,  all  wending  to  the  one  centre.  Men  left 
their  work  or  their  calling ;  the  keen  trader,  the  Roman  tax- 
collector,  and  the  native  and  foreign  soldier e  among  them. 
Every  rank  was  represented.  All  that  was  noble,  and  all 
that  was  base  in  Israel ;  the  holy  and  the  worldly  ;  the  pure 
and  the  corrupt ;  the  earnest  and  the  false ;  the  friends  of 
R<  me  and  its  enemies,  mingled  in  the  throng.  Supercil- 
ious Rabbis,  long-robed  Pharisees,  cold  and  courtly  Saddu- 
cees,  priestly  dignitaries,  circumspect  Levites,  grey-haired 
elders  of  the  people  ;  the  rich  farmer  with  full  barns,  and 

1  F.  W:  -Robertson,  vol.  i.  p.  121.  «  Luke  xx.  6. 


THE   PEEACHING  OF  JOHN.  377 

the  poor  peasant;  soldiers  of  the  Tetrarch  Antipas,  from 
Perea ;  perhaps,  also,  proselytes  from  the  Roman  garrison 
at  Jerusalem,  more  disposed  to  accept  baptism  in  the  Jordan 
than  circumcision ;  publicans — born  Jews,  but  despised  and 
hated,  alike  for  their  calling  and  their  unjust  exactions — 
found  themselves  together.  Israelitish  women,  also,  were  not 
wanting,  and  among  them,  not  a  few  outcasts  of  the  com- 
munity— servants  of  vice.1  All  sought  part  in  the  salvation 
of  Israel,  or  at  least,  wished  to  seem  interested  in  it — even 
the  classes  thrust  back  as  unclean  by  the  Pharisees  and 
Essenes.  Some  longed  to  lay  hold  of  it,  others  came  only 
to  look,  criticize,  and  gossip,  or  report  to  the  authorities. 

Everything  was  so  new,  so  startling,  so  impressive — the 
wilderness,  the  stream,  the  solemn  hills,  a  prophet  appear- 
ing, after  more  than  five  hundred  years.  His  right  to  reject 
and  denounce  the  whole  present,  in  the  name  of  God,  was 
now,  as  always  with  prophets  in  the  past,  universally  ac- 
knowledged. His  words,  his  baptismal  symbol,  the  king- 
dom he  preached,  the  Messias  whom  he  announced  as  at 
hand,  the  very  multitudes  assembled,  the  visible  emotion,  the 
evident  good  effected,  the  contrition  of  the  most  sunken 
classes — the  publicans  and  harlots — all  showed  that  the 
whole  nation  believed  in  him.2  From  the  rite  advanced 
with  such  prominence,  he  was  known  as  "  the  Baptist,"  but 
many  gave  him  the  name  of  Teacher,3  and  even  that  of 
Prophet.4  He  did  not  claim  to  perform  miracles,  like  Elijah, 
but  his  word  had  a  wonderful  power — his  very  baptism 
seemed  to  be  "  from  heaven  "  5 — and,  even  after  his  imprison- 
ment and  death,  the  people  maintained,  with  passionate 
tenacity,  against  the  petty  carpings  of  the  priesthood,  that  he 
was,  indeed,  a  prophet. 

Many  even  questioned  whether  he  were  not  the  Messiah, 
or  at  least,  "  the  prophet  like  Moses,"  whom  they  expected.6 
He  swayed  the  masses  by  his  words,  at  his  will,7  and  might 
have  made  any  political  use  of  them  he  chose,  had  he  been 
so  minded. 

As  the  influence  of  the  movement  spread  in  ever-widening 
circles  over  the  nation,  it  became  impossible  for  the  self- 
sufficient  authorities  at  Jerusalem  to  ignore  it.  The  reli- 
gious instruction  of  the  people  was  their  prerogative.  They 

1  Matt.  iii.  7  ;  xxi.  32  (harlots).    Luke  Hi.  10  ff.     John  i.  19  ff. 
8  Matt.  xxi.  26.  8  Luke  iii.  12.  4  Matt.  xi.  9  ;  xxi.  26. 

6  Matt.  xxi.  25.  •  Luke  iii.  15.    John  i.  19  ft. 

*  Jos.,  Ant.,  xviii.  5.  2. 


378  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

claimed  to  sit  in  the  seat  of  Moses  and  to  have  the  key  of 
knowledge,1  and  it  was  against  the  rule  for  any  one  to  teach 
who  had  not  their  authority,2  confirmed  by  formal  ordina- 
tion.* A  deputation  of  priests  and  Levites  of  the  Pharisee 
party  was,  therefore,  deputed  to  go  to  the  Jordan,  and  inter- 
rogate this  new  leader  of  the  people  as  to  his  claims.  Was 
he  the  Christ  ?  or  was  he  Elias  ?  or  was  he  the  expected 
prophet  ?  3  Without  a  momentary  hesitation  of  vanity  or  Am- 
bition, from  the  possibility,  with  his  vast  popular  support,  of 
playing  a  great  part,  his  manly  truthfulness  repudiated  the 
right  to  any  of  these  names.  With  the  whole  nation  under 
his  influence,  and  regarded  by  them  with  the  reverent  awe 
which  such  questions  and  suggestions  hint,  his  lofty  soul 
retained  its  grand  simplicity.  "He  was  only  the  voice  of  one 
crying  in  the  wilderness,  make  straight  the  way  of  the 
Lord,  as  saith  the  prophet  Esaias."  4 

Nor  is  it  wonderful  that  his  mission  had  such  amazing 
success.  Men  honour  a  lofty  and  fearless  soul,  seeking  no 
selfish  object,  but  braving  all  opposition  for  the  noblest 
ends.  John  had  nothing  to  lose  but  his  life,  and  had  no  am- 
bition but  for  the  faithful  discharge  of  his  high  commission 
from  the  Almighty.  Hunger  and  thirst  and  nakedness  had 
been  his  familiar  friends,  and  he  who  had  faced  the  terrors 
of  the  deserts  so  long,  could  have  little  to  alarm  him  in  any 
human  anger.  "  What  to  him,"  asks  Edward  Irving,8  "  was 
a  scowling  Pharisee,  or  a  mocking  Sadducee,  or  a  fawning 
publican,  or  a  rough  soldier,  or  a  riotous  mob  ?  These  were 
jocund,  cheerful  sights,  to  one  who  had  roamed  amongst  the 
wild  beasts  of  the  desert,  and  in  the  midst  of  them  laid  down 
his  head  under  no  canopy,  and  with  no  defence  but  the 
canopy  and  defence  of  the  providence  of  the  Most  High. 
Around  a  man  who  can  despise  accommodations  and  con- 
veniences, and  deal  with  nature  in  ancient  simplicity  and 
independence,  and  move  amongst  her  social  and  religious 
institutions  like  a  traveller  from  another  world,  free  to 
judge,  and  censure,  and  approve,  as  having  himself  nothing 
at  stake — around  such  a  man  there  is  a  moral  grandeur 
and  authority  to  which  none  but  the  narrowest  and  most 
bigoted  minds  will  refuse  a  certain  awe  and  reverence. 
And  when  such  a  pei-sonage  assumes  to  himself  Divine 
commission,  and  publishes  new  truth  with  Divine  authority, 

1  Matt,  xxiii.  2.     Luke  xi.  52.  2  Malt.  xxi.  23. 

3  Dent,  xviii.  15.     Meier's  Kommcntar,  Job.  i.  22.         «  John  L  19,  24. 


THE   BAPTIST   ON   THE   JORDAN.  379 

anil  rebukes  all  wickedness,  and  scorns  all  consequences,  he 
takes,  by  the  natural  right  of  the  wiser,  the  bolder,  and  the 
better  man,  a  high  place  above  those  who  feel  themselves 
enslaved  and  enshackled  by  customs  which  they  despise." 

Such  was  the  mighty  movement  that  filled  all  minds,  and 
drew  the  whole  people,  by  turns,  to  the  banks  of  the 
Jordan.  Beside  the  living  waters,  between  the  solemn  hills 
on  both  sides,  and  under  the  cloudless  blue  of  an  Eastern 
sky,  stood  the  strange  figure  of  the  propliet  before  his  no 
less  striking  audience.  Like  all  great  leaders,  he  could  read 
the  characters  of  those  he  addressed.  The  smooth  varnished 
hypocrisy  of  the  Pharisee  or  Sadducee  could  not  deceive 
him.  Those  who  might  have  come  to  him  in  the  hope  to 
gain  the  inviting  promises  of  the  new  life  by  an  easy  lip 
confession,  and  a  momentary  rite,  soon  found  their  error. 
Like  Luther,  or  Latimer,  or  Knox,  he  forgot  self  in  his  grand 
fidelity.  Cold  prudence  or  timid  caution  had  no  place  in 
a  soul  so  intensely  in  earnest.  THE  TRUTH,  which  he  comes 
to  proclaim,  is  higher  than  man,  and  alone  commands  his 
homage.  His  sentences  strike,  swift  and  glittering,  like 
lightning  flashes,  amidst  the  roll  of  judgment-day  thunders. 
Each  sentence  is  vivid  with  bold  pictures  drawn  from  nature 
and  life.  He  compares  Israel  to  a  barren  fruit-tree  ready  for 
felling,  and  points  to  the  axe  already  laid  at  its  roots.  Timely 
repentance,  and  the  bringing  forth  good  fruit,  may  avert  the 
stroke,  otherwise  it  must  presently  fall,  and  the  tree  be  cast 
into  the  fire.  The  next  moment  Israel  is  a  great  threshing 
floor,  and  the  winnowing  shovel  is  at  hand  to  cleanse  it 
thoroughly,11  that  the  wheat  may  be  gathered  into  the  garner, 
and  the  chaff  burned  up  with  unquenchable  fire.  With  per- 
fect humility  he  points  all  away  from  himself,  to  the  Mightier 
One  at  hand,  for  whom  he  was  unworthy,  in  his  own 
esteem,  to  perform  the  slave  boy's  service 1  of  unloosing  and 
removing  his  sandals.  HE  would  baptize  them  with  the 
Holy  Ghost  and  with  fire — the  Holy  Ghost  to  kindle  in 
them  heavenly  grace,  if  penitent ;  fire,  to  consume  them,  if 
the  reverse.3  The  terrors  of  the  day  of  wrath  rolled  over 
his  hearers,  as  his  foremost  thought ;  sounds  of  hope  broke 
in,  like  soft  music,  only  at  intervals,  to  keep  the  contrite 
from  despair. 

1  Plut.,u.  712. 

8  See  Meyer,  De  Wette,  Lange,  Kuinoel,  in  loc.  Neandcr,  Life  of 
Christ,  p.  55. 


380  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

The  announcement  of  Divine  judgments  on  a  rebellions 
people  Avas  by  no  means  new  in  Israel,  and  of  itself  hardly 
explains  the  immense  effect  of  John's  preaching.  Its  power 
lay  in  its  depth  and  its  demands.  The  Kingdom  of  Heaven, 
which  was  at  hand,  was  not  a  mere  gift  from  above,  which 
they  might  passively  receive,  but  a  human  work,  which  they 
must  themselves  carry  out.  Merely  to  wait  in  idle  expect- 
ancy, as  in  the  past,  would  not  suffice.  N"or  would  the  idly- 
busy  trifling  of  legal  rites  and  observances.  They  must  no 
longer  trust  to  their  descent  from  Abraham,  nor  to  the  cleans- 
ing of  the  outside  of  the  platter  by  Pharisaic  strictness. 
The  coming  of  the  promised  kingdom,  to  each  hearer,  meant 
his  lifting  his  own  life  to  a  higher  plane,  by  steady  resolve 
and  effort.  Religion  must,  henceforth,  be  practical  and 
earnest :  in  the  heart  and  life,  not  in  worthless  outward 
forms  or  privileges.  The  great  truth  was  now,  once  more, 
pressed  home  to  the  conscience  of  men  that  the  true  king- 
dom of  heaven  is  in  the  renewed  soul.  It  marked  an  era  in 
the  moral  history  of  the  world,  and  Christ  Himself  has  re- 
cognised its  momentous  greatness.  "  Among  them  that  are 
born  of  women,"  said  He,  "there  has  not  risen  a  greater 
than  John  the  Baptist.  For  all  the  prophets  and  the  Law 
prophesied,  until  John.1  Till  then  it  was  future  and  distant ; 
the  object  of  eager  expectation  only.  But,  from  his  days, 
the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  gained  by  earnest  violence,  and 
men  who  straggle  earnestly  take  it  for  themselves."  John 
proclaimed  to  a  generation  that  had  forgotten  it,  the  great 
truth  that  "  the  kingdom  "  was  no  mere  external  blessedness, 
but  the  reign  of  God  in  the  soul  of  man;  that  we  must 
strive,  if  we  would  enter  into  it,  or,  to  use  the  figure  employed 
by  Jesus,  that — like  a  city  to  be  taken  by  storm, — it  was 
to  be  won  only  by  the  utmost  earnestness.  Repentance,  with 
John,  was  no  mere  formal  confession,  but  a  change  of  mind  ; 
it  included  not  only  regret  for  the  past,  but  a  new  life  for 
the  future ;  *  and  this  he  urged  so  prominently,  that  e?en 
Josephus,  a  generation  afterwards,  makes  it  a  characteristic 
of  his  preaching.2  To  the  frank  avowal  of  sins  there  was 
added  an  annihilation  of  all  self -righteousness,  whether  rest- 
ing on  Abrahamic  descent  or  attainments  in  Pharisaic  holi- 
ness, and  a  pledge  was  demanded  of  a  higher  spiritual  life 
towards  God  and  man,  involving  life-long  effort. 

His   whole   conception   of  preparation  for  the  Messianic 

1  Matt.  xi.  11.  a  AnLi  xviij.  5.  2. 


THE  JEWISH  "KINGDOM  OF  GOD."  381 

kingdom  was  new  in  Ms  age.  The  Samaritan  prophet,  who 
soon  after  summoned  the  multitudes  to  Gerizim,  relied  on 
the  wholly  external  act  of  securing  the  vessels  of  the  old 
Tabernacle,  as  an  inauguration  of  the  day  of  the  Messiah. 
The  Galilseans  were  disposed  to  demand  the  kingdom  from 
the  Romans,  sword  in  hand,  in  the  belief  that  Jehovah 
would  not  desert  His  people,  in  arms  for  His  cause.  John, 
on  the  contrary,  sought  to  prepare  for  it  by  a  moral  regene- , 
ration  of  the  community.  The  kingdom  of  God,  with  him, 
was,  like  that  of  Isaiah,  a  kingdom  of  righteousness  and 
holiness.  He  had  sat  at  the  feet  of  the  prophets,  not  of  the 
Rabbis.  He  had  sought  the  knowledge  of  the  preparation 
needed,  not,  like  the  Rabbis,  from  the  Book  of  Leviticus  ; 
not,  like  the  Zealots,  from  the  warlike  records  of  the  Macca- 
bees ;  nor,  like  the  Essenes,  from  mystic  revelations  ;  but 
from  Isaiah.  His  whole  preaching  was  only  a  variation  of 
that  of  the  great  prophet,  in  the  opening  of  his  book — "Wash 
you,  make  you  clean  ;  put  away  the  evil  of  your  doings  from 
before  Mine  eyes ;  cease  to  do  evil,  learn  to  do  well :  seek 
judgment,  relieve  the  oppressed,  judge  the  fatherless,  plead 
for  the  widow."1  He  says  nothing  of  an  earthly  kingdom, 
or  political  glory.  The  sins  that  had  separated  between 
them  and  God  must  be  removed,  and  their  place  filled  with 
"fruits  meet  for  repentance,"  if  the  Divine  kingdom  was  to 
be  established  among  them.  Pharisees  and  Essenes  had 
sought  to  propitiate  God  by  their  legal  rites.  Neither  knew 
of  confession  of  sins,  or  repentance.  The  Pharisee  only 
boasted  of  his  virtues,  and  the  Essenes  praised  righteousness, 
without  a  word  about  penitence.2  John  trusted,  not  to 
external  forms,  but  to  broken-hearted  contrition.  Man  must 
work  together  with  God  to  bring  about  the  fulfilment  of  the 
prophecies  of  the  Messiah's  reign. 

Nor  did  he  content  himself  with  vague  or  general  appeals 
or  reproofs.  "  Ye  brood  of  vipers,"  cried  he  to  a  crowd  of 
Pharisees  and  Sadducees,  who  had  come  to  his  baptism,  to 
scoff  and  criticise,  rather  than  to  confess  and  repent,  and 
who  opposed  him  with  the  conservatism  of  lawyers  and  the 
bigotry  of  priests, — "  who  hath  warned  you  to  flee  from  the 
wrath  to  come  ?  "  In  the  words  of  St.  Luke,  "  they  rejected 
the  counsel  of  God  towards  themselves,  not  having  been 
baptized  by  John,"  3  and,  so  far  from  accepting  his  mission, 

1  Isa.  i.  16,  17.  l  Luke  xviii.  11.    Jos.,  Bell.  Jud.,  ii.  8.  7. 

3  Luke  vii.  30.     Dr.  Davidson's  Tischcndorf's  version. 


882  THE  LIFE   OF  CHEIST. 

denounced  him  as  having  a  devil.1  He  brushed  them  aside, 
with  their  endless  quiddities  and  quillets,  and  casuistical 
cases,  and  legal  cobwebbery,  and  they  hated  him  in  return. 
They  had  come  from  Jerusalem  in  full-blown  official  dig- 
nity, as  a  deputation  from  the  ecclesiastical  courts,  to  ask  his 
credentials,2  and  test  his  soundness.  But  whether  priests, 
or  Levites,  or  Rabbis,  they  shrivelled  before  the  indignant 
glance  and  fiery  words  which  exposed  their  insincerity  and 
incompetence.  John  held  his  authority,  not  from  them,  but 
from  a  higher  court !  Instead  of  flattering  them,  he  told 
them,  as  he  had  told  the  crowds  they  despised,  that  they 
must  bring  forth  fruits  worthy  of  repentance.  In  their 
narrow  pedantic  pride  they  felt  sure  of  a  part  in  the  king- 
dom of  the  Messiah,  simply  as  descendants  of  Abraham ; 
his  righteousness  being  reckoned  as  theirs.3  Israel,  alone, 
could  please  or  find  favour  with  God,  and  it  did  so  on  the 
footing  of  its  descent.  The  "  Kingdom  of  Heaven  "  was  to 
be  strictly  Jewish,  all  other  nations  being  excluded,  and  "  it 
was  Jewish  by  hereditary  right."  But  John  shattered  this 
wretched  immorality.  "  Begin  not  to  say  within  yourselves, 
we  have  Abraham  for  father  :  for  I  say  unto  you,  that  God 
is  able  of  these  stones  of  the  desert,  lying  countless  around, 
to  raise  up  true  children  to  Abraham,  and  will  exclude  you, 
his  pretended  children,  from  the  kingdom,  unless  you  re- 
pent !  "  The  stern,  fearless  words  of  the  old  prophets,  which 
made  them  to  be  hated  by  the  multitude,  with  the  exception 
of  Daniel,  the  prophet  of  pleasant  things,4  fell  once  more 
from  the  lips  of  John,  with  the  same  result,  at  least  on  the 
part  of  the  Rabbis.  They  received  homage  from  all  others, 
but  this  man  treated  them  with  withering  scorn.  They  had 
fancied  he  would  be  like  a  reed  moved  in  the  wind  before 
them,  but  they  had  found  him  an  oak.  Flattery  and  fear 
were  as  strange  to  his  soul  as  his  own  rough  mantle  would 
have  been  among  the  soft  clothing  of  kings'  palaces. 

The  contrast  between  John's  teaching  and  that  of  the 
Rabbis,  could  have  had  no  more  striking  illustration  than 
his  recorded  answers  to  various  inquirers,  whom  his  stern 
language  to  their  religious  leaders  had,  apparently,  alarmed 
If  the  Rabbis  were  in  danger  of  the  fire,  what  must  be  re- 
quired of  common  men  ?  But  no  harshness  marked  his  words, 

1  Luke  vii.  33.  2  John  i.  19. 

•  Meyer,  on  Matt.  iii.  9.  Hora:  Hcb.,  vol.  iii.  p.  264.  KuinoeL  Matt. 
in.  9. 

4  Jos.,  Ant.,  x  11.  7. 


THE   WIDE    SYMPATHIES   OF   JOHN.  383 

to  honest  anxiety.  He  demanded  simply  that  they  show 
their  sincerity  by  their  unselfishness.  They  were  to  act  on 
their  professions  of  desire  to  lead  a  new  life.  "  He  that  hath 
two  coats,  let  him  impart  to  him  that  hath  none  ;  and  he  that 
hath  meat,  let  him  do  likewise."  If  they  ministered  to  the 
naked  and  hungry,1  as  a  loving  duty,  they  proved  their  dis- 
cipleship  genuine.  John's  wide  human  sympathies  embraced 
all  classes.  Like  Jesus,  he  cast  out  none  who  came  to  him. 
The  abhorred  publicans,  from  whom  the  Pharisees  shrank 
as  accursed,  were  cheered  by  the  assurance  that  they,  too, 
might  share  in  the  kingdom,  if  their  repentance  were  sincere. 
"  Exact  no  more,"  said  the  prophet,  "  than  that  which  ia 
appointed  you."  Even  the  soldiers  were  welcome,  and  had  a 
fitting  counsel — "  Do  violence  to  no  man,  neither  accuse  any 
falsely,  and  be  content  with  your  wages."  That  the  pub- 
lican should  do  his  duty  honestly,  as  in  the  sight  of  God,  and 
that  the  soldier  should  deny  himself  the  license  of  his  calling, 
and  be  faithful  to  his  standard,  from  a  sense  of  obligation 
before  God,  were  practical  tests  of  loyalty  to  conscience, 
which  would  carry  with  them  the  Divine  favour.  In  all 
cases,  moral  regeneration  was  the  grand  aim,  and  the  man 
himself  must  work  to  carry  out  the  reformation. 

But,  while  John  thus  demanded  practical  results,  by  human 
effort,  he  was  far  from  teaching  that  the  most  earnest  wish 
to  change  the  life,  would  of  itself  suffice.  He  brought  the 
hope  of  forgiveness  in  the  day  of  the  wrath  of  God  to  bear 
on  all  classes,  and  made  them  feel  that  salvation  could  not 
come,  after  all,  from  their  own  acts,  though  these  must  be 
rendered,  but  only  by  pardon  from  God.2  He  proclaimed, 
besides,  the  need  of  the  Spirit  of  God  to  perfect  the  inner  revo- 
lution. "  He  that  cometh  after  me  will  baptize  you  with  the 
Holy  Ghost,  and  with  fire."  For  the  hardened  there  would, 
indeed,  be  a  baptism  of  fire,  but,  for  the  contrite,  the  heavenly 
gift  of  a  higher  will,  and  a  greater  power,  a  deeper  know- 
ledge of  God,  and  a  closer  communion  with  Him.  Feeling 
the  want  of  the  times,  and  filled  with  the  spirit  of  the  pro- 
phets, he  could  not  forget  how  they  had  announced,  as  a 
sign  of  the  coming  of  the  Messiah,  that  Jehovah  "would 
pour  out  His  spirit  upon  all  flesh," 3  "  that  He  would  pour 

1  Compare  with  the  words  of  Jesns,  Matt.  xxv.  36.  Also  with  Isaiah 
Iviii.  6-9.  John  had  here  also  drunk  at  the  fountain  of  this  great  pro- 
phet's teaching. 

•  Jos.,  Ant.,  xviii.  5.  2.  Matt.  iii.  7.  Mark  i.  4.  Luke  iii.  3.  Comp. 
Isaiah  xxxiii.  24 ;  Iv.  7.  3  Joel  ii.  28. 


384  THE   LIFE   OP  CHEIST. 

water  upon  him  that  was  thirsty,  and  floods  on  the  dry 
ground,"  and  "  His  spirit  upon  the  offspring  of  Jacob." l  He 
could  not  doubt,  therefore,  that  He,  before  whom  he  was  only 
a  herald's  voice, — the  Mighty  One,  whose  sandals  it  was  too 
great  an  honour  for  him  to  unloose, — would  come,  not  only  to 
avenge,  but  to  bless.  But,  to  do  this,  He  must  bring  with 
Him  a  higher,  quickening  spiritual  power — the  power  of  the 
Holy  Ghost.  In  the  bestowal  of  this  heavenly  influence,  to 
carry  out  the  new  creation,  begun  by  the  forgiveness  of  sins, 
was  summed  up  John's  message  to  his  age. 

It  was  a  mark  of  the  surprising  greatness  of  John's  whole 
spiritual  nature,  that  he  had  realized  the  need  of  action  on 
the  part  of  man,  to  secure  the  fulfilment  of  the  Divine  pro- 
mise of  the  kingdom ;  but  it  was  no  less  so,  that  he  realized 
the  limitations  of  human  effort,  and  proclaimed  the  necessity 
of  a  Divine,  new-creating  power,  to  secure  the  holy  transfor- 
mation of  the  will  and  heart.  To  be  real  and  earnest  in  such 
an  age,  to  unveil  its  true  spiritual  wants,  to  wake  it  to  new 
religious  life,  were  transcendent  merits,  but  it  is  even  grander 
to  see  the  mighty  man — full  of  humility,  with  deep  self-know- 
ledge, and  insight  into  his  fellow-men — pointing  to  God  in 
heaven,  who,  stronger  than  human  will  or  effort,  alone  could 
break  the  chains  of  sin  from  the  soul,  and  lead  it  to  the 
light.* 

Wholly  self-oblivious,  tainted  by  no  stain  of  human  pride, 
self -consciousness,  or  low  ambition,  John  had  felt  it  no  usur- 
pation, or  sacrilegious  assumption,  to  constitute  himself  "  the 
messenger,"  predicted  by  Malachi,3  "  sent  to  prepare  the  way 
before  the  Lord."  Nor  was  his  preaching  more  than  an 
expansion  of  the  prophet's  words — that  "  the  Lord,k  whom  ye 
seek,  shall  suddenly  come  to  His  Temple,  even  the  messen- 
ger of  the  covenant,  whom  ye  delight  in."  He  had  received 
the  commission  from  no  human  lips,  but  had  been  set  apart 
to  it,  from  above,  before  his  birth.  Filled  with  the  grandeur 
of  his  mission,  nothing  arrested  him,  or  turned  him  aside. 
The  crowds  saw  in  him  the  most  unbending  strength,  united 
•w  ith  the  most  complete  self-sacrifice  ;  a  type  of  grand  fidelity 
to  God  and  His  truth,  and  of  the  lowliest  self-denial.  The 
sorrows  and  hopes  of  Israel  seemed  to  shine  out  from  his 
eyes — bright  with  the  inspiration  of  his  soul,  but  sad  with 
the  greatness  of  his  work — as  he  summoned  the  crowds  to 

1  Isaiah  xliv.  3.     Ezek.  xxxix.  29. 

8  See  Keim's  Jesu  von  Nazara,  vol.  i.  p.  510.  8  Ch.  iii  1. 


THE   DOCTEINES   OF   THE   BAPTIST.  385 

repentance,  alarmed  them  by  words  of  terror,  or  led  them,1  in 
groups,  to  the  Jordan,  and  immersed  each  singly  in  the  waters, 
after  earnest  and  full  confession  of  their  sins.  The  newly 
baptized  knelt  in  prayer 1  along  the  banks ;  many,  doubtless, 
with  tears,  loud  sighs,  and  exclamations,  as  is  still  the  man- 
ner with  the  emotional  races  of  the  East,  even  when  far  less 
excited  than  John's  hearers  must  have  been.m  All  wished  to 
begin  a  new  life,  and  craved  counsel  from  one  in  whom  they 
now  implicitly  believed,  and  each,  in  turn — publican,  soldier, 
citizen,  and  open  sinner — heard  a  few  words  which  pointed 
out  to  them  their  future  safety.  The  narrow  separatism  and 
worthless  externalism  of  the  Law  were  to  be  forsaken,  and 
love  to  God  and  their  neighbour,  with  a  future  baptism  of  the 
Holy  Ghost,  by  Him  who  was  to  come,  were  to  take  their 
place. 

But  John,  with  all  his  grandeur,  was  still  a  Jew.  What 
his  conceptions  of  the  kingdom  of  the  Messiah  were,"  beyond 
his  realization  of  its  purity,  we  have  few  grounds  of  judging. 
From  an  after  incident  in  his  life,  it  would  seem  that  he 
thought  of  it  as  the  restoration  of  the  theocracy,  amidst  a 
people  prepared  for  it  by  repentance  and  moral  reformation. 
It  would  be  to  set  him  above  his  times,  and  even  above  the 
Apostles,  as  they  remained  during  the  whole  lifetime  of  their 
Master,  to  conceive  him  as  anticipating  the  purely  spiritual 
kingdom  Jesus  was  to  establish.  He  was  greater  than  all  the 
prophets,  in  his  magnificent  faith  that  the  work  he  had  begun 
would  be  carried  out  by  Jehovah  Himself,  through  His  Mes- 
siah, and  in  his  clear  sense  of  the  need  of  human  action,  in 
repentance  and  a  new  life,  to  the  establishment  of  the  Mes- 
siah's kingdom.  Others  had  left  God  to  do  all  at  some  future 
time,  limiting  themselves  to  prophecy.  John  alone  taught 
that  the  kingdom  of  God  had  already  come  in  the  contrite 
soul  which  proved  its  penitence  by  holy  fruits.  But  he  was 
also  less  than  the  least  in  that  kingdom,2  in  his  inadequate 
realization  of  it  in  its  full  greatness.  He  "  came  neither  eat- 
ing nor  drinking,"  3 — a  type  of  Jewish  asceticism — and  his 
teaching  bore,  throughout,  the  true  Jewish  stamp.  Perhaps 
he  rose  above  the  thought,  universal  in  his  day,  that  the  outer 
act  had,  in  itself,  an  intrinsic  worth,  if  not  even  a  spiritual 
power,  but  the  imdortance  he  attached  to  outward  expressions 
of  penitence  was  entirely  Jewish.  Like  the  Rabbis,  he  laid 
stress  on  fasting,  and  on  the  "  making  prayers,"  in  the  Jewish 

1  Luke  iii.  21.  *  Matt.  xi.  11.  »  Matt.  xi.  18. 


386  THE  LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

sense,1  and  his  disciples,  in  these  and  other  external  exercises 
of  religion,  found  themselves  nearer  the  disciples  of  the 
Pharisees  than  they  were  to  those  of  Jesus.  As  a  Nazarite 
and  an  ascetic,  the  dread  of  defilement  must  have  kept  him 
apart  from  the  great  mass  of  his  audience,2  for  he  dared  not 
touch  an y  but  "  the  clean,"  even  in  baptizing  them. 

In  this  aspect  of  it,  the  work  of  John  was,  in  the  eyes  of. 
Christ,  only  the  sewing  a  new  patch  on  an  old  garment,  or 
putting  new  wine  into  old  bottles.3  The  great  movement  he 
set  on  foot,  while  an  immense  advance  on  the  past  in  Juda- 
ism, was  yet,  in  its  essence,  Jewish.  The  ascetic  spirit  of  its 
origin  perpetuated  itself  in  John's  disciples,  and  marked  his 
whole  conceptions  as  imperfect  and  passing — the  morning  red 
heralding  the  day,  but  as  yet  mingled  with  the  night. 

John  formed  no  separate  communion.  He  taught  his 
disciples  to  pray,  and  it  would  seem  as  if  he  had  ultimately 
gathered  a  special  band  round  him,4  as  the  Apostles  were 
gathered  round  Jesus.  But  he  did  not  come  to  found  a  new 
sect.  His  far  grander  aim  was  to  raise  the  nation  from 
spiritual  death,  and  direct  it  to  the  Messiah  now  at  hand. 

1  Matt.  ix.  14.    Luke  v.  29  *  Jost,  vol.  i.  p.  400. 

«  Matt.  ix.  16,  17.     Mark  ii.  21,  22.     Luke  v.  36,  37.          «  John  i.  3& 


CHAPTER  XXVI. 
THE  BAPTISM  OP  JESUS  AND  THE  DEATH  OP  JOHN. 

THE  great  wave  of  religious  excitement  produced  by  the 
preaching  of  John  had  set  the  whole  land  in  motion. 
Foulque  de  Nouilly,  the  famous  monkish  preacher  of  the 
thirteenth  century,  whose  discourses  moved  all  classes  of 
society,  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest,  so  that  people  rushed 
in  crowds  from  distant  countries  to  hear  him,1  or  Whitfield, 
in  the  last  century,  who  stirred  the  whole  nation  in  his  day, 
help  us  to  realize  the  sensation  produced  by  John's  minis- 
trations. To  a  people  sunk  for  the  time  in  religious  apathy, 
and  corrupted  in  morals,  but  loyal  to  the  voice  of  their 
Scriptures  and  the  lofty  spiritual  ideals  of  the  past,  his 
voice  came  like  a  trumpet,  rousing  them  to  new  life.  His 
bronzed,  wasted  features,  his  prophet's  dress  and  bearing,  his 
fearless  boldness  for  God,  and  the  response  of  their  own 
hearts  to  his  denunciations  and  demands,  made  him  a 
mighty  power.  He  gave  utterance  to  their  deepest  desires 
and  aspirations,  fanned  their  national  hopes,  and  roused 
their  enthusiasm.  As  a  people,  they  were  not  in  favour  of 
asceticism.3  The  Rabbis  had  a  saying,  that  the  ignorant  did 
not  know  how  to  keep  themselves  from  transgressions  of  the 
Law,  nor  the  common  people  how  to  become  "  the  Pious," 
or  rigorous  Jews.3  Even  one  so  famous  as  Simeon  the  Just 
discountenanced  Nazarite  vows,  with  the  rigid  abstinence  and 
self-denial  they  imposed.  The  worldly  Sadducee  laughed 
at  the  austerities  of  the  Rabbis,  "who  tormented  themselves 
in  this  life  without  gaming  anything  by  it  in  the  other,"4 
and  the  mass  of  the  people  were  no  doubt  of  their  mind. 
But  the  vision  of  a  true  Nazarite,  in  whom  all  could  see  a 
grand  superiority  to  the  worthless  ambitions  of  life,  was  like 
a  revelation  of  eternal  realities,  which  no  one  could  turn 

1  Baring-Gould,  Post-mediaval  Preachers,  p.  11.        *  Derenbourg,  p.  174. 
8  Derenbourg,  p.  175.  *  B.  Nathan,  quoted  by  Derenbourg,  p.  124. 


388  THE   LIFE   OF  CHRIST. 

lightly  aside.  The  very  power  of  his  words  seemed  to 
prove  the  truth  of  his  warnings,  for  the  Rabbis  had  already 
told  them  that  "  universal  repentance,"  such  as  they  seemed 
to  see  round  them,  "would  only  happen  when  Elias  had 
come,"1  and  his  coming  was  the  sure  sign  of  the  approach 
of  the  kingdom  of  God. 

Everything  was  fitted  to  startle.  The  proclamation  of  the 
Messiah  as  at  hand — the  call  to  repentance — the  announce- 
ment of  the  swift  rolling  towards  them  of  the  thunders  of 
the  wrath  of  God — the  declared  worthlessness  of  distinctions 
of  race,  blood,  or  position — the  demand  for  fruits  meet  for 
repentance,  or,  in  other  wordsrthat  a  man  must  work  out 
his  own  salvation  in  co-operation  with  God — the  symbolical 
rite  to  which  he  required  submission,  and  the  humbling 
confession  of  sin  before  the  world,  which  he  added — all  com- 
bined to  carry  his  name  and  work  to  the  utmost  limits  of 
the  land. 

Meanwhile,  the  authorities  at  Jerusalem,  with  the  jealousy 
of  all  ecclesiastical  bodies  towards  those  outside  their  own 
pale,  grew  uneasy  at  his  success,  and  plotted  to  get  him 
into  their  toils,  as  they  did  afterwards  in  the  case  of  our 
Lord.  The  ensnaring  questions  put  to  him  by  the  deputation 
of  priestly  Pharisees  sent  from  Jerusalem,  seemed  to  have 
made  John  think  it  necessary  to  seek  safety  by  removing 
beyond  the  bounds  of  Judea."  From  the  "circle  of  Jordan," 
including  both  sides  of  the  stream,  he  passed  upwards, 
apparently,  to  the  small  sunken  plain  which  borders  it,  just 
beneath  Scythopolis,  where  Gideon's  Brook  of  Trembling 
makes  its  steep  way  from  the  eastern  end  of  Esdraelon,  down 
the  Wady  Jalud,  to  the  Jordan.  He  chose  a  spot  near  this, 
on  the  eastern  side,  known  in  those  days  as  Bethabara,2 
where  a  ford  crossed  the  river,  and  gave  facilities  for 
baptism.31*  He  had  been  preaching  and  baptizing  for  some 
time  in  the  south,  and  his  removal  to  a  more  northern 
position  opened  a  new  field,  from  its  nearness  to  Galilee. 
The  excitement  still  continued  as  great  as  ever.  The  towns 
on  the  Lake  of  Galilee,  and  even  the  villages  north  of 
Esdraelon,4  poured  forth  to  the  new  prophet.0  Weeks  passed, 
and  it  must  now  have  been  the  late  summer,  for,  before 
long,  John  had  to  leave  the  Jordan,  as  too  shallow,  at  its 

1  Nork,  RabMnische  Quellcn,  p.  15.  2  John  i.  28. 

*  Lieut.  Conder.,  in  Palest.  Fund  Report,  April,  1875.    Diet,  of  Bille, 
Art.  Bethabara. 
4  John  i.  45. 


JESUS  AT  THE   JOBDAN.  389 

accessible  parts,  for  baptism,  and  go  to  another  place — Enon, 
near  Salem — an  unknown  locality,  where  pools  more  suitable 
were  still  to  be  had.ld  Bat,  as  yet,  there  was  no  sign  of 
the  advent  of  the  expected  Messiah.  The  assembling  of 
the  nation,  and  the  great  work  on  the  banks  of  the  Jordan, 
were  necessary  preliminaries,  in  the  Divine  counsels,  to 
dignify  the  ultimate  Advent  of  the  Redeemer. 

Jesus  had  been  waiting  the  fit  moment  for  leaving  His 
thirty  years'  obscurity  in  Nazareth,  and  presenting  Himself 
before  the  herald  who  had  been  unconsciously  proclaiming 
Him.  Though  cousins,  the  Baptist  and  the  Son  of  Mary 
had  never  seen  each  other,  for  they  lived  at  opposite  ends  of 
the  country,  and  John  had  spent  we  do  not  know  how  many 
years  of  his  life  in  hermit  seclusion,  far  from  man.  But  if 
he  did  not  know  His  person,  he  had  yet,  doubtless,  heard 
the  wondrous  circumstances  attending  His  birth,  and  must 
have  been  daily  expecting  Him  to  put  forth  His  claims. 
At  last,  Jesus  left  Nazareth  and  came  to  Jordan,  and  pre- 
sented Himself  before  him.  His  appearance,  wholly  different 
from  that  of  all  who  had  thronged  to  his  ministry,  at  once 
arrested  the  prophet's  eye.  The  holy  devotion  and  heavenly 
repose  which  marked  Him  as  He  stood  in  prayer,  spoke  of 
a  purity  and  greatness  before  which  the  soul  of  John  did 
instant  reverence.  He  might  have  stern  words  for  the 
proud  and  self-righteous,  but,  in  the  presence  of  such  a 
vision  as  that  before  him,  he  has  only  those  of  lowliest 
homage.  The  light,  as  of  other  worlds,  shining  from  the 
depths  of  those  calm  eyes ;  the  radiance  of  a  soul  free  from 
all  stain  of  sin,  transfiguring  the  pale  face — full,  at  once,  of 
highest  beauty,  tenderest  love,  and  deepest  sadness,  was 
hereafter,  even  when  dimly  seen  by  the  light  of  midnight 
torches  and  lanterns,  to  make  accusers  shrink  backwards 
and  fall,  overcome,  to  the  ground,3  and  Simon  Peter  pray 
— "  Depart  from  me,  for  I  am  a  sinful  man,  O  Lord  !  "  The 
soul  has  an  instinctive  recognition  of  goodness,  and  feels  its 
awfulness.  Spiritual  greatness  wears  a  kingly  crown  which 
compels  instant  reverence.  Had  Jesus  been  an  earthly  king, 
John  would  have  remained  the  stern,  fearless  prophet ;  had 
He  been  the  highest  of  the  earthly  priesthood,  he  would  have 
borne  himself  as  a  superior,  in  the  consciousness  of  his 
high  mission.  But  the  royalty  before  him  was  not  of  this 
world,  and  the  priesthood  was  higher  than  that  of  Aaron, 

1  Lulie  iii.  21.  *  John  xviii.  6. 


390  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

Jesus  had  come  to  be  baptized,  but  John,  for  the  first  and 
last  time,  with  any  one  in  all  the  crowds  that  had  gathered 
round  him,  hesitated,  and  drew  back.  "  I  have  need  to  be 
baptized  of  Thee,"  said  he,  "  and  comest  Thou  to  me  ? " 
He  might  not  know  by  name,  or  open  intimation,  whom 
he  had  before  him,  but  unerring  instinct  taught  him  that  he 
addressed  a  greater  than  himself.  He  was  longing  for  the 
re  relation  of  the  Messiah,  and  knew  that  God  could  manifest 
Him  at  any  moment,  clothing  Him  whom  He  had  designated 
for  the  high  dignity,  with  Divine  might  to  carry  out  His 
work.  It  is,  indeed,  the  especial  greatness  of  the  Baptist 
that  he  not  only  rose  to  the  level  of  so  great  an  enterprise 
as  the  spiritual  regeneration  of  his  country,  and  devoted 
himself  to  it  with  gigantic  energy,  and  that  he  was  a  man 
of  spotless  truth  and  dauntless  courage,  but  that,  with  all 
this,  he  was  filled  with  a  splendid  enthusiasm,  and  unfaltering 
faith  in  the  nearness  of  the  Messiah.  This  alone  could  have 
supported  him  under  the  burden  of  his  work.  No  one,  till 
then,  had  stood,  like  him,  between  the  dead  past  and  the 
dimly  rising  future,  in  hopeful  and  confident  expectation. 
He  had  led  the  people  from  the  corruption,  wickedness,  and 
confusion  of  their  decayed  religiousness,  and  stood  calmly 
and  grandly  at  their  head,  in  the  firm  belief  that  the  Messiah, 
who,  only,  could  fulfil  the  promises  he  had  made  them,  of 
Divine  help  towards  a  higher  life,  would  emerge  from  the 
darkness  before  him.  In  such  an  attitude  of  intensest  ex- 
pectancy, he  must  at  once  have  recognised  the  marks  of  the 
possible  Messiah  in  any  one  who  showed  them.  He  might 
look  for  no  outward  signs  :  the  Divine  lineaments  of  a  nature 
fit  for  such  an  office  would  suffice,  the  future  being  left 
to  God,  to  whom  he  entrusted  his  own  work.  He  would  not 
go  abroad  to  search  for  one  who  might  be  what  he  desired, 
but  his  ardent,  yet  keen  soul,  could  not  fail  to  discover  Him 
if  He  came  within  his  sphere.  Hence,  he  felt,  instinctively 
that  in  Jesus  the  object  of  his  longings  seemed  to  have 
been  found.  "  I  knew  Him  not,"  said  he,  some  time  later, 
"  and  had  not  in  any  measure  begun  my  work  because  L 
knew  .Him,  or  that  He  might  at  my  request  come  to  me ; 
but  I  have  been  baptizing  and  rousing  Israel,  that  He, 
though  unknown  to  me, — drawn  indeed  by  my  work,  but 
without  design  or  thought  on  my  part,  and,  therefore,  only 
by  the  clear  leading  and  purpose  of  God, — should  be  revealed 
to  Israel  as  the  true  Messiah."6  He  had,  already,  before 
Jesus  had  presented  Himself,  made  known  his  firm  conviction 


THE   MEETING   OF  JESUS   WITH  JOHN.  391 

that  God  had  heard  the  cry  of  His  people,  and  had  provided 
the  Messiah,  though  as  yet  He  had  not  disclosed  Him.  In 
his  grand  trust  in  God,  he  had  told  the  multitudes,  "  there 
standeth  one  among  you,  whom  you  know  not — the  true 
Messiah,"  who  has  been  among  you,  and  you  have  not  dreamed 
of  it,  because  you  knew  neither  the  marks  nor  nature  of 
God's  Anointed,  and,  indeed,  you  will  not  recognise  Him, 
even  when  He  appears. l  That  ye  may  know  Him,  He  is 
He  who  cometh  after  me,  and  yet  shall  be  preferred  before 
me — the  true  Messiah,  whose  shoes  I  am  not  worthy  to  un- 
loose. He  shall  be  preferred  before  me,  for  He  was  before 
me.  He  is  no  man  of  mortal  birth,  for  Scripture  and  Rahbi 
unite  in  recognising  the  Messiah  as  the  uncreated  Word  of 
God,  sent  down  from  heaven,  to  dwell  for  a  time  among 
men."  John's  long  communion  with  God  in  the  wilderness, 
his  prayers  and  tears,  had  raised  him  to  a  spiritual  grandeur 
which  anticipated,  with  a  higher  than  human  sense,  the  yet 
unrevealed.  Lifted  above  earth,  the  advent  of  the  Messiah 
had  become  to  him  a  living  truth,  which  only  waited  God's 
time  for  its  disclosure,  and  at  last  stood  visibly  before  him, 
in  the  Holy  One  who  sought  baptism  at  his  hands.' 

No  wonder  he  shrank  from  assuming  to  such  a  Being  the 
relation  in  which  he  stood  to  other  men.  He  knew  that  only 
one  who  was  wholly  free  from  sin  could  be  the  Messiah,  and 
such  an  One  he  felt  was  before  him.  The  meekness,  gentle- 
ness, and  purity,  which  overawed  him,  spoke  of  nothing  less, 
and  the  heart  of  John,  on  the  instant,  could  express  its  over- 
powering emotion  in  no  more  fitting  thought  than  that  he 
"  beheld  the  Lamb  of  God,  who  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the 
world."  2  In  such  words  he  embodied  a  conception  which 
he  had  heard  from  the  Rabbis  since  his  childhood,  for  the 
daily  sacrifice,  on  whose  head  the  sins  of  Israel  were  laid  by 
a  formal  act,  was  their  favourite  type  of  the  Messiah,  who 
was  hence  known  by  the  endearing  name  of  the  "  Lamb  of 
God."3  The  sublime  picture  in  Isaiah  of  Him  on  whom 
Jehovah  had  laid  the  iniquities  of  His  people,  and  who  was 
led  as  a  Lamb  to  the  slaughter,  had  already  been  applied  to 
the  Messiah,4  and  John  might  well  think  of  Him  in  this  Ilia 
highest  aspect, — oppressed  in  soul,  as  he  himself  was,  by  the 
weight  of  the  sins  of  his  race. 

The  hesitation  of  the  Baptist,  however,  was  not  allowed  to 

1  Joho  i.  27.          3  John  i.  29.          •  Nork,  p.  115.     Sepp,  vol.  ii.  p.  170. 

*  Buxtorf,  sub  v.  (WE. 


392  TEE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

prevail,  for  Jesus  still  repeated  His  desire  to  be  baptized, 
"  Suffer  it  now,"  said  He,  "  for  thus  it  becomes  us  to  fulfil 
all  righteousness.1  From  whatever  God  has  required  of 
Israel  as  a  duty,  I  cannot  withhold  myself."  Baptism  was 
an  ordinance  of  God,  required  by  His  prophet  as  the  intro- 
duction of  the  new  dispensation.  It  was  a  part  of  "  right- 
eousness," that  is,  it  was  a  part  of  God's  commandments, 
which  Jesus  came  into  the  world  to  show  us  the  example  of 
fulfilling,  both  in  the  letter  and  the  spirit.2  Moreover,  He 
had  not  yet  received  the  consecration  of  the  Spirit,  abiding 
on  Him,  and  had  not  yet  assumed  the  awful  dignity  of  the 
Messiah,  but  had  hitherto  been  only  the  unknown  villager  of 
Nazareth.  No  subject  is  more  mysterious  than  the  "  increase 
in  wisdom  "  3  which  marked  the  Saviour,  as  it  does  all  other 
men,  nor  can  we  conjecture  when  it  was  that  the  full  realiz- 
ation of  His  Divine  mission  first  rose  before  Him.  As  yet 
there  had  been  no  indication  of  its  having  done  so,  for  He 
had  not  yet  "  manifested  His  glory," 4  or  appeared  at  all 
before  men.  Is  it  too  much  to  believe  that  His  baptism  was 
the  formal  consecration,  which  marked  His  entrance  on  His 
great  office  ? 

John  resisted  no  longer,  and  leading  Jesus  into  the  stream, 
the  rite  was  performed.  Can  we  question  that  such  an  act 
was  a  crisis  in  the  life  of  our  Lord  ?  His  perfect  manhood, 
like  that  of  all  other  men,  in  all  things  except  sin,  forbids 
our  doubting  it.  Holy  and  pure  before  sinking  under  the 
waters,  He  must  yet  have  risen  from  them  with  the  light  of 
a  higher  glory  in  His  countenance.  His  past  life  was  closed  ; 
a  new  era  had  opened.  Hitherto  the  humble  villager,  veiled 
from  the  world,  He  was  henceforth  the  Messiah,  openly 
working  amongst  men.  It  was  the  true  moment  of  the 
opening  of  His  new  life.  Past  years  had  been  buried  in  the 
waters  of  Jordan.  He  entered  them  as  Jesus,  the  Son  of 
Man ;  He  rose  from  them,  The  Christ  of  God. 

Nor  is  it  wonderful  that,  at  a  moment  when  He  was  pass- 
ing through  such  a  supreme  spiritual  crisis,  there  should 
have  been  sympathy  with  it  in  the  distant  regions  of  tho 
Universe.  "  Being  baptized,"  says  St.  Luke,  "  and  praying  " 
— in  the  overpowering  emotion  of  such  a  time — the  heaven 
was  opened — all  hindrances  of  human  weakness  withdrawing, 

"  Every  duty,'1  Tischcndorf—  Davidson's  translation,  John  i.  16. 
'  Irving's  John  the  Baptist,  IF 'orks,  vol.  ii.  p.  97. 
8  Luke  ii.  52.  <  John  ii.  11. 


THE   BAPTISM   OF   JESUS.  393 

po  .that  the  eye  seemed  to  pierce  the  sky,  to  the  far  off 
heavenly  splendours.  And  now  a  vision  as  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  descending  in  the  "  bodily  form  "  of  a  dove,  the  sym- 
bol of  purity  and  peace,  and  resting  over  the  newly  baptized 
as  in  permanent  consecration,  revealed  itself  to  John l  and 
Jesus  ;  a  heavenly  voice,  meanwhile,  proclaiming,  "  This  is  My 
beloved  Son,  in  whom  I  am  well  pleased."  Isaiah  had,  long 
before,  foretold  how  the  Spirit  of  Jehovah  should  rest  upon 
the  Branch  from  the  roots  of  Jesse — the  Spirit  of  wisdom 
and  understanding,  the  spirit  of  counsel  and  might,  the  spirit 
of  knowledge,  and  of  fear  of  the  Lord,3  and  the  prediction 
was  now  fulfilled.  It  was  the  Divine  anointing  of  Jesus,  to 
preach  good  tidings  to  the  meek,  to  bind  up  the  broken- 
hearted-, to  proclaim  liberty  to  the  captives,  and  the  opening 
of  the  prison  to  them  that  are  bound,  to  proclaim  the  accept- 
able year  of  the  Lord,  and  the  day  of  vengeance  of  God3 — 
the  consecration  from  on  High  to  the  office  of  Messiah,  and, 
as  such,  the  true  birth-Lour  of  Christianity.  It  was  His 
solemn  designation  as  the  Great  High  Priest  of  the  new  and 
abiding  Dispensation.  The  sons  of  Aaron  were  required  by 
the  Levitical  Law  to  be  set  apart  to  their  high  office  by 
washing  and  anointing,  and  He  who  was  to  be  clothed  with 
an  infinitely  loftier  priesthood,  could  not  be  allowed  to  want 
a  correspondingly  grander  inauguration.  Instead  of  the 
Temple  made  with  hands,  He  had  around  Him  the  great 
Temple  of  nature ;  for  the  brazen  laver  He  had  the  flowing 
river,  reflecting  the  vault  of  heaven.  If  He  had  no  golden 
robes,  He  had  the  robe  of  a  sinless  righteousness,  and  if  there 
were  no  sacred  oil,  He  had,  instead,  the  anointing  of  the 
Holy  Ghost.  John  had  already,  by  Divine  intimation,  learned 
that  the  Spirit  should  thus  descend  on  Him  who  was  to 
baptize  with  the  Holy  Ghost,4  and  thus  saw  the  confirmation 
'of  his  belief  that  Jesus  was,  indeed,  the  Lamb  of  God,  and 
His  Son.5  How  long  He  remained  with  John  is  not  told  us, 
but  it  would  seem  as  if  He  had  forthwith  retired  to  tho 
wilderness,  to  return  only  after  His  temptation. 

The  great  work  of  John  was  now  over.  As  Samuel  had 
once  consecrated  the  earthly  David  king  over  the  outward 
theocracy,  the  last  of  the  prophets  had  consecrated  a  greater 
king,  who  should  rule,  by  other  means,  over  a  kingdom 
wholly  different,  though  John,  standing  as  He  did,  outside, 

i  John  i.  32.  3  Isa.  xi.  2.  •  Isa.  Ixi.  1. 

*  John  i.  33.  •  John  i.  34. 


394  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

could  at  best  only  dimly  conjecture  these  characteristics  of 
the  new  Messianic  reign.  He  lived  and  worked  long  enough 
after  this  crowning  moment,  to  rejoice  over  the  first  advances 
of  the  new  theocracy  he  had  called  into  being,  but  also  long 
enough  to  show  that  he  did  not  comprehend  its  spirit,  as 
he  would  have  done,  had  he  lived  later.  His  days  were 
numbered.  Those  in  power  feared  his  words  and  work,  which 
.gave  him  supreme  influence  among  the  people.  The  priests 
and  Rabbis  had  failed  in  their  plots  against  him,  but  what 
they  could  not  themselves  do,  they  were  ere  long  able  to 
effect  through  one  of  greater  power  for  evil. 

John  seems  latterly  to  have  moved  from  place  to  place, 
along  both  banks  of  the  Jordan,  both  north  and  south.  How 
long  he  continued  to  labour  is  not  known,  but  he  was  still 
baptizing  after  Jesus  had  begun  His  ministry,  at  the  marriage 
feast  of  Cana.1  The  popularity  of  Jesus  had  roused  the 
jealousy  of  the  disciples  of  the  Baptist,  and  had  even  led  to 
angry  feeling.  A  dispute  with  a  Jew  ~ — probably  a  disciple  of 
Jesus — respecting  baptism,  brought  matters  to  a  crisis.  He 
had,  apparently,  claimed  for  that  of  Jesus  a  higher  power  of 
cleansing  from  the  guilt  of  sin  than  that  of  their  Master. 
Irritated  and  annoyed,  John's  followers  returned  and  told 
him  how  He  "  who  had  been  with  him  beyond  Jordan,  to 
whom  he  had  borne  witness,  was  baptizing,  and  that  all  men 
were  now  coming  to  Him."  The  news  only  seemed  to  bring 
the  grand  humility  of  the  Baptist  more  prominently  than 
ever  into  view,  and  showed  him  to  be  above  any  selfish  or 
petty  thought ;  a  man  to  whom  the  will  of  God  was  the 
abiding  law.  "He  must  increase,"  said  he,  "but  I  must 
decrease,  for  He  is  the  Christ,  the  Bridegroom.  I  rejoice 
greatly  to  hear  His  voice.  He  is  from  above,  and,  therefore, 
above  all :  I  am  only  of  the  earth,  and  speak  as  such.  He 
has  received  the  testimony  of  heaven  :  He  has  the  power  of 
life  and  death :  He  is  the  beloved  son,  into  whose  hand  the 
Father  has  committed  all  things."3  With  this  grand  utter- 
ranee,  John  disappears  into  the  gloom  of  a  prison.  He  had 
been  a  "  lamp,"  as  Jesus  calls  him,4  burning  brightly  in  his 
day,  but  the  Light  of  the  world  had  now  risen,  and  his  light 
intjst  grow  dim  and  expire. 

John  o^ed  his  imprisonment  to  Herod  Antipas,  in  whose 
territoiies  he  had  sought  safety,  and  the  opportunity  of 

1  John  iii.  24.  »  Thus,  in  the  correct  text. 

*  John  iii.  25-36.  *  John  v.  35. 


THE   CASTLE   OF   MACHAEEUS.  395 

carrying  on  his  work  in  peace.  The  cause  assigned  before 
the  people  for  his  arrest,  was  that  John  had  ventured  to 
reprove  Herod  for  his  unlawful  marriage  with  Herodias  ;  but 
political  fears  had,  probably,  in  reality,  more  to  do  with  it. 
Herod,  with  the  crafty  cunning  for  which  Jesus  afterwards 
spoke  of  him  as  "  the  fox,"  was  afraid  that  John  might  turn 
his  wide  popularity  to  political  account,  and  head  a  religious 
rising,  perhaps  like  that  of  Judas  the  Galilean,  for  all  men 
seemed  ready  for  anything  he  might  advise.  He  held  it, 
therefore,  better,  says  Josephus,  to  anticipate  any  attempt  at 
revolution,  by  imprisoning  him,  and,  if  needs  were,  by  putting 
him  to  death,  rather  than  lament  a  disturbance  after  it  had 
broken  out.1 

Antipas,  it  seems,  passed  his  time,  now  in  Tiberias,  then 
in  Machaerus,  on  his  southern  border,  in  Perea.  In  him,  the 
hierarchy  and  Rabbis  at  Jerusalem,  impotent  themselves, 
found  an  instrument  to  crush  the  unlicensed  teacher  who  so 
freely  condemned  them,  and  had  so  great  a  hold  upon  the 
people.  Pilate,  ever  fearful  of  any  popular  movement,  may 
have  demanded,  at  their  crafty  instigation,  that  action  should 
be  taken,  and  these  influences,  added  to  the  apprehensions 
of  Antipas  himself,  brought  matters  to  a  crisis.  Sending 
a  band  of  soldiers  and  police  northwards  to  the  Jordan,  a 
distance  of  from  six  to  eight  hours,  they  apprehended  the 
Baptist,  perhaps  by  night,  when  the  people  were  not  astir,  and, 
binding  the  defenceless  man,  hurried  him  off  to  the  fortress 
Machaerus.2 

This  castle,  known  as  "  the  diadem,"  g  from  its  crown-like 
seat  on  the  lofty  rocks,  and  as  "  the  black  tower,"  lay  on.  the 
east  side  of  the  Dead  Sea,  almost  on  a  line  with  Bethlehem. 
It  was  the  southern  stronghold  of  Perea,  as  the  Macedonian 
colony  of  Pella  was  the  northern.  Nature,  herself,  had  here 
raised  a  stronghold,  as  she  had  that  of  Masada,  on  the  other 
side  of  the  Dead  Sea,  a  little  farther  south.  It  lay  above  the 
deep  gorge  that  divides  the  mountains  of  Abarim  from  the 
range  of  Pisgah,  in  the  wild  region  where,  from  immemorial 
tradition,  the  Jews  sought  the  grave  of  Moses.  A  few  miles 
1-0  the  north,  in  a  deep,  rugged  valley,  lay  Callirrhoe,  famous 
for  its  warm  baths,  where  the  dying  Herod  had  sought  re- 
lief, and  had  nearly  met  his  death.  Its  hot  springs  burst  at 
one  spot  from  the  rocks  in  the  bottom  of  the  gorge,  and, 
near  them,  others  poured  forth  water  of  the  iciest  coldness, 

1  Ant.,  xviii.  5.  2.  *  Jos.,  Ant.,  xviii.  5.  2. 


39G  THE   LIFE   OF  CHRIST. 

while  the  hills  round  were  in  those  days  pierced  with  mines 
of  sulphur  and  alum.  The  torrent  of  Zerka  Ma'in,  descend- 
ing between  walls  of  basalt,  and  red,  brown,  and  black  vol- 
canic tuff,  rushes  through  the  ravine,  over  a  channel  of  huge 
rocks,  from  the  uplands  of  Perea  to  the  east  shore  of  the 
Dead  Sea.  At  a  short  distance  south,  the  Wady  Z'gara  runs 
cast  and  west,  in  a  profound  gorge,  with  precipitous  sides,  at 
gome  parts  eight  hundred  feet  high,  cleaving  its  wild  way, 
by  leaps,  down  three  thousand  eight  hundred  feet,  to  the 
Dead  Sea.  A  parallel  valley  succeeds,  along  the  hollow  of 
which  ran  the  old  Roman  road,  joining  Machaerus  with 
Callirrhoe,  and  with  the  great  road  from  Petra  to  Damascus. 
Rising  from  this  ravine,  the  long  mountain  ridge  of  Attaroth 
stretches,  in  heaped-up  confusion,  ten  miles  to  the  south- 
west, and  on  the  highest  point  of  this,  where  it  sinks  sheer 
down  towards  the  Zerka  Ma'in,  the  ruins  of  Machaerus,  in 
great  masses  of  squared  stone,  still  overhang  the  gloomy 
depth  below.  At  the  foot  of  the  isolated  cliff  on  which  the 
fortress  was  built,  and  separated  from  it  by  a  deep  and  nar- 
row valley,  not  quite  a  mile  across,  lie  the  ruins  of  the  town 
of  Machaerus,  covering  more  than  a  square  mile,  showing  in 
the  remains  of  a  Temple  of  the  Sun,  that,  along  with  the 
fanatical  Jewish  population,  it  must  have  had  many  heathen, 
that  is,  Greek  or  Roman  citizens,  who  were  allowed  to  prac- 
tise their  idolatry  in  peace. 

The  first  fortress  had  been  raised  here  by  Alexander  Jan- 
naeus,1  but  it  was  afterwards  destroyed  by  Gabinius,2  in  his 
war  against  Aristobulus.  When  Herod  came  to  be  king, 
however,  his  keen  eye  saw  the  strength  of  the  position,  and 
he  determined  to  restore  the  castle  as  a  frontier  defence 
against  the  Arabs.  Surrounding  a  large  space  with  walls 
and  towers,  he  built  a  city  from  which  a  path  led  up  to  the 
citadel,  on  the  top  of  the  hill.  The  citadel  itself  was  at  one 
end  of  a  narrow  ridge,  nearly  a  mile  in  length  from  east  to 
west,  and  formed  a  last  retreat  in  case  of  attack,  but  it  was 
not  enough  for  his  magnificent  ideas.  At  the  other  end  of 
the  height,  he  raised  a  great  wall,  enclosing  the  summit  of 
the  liilJ,  with  towers  two  hundred  feet  high  at  the  corners, 
and  in  the  space  thus  gained  built  a  grand  palace,  with  rows 
of  columns  of  a  single  stone  a-piece,  halls  lined  with  many- 
coloured  marbles,  magnificent  baths,  and  all  the  details  of 
Roman  luxury,  not  omitting  huge  cisterns,  barracks,  and 

1  B.C.  106-79.  *  B.C.  56. 


THE   IMPEISONMENT   OF  JOHN.  397 

storehouses,  with  everything  needed  for  defence  in  case  of 
siege.  The  detached  citadel  was  the  scene  of  John's  impri- 
sonment ;  a  stern  and  gloomy  keep,  with  underground 
dungeons,  still  visible,  hewn  down  into  the  living  rock.  Tho 
fortress-palace,  at  the  other  end  of  the  fortifications,  at  the 
time  the  residence  of  Antipas  and  his  retainers,  was  merry 
with  their  revelry,  but  the  dungeon  of  John  lay  in  midnight 
darkness.  From  his  windows  Antipas  had  a  magnificent 
view  of  the  Dead  Sea,  the  whole  course  of  the  Jordan,  Jeru- 
salem, Hebron,  the  frowning  fortress  of  Masada,  the  circle 
of  Jordan,  and  the  cliffs  of  Engedi,  on  the  west,  and  of  the 
mountains  of  Gilead,  rising  beyond  the  wild  heights  of  Pis- 
gab,  on  the  north  ;  but  his  captive,  the  child  of  the  boundless 
wilderness,  pined  in  perpetual  night. 

Beneath  this  stronghold,  perched  on  the  top  of  the  highest 
summit  of  the  wild  region,  the  valleys  sank  in  unscalable 
precipices,  on  three  sides,  to  such  a  depth  that  Josephus  is 
well-nigh  excused  for  thinking  that  the  eye  could  not  reach 
their  bottom.  The  fourth  side  was  only  a  little  less  terrible. 
Wild  desolation  reigned  far  and  near,  but  the  hidden  hollows 
of  some  of  the  gorges  were  luxuriant  with  palms,  olives,  and 
vines,  and  superstition  believed  that,  among  other  wonders, 
there  grew  in  them  a  plant,  fiery  red  in  colour,  and  shedding 
rays  of  flame  in  the  evening,  which  had  power  to  expel  de- 
mons and  heal  diseases,  though  only  to  be  pulled  at  the  cost 
of  life.  Seetzen,  a  German  traveller,  who  re-discovered  the 
site  in  1807,  has  left  a  vivid  picture  of  the  landscape  round. 
Masses  of  lava,  brown,  red,  and  black,  are  varied  with 
pumice  stone,  or  black  basalt,  in  huge  broken  masses,  or 
perpendicular  cliffs,  resting  on  white  limestone ;  and  then, 
again,  dark  brown  rocks — the  iron-mountain  of  Josephus. 
The  rushing  stream  beneath  is  overgrown  with  oleanders 
and  date-palms,  willows,  poplars,  and  tall  reeds,  while  hot 
sulphur  springs  gush  from  the  clefts  of  the  rocks,  sending  up 
a  thick  mist  of  steam  .b 

In  this  wild,  warlike  place,  lay  John,  cut  off  from  the 
world,  from  Israel,  and  from  the  grand  work  of  national 
regeneration  of  which  he  was  the  soul — in  the  midst  of  a 
population  of  soldiers,  barbarians,  Arabs,  Idumeans,  Amor- 
ites,  and  Moabites,  who  ran  no  risk  of  being  infected  by  his 
words.  Perhaps  he  was  favoured  beyond  other  prisoners  by 
being  brought  from  his  underground  vault,  after  a  time,  to 
some  cell  of  the  corner  towers,  to  be  near  his  captor.  If  so, 
he  could  look  from  hia  lonely  height  over  the  regions  of  the 


398  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

Dead  Sea  and  the  Jordan,  where  the  years  of  his  desert  con- 
secration, and  the  months  of  his  great  work,  had  been  spent. 
Yet  he  was  no  mere  shadow  of  the  past,  but  still  a  living 
power.  No  strong  hand  had  protected  him ;  no  miracle  had 
been  vouchsafed  by  God  for  his  deliverance,  and  there  was 
no  hope  of  a  rescue  by  the  people,  however  they  might  regret 
him,  or  murmur  at  his  fate.  His  prison,  unapproachable  on 
three  sides,  and  reached,  on  the  fourth,  only  by  a  bridle  path, 
through  numerous  fortified  gates,1  made  escape  impossible. 
Nor  could  he  hope  to  have  support  from  any  within  the 
castle  itself,  for  its  motley  population  of  Arabs,  Edomites, 
and  Moabites,  cared  nothing  for  the  promises  of  Israel.2  The 
sheikhs  of  the  wandering  tribes  around  went  in  and  out,  the 
troops  of  the  garrison  were  reviewed  and  drilled,  or  lounged 
round  the  battlements,  and  the  courtiers  of  the  haughty 
Herodias  flashed  hither  and  thither  in  their  bravery,  through 
the  town  ;  the  hot  springs  of  the  valley,  and  the  bracing  air 
of  the  mountain-top,  gave  new  tone  to  the  nerves  of  the 
health-seekers  frequenting  them  from  all  parts  ;  but  the  Bap- 
tist lay  unheeded  and  helpless.  Apart  from  political  reasons, 
it  was  so  healthy  a  place  that  Antipas  might  well  be  fond  of 
it.  "  Provisions,"  says  Josephus,  "  remained  good  for  a  hun- 
dred years  in  the  fortress  of  Masada,  on  the  other  side  of 
the  Dead  Sea ;  for  the  air,  at  the  great  height  of  the  castle, 
is  purified  from  every  earthy  or  hurtful  exhalation."3  Yet 
there  was  no  great  bustle,  for  the  place  was  too  remote  and 
secluded  for  much  intercourse  with  it.4  Ten  thousand  people 
lived  in  the  town  below,5  but  round  John  were  only  rough 
soldiery,  drafted  from  the  neighbouring  tribes,  and  the 
attendants  on  Herod,  of  whom  Jesus  speaks  as  "  the  people 
gorgeously  apparelled,  who  lived  delicately,"  as  became  those 
in  the  courts  of  kings.6  Yet  the  nation,  with  unbroken 
faith,  kept  watch  outside  the  gates  of  the  prison,  and  the 
breath  of  God  still  moved  among  them  like  the  soft  wind 
through  the  leaves  of  summer. 

Antipas  had  laid  hands  on  John  with  the  intention  of 
putting  him  to  death,  and  there  were  those  round  him  whc 
grudged  him  each  day's  life,  but  fear  of  the  people  kept  "  the 
fox  "  from  his  purpose,  for  a  time,  as  a  similar  dread  on  the 

1  Bell.  Jud.,  vii.  8.  3  ;  compared  with  vi.  1.  4. 

2  Bell.  Jud.,  vii.  6.  4.          »  Ant.,  xviii.  5.  1.          *  Bell.  Jud.,  vii.  8.  3. 

*  Bell.  Jud.,  vii.  6.  4.     2,000  men,  equal,  with  women  and  children,  to 
10,000  inhabitants. 

•  Luke  vii.  25. 


THE   BAPTIST  AND   ANTIPAS.  399 

part  of  the  hierarchy  at  Jerusalem,  afterwards  protected 
Jesus.  Yet  his  prison  was  no  mere  detention,  for  prisons  in 
antiquity,  and  especially  in  the  East,  had  no  refinements  of 
mercy.  The  words  of  Christ — "  They  did  to  him  whatsoever 
they  pleased,"  l  are  significant,  and  point  to  torture,  insult, 
and  ill-treatment.  The  spirit  that  called  for  the  blii.d 
Samson  to  be  brought  from  his  prison,  to  make  sport  before 
the  Philistine  lords,  was  still  in  full  vigour. 

But  John,  though  defenceless,  had  a  kingly  divinity  of 
truth  and  goodness,  that,  for  a  time,  hedged  him  round  from 
death.  Brought  before  Antipas,  once  and  again,  to  be  shown 
off  to  the  crowd  at  his  table,  he  remained  so  completely 
himself,  that  the  tyrant,  for  the  moment,  became  the  inferior 
of  the  helpless  prisoner.  Feeling  how  awful  goodness  is,  he 
"  feared  John,  knowing  that  he  was  a  righteous  and  holy 
man,  and  kept  him  closely  ;  and  when  he  heard  him  he  was 
very  anxious,  and  heard  him  gladly." 2  Even  he,  for  the 
instant,  looked  towards  God  and  heaven  !  Uneasy  conscience, 
superstition,  a  natural  indisposition  to  violence,  and  the  slow 
cruel  delays  of  Eastern  justice,  left  John  alive.  He  was 
even  allowed  to  have  intercourse  with  some  of  his  people, 
whose  love  braved  personal  danger,  and  brought  them  to 
his  prison  to  visit  him.  Perhaps,  as  with  St.  Paul,  when  a 
prisoner  at  Caesarea,  thirty  years  later,  it  was  formally  per- 
mitted that  "  he  should  have  liberty,  and  that  none  of  his 
acquaintance  should  be  forbidden  to  minister  or  come  unto 
him ; " 3  or,  very  likely,  the  loose  ways  of  the  East,  so  dif- 
ferent from  strict  Roman  practice,  left  access  to  him  possible. 
His  disciples  came  and  went,4  brought  him  news  from  the 
outer  world,  and  told  hvm  of  the  preaching  of  the  Kingdom, 
that  had  begun  in  Galilee — perhaps  shared  his  imprisonment, 
in  turn,  listened  to  his  instructions,  and  went  forth  on  mes- 
sages connected  with  his  great  work.  Antipas  had,  however, 
nothing  to  fear  in  all  this,  and  the  Baptist  had  as  little  to 
hope.  His  disciples  had  held  badly  together,  since  their 
head  was  taken  from  them.  They  clung  firmly  only  to  the 
external,  ascetic  side  of  his  teaching,  as  might  have  been 
expected,  striving  to  outdo  the  Pharisees  in  washings  and 
fasts,  and  they  went  about  sad,  because  the  Bridegroom  was 
taken  from  them.5  Perhaps,  some  of  them  still  preached 
the  coming  of  the  Kingdom,  and  baptized  penitents,  but  the 

1  Matt.  xvii.  12.  2  Mark  vi.  20.     Davidson's  Tischendorf. 

*  Acts  xxiv.  23.         4  Matt.  ix.  14 ;  xi.  2  ff. ;  xiv.  12.         •  Matt.  ix.  14 


400  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

crowds  fell  off,  in  great  part,  after  John's  imprisonment, 
and  flocked  to  the  new  prophet,  whom  he  himself  had  bap- 
tized.1 

To  men  trained  in  Jewish  ideas,  there  was  much  that 
seemed  strange  and  doubtful  in  the  teaching  that  had  thus 
superseded  that  of  John.  The  works  of  Jesus  were  mighty, 
but  His  disciples  did  not  fast.  The  Elijah-like  sternness  of 
the  preaching  in  the  wilderness  of  Judea,  was  not  found  in 
that  of  the  shores  of  the  Lake  of  Tiberias.  There  was  no 
word  of  any  open  assumption  of  the  office  of  Messiah,  nor  any 
signs  of  the  approaching  erection  of  a  purified  theocracy. 
There  were  no  preparations  for  the  triumph  of  Israel,  and  no 
symptoms  of  the  wrath  of  God  breaking  forth  on  their 
oppressors.  As  a  Jew,  John  must  have  shared,  more  or  less, 
in  the  universal  belief  of  his  nation,  that,  however  pure,  the 
kingdom  of  the  Messiah  was  to  be  an  earthly  dominion  over 
Israel,  when  it  had  been  delivered  from  the  polluting  presence 
of  the  heathen,  and  had  been  marked,  once  more,  as  the 
people  of  God,  under  Him  alone.  The  news  he  received 
seems  to  have  made  him  almost  waver  in  his  belief  in  Jesus, 
as  the  Messiah  thus  expected,  for  the  human  mind  in  lone- 
liness, disappointment,  and  imperfect  knowledge,  is  prone  to 
read  things  by  the  dull  light  of  the  present,  rather  than  by 
the  evidence  of  the  past.  In  moments  of  weakness  and 
despondency,  it  is  easy  to  think  that  our  whole  life  has  been 
a  dream,  and  our  fondest  hopes  mere  illusions.  The  Gospels 
seem  to  point  at  such  a  momentary  depression  in  the  mind 
of  John.  As  if  he  had  been  lost  in  thought  over  what  he 
had  heard  from  his  visitors,  he  sent  to  Jesus  for  a  solution  of 
his  doubts.  "  Now,  when  John  heard  in  the  prison  of  the 
works  of  the  Christ,2  for  they  had  told  him  concerning  all 
these  things  " — the  miracle  of  the  centurion's  servant,  and 
of  the  young  man  just  raised  from  the  bier  at  Nain — "  having 
called  unto  him  two  of  his  disciples,  he  sent,  through  them, 
to  the  Lord,  and  said  to  Him,  '  Art  Thou  the  Coming  One,  or 
must  we  look  for  another  ? '  And  the  men  came  to  Him 
and  said  :  '  John  the  Baptist  has  sent  us  unto  Thee  saying, 
"  Art  Thou  the  Coming  One,  or  must  we  look  for  another  ?  '" 
In  that  hour  He  healed  many  of  diseases,  and  plagues,  and 
evil  spirits  ;  and  unto  many  blind  He  granted  sight.  And  He 
answered,  and  said  unto  them,  '  Go  and  tell  John  what  ye 
saw  and  heard,  that  the  blind  receive  sight,  the  lame  walk, 

1  John  iii.  26.        3  Matt.  xi.  2 ;  Luke  vii.  18.     Davidson's  Tischcndorf. 


CAPTIVITY  OP  THE   BAPTIST.  401 

the  lepers  are  cleansed,  the  deaf  hear,  the  dead  are  raised,  and 
the  poor  have  the  Gospel  preached  unto  them ; '  "  and  then 
He  added,  as  if  to  bring  John  back  from  his  doubts,  "  and 
blessed  is  he,  whosoever  shall  not  be  offended  at  Me."  Tho 
•whole  answer  showed  a  fulfilment  of  the  words  of  Tsaiah  re- 
specting the  Messiah,  which  must  have  sunk  deep  into  the 
heart  of  one  to  whom  that  great  prophet  was  an  anticipatory 
Gospel.  John  would  remember  that  in  one  place  it  was 
written l — "  Your  God  will  come  and  save  you.  Then  the 
eyes  of  the  blind  shall  be  opened,  and  the  ears  of  the  deaf 
shall  be  unstopped.  Then  shall  the  lame  man  leap  as  a  hart, 
and  the  tongue  of  the  dumb  sing;  "  and  in  another2 — "The 
Spirit  of  the  Lord  God  is  upon  me  ;  because  the  Lord  hath 
anointed  me  to  preach  good  tidings  unto  the  meek  ;  to  bind 
up  the  broken-hearted,  to  proclaim  liberty  to  the  captives, 
and  the  opening  of  the  prison  to  them  that  are  bound,  to 
proclaim  the  acceptable  year  of  the  Lord."  Jesus  could 
have  given  him  no  proof  more  touching  that  He  was  indeed 
the  Messiah. 

This  was  the  summer  of  John's  captivity,  but  the  winter 
was  fast  approaching.  Antipas,  and,  perhaps,  Herodias,  and 
the  local  court  around  them,  were  curious  to  see  and  hear  the 
man  who  had  played  so  great  a  part.  At  first,  mere  idle 
curiosity,  like  that  which  afterwards  made  him  anxious  to 
see  Jesus,8 — though  he  ended  his  interview  by  "  setting  Him 
at  nought  and  mocking  Him," — made  him  have  John  brought 
before  him.  Perhaps  the  mingled  motives  which  led  Agrippa 
II.,  Berenice,  and  Drusilla,  to  have  Paul  brought  into  their 
presence,4  led  to  the  Baptist  being  called  into  the  palace.  To 
hear  anything  unpleasant  from  one  in  their  power  was  not  to 
be  imagined.  The  sight  of  him  would  break  the  monotony 
of  an  afternoon,  and  give  something  to  talk  about  for  the 
evening.  But  he  was  no  man  for  royal  halls.  Life  was 
too  real  for  him  to  deal  in  smooth-tongued  flatteries  and  deceits. 
He  made  an  impression  on  the  court,  though  it  was  far  too 
proud  and  trifling  to  think  of  anything  so  vulgar  as  repent- 
ance. Like  St.  Paul  before  Felix  and  Drusilla,  but  in  quite 
another  mode,  he  was  a  preacher  of  righteousness,  temperance, 
and  judgment,  though  in  bonds.  "  It  is  not  lawful  for  thee 
to  have  thy  brother's  wife,"  5  said  the  fearless  man, — in  the 
grand  superiority  of  religious  zeal, — to  him  who  had  his  life 

1  Isa.  xxxv.  4,  5.  2  Isa.  Ixi.  1,  2.  3  Luke  xxiii.  8. 

4  Acts  xxiv.  24 ;  xxv.  31      5  Matt,  xiv.4.     Mark  vi.  18.    Luke  iii.  19. 

27 


402  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

in  his  hands.  Perhaps  Antipas  had  wished  to  know  what  he 
must  do  to  secure  an  interest  in  the  approaching  political 
kingdom  of  God,  and  was,  thns,  nrged  to  prove  his  sincerity 
by  breaking  off  a  life  of  sin.  In  the  reproof,  John  set  himself 
on  the  firm  footing  of  the  Mosaic  Law,1  which  bound  Herod, 
as  a  Jewish  pi'ince ;  though  the  cowardly  silence  of  tho 
hierarchy  had  allowed  him  to  trample  it  under  foot  at  his 
will,  without  censure.  "  Herodias,"  says  Josephus,  "  took 
upon  her  to  confound  the  laws  of  our  country,  and,  having 
divorced  herself  from  her  husband  while  he  was  alive,  married 
Herod  (Antipas),  her  husband's  brother  by  the  father's 
side."2  The  Law  had  repeatedly  forbidden  marriage  with  a 
living  brother's  wife,  threatening  it  with  childlessness,  as  a 
grievous  scandal,  and  making  no  difference  between  brothers 
and  half-brothers.  In  the  case  of  Antipas  the  transgression 
was  the  greater,  as  John  saw  and  pointed  out,  for  his  mar- 
riage had  only  been  effected  by  adultery  on  the  part  of  both 
wife  and  husband.  Moreover,  it  had  been  brought  about  by 
the  most  heartless  outrage  on  the  hospitality  of  a  brother. 
To  make  the  whole  more  revolting,  Herodias  was  the  niece 
of  Antipas  ;  but  it  was  not  needed  that  John  should  touch  on 
this  relationship  between  them,  for  the  Law  did  not  take 
notice  of  it,  and  the  Herod  family  had  long  disregarded  such 
objections. 

The  disgraceful  story  dated  back  to  the  first  or  second 
year  of  Pilate.  In  the  year  26,  or,  more  probably,  27,3  the 
whole  family  of  the  Herods  had  gathered  together  to  a  feast 
in  Jerusalem.  To  this  act  of  piety,  as  it  was  held,  they  had 
given  a  still  higher  value,  in  public  opinion,  by  their  action 
in  a  matter  which  lay  near  the  heart  of  a  population  zealous 
for  the  Law.  To  prevent  an  insurrection,  Pilate,  in  the  year 
26,  had  reluctantly  withdrawn  the  standards  with  their 
supposed  idolatrous  emblems,  set  up  before  the  Castle 
Antonia.  But  his  offended  pride  had  not  forgotten  the 
humiliation,  and  he,  now,  to  efface  the  remembrance  of  it, 
had  hung  votive  tablets  on  the  palace  in  Zion.  They  were 
golden  shields,  dedicated  to  Tiberius,  like  those  everywhere 
suspended  in  the  temples,  in  honour  of  the  gods,  as  acknow- 
ledgment of  some  deliverance,  or  signal  blessing  in  health  or 
fortune,  received  at  their  hands.  They  got  their  name  from 
having  been  vowed  beforehand,  in  case  a  divine  favour 

1  Lev.  xviii.  16 ;  xx.  21.     Deut.  xxv.  5.  s  Ant.,  xviii.  5.  4. 

3  Age  of  Antipas  about  49  or  50. 


ANTIPAS  AND   HEKODIAS.  403 

earnestly  desired,  should  be  vouchsafed.  On  those  he  now 
introduced,  Pilate  inscribed  only  his  own  name  and  that  of 
Tiberius,  but  the  Jews  denounced  them  as  idolatrous,  and 
raised  a  great  clamour  for  their  removal.  The  letter  of 
the  Law  might  not  condemn  them,  but  they  had  homage 
paid  them,  like  altars,  and,  hence,  were  an  abomination. 
The  four  sons  of  Herod  took  up  the  defence  of  the  Law,  thus 
outraged  in  spirit,  and  on  Pilate  referring  the  matter  to  the 
Emperor,  to  escape  a  second  humiliation,  a  deputation  was 
sent  off  to  Rome.  It  .happened  that  Antipas  also  had 
business  at  Rome 1  tvt  the  time,  and  as  he  set  out  on  it 
now,  the  people  saw  in  his  journey  a  further  proof  of  his 
piety,  as  they  never  doubted  he  had  gone  in  support  of  their 
cause.  But  he  had  adultery  in  his  heart  while  affecting  zeal 
for  religion. 

Among  the  members  of  the  Herod  family  present  at  the 
family  feast  was  Herod  Boethos,  the  son  of  Herod  the  Great 
and  the  second  Mariamne,  the  famous  Jerusalem  beauty  of 
her  day,  whose  father,  an  Alexandrian  Jew,  Herod  had  raised 
to  the  high  priesthood,  in  honour  of  the  alliance  with  his 
daughter.  This  Herod  Boethos  had  married  Herodias,  the 
grand- daughter  of  his  father  and  the  first  Mariamne,  and 
daughter  of  Aristobulus,  one  of  Mariamne's  murdered  sons. 
The  uncle  had  thus  married  the  niece,  but  this  was  nothing 
strange  in  the  Herods.  When  Antipas  came  to  Jerusalem, 
to  the  feast,  Herod  Boethos  made  him  his  guest,  as  his  half- 
brother.  Never  was  hospitality  worse  repaid. 

The  fair,  impetuous,  ambitious  Herodias  presently  made 
a  complete  conquest  of  the  weak,  unprincipled  Antipas.  He 
soon  found  himself  entangled  in  an  intrigue  with  the  wife  of 
his  hospitable  brother,  though  he  had  long  been  married  to 
the  daughter  of  a  powerful  neighbour,  Aretas,  king  of  the 
Nabateans,  whose  dominions  were  conterminous  with  his  own 
on  the  south,  with  Petra  for  capital.  Herodias  had  been 
married,  by  her  grandfather  Herod,  to  Herod  Boethos,  or 
Herod  Philip,  as  he  was  also  called,  now  a  man  approaching 
fifty,  to  mitigate  the  misfortunes  of  her  family,  left  father- 
less by  his  cruel  murder  of  his  son  Aristobulus.  She  had 
had,  as  her  only  child,  a  daughter,  Salome,  now  married  to 
Philip,  tetrarch  of  Iturea,  the  brother  of  Antipas,  who  was 
a  man  in  middle  life ;  Herodias,  herself,  being  a  woman  of 
thirty- four  or  thirty-five,  or  perhaps,  some  years  older/ 

1  Ant.,  xviii.  5. 1. 


i04  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

Divine  and  human  laws  have  seldom  been  more  shamelessly 
violated  than  by  Antipas,  while  he  was  playing  the  part,  in 
public,  of  a  zealous  defender  of  religion.  The  vice  of  Herodias 
ran  in  her  veins  with  the  blood  of  Herod  and  of  his  sister 
.  Salome,  for  their  worst  qualities  were  revived  in  her  nature. 
Her  husband,  who  had  once  been  named  as  Herod's  heir,  but 
had  been  blotted  from  the  will  when  his  mother  was  detected 
in  the  plot  of  Bagoas  the  eunuch,  seems  to  have  led  an  idle 
and  insignificant  life  as  a  private  man,  much  to  the  discontent 
of  his  imperious,  ambitions  wife.  She  was  ready,  therefore, 
to  intrigue  with  a  crowned  prince,  though  her  brother-in-law, 
and  promised  to  come  to  him,  as  soon  as  he  returned  from 
Rome.  It  was  agreed,  however,  that  Antipas  should  first 
divorce  his  wife,  the  daughter  of  Aretas. 

Antipas  set  off  to  Rome  with  this  arrangement.  It  was  to 
be  carried  out  as  soon  as  he  came  back  again  to  his  palace  at 
Tiberias,  though  he,  doubtless,  looked  for  trouble  in  effecting 
his  divorce  from  the  daughter  of  the  Nabatean  king.  To 
his  satisfaction,  however,  she  had  spared  him  any  difficulty. 
The  treachery  which,  from  of  old,  prevailed  in  the  courts 
of  the  Herods,  had  revealed  her  husband's  relations  to 
Herodias,  and  she  resolved  to  leave  him.  She  asked  no  more 
than  permission  to  visit  the  border  fortress,  Machaerus,  which 
had  formerly  belonged  to  the  Herods,  but,  at  the  time,  was 
in  her  father's  hands,  perhaps  as  the  purchase  price,  in  Eastern 
fashion,  of  his  daughter.  Its  hot  springs  were  in  great 
repute  as  a  health  resort.  Aretas  at  once  took  steps  to  carry 
her  farther  off.  Conducted  by  Arab  sheikhs,  she  was  led 
to  her  family  palace  at  Petra,  and  her  father  declared  the 
marriage  annulled.  Antipas  received  Machaerus  back ;  * 
whether  by  treaty,  craft,  or  force,  is  not  known.  Perhaps 
the  Arab  feared  the  tetrarch,  as  one  high  in  the  Emperor's 
favour ;  perhaps  Antipas  exchanged  the  fortress  for  other 
concessions.  In  any  case,  the  peace  was  not  disturbed  for 
the  time,  and  Herodias  left  her  husband,  and  came  to  the 
palace  at  Tiberias. 

The  whole  shameful  transaction  had  been  carried  out  in 
the  very  region  of  John's  earlier  ministrations,  and  had, 
doubtless,  created  a  great  sensation  in  the  districts  nearest 
the  Arab  kingdom.  Public  policy  felt  it  a  mistake  to 
have  repudiated  the  daughter  of  a  dangerous  neighbour; 
the  Law  and  its  representatives  denounced  as  a  crime  the 

1  Ant.,  xviii.  5.  1 ;  compared  with  5.  2. 


ANTIPAS   AND   THE   BAPTIST.  405 

marriage  with  a  brother's  wife.  Even  in  his  own  family, 
the  hateful  marriage,  with  its  double  adultery,  wrought 
division,  cutting  Antipas  off  from  all  his  blood.  It  was 
the  weak  point  of  his  otherwise  cautious  reign,  which  had 
guarded  against  offending  the  religious  sensitiveness  of  the 
people,  and  it  left  his  frontiers  exposed  to  the  anger  of 
Aretas,  in  revenge  for  the  insult. 

It  is  possible  that  a  matter  so  widely  mooted  among  the 
people,  may  have  been  referred  to  by  John  before  he  was 
carried  off  to  Machaerus.  But  the  Gospels  inform  us,  that 
the  fearless  man  reproved  Herod  respecting  it,  face  to  face, 
perhaps  before  all  his  court.  If  he  had  been  brought  for  a 
show,  and  let  loose  this  shaft  at  the  sleeping  conscience  of 
Antipas,  before  his  partner  in  guilt  and  the  gay  parasites 
round,  no  scene  could  have  been  more  dramatic.  But  the 
man  who  had  spoken  such  words  could  not  be  allowed  to 
live.  Herodias  was  determined  he  should  pay  for  his  rash- 
ness with  his  life,  and  lost  no  opportunity  of  working  on 
Antipas  to  give  the  command  for  his  execution. 

The  bitter  fruits  of  the  marriage  were  already  springing 
up,  to  poison  the  tetrarch's  remaining  years.  The  curse 
of  childlessness,1  denounced  by  the  Law  on  such  a  crime, 
was  fulfilling  itself.  The  father  of  his  repudiated  wife 
threatened  war  for  the  insult  to  his  daughter,  and  Antipas 
was  engrossed  by  efforts  to  prepare  for  it,  if  he  could  not 
prevent  it.  Long,  fierce  wrangling  passed,  after  a  time, 
into  open  hostility,  and  Antipas  was  so  shamefully  defeated 
that  he  had  to  appeal  to  the  Emperor  for  aid,  and  kept  his 
throne,  for  the  time,  only  by  his  support.  Perhaps  Jesus 
referred  to  this  uneasy  time  when  He  asked,  "  What  king, 
going  to  make  war  against  another  king,  will  not  first 
sit  down  and  consult  whether  he  is  able,  with  10,000,  to 
meet  him  that  comes  against  him  with  20,000  ?  Otherwise, 
while  he  is  yet  a  great  way  off,  having  sent  an  embassy,  he 
asks  conditions  of  peace."2  To  make  his  position  still  more 
unhappy,  John  had  touched  his  conscience  to  the  quick  by 
his  reproofs.  Should  he  put  him  to  death,  and  thus,  at 
once,  avenge  such  a  liberty  with  one  who  wore  the  purple, 
r,nd  bring  to  an  end  all  fear  of  political  trouble,  through  the 
bold  man's  influence  on  the  people  ?  Herodias  sedulously 
kept  alive  the  struggle  in  her  husband's  breast,  between 
conscience  and  fear,  and  passion  and  pride.  She  herself  was 

1  Lev.  xx.  21.  *  Luke  xv.  3],  32. 


406  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

doubly  touched,  for  John  had  recalled  her  violation  of  her 
first  duty  as  a  wife,  and  the  ghastly  fact  that  she  had  been 
the  virtual  seducer  of  him  whom  she  now  had  in  her  power. 
But  Antipas,  for  once,  would  not  give  way  to  the  murderous 
wish  of  Herodias.  He  spared  the  Baptist's  life,  protected 
him  from  the  snares  of  his  unscrupulous  enemy,  and  even 
made  his  imprisonment  bearable,  as  far  as  was  possible.  It 
was  no  friendly  feeling,  however,  that  moved  him  thus,  but 
the  involuntary  homage  of  even  a  bad  nature  to  the  unbend- 
ing truth  and  moral  grandeur  of  his  prisoner — a  homage, 
akin  to  fear — which  made  him  tremble  hereafter  at  the 
report  of  the  miracles  of  Jesus,  in  the  belief  that  it  was 
John  risen  from  the  grave,  clothed  with  the  supernatural 
powers  of  the  other  world. 1 

"  Herod,  though  in  his  palace,  surrounded  with  his  royal 
guards,  feared  him.  He  knew  the  Baptist  was  stronger  than 
he,  for  truth  is  mighty,  and  mightily  prevaileth :  and  being 
already  conscious  of  his  offendings,  and  having  enough  to 
do  to  keep  down  the  voices  of  crime  and  transgression  within 
him,  he  feared  this  righteous  man,  whose  words  gave  such 
edge  to  his  self -accusations,  such  point  to  his  remorse.  Un- 
armed, the  Baptist  daunted  him  more  than  an  army  of  men, 
an  embattled  city,  or  a  fenced  tower,  or  any  other  source  of 
physical  and  outward  force.  It  reminds  me  of  the  saying 
of  the  first  James,  when  Knox's  daughter  came  to  petition 
for  her  husband  Welsh's  pardon.  The  monarch  asked  her 
who  she  was ;  she  replied,  '  The  daughter  of  John  Knox.' 
'  Knox  and  Welsh,'  said  he,  '  that  is  a  fearful  conjunction  of 
bloods.  And  had  your  father  any  sons  ?  '  '  No,  only  three 
daughters.'  '  Had  his  three  daughters  been  three  sons,'  said 
the  conscience-stricken  monarch,  '  I  would  ill  have  brinked  ' 
(enjoyed)  '  my  three  kingdoms  in  peace.  He  may  return,  if 
he  will  consent  never  to  preach  again.'  '  Sooner  than  he 
should  consent  to  that,'  said  the  godly  and  heroic  woman, 
'  I  would  kep '  (catch  as  it  fell  from  the  block)  '  his  bloody 
head  here,' — stretching  out  the  matronal  apron  in  which  sho 
was  attired."  2 

That  Antipas  thus  stood  between  his  prisoner  and  the 
Jozebel  who  thirsted  for  his  death,  and  even  protected  him, 
in  a  wild  border  district  where  human  life  was  held  in  no 
regard,  was  a  noble  tribute  to  the  greatness  of  John,  for 
none  but  a  lofty  soul  could  have  made  such  an  impression 

1  Matt,  xiv  1.        2  living's  John  the  Baptist.     Works,  vol.  ii.  p.  150. 


A  MASQUE   AT   MACHAERUS.  407 

on  the  weak,  selfish,  sensual,  knavish  being,  in  whose  prison 
he  lay,  or  could  have  roused,  even  in  such  a  nature,  whatever 
it  had  of  good,  to  a  struggle  with  overpowering  evil.  It  was, 
almost,  the  raising  of  a  son  of  Abraham  from  the  stones  of 
the  wilderness.  The  tyrant's  alarm  and  want  of  resolution, 
his  consciousness  of  guilt  and  involuntary  awe,  fenced  round 
the  life  of  the  Baptist  for  the  time,  till  the  furious  woman, 
whose  dismissal  John  had  demanded,  after  vainly  trying  to 
gain  her  end  by  wild  revenge,  reached  it,  at  last,  by  craft. 

Antipas  had  had  the  good  fortune,  by  no  means  common 
with  the  vassals  of  Tiberius,  to  keep  his  throne  for  over 
thirty  years,  and,  like  his  father, l  had  been  accustomed  to 
celebrate  the  anniversary  of  his  accession,  each  summer,  by  a 
banquet.  2  The  time  for  this  had  now  returned,  and  an  invi- 
tation to  a  grand  festivity  on  the  occasion  was  given  to 
the  officers  in  attendance  at  Machaerus,  the  sheikhs  of  the 
neighbouring  tribes,  and  the  high  society  within  reach, 
including  the  lords,  chief  captains,  and  first  men  of  Galilee. 3 
Persius,  the  Roman  satirist,  has  left  us  a  notice  of  such  a 
feast  on  the  "  Herod's  day,"  of  some  of  the  family,  perhaps 
of  Antipas.4  He  shows  us  the  palace  windows  brilliantly 
illuminated  and  hung  with  garlands  of  flowers ;  the  tables 
spread  with  every  ostentation  of  luxury,  and  the  wine  flowing 
freely.  On  this  occasion,  the  mirth  and  rejoicing  ran  high. 
Herodias,  herself,  was  not  present, 5  for  it  is  not  the  custom 
even  now,  in  the  East,  for  the  women  to  take  part  in  the 
festivities  of  men.  But  to  do  honour  to  the  day,  and  to  the 
company,  her  daughter  Salome,  the  childless  wife  of  the 
tetrarch  Philip,  had  broken  through  the  rule  of  strict  seclusion 
from  the  other  sex,  and  had  condescended,  though  a  princess, 
and  the  daughter  of  kings,  to  dance  before  Antipas  and  his 
guests.  The  dancing  then  in  vogue  both  in  Rome  and  the 
provinces,  from  its  popularity  under  Augustus,  was  very 
like  that  of  our  modern  ballet.  The  dancer  did  not  speak, 
but  acted  some  story  by  gestures,  movements,  and  attitudes, 
to  the  sound  of  music.  Masks  were  used  in  all  cases,  to 
conceal  the  features,  but  the  other  parts  of  the  body,  especially 
the  hands  and  arms,  were  called  into  action,  and  a  skilful 
pantomimist  could  express  feelings,  passions,  and  acts,  with 
surprising  effect.  The  subjects  of  the  dance  were  always 
mythological,  and  thus,  an  abhorrence  to  strict  Jews,  as 

1  Ant.,  xv.  11.  6, 

8  Antipas  entered  on  his  reign  not  before  August,  B.C.  4. 

1  Mark  vi.  22.  «  Pers.  Sat.,  v.  180-184.  *  Mark  vi.  24 


408  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

essentially  heathen.  The  dress  of  the  performer,  like  that 
of  the  dancers  in  our  ballet,  was  planned  to  show  the  beauty 
of  the  figure  to  the  greatest  advantage,  though  it  varied  with 
the  characters  represented.  In  the  days  of  Antipas  there 
never  was  more  than  one  dancer  at  a  time,  even  when  the 
piece  introduced  both  sexes.  Women  did  not  perform  thus 
in  public,  in  these  earlier  times  of  the  empire,  but,  as  in  the 
case  of  Salome,  they  did  not  scruple  to  act  at  the  private 
parties  of  the  great.1 

Salome's  ballet  was  a  great  success.  The  revellers  were 
charmed,  and  the  weak  head  of  Antipas,  perhaps  made  weaker 
by  wine,  was  fairly  turned.  He  could  not  give  away  the 
humblest  village  without  permission  from  Tiberius,  but, 
forgetful  of  this,  he  vowed,  in  true  Eastern  exaggeration, 
to  do  anything  the  dancer  asked ;  if  it  were  to  give  her  half  of 
his  kingdom.  Seizing  the  chance,  she  was  yet  too  cautious 
to  speak  off  hand,  but  retired  to  consult  her  mother. 
Herodias,  clutching  the  opportunity,  had  no  hesitation  in 
her  answer — "  Ask  the  head  of  John  the  Baptist."  Returning 
at  once,  she  made  the  bloody  request.  Chagrined  at  the 
advantage  taken  of  him,  and  alarmed  at  its  probable  results, 
he  yet  had  not  the  moral  courage  to  refuse  it.  His  honour, 
he  fancied,  was  compromised,  for  he  had  put  himself  in 
Salome's  power,  before  the  company.  Motioning,  therefore, 
to  a  soldier  of  the  guard,  he  commanded  him  to  bring  John's 
head.  There  was  no  warning  given :  the  entrance  of  the 
messenger  was  the  signal  for  execution,  and  the  head  was 
presently  brought  in  on  a  salver  and  given  to  Salome,  who 
took  it  out  as  a  welcome  present  to  her  mother.  The  muti- 
lated body,  cared  for  by  loving  disciples,  was,  perhaps  the 
same  night,  laid  in  a  tomb. 2 

It  is  a  weird  and  ghastly  story,  but  one  quite  in  keeping 
with  the  almost  grotesquely  horrible  incidents  recorded  of 
the  half  barbarous  courts  of  the  East,  and  even  of  that  of 
Rome,  in  this  savage  age.  Herodotus  tells  the  story  of  the 
demand  made  by  Amestris,  wife  of  Xerxes,  on  a  birthday 
festival  of  her  husband,  that  he  should  give  up  the  wife  of 
Masistes  to  her  jealous  rage,  and  how,  on  her  persisting,  he 
lancied  he  could  not,  on  that  day,  refuse.  No  entreaty  oi 
the  unfortunate  prince  could  avail  for  his  wife,  whom  he 
loved ;  Xerxes  having  once  commanded  her  to  be  given  up 

1  Winer,  and  Bibel  Lex.,  Art.  Tarn.    Diet,  of  Antiq.  Art.  Pantomirmu. 
1  Mark  vi.  22,  29.    Davideuris  Tisclicndorf. 


THE   DEATH   OF  JOHN.  409 

to  her  rival.  Nor  is  the  grim  parallel  to  the  fury  of  Herodias 
wanting,  for  the  spearmen  of  Xerxes  were  forthwith  sent  by 
the  frantic  Amestris,  and  cut  her  rival  to  pieces,  throwing 
her  in  fragments  to  the  dogs.1  k 

In  the  year  B.C.  53,  after  the  battle  of  Karrha,  the  Parthian 
King,  Orodes,  was  celebrating  the  marriage  of  his  son  Paco- 
rus,  when  the  actor  who  played  the  part  of  Agave,  in  the 
Bacchae  of  Euripides,  brought  in  the  half  wasted  head  of 
Crassus  on  the  stage,  and  the  chorus  repeated,  with  loud, 
triumphant  rejoicing,  the  well-known  strophe — 

"  We  bring  from  the  mountain, 
Borne  to  our  home, 
The  royal  booty,  the  bleeding  sport."  * 

Nor  was  Rome  itself  less  savage.  Caligula  often  had  men 
put  to  torture  before  his  guests  at  his  feasts,3  and  swordsmen, 
skilled  in  beheading,  amused  the  table  by  cutting  off  the 
heads  of  prisoners  brought  in  from  their  dungeons,  to 
show  their  dexterity.  At  a  public  feast  at  Rome,  he  ordered 
the  executioner  to  strike  off  the  hands  of  a  slave,  accused  of 
having  taken  a  silver  plate  from  one  of  the  couches,  and 
made  the  poor  wretch  go  round  and  round  the  tables  with 
his  hands  hanging  on  his  breast  from  a  cord  round  his 
neck,  a  board  being  carried  before  him,  inscribed  with  his 
offence. 

After  the  death  of  the  Baptist,  Antipas  returned  to  Ti- 
berias, haunted  by  the  remembrance  of  his  victim.4  Salome 
went  back  to  her  elderly  husband,  who  had  already  built  a 
tomb  for  himself,  in  Julias  Bethsaida,  and  did  not  long 
survive  his  marriage.™  Salome,  left  a  widow,  once  more 
returned  to  her  mother. 

The  marriage  had  been  a  speculation  of  Herodias,  who 
hoped  thus  to  get  hold  of  the  territory  of  her  neighbour 
and  son-in-law.  But  the  scheme  failed,  for  the  tetrarchy 
was  forthwith  incorporated  with  the  province  of  Syria.  An- 
tipas, however,  still  hankered  after  it,  and  turned  wistful 

1  Herod.,  ix.  108-112. 

2  Mommsen's  Rom.  G.,  vol.  iii.  p.  335.      See  also  Maspero's  Histoire 
Ancicnne,  p.  437,  for  the  Assyrian  King  Assurbanipal  banqueting  in  a 
hall  in  which  a  rival's  head  is  hung  up.    It  is  on  a  tablet  in  the  British 
Museum. 

3  Caligula  was  born  A.D.  12.     Put  to  death  A.D.  41.    He  was  thus  born 
wily  16  yearsafter  Jesus  Christ. 

*  Matt.  xiv.  1. 


410  THE   LIFE    OF   CHRIST. 

eyes  towards  it  from  Iris  palace  at  Tiberias,  till,  at  last,  it 
lured  him  and  Herodias  to  ruin. 

"  The  Baptist  had  done  the  Almighty  good  service — he 
had  not  turned  back,  on  any  occasion,  from  his  perilous  duty 
— he  had  kept  his  Nazarite  ritual,  both  in  body  and  spirit, 
sustaining  the  one  upon  the  simplest  meat,  and  the  other 
upon  the  hardest  conditions.  The  Almighty  heard  the 
voice  which  he  spoke  always  for  His  well-beloved  Son ;  Ho 
saw  that  he  spoke  truth,  and  held  his  integrity  steadfast 
unto  the  end.  And,  perceiving  in  His  servant  such  noble 
and  excellent  qualities,  He  resolved  to  perfect  him  for  a  high 
place  in  heaven,  and  so  directed  his  footsteps  to  the  fiery 
furnace  of  a  court,  that  the  temper  of  his  truth  and  piety 
might  be  purified  manifold.  And  in  the  fiery  furnace  He 
walked  with  His  servant,  so  that  his  spirit  was  not  harmed  ; 
and  having  thus  annealed  his  nature  to  the  utmost  which 
this  earth  could  do,  He  took  him  hastily  away,  and  placed 
him  among  the  glorified  in  heaven."  1 

1  Irving'g  John  the  Baptist.     Works,  vol.  ii.  p.  180. 


CHAPTER    XXVH. 

* 

THE  TEMPTATION. 

rriHE  baptism  of  Jesus  in  the  Jordan,  and  His  consecration 
-**  immediately  after  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  were  the  close 
of  His  private,  and  the  inauguration  of  His  public,  life. 
Hitherto  He  had  been  the  unknown  and  obscure  villager  of 
Nazareth :  henceforth  He  entered  on  His  Divine  mission  as 
the  Messiah,  or  "  Anointed  "  of  God.  The  beginning  of  His 
ministry,  and  the  heavenly  equipment  needed  to  sustain 
Him  in  it,  are  always  referred,  by  the  Apostles  themselves, 
to  this  supreme  occasion.  With  them,  His  commission,  and 
special  endowment  for  His  mighty  work,  dated  from  His 
baptism.  "  Ye  know,"  says  St.  Peter,"  what  was  spoken 
of  throughout  all  Judea,  beginning  from  Galilee,  after  the 
baptism  which  John  preached,  concerning  Jesus  of  Nazareth, 
that  God  anointed  Him  with  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  with 
power;  who  went  about  doing  good,  and  curing  all  that 
were  overpowered  by  the  devil,  for  God  was  with  Him."  l 
A.  mysterious  dignity  imparted  by  this  heavenly  "  anoint- 
ing," filled  Him,  consciously,  with  supernatural  powers  He 
had  not  hitherto  displayed,  and  raised  Him  from  the  sub- 
ordinate and  passive  life  of  Nazareth,  to  the  high  office  of 
"  Messenger  of  the  Covenant,"  "  the  Messiah  promised  to 
the  fathers." 

In  the  thirty  years  of  His  life  in  Nazareth,  Jesus  had  done 
no  miracles,  and  had  assumed  no  authority  or  public  standing 
as  a  teacher.  On  the  contrary,  He  had  so  withdrawn  into 
the  shade  of  a  studied  obscurity,  and  conformed  to  the  daily 
life  of  those  around,  that  no  one,  apparently,  suspected  Him 
to  be  more  than  the  humble  villager  He  seemed. 

The  baptism  in  the  Jordan,  with  its  mysterious  accompa- 
niments— the  Heavenly  Dove  and  the  Voice  of  God — marked 
the  dividing  line  in  His  life.  With  such  credentials,  and 

1  Acts  x.  37,  38.     Davidson's  Tischendorf. 


412  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

such  endowments,  His  call  as  the  Messiah  was  no  longer 
doubtful.  We  know  nothing  of  His  spiritual  history  while 
at  Nazareth,  beyond  the  fact  that  His  thoughts  expanded 
with  His  years,  for  His  "keeping  on  increasing  in  wisdom  " l 
can  mean  nothing  less.  Presentiments  must  have  often  risen 
in  His  mind,  but  He  may  have  had  no  assurance  that  they 
were  trustworthy — for  His  Divine  nature  is  a  mystery — till 
formally  "  anointed  with  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  with  power." 
After  His  baptism,2  we  can  readily  fancy  Him,  during  His 
stay  at  the  Jordan,  listening  intently  to  the  preaching  of 
John,  and  watching  the  excited  multitudes,  till  the  convic- 
tion forced  itself  upon  Him,  that  the  Law  could  no  longer 
be  the  channel  of  salvation  to  the  sin-stricken,  repentant 
crowds.  The  gift  of  the  Spirit,  and  the  words  of  the  Heavenly 
Voice,  would  confirm  this  conviction,  and  make  it  for  ever 
certain  that  the  path  into  which  John  was  introducing  his 
converts,  could  not,  of  itself,  lead  to  the  fulness  of  truth 
and  abiding  peace  of  heart.  The  opened  heavens  revealed  a 
new  relation  of  God  to  man,  which  must  be  proclaimed  ;  and 
in  the  holy  symbol  of  the  dove — the  pledge  in  Noah's  day 
that  wrath  had  turned  to  mercy — the  chosen  emblem  of  the 
Spirit  of  God,  a  vivid  lesson  was  given  that  peace  could  be 
won  back  to  the  troubled  soul,  and  the  soul  itself  reneA^ed, 
only  by  the  soft  and  gentle  influence  of  heavenly  grace.  Set 
apart,  by  so  august  a  consecration,  as  God's  anointed,  the 
regeneration  of  the  race,  and  the  reconciliation  of  earth  and 
heaven,  were  henceforth  entrusted  to  His  hands.  He  had, 
till  now,  been  silent ;  but  forthwith  began  to  proclaim  that 
the  kingdom  of  God  was  no  longer,  as  John  had  taught,  near 
at  hand,  but  had  already  come,3  and  at  once  assumed  and 
exercised  the  highest  kingly  authority,  as  its  Head ; 4  work- 
ing miracles  as  a  proof  of  His  superhuman  dignity ; 5  bearing 
Himself  in  the  Temple  as  in  His  Father's  House  ;  6  discours- 
ing, as  the  Messiah,  with  Nicodemus.7  He  even  took  to 
Himself,  from  this  time,  the  name  of  "  The  Son  of  Man  "  8 
dorived  from  the  vision  of  the  Messiah  in  the  Book  of 
.Daniel,9  and  universally  accepted  from  that  source,  as  the 
symbol  of  Messianic  rank.  His  baptismal  consecration  was 
forthwith  followed  by  His  taking  His  place  as  king  in  the 
new  theocracy;  ruling,  and  legislating,  and  displaying  all 

1  Luke  ii.  52.  *  Acts  x.  38.     See  Ewald's  Christus,  pp.  256  ff. 

*  John  iii.  5.  *  John  i.  51.  *  John  ii.  1.  6  John  ii.  13. 

*  John  iii.  1.  8  J^Q  ^  51 


CHEIST  AFTEB  HIS   BAPTISM.  413 

kingly  povrer  and  dignity,  henceforth,  as  the  Messiah  of  God 
— Himself  Divine. 

His  baptism  was,  thus,  the  birth-hour  of  Christianity. 
Crowds  sunk  in  national  and  spiritual  degradation,  thronged 
the  banks  of  the  Jordan,  roused  by  the  new  Elias  to  a  sense 
of  their  wants,  but  left  to  expectancy  for  their  future  satis« 
faction,  They  longed  for  a  last  needful  word,  but  John  was 
unable  to  add  it.  He  could  speak  of  the  approach  of  the 
Kingdom  of  God,  but  he  was  only  its  herald,  and  could  not 
act  as  its  head,  for  the  Messiah,  who  was  to  give  it  life  and 
form,  was  yet  to  come.  His  work  was  a  mighty  movement, 
with  no  adequate  end  :  his  converts  a  mighty  host,  without  a 
watchword  ;  his  exhortations  excited  a  deep  yearning,  which 
they  left  unsatisfied.  Such  a  spectacle  must  have  stirred  the 
soul  of  Jesus  to  its  lowest  depths.  Even  before  His  instal- 
lation as  the  Messiah,  He  must  have  pondered  the  condition 
of  His  people,  and  longed,  with  all  the  love  of  His  Divine 
nature,  to  heal  their  troubles.  It  must  have  been  so  even 
in  Nazareth.  The  investiture  at  the  Jordan  only  stamped 
with  heavenly  approval  the  purposes  that  had  been  ripening 
in  His  breast  from  His  earliest  years.  We  cannot  think  of 
one  like  Jesusv  so  profoundly  religious,  and  so  divinely  com- 
passionate, as  at  any  time  indifferent  to  the  supreme  question 
of  the  reconciliation  of  man  to  God.  The  days  and  nights 
passed,  in  later  years,  in  solitary  prayer,  in  the  wilderness 
or  in  the  mountains,  were,  doubtless,  only  the  repetition  of 
far  earlier  communings  with  His  Father,  and  with  His  own 
soul.  But  the  Divine  certainty  ;  the  imperative  signal,  that 
He  should  rise  and  gird  Himself  to  the  mighty  task  of  win- 
ning back  the  world  to  God  ;  the  awful  summons  for  which 
He  waited  with  hushed  stillness,  He  first  read  in  the  sights 
and  revelations  of  the  Jordan  baptism.  The  heavenly  con- 
secration was  the  Divine  sanction  of  His  long-cherished  but 
dimly  realized  purpose.  The  accompaniments  of  His  baptism 
made  Him  the  head  of  the  new  spiritual  theocracy,  and  laid 
on  Him  the  burden  of  giving  Himself  wholly  to  its  establish- 
ment. 

Everything  around  corroborated  the  indications  of  the 
heavenly  vision.  The  events  predicted  as  inaugurating  the 
advent  of  the  Messiah,  were  realizing  themselves  before  Him, 
for  had  not  Elias  come  again,  in  the  person  of  John,  and  had 
not  the  nation  consecrated  itself,  in  preparation  for  the  Mes- 
siah ?  He,  only,  was  wanting,  whom  the  times  themselves 
could  not  give :  the  COMING  ONE,  who  should  set  up,  in  its 


414  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

fulness,  the  Divine  Kingdom  already  begun.  No  wonder 
that  John,  as  he  daily  announced  both  the  Kingdom  and  the 
Messiah,  with  unwavering  faith,  and  searched  each  group 
that  came  before  him,  in  hopes  of  finding,  at  last,  the  chosen 
of  God,  fixed  his  eyes  with  a  settled  and  clear  conviction  on 
Jesus,  as  Him  for  whom  he  was  looking.  The  attitude  of  the 
Baptist  towards  Him,  was  a  corroboration  of  all  the  rest. 
His  own  consciousness  of  being  the  Eternal  Son  of  God ;  the 
spectacle  before  Him;  the  longings  of  His  pity  and  holy 
love  ;  the  wants  of  the  times  ;  and,  above  all',  the  voice  and 
sign  from  Heaven,  made  it  clear,  that  "  lowly  in  heart "  as 
He  was,  He  was  nevertheless  the  Messiah. 

The  earliest  chapters  of  the  Gospels  show  with  what 
majestic  fulness  and  dignity  the  Saviour  rose  to  the  height 
of  this  great  commission.  Recognising  John  as  a  noble 
servant  of  God,  He  yet  took  His  place,  from  the  first,  above 
him.  John  stayed  behind  in  his  Jewish  limitations,  leaving 
the  great  work  imperfect,  but  Jesus  from  the  beginning 
stood  a  King  over  the  souls  of  men,  dispensing  promises, 
scattering  heavenly  gifts,  calming  fears,  satisfying  the  crav- 
ings of  the  heart,  raising  an  invisible  and  deathless  kingdom 
in  the  human  spirit,  and  bearing  Himself  as,  at  once,  God 
and  man. 

It  is,  of  course,  wholly  beyond  us  to  conceive  the  mental 
struggle  implied  in  such  a  position,  when  it  first  opened  before 
our  Lord.  It  committed  Him  to  meet  and  overcome  the 
Prince  of  Darkness ;  to  bear  the  sins  of  the  world,  as  the 
spotless  Lamb  of  God ;  to  withstand  the  opposition  and 
hatred  of  men,  their  indifference,  mockery,  misconception, 
and  insensibility  of  heart ;  to  endure,  in  fact,  the  life,  and  at 
last  to  die  the  death,  of  a  martyr.  Still  more,  it  opened 
before  Him  an  awful  isolation  as  the  one  Holy  Being  in  a 
sinful  world ;  a  fact  which  might  well  fill  a  nature  like  His, 
of  trembling  sensibility  and  loving  tenderness,  with  over- 
powering emotion.  No  wonder  it  is  said  He  was  driven, 
by  the  Spirit  into  the  wilderness.  The  mind  needs  calmly 
to  survey  the  ground,  and  gird  itself  up  to  its  task,  planning 
its  efforts,  and  guarding  against  failure,  before  entering  on 
any  great  enterprise,  and  He  was  "  in  all  things  like  His 
brethren."  It  is  in  retirement,  and  sacred  communion  with 
God  and  one's  own  soul,  that  we  refresh  ourselves  for  our 
greatest  tasks.  It  was  in  the  solitudes  of  the  mountains 
that  Moses  prepared  himself  for  the  work  of  creating  a 
people  for  God.  The  Baptist  came  from  the  wilderness  to 


CHRIST   IN   THE   DESERT.  415 

enter  on  his  work  as  a  Reformer ;  and  St.  Paul,  after  his 
conversion,  secluded  himself  for  three  years,  no  one  knows 
whither,  to  make  ready  for  his  commission  to  the  nations. 
The  wilderness,  with  its  sacred  quiet  and  seclusion,  was 
alone  fitted  for  the  retirement  of  Jesus. 

To  what  part  He  withdrew  Himself  is  not  stated,  but 
St.  Mark  adds  the  vivid  note  that  He  was  "  with  the  wild 
beasts,"  1  which  excludes  the  idea  of  even  scattered  human 
population.  In  this  vast  and  lonely  chamber  of  meditation 
and  prayer  He  remained  for  forty  days,  in  intense  concen- 
tration of  soul  on  the  work  before  Him.  To  be  alone  was  to 
have  every  thought  rise  in  turn :  to  have  human  weakness 
plead  for  indulgence,  and  human  fears  counsel  safety.  Nor 
could  He  escape  graver  trials.  The  Prince  of  Darkness  had, 
doubtless,  often  before  attempted  to  overcome  Him,  for  "  He 
was  tempted  in  all  points  like  as  we  are."  2  It  was  meet  that 
the  Anointed  of  God  should  be  put  to  the  test.  The  struggles 
through  which  the  soul  comes  to  clearness,  power,  and 
decision,  are  themselves  temptations,  for  they  imply  that 
the  mind  has  not  yet  emerged  into  the  calmness  of  settled 
triumph.  We  cannot  conceive  of  Jesus  escaping  suggestions 
to  have  entertained  which  would  have  been  fatal.  Tempta- 
tions must  needs  enter  the  firmest  and  holiest  soul,  else  it 
cannot  be  said  to  be  tempted  at  all.  They  are  the  more  in- 
evitable the  greater  the  task  to  be  undertaken,  and  serve 
the  high  end  of  separating  it  from  possible  error.  To  let 
Satan  do  his  worst  was  the  needful  preliminary  to  the  final 
overthrow  of  his  kingdom,  for  success  or  failure  at  the  first 
step  determined  the  future. 

The  specific  temptations  recorded  in  the  Gospels  belong  to 
the  last  days  of  our  Lord's  seclusion,  for,  as  the  culmination  of 
Satan's  assaults,  they  were  subtly  reserved  till  nature  was 
well-nigh  exhausted,  and  the  power  of  resistance  weakest. 
But,  though  critical  hours  in  life  may  justly  be  regarded 
as  especially  times  of  temptation,  an  existence,  like  ours, 
which  is  a  constant  choice  between  good  and  evil,  is,  through- 
out, a  probation.  We  know  little  of  the  spiritual  world,  and 
cannot  say  how  far  our  actions  are  determined  for  evil  by 
ourselves,  or  how  far  active  Satanic  influences  may  affect  us ; 
for,  as  in  our  better,  so  in  our  guilty  acts,  the  mind  is  con- 
scious of  a  deliberate  freedom  of  will.  Like  Adam,  we  feel 
that  we  are  "  sufficient  to  have  stood,  though  free  to  fall." 

»  Mark  i.  13.  »  Heb.  iv.  15. 


416  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

Our  character  is  but  the  stamp  on  our  souls  of  the  free 
choice  of  good  or  evil  we  have  made  through  life.  From 
childhood  to  the  grave,  the  road  is  open  to  us  all,  on  either 
side,  from  the  straight  path  of  right.  Nor  are  the  only 
failures  those  of  open  act.  The  soul  is,  in  itself,  a  world, 
and  evil  thoughts  count  as  acts  with  the  Eternal,  if  not  at 
once  repelled.  Yet  they  must  rise  at  every  moment,  for 
the  choice  of  right  implies  freedom  to  choose  the  opposite. 
Milton  is  true  to  nature  when  he  makes  Satan  tell  the 
Saviour  that  he  had  heard  the  angels'  song  at  Bethlehem, 
and — 

"  From  that  time  seldom  have  I  ceased  to  eye 
Thy  infancy,  thy  childhood,  and  thy  youth, 
Thy  manhood  last,  though  yet  in  private  bred."1 

"  He  was  a  child,  and  grew  in  the  grace  and  faculties 
of  His  nature,  like  another  child,  into  mature  manhood, 
struggling  with  the  temptations,  and  spoiling  the  tempters 
of  each  stage  of  life." 2  The  probation  of  the  desert  was 
only  an  outburst,  more  than  usually  violent,  of  that  which 
had  attended  Him,  all  through,  as  a  condition  of  His 
humanity. 

There  are,  however,  supreme  moments  of  trial,  victory  in 
which  decides  the  colour  of  our  life,  and  breaks  the  force  of 
future  temptations  in  the  same  directions,  and  such  was  that 
of  the  wilderness  retirement.  It  is  part  of  the  discipline  of 
God,  to  make  His  servants  perfect  through  suffering,  and 
the  Son  of  Man,  the  ideal  of  humanity,  could  not  be  made 
an  exception.  Retirement  was  indispensable  for  preparation. 
He  needed  to  survey  His  great  commission  in  all  its  aspects, 
to  determine  the  course  to  be  pursued  in  carrying  it  out, 
and  realize  the  difficulties  and  dangers  He  had  to  expect. 
The  transition  from  the  life  of  Nazareth — private,  calm,  con- 
templative, unknown,  industrious  in  a  lowly  vocation — to 
that  of  a  public  teacher,  and,  still  more,  of  the  Messiah  sent 
from  God,  raised  a  multitude  of  thoughts  which  hurried  Him 
away  to  solitude,  and  made  Him  forget,  for  the  time,  even 
the  wants  of  nature. 

In  this  commotion  of  the  bosom,  conflicting  resolutions 
and  courses  must  have  readily  been  suggested.  Even 
in  the  Scriptures,  opposite  characteristics  of  the  Messiah 
might  seem  to  present  themselves.  The  future  Saviour  was 

1  Par.  Pegained,  iv.  507-509. 
•  Irving  on  the  Temptation,  Works,  vol.  ii.  p.  194. 


THE    TEMPTATIONS   OF   CHEIST.  417 

pictured  in  one  page  as  triumphing ;  in  another,  as  lowly 
and  suffering.  Man  was  to  earn  his  bread  by  the  sweat  of 
his  brow,  but  Israel  had  been  fed  with  manna,  miraculously 
supplied.  Angels  were  promised  to  protect  the  servants  of 
God,  but  it  was  forbidden  to  tempt  the  Divine  goodness. 
The  world  was  promised  to  the  friend  of  God,  and  on  the 
other  hand,  the  mark  of  true  godliness  was  humility.1 

Moreover,  had  not  Moses  been  appointed  by  God  as  the 
Lawgiver  of  Israel  ?  Had  not  the  constitution  of  the  nation 
as  a  theocracy,  with  its  Temple  service  and  sacrifices,  been 
divinely  instituted  ?  Had  not  a  chosen  priesthood  been  set 
apart  by  God,  and  were  not  the  promises  of  life  and  pros- 
perity linked  with  the  observance  of  the  Mosaic  Law  ?  Was 
not  the  promised  Saviour  described  in  Scripture  as  a  Royal 
Hero,  who  would  restore  the  glory  and  power  of  the  House 
of  David,  and  as  a  Conqueror  and  Ruler  of  the  nations  ? 

Such  thoughts  must  not  only  have  raised  temptations  and 
disturbance  in  the  mind  of  Jesus :  they  necessitated  His 
breaking  away  utterly  from  the  traditional  interpretation  of 
Scripture  current  in  His  day,  and  forced  Him  to  take  a  posi- 
tion of  direct  antagonism,  as  regarded  it,  to  the  whole  body 
of  the  Rabbis,  and  of  the  dominant  Jewish  schools.  There 
was,  thus,  no  other  way  than  to  separate  Himself  in  spirit  from 
the  theocracy,  and  prepare  for  a  life  and  death  struggle  with 
the  ecclesiastical  authorities  of  the  nation.  He  must  take  a 
position,  inconceivably  painful  to  a  lowly  and  pure  soul  like 
His,  exposing  Himself  to  the  appearance  of  sinning  against 
God,  and  of  wilful  disobedience  to  His  ordained  representa- 
tives. On  the  one  hand,  He  had  before  Him  the  allurements 
of  a  career  of  success  and  honour,  with  wealth,  power,  and 
fame ;  on  the  other,  He  would  be  branded  as  criminal  and 
blasphemous,  and  gain  only  shame,  poverty,  and  death.  But 
through  all  these  clouds,  His  spirit,  like  the  sun,  held  on  in 
its  triumphant  course,  to  emerge  in  full  glory,  and  scatter 
them  from  its  path. 

It  was  clear  that  the  theocracy  had  served  its  day,  and 
could  not  be  made  the  vehicle  of  the  great  work  Jesus  was 
to  inaugurate.  Religion  had  outgrown  it,  and  demanded 
something  loftier,  more  spiritual  and  more  universal,  and 
this  Jesus  had  come  to  supply.  Instead  of  forms  and  out- 
ward precepts,  He  was  about  to  announce  the  grand  con- 

1  Dent.  viii.  3.  Ps.  xci.  11.  Dent.  vi.  16.  Gen.  xvii.  6.  Deut.  vi.  13; 
X.  12,  21)  ;  xia.  -i. 

28 


418  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

ception  of  a  new  Kingdom  of  God — a  kingdom  in  which  the 
heart  would  be  supreme.  Winning  that  over  to  God  and  holi- 
ness, he  would,  by  it,  transform  man  into  the  image  of  God, 
and  earth  into  that  of  heaven.  His  reign  was  to  be  that  of 
holy  love  in  the  breast,  instead  of  a  worthless  service  of  rites 
and  forms.  The  grandeur  of  such  an  ideal  it  is  impossible 
adequately  to  realize.  Till  then,  outward  priesthoods,  local 
temples,  the  slaying  of  sacrifices,  pompous  rites  and  cere- 
monial law  had  been  deemed  essential.  But  the  consecration 
of  Jesus  as  the  Messiah,  not  of  the  Jews  alone,  but  of 
mankind,  made  the  whole  obsolete,  as  incompatible  with  a 
universal  religion.  No  wonder  His  soul  was  well-nigh  over- 
powered. He  must  stand  alone  against  the  world ;  must 
pass  sentence  on  all  its  religious  wisdom,  and  must  create 
a  new  world  of  spiritual  thought.  The  grand  originality  of 
soul  which  this  required,  if  we  may  use  the  word  without  ir- 
reverence, has  nothing  approaching  it  in  the  history  of  our  race. 

So  vast  a  conception  must  have  raised  endless  questions, 
doubts,  and  struggles,  the  more  it  was  pondered,  and  the 
more  all  it  involved  was  perceived.  But  a  lofty  spiritual 
nature  like  His  must  have  raised  Him  wholly  above  all  the 
human  littlenesses  which  turn  the  soul  from  great  undertak- 
ings. The  thought  of  self-preservation,  in  the  prospect  of 
immeasurable  danger,  would  not  affect  Him.  He,  who  when 
communing  with  God  forgot  hunger  and  thirst,  and  taught 
that  to  be  ready  to  lose  one's  life  1  was  a  fundamental  con- 
dition of  interest  in  the  Divine  kingdom,  had  no  craven 
thoughts  of  His  own  safety. 

He  was  infinitively  above  every  consideration  of  personal 
interest.  Neither  the  pleasures  of  life,  nor  the  delights  or 
duties  of  His  great  work,  could  make  Him  value  life  for  the 
sake  of  enjoying  them.  Even  at  the  approach  of  death  the 
only  regret  that  escapes  Him  is  that  He  leaves  His  disciples. 
The  tenderly  human  shadow  that  passed  over  His  soul  at 
G</thsemane  and  Calvary,  was  but  the  inevitable  tribute  to 
Lnman  weakness,  which  all  must  yield.  The  greatness  of 
His  task  alone  weighed  Him  down.  He  stood  single  against 
spiritual  and  worldly  powers,  against  a  people  who,  from 
the  days  of  Moses  to  the  last  prophet,  had  shown  themselves 
lukewarm,  obstinate,  and  slow  to  move,  capricious,  fretful, 
and  spiritually  dead.  The  revival,  under  John,  like  mauy 
before,  promised  to  be  a  mere  fire  of  thorns. 

1  Luke  xvii.  33. 


THE    SPIRITUALITY  OF   CHRIST 'S   KINGDOM.        419 

Even  what  we  may  call  the  details  of  His  great  work  must 
have  weighed  heavily  on  Jesus,  in  these  momentous  weeks. 
Milton  makes  Him  wander  far  into  the  depths  of  the  desert— 

"  Musing  and  much  revolving  in  His  breast, 
How  best  the  mighty  work  He  might  begin 
Of  Saviour  to  mankind,  and  which  way  tirst 
Publish  His  God-like  office,  now  mature."  l 

The  popular  Jewish  belief  that  the  Messiah  would  be  an 
earthly  king,  found  no  response  in  His  bosom,  and  this,  in 
itself,  darkened  His  future. 

He  had  seen  the  pressure  put  by  the  Rabbis  on  John,  to 
force  him  to  their  side.  Would  not  His  own  opposition  to 
them  cause,  at  least,  indifference  and  neglect ;  perhaps,  even 
hatred  ?  He  could  only  be  a  spiritual  Saviour ;  they  wished 
a  political.  He  had  no  ambition,  and  contemned  earthly 
power.  Even  if  the  people  refused  to  hear,  He  must  still 
witness  to  the  truth.  Then,  should  His  kingdom  be  raised 
by  human  agency,  or  by  the  arm  of  God  ?  Might  not  the 
Almighty  think  it  meet  to  overthrow  all  opposition  of  the 
Prince  of  Darkness,  Rome,  and  the  Jewish  hierarchy,  and 
establish  the  new  Divine  kingdom  by  irresistible  force  ?  But 
He  was  not  led  away  by  such  suggestions,  however  specious. 
Discarding  all  thought  of  playing  a  great  part  among 
men,  He  chose  lowliness  and  obscurity  for  Himself,  and  the 
smallest  beginnings  for  His  kingdom,  letting  it  win  its  way 
slowly  by  the  conquest  of  single  souls,  as  was  demanded  by 
its  Arery  nature.  It  was  to  rest  on  loyalty  and  love,  which 
must  rise  spontaneously  in  individual  breasts.  Success  and 
results  were  only  subordinate.  His  work  lay  clear  before 
Him :  to  live  and  to  die  as  the  Lamb  of  God — the  incarnation 
of  infinite  love,  attracting  humanity  by  its  holy  charms  ;  His 
life  an  example,  His  death  an  atonement. 

This  was  the  great  result  of  His  long,  secluded,  wilderness 
retirement.  He  had  surveyed  the  whole  ground  :  had  com- 
muned much  with  His  own  thoughts,  and,  above  all,  with 
His  Father,  and  came  back  to  the  world  again  in  victorious 
serenity,  to  proclaim  Himself  as  coming  in  the  name  of  God, 
with  no  lingering  fear  of  His  task,  or  of  any  spiritual  or 
human  opposition. 

The  mental  struggle  of  these  weeks  must,  in  any  case, 
have  been  intense  ;  but  it  became  unspeakably  harder  by  the 
presence  of  the  powers  of  evil,  who  sought  to  overcome  Him 

1  Par.  Regained,  i.  185-188. 


420  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

face  to  face.  Nor  is  this  only  metaphor.  Jesus,  Himself, 
always  assigns  temptation  to  the  direct  action  of  evil  spirits 
on  the  soul.  A  subtle  and  mighty  personality  is  always  pre- 
supposed, ruling  a  mysterious  kingdom  of  evil,  from  which 
he  can  only  be  cast  out  when  bound  by  one  stronger  than 
himself.1  As  the  Messiah,  Jesus  proclaimed  that  He  had  come 
to  destroy  the  power  of  this  great  enemy  of  God  and  man, 
and,  throughout  all  His  ministry,  constantly  assailed  his 
kingdom,  casting  out  devils  from  the  possessed,  as,  at  this 
time,  He  bound  and  subdued  Satan  himself.3 

It  is  not  necessary  to  suppose  an  outward  and  corporeal 
presence  of  the  arch-enemy.  He  is  never  spoken  of  as 
visible,  except  when  Jesus  saw  him  fall,  as  lightning,  from 
heaven.  He  is  invisible  when  he  tempts  us,  which  we  know 
he  does,  for  he  deceives  the  whole  world,3  and  there  is  no 
need  to  suppose  that  he  was  present  otherwise  with  our 
Lord,  than  by  raising  suggestions  in  His  sinless  mind.  To 
act  upon  the  thoughts  may  have  been  the  mode  of  Satan's 
attack,  with  Christ  as  with  ourselves. 

The  three  instances  of  the  great  enemy's  attempts,  recorded 
in  the  Gospels,  illustrate  the  subtlety  of  his  advances.  Worn 
with  hunger,  Christ  is  approached  with  the  suggestion  that 
if,  indeed,  He  were  what  He  claimed  to  be,  the  Son  of  God, 
it  was  surely  unnecessary  to  suffer  as  He  did,  when  by  a 
word  He  might  command  that  the  stones  of  the  desert  around 
Him  should  be  made  bread.  To  possess  unlimited  power  for 
specific  ends,  and  refrain  from  using  it  to  our  own  advantage, 
even  in  a  pressing  and  apparently  innocent  case,  is  an  ideal 
of  virtue  which  it  would  be  vain  to  expect  in  any  ordinary 
man.  No  temptation  is  more  difficult  to  resist  than  the 
prompting  to  do  what  seems  needful  for  self-preservation, 
when  abundant  means  are  in  our  hands.  But  Jesus  did  not, 
for  a  moment,  allow  Himself  to  question  His  duty.  The 
miraculous  gifts  newly  conferred  on  Him,  had  been  given, 
not  for  His  private  use,  but  for  the  glory  of  His  Father; 
not  as  a  human  convenience,  but  as  spiritual  aids  in  His 
work  as  the  Messiah.  As  a  man,  He  was  dependent  on  the 
care  and  love  of  His  Heavenly  Father,  and  to  use  His  miracu- 
lous powers  as  the  Messiah,  for  His  personal  benefit,  would 
be  to  take  Himself  out  of  His  Father's  hands,  and  to  show 
distrust  of  His  loving  care.  But  His  sublime  trust  in  the 
infinite  goodness  and  power  of  God  repelled  the  temptation. 

1  Matt.  xii.  25.     Lnke  xi.  17.  *  Matt.  xiii.  29.          *  Rev.  xii.  9. 


THE   SECOND  TEMPTATION.  421 

God  had  brought  Him  hither,  and  wonld  bring  Him  thence. 
Bread  was  not  the  only  means  by  which  HE  could  support 
Him.  His  word  could  create  what  means  He  pleased. 
Others  had  been  preserved  by  Him  in  unforeseen  ways.  The 
tribes  in  the  wilderness  had  been  fed  by  manna.  Moses  and 
Elijah  had  been  sustained  in  the  desert,  though  bread  was 
wanting.  It  was  not  for  Him  to  think  Himself  forgotten, 
and  to  take  His  life  into  His  own  hands,  as  if  unsafe  in 
God's.  He  would  wait  till  HE  gave  Him  what  He  chose,  in 
the  way  that  pleased  Him. 

The  second  temptation,  following  the  order  in  the  third 
Gospel,  was  no  less  subtle.  The  Kingdom  of  the  Messiah  as 
then  understood,  and  as  Jesus,  no  doubt,  had  from  youth 
been  taught,  was  to  be  an  universal  temporal  dominion.  In 
the  solitude  of  the  desert — His  mind  filled  with  the  thought 
of  His  mysterious  consecration  as  God's  Anointed — the 
thought  was  insinuated  by  the  great  enemy,  that  He  might 
well  ponder  what  course  to  pursue.  On  one  hand,  the  path 
led  to  supreme  honour  and  unequalled  glory.  Had  not  the 
Psalmist  himself  spoken  of  the  princes  of  the  earth  as  subject 
to  the  Messiah,  and  did  not  the  prophet  say  that  the  Gentiles 
should  come  to  His  light,  and  kings  to  the  brightness  of  His 
rising,  and  that  the  wealth  of  the  world  would  be  brought  to 
Him  ? 1  On  the  other  hand,  the  way  led  through  shame, 
poverty,  neglect,  derision,  insult,  and  suffering,  in  all  proba- 
bility to  an  ignominious  death.  To  ordinary  minds,  the  dream 
of  ambition  and  splendour  would  have  shone  with  incon- 
ceivable attractions  against  such  a  background.  But  it  was 
not  left  to  mere  vague  suggestions.  By  that  mysterious 
power  which  spirit  has  of  acting  upon  spirit,  the  adversary 
raised,  within  the  soul  of  Jesus,  a  vision  the  most  seductive, 
to  enforce  his  subtlety.  It  seemed  as  if  the  desert  vanished 
from  around  Him,  and  that  the  tempter  and  tempted  One 
stood  together  on  a  high  mountain,  from  whose  top  the 
kindled  fancy  appeared  to  see  all  the  kingdoms  of  the  world 
and  their  glory.  MiJton  paints  the  vision  with  matcliless 
power.2  Fair  rivers,  winding  through  rich  pastures  and 
fertile  corn-fields ;  huge  cities,  high  towered,  the  seats  of 
mightiest  monarchies;  regions  beyond  the  conquests  of 
Alexander  to  the  east,  and  far  as  Borne  to  the  west.  Did 
not  the  prophets  say  that  the  rightful  Sovereign  of  all  this 
was  God's  Messiah  ? 

1  Isaiah  Ix.  1,  5.  *  Par.  Regained,  Hi.  251  S. 


422  .    THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

But  if  so, — the  foul  suggestion  continued, — how  was  this 
world- wide  empire,  in  which,  as  God's  Anointed,  He  might 
reign  in  righteousness,  blessing  the  nations,  and  filling  the 
earth  with  the  knowledge  of  God,  to  be  gained?  Great 
enterprises  need  great  means.  He  was  unknown,  without 
friends,  of  humble  birth,  the  son  of  a  carpenter,  and  bred 
up  in  poverty  in  a  Galilean  village.  Why  not  put  Himself 
at  the  head  of  His  nation,  which  was  ready  to  follow  Him 
if  He  displayed  His  glory,  and  lead  them  against  the  heathen, 
using  His  Divine  power  to  shatter  all  opposition  ?  Had  not 
God  of  old  divided  the  sea  and  the  rivers,  to  make  a  path  for 
His  people,  led  by  His  prophet  ?  Had  He  not  rebuked  kings 
for  their  sake  ?  Had  He  not  promised  that  the  enemies  of 
His  Anointed  should  be  made  His  footstool,  and  that  He 
Himself  would  be  at  His  right  hand,  in  the  day  of  His  wrath, 
to  make  Him  reign  over  the  heathen,  and  smite  the  people 
of  many  lands  ?  1 

It  is  impossible  to  conceive  a  temptation  more  difficult  to 
resist.  Feeling  that,  as  the  Messiah,  He  was  destined  to 
universal  monarchy,  and  conscious  that  His  rule  would  be  the 
happiness  of  the  world  ;  supported,  apparently,  by  the  voice 
of  prophets  speaking  for  God,  in  the  use  of  force  to  establish 
this  heavenly  empire,  and  Himself  instinct  with  miraculous 
power  which  would  make  resistance  vain,  it  might  seem  as 
if  He  could  hardly  resist  the  suggestion.  Judas  the  Galilaean 
had  risen  thus  a  few  years  before;  and  his  memory  was 
revered.  But  Satan  spread  his  subtlest  temptations  in  vain. 
"With  the  self-restraint  becoming  a  sinless  nature,  Christ 
resisted  the  dazzling  vision.  Deliberately  rejecting  the 
thought  of  basing  His  empire  on  force  ;  He  chose,  with  a  lofty 
grandeur  of  soul,  to  found  it  on  the  love,  rather  than  on  the 
fears  or  compelled  submission  of  mankind.  Having  come, 
not  to  destroy  men's  lives,  but  to  save  them,  He  would  use 
His  miraculous  power  only  for  good  to  man  and  for  the  glory 
of  His  Father,  trusting  Himself  to  Him,  without  other  defence 
or  care  than  His  unfailing  wisdom  and  love.  The  heavenly 
gifts  He  held  should  never  be  employed  to  bring  merely 
personal  advantage  to  Himself.  As  a  man,  He  was,  and 
would  remain,  meek  and  lowly ;  His  gifts  as  Messiah  would 
be  used  only  for  spiritual  ends. 

Milton,  fvith  striking  force,  has  represented  Him  as  saying — • 

"Victorious  deeds 
1  Ps.  ex.  1,  2,  5.  6. 


THE   THIRD   TEMPTATION.  423 

Flamed  in  My  heart,  heroic  acts — one  while 
To  rescue  Israel  from  the  Koman  yoke  ; 
Men  to  subdue  and  quell,  o'er  all  the  earth, 
Brute  violence  and  proud  tyrannic  power, 
Till  truth  were  freed,  and  equity  restored  : 
Yet  held  it  more  humane,  more  heavenly,  first 
By  winning  words  to  conquer  willing  hearts, 
And  make  persuasion  do  the  work  of  fear."  l 

From  first  to  last,  Jesus  refused  to  exercise  His  superna- 
tural power  to  establish  His  kingdom  by  outward  means, 
and,  indeed,  it  was  because  of  His  persistent  refusal  to  do 
so  that  His  nation  rejected  Him.  Assent  to  the  temptation 
seemed  to  Him  like  an  act  of  homage  to  the  Prince  of  this 
world,  His  adversary,  for  force  and  violence  are  character- 
istics of  his  sway.  As  the  Prince  of  Peace,  He  would  have 
nothing  to  do  with  strife.  The  temptation  lost  its  power  as 
He  uttered  the  words  "  Get  thee  behind  Me,  Satan,  for  it  is 
written,  Thou  shalt  worship  the  Lord  thy  God,  and  Him  only 
shalt  thou  serve." 

He  had  now  been  tempted  by  hunger  and  by  ambition : 
there  remained  another  possible  opening  for  the  enemy ; 
through  the  avenue  of  spiritual  pride.  Earthly  glory  had 
had  no  attractions  for  Him,  but  He  might  be  vain  of  His 
newly  acquired  Messiahship,  and  willing  to  display  His 
supernatural  powers  for  mere  empty  effect,  and  to  flatter 
His  own  self-love.  To  disguise  the  aim,  a  sacred  gloss  was 
at  hand.  Instead  of  evil — compliance  would  only  show,  in 
another  form,  that  absolute  dependence  upon  God,  by  which 
he  had  repelled  the  appeal  to  His  natural  wants.  The  arch 
magician  had  brought  before  the  eye  of  His  mind,  perhaps 
also  of  His  body,  the  pomp  and  glory  of  the  world.  He  had, 
before,  wrought  upon  the  natural  desire  there  is  in  all  men 
for  fame  and  dignity  ;  but  the  vast  illusion  had  been  treated 
as  an  idle  show,  unworthy  of  regard.  Would  a  proposal, 
however,  to  inaugurate  His  Messiahship  by  what  would 
justify  His  utmost  claims,  be  as  firmly  turned  aside  ?  Jesus 
was  no  angel,  or  mere  spirit  without  human  desires.  It  was 
of  the  very  essence  of  His  being  to  be  touched  and  moved  by 
all  that  influences  men  at  large,  and  nothing  could  be  more 
natural  than  at  once  to  vindicate  His  rank  and  authority, 
and  open  the  way  for  His  ministrations,  by  some  startling 
miracle.  No  place  was  so  well  fitted  for  such  a  demonstra- 
tion as  Jerusalem,  the  holy  city,  and  no  spot  in  it  so  suitable 

1  Par.  Regained,  I  215-223. 


424  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

as  the  Temple,  the  centre  of  the  national  religion  and  the 
chosen  dwelling-place  of  God.  Milton  makes  Satan  bear  our 
Lord 

"  Over  the  wilderness,  and  o'er  the  plain ; 
Till,  underneath  them,  fair  Jerusalem, 
The  Holy  City,  lifted  high  her  towers, 
And  higher  yet  the  glorious  temple  reard 
Her  pile,  far  off  appearing  like  a  mount 
Of  alabaster,  topp'd  with  golden  spires  : 
There,  on  the  highest  piiiuacle,a  he  set 
The  Son  of  God."  l 

Some  famous  spire  of  the  Temple  buildings  must  be  in- 
tended, though  we  are  no  longer  able  to  explain  the  allusion. 
It  may  be  it  was  some  pinnacle  of  the  great  three-aisled 
Koyal  Porch,  which  ran  along  the  southern  side  of  the 
Temple  area,  overlooking  the  valley  of  Hinnom,  from  a  dizzy 
height.  Perhaps  it  was  the  season  of  one  of  the  great  feasts, 
when  countless  pilgrims  were  gathered  in  Jerusalem,  who 
would  carry  the  report  of  any  miraculous  display  throughout 
the  earth.2  That  the  suggestion  raised  in  the  mind  of  Jesus 
to  glorify  His  office,  and  lighten  His  great  work,  by  an 
astounding  miracle,  might  seem  natural  and  specious,  is  only 
to  suppose  Him  human  ;  and  that  it  should  take  the  form  of 
His  casting  Himself  down  from  an  airy  height,  to  alight  in 
the  distant  valley  beneath,  might  seem  no  less  so.  It  is  not 
necessary  to  conceive  of  a  bodily  translation  to  the  Temple 
roof :  the  true  place  of  temptation  is  the  soul,  in  which  all 
the  scenery  and  accessories  of  any  prospect  can  be  created  by 
the  imagination  in  a  moment.  To  make  it  more  attractive,  a 
text  of  Scripture  was  at  hand,  for  had  not  God  said,  "  He 
shall  give  His  angels  charge  concerning  Thee,  and  in  their 
hands  they  shall  bear  Thee  up  "  ?  So  Shakespere  makes 
Richard  of  Gloucester  twist  the  sacred  text — 

"  But  then  I  sigh,  and  with  a  piece  of  Scripture, 
Tell  them,  that  God  bids  us  do  good  for  evil. 
And  thus  I  clothe  my  naked  villany 
With  old  odd  ends,  stolen  forth  of  Holy  Writ ; 
And  seem  a  saint  when  most  I  play  the  devil." 

Bassanio's  words  never  had  a  more  fitting  application — • 

"  In  religion 

What  damned  error,  but  some  sober  brow 
Will  bless  it,  and  approve  it  with  a  text, 
Hiding  the  grossness  with  fair  ornament  ?  " 

1  Par.  Regained,  iv.  543-550. 

*  Schleiermacher's  Prcdigten,  vol.  iv.  p.  428  -440. 


THE   SINLESSNESS   OF   CHRIST.  425 

But  whatever  hope  the  great  enemy  may  have  had  In  this 
last  attempt  was  vain.  To  the  perfect  humility  of  Jesus, 
any  idea  of  display  or  ostentation  had  no  charms ;  nor  could 
He,  who  would  rather  bear  the  extreme  of  hunger  than  seem 
to  distrust  His  Heavenly  Father,  by  using  miraculous  power 
in  His  own  behalf,  be  for  a  moment  tempted  to  employ  it 
for  any  mere  personal  honour.  Nor,  moreover,  would  Ho 
dream  of  claiming  supernatural  aid  from  God  for  that  which 
had  not  the  sanction  of  His  command.  His  promise  of  pro- 
tection vouchsafed  aid  only  when  the  danger  to  be  averted 
rose  in  the  discharge  of  prescribed  duty.  The  appeal  to 
spiritual  pride  or  vanity  fell  as  harmlessly  as  the  tempta- 
tions already  foiled.  It  had  been  whispered  to  the  soul  of 
Jesus,  as  the  vision  rose  before  Him — "  Go  and  cast  Thyself 
down  :  is  it  not  written  that  the  angels  shall  bear  Thee  up  "  ? 
But  one  brief  sentence  turned  the  wizard  gold  to  dross — 
"  Thou  shalt  not  tempt  the  Lord  thy  God." 

Mysterious  in  some  aspects,  the  wilderness  retirement  of 
our  Lord,  with  its  fires  of  temptation,  putting  Hi-m  to  the 
utmost  proof,  becomes  an  inevitable  passage  in  His  life,  when 
we  think  of  Him  as  a  man  like  ourselves,  though  sinless. 
His  soul  could  reveal  its  beauty  only  by  victory  in  a  life-long 
struggle  with  temptation,  such  as  happens  to  us  all.  Nor 
can  we  think  of  a  Messiah,  who  should  draw  all  men  to  Him 
as  the  ideal  of  humanity,  treading  any  other  path  than  that 
allotted  to  His  brethren.  It  is  a  vital  error,  therefore,  to 
represent  these  temptations  as  mere  outward  pictures  of  the 
imagination,  playing  before  Him,  or  as  mere  emotions  of 
pleasure  or  aversion  which  left  His  will  unassailed,  and  were 
dissipated  or  quenched  in  a  moment,  on  their  rising.  It  is  no 
less  so  to  regard  them  as  mere  illusions  of  the  senses,  passing 
like  clouds  over  His  mind,  and  leaving  His  inner  being 
wholly  undisturbed. 

If  there  had  been  no  more  than  this,  there  could  have 
been  no  struggle,  no  pause  and  agony  of  soul — that  is,  no 
real  temptation.  The  Gospels  know  nothing  of  such  an  un- 
real probation.  They  show  ns  temptations  throughout, 
plying  His  will,  and  seeking  to  paralyze  it,  even  to  the  length 
of  suggesting  a  withdrawal  from  His  work  as  the  Messiah. 
What  else  can  have  caused  His  prayers  and  supplications, 
with  strong  crying  and  tears,1  or  the  touching  outburst, 
"  Now  is  My  soul  troubled ;  and  what  shall  I  say  ?  Father, 

1  Heb.  v.  7. 


428  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

save  Me  from  tins  hour :  but  for  this  cause  came  I  unto  this 
hour."  l  He  was  proved  and  tried,  from  His  youth  to  Geth- 
semane,  and,  like  us,  might  have  yielded,  though,  in  fact, 
offering  a  transcendent  contrast  in  His  unbroken  victory  over 
all  temptation. 

The  episode  in  the  wilderness  was,  indeed,  more  subtle  in  its 
seductions  than  is  needed  for  grosser  natures  like  ours.  He 
had  to  repel,  as  evil,  what  to  others  might  have  seemed  the 
ideal  of  good.  It  was  no  irresolution,  from  pride,  or  vanity, 
or  fear,  that  troubled  Him  :  His  soul  was  oppressed  by  the 
greatness  of  His  Divine  office ;  His  lowly  humility  was  like 
to  sink  under  its  burden.  With  us,  an  act  is  held  sinful,  only 
when  it  is  distinctly  prohibited,  and  at  every  step  we  hesitate 
to  reject  where  there  seems  room  to  doubt.  With  Jesus  there 
Avas  no  such  waving  line  of  compromise.  To  deviate  from 
the  direct  command  of  God,  for  any  end,  however  holy,  was, 
to  Him,  a  sin.  The  contrast  of  Divine  and  human,  or  Satanic, 
rose  before  Him  with  such  a  clear  decision,  that  the  least 
divergence  from  the  express  letter  of  His  Father's  will  was 
instantly  rejected.  He  turned  away  from,  what  the  noblest 
souls  before  Him  had  cherished  as  holy  visions,  as  from 
temptations  of  the  Prince  of  Darkness.  He  not  only  tri- 
umphed, but  showed,  in  His  perfect  obedience  to  His 
Heavenly  Father,  an  image  of  the  ideal  and  stainless  holiness 
required  from  us  all. 

This  Divine  purity,  inflexible,  unswerving,  moving  ever 
directly  forward,  acknowledging  only  THE  BIGHT, — rejecting 
all  else  ;  and  finding  peace  only  in  complete,  loving  submis- 
sion to  the  will  of  God,  rests  with  unique  glory  over  all  the 
life  of  Jesus,  but  especially  over  His  temptation  in  the  desert. 
It  gives  the  supreme  beauty  to  His  life,  and  was  its  strength 
and  power.  There  could  be  no  hesitation  where  all  was  thus 
simplified :  where  only  God,  or  the  world  and  the  devil, 
beckoned  onwards. 

Through  life,  as  in  the  wilderness,  His  choice  was  in- 
stinctive and  instantaneous,  between  God  and  sin.  Good 
and  evil  were,  to  Him,  light  and  darkness,  and  it  was  vain 
to  tempt  Him  even  to  approach  the  cloudy,  doubtful,  divid- 
ing line.  The  desert  had  served  its  purpose.  The  crisis  had 
passed.  Yielding  Himself  into  the  hands  of  God,  Ilia 
spiritual  struggle  was  exchanged  for  the  joys  of  angel  minis- 
tration. 

1  John  xii.  27.     Compare  Luke  xii.  50.     Matt.  xxvi.  39. 


CHAPTER  XXVm 
THE  EETUEN  FROM  THE  WILDEENESS. 

rfflHE  seclusion  of  Jesus  in  the  desert  had  been  the  turning 
-•-  point  in  His  life.  When  He  left  Nazareth  to  visit  John, 
He  was  a  humble  Galileean  villager.  He  returned,  the  con- 
secrated Messiah,  no  longer  oppressed  by  the  responsibilities 
and  difficulties  of  His  great  office,  but  ready  to  come  before 
Israel  as  the  Lamb  of  God,  who  should  take  away  the  sins 
of  the  world. 

Can  we  picture  to  ourselves  the  personal  appearance  of  the 
Saviour  at  this  momentous  point  in  His  career  ?  We  know 
that  He  was  still  in  the  glory  of  early  manhood,  but  can  we 
realize  Him  more  closely  ? 

It  is  fatal  to  the  hope  of  a  reliable  portrait,  that  the  Jewish 
horror  of  images  as  idolatrous,  extended  to  the  likeness  of 
the  human  face  or  form.  No  hint  of  Christ's  appearance  is 
given  in  the  New  Testament;  and  the  early  Church,  in  the 
absence  of  all  guiding  facts,  had  to  fall  back  on  imagination. 
Itself  sorely  oppressed,  it  naturally  pictured  its  Founder 
through  the  medium  of  its  own  despondency.  Had  He  been 
an  illustrious  Roman  or  Greek,  the  Grecian  love  of  beauty 
would,  doubtless,  have  created  an  ideal  of  faultless  per- 
fection ;  but  in  its  first,  dark  years,  the  sorely -tried  Church 
fancied  their  Lord's  visage  and  form  as  "  marred  more  than 
those  of  other  men,"  l  and  that  He  must  have  had  no  attrac- 
tions of  personal  beauty.3  Justin  Martyr  speaks  of  Him  as 
without  beauty  or  attractiveness,  and  of  mean  appearance." 
Clement  of  Alexandria 8  describes  Him  as  of  an  uninviting 
appearance,  and  almost  repulsive.b  Tertullian4  says  He  had 
not  even  ordinary  human  beauty,  far  less  heavenly.0  Origend 
went  so  far  as  to  say  that  He  was  "  small  in  body  and  de- 
formed, as  well  as  low-born,"6  and  that  "  His  only  beauty 

1  Isa.  lii.  14.  2  Isa.  Ixiii.  2. 

1  Died  about  A.D.  220.     Jacobi,  in  Uerzog. 
*  Born  about  A.D.  160.    Died  about  245. 


428  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

was  in  His  soul  and  life."  About  the  same  time,  however, 
the  Christian  Gnostics,  who  had  not  such  an  antipathy  to 
heathen  art,  began  to  make  likenesses  of  Him  of  another 
type,  in  paintings,  gems,  or  metal,  and  small  statues  of  Him, 
which  they  crowned  and  honoured  in  the  heathen  fashion. 
The  features  were  said  to  have  been  copied  from  a  portrait, 
fancifully  thought  to  have  been  taken  by  order  of  Pilate. 
The  ideal,  however,  prevailed  more  and  more,  for  the  half- 
heathen  sects  who  used  these  likenesses  had  the  Greek  feel- 
ing that  the  gods  must  needs  be  divinely  beautiful.  In  the 
third  century  the  conception  thus  invented  found  its  way 
into  the  private  chapel  of  the  emperor  Severus,1  by  the  side 
of  illustrious  kings  and  emperors,  and  of  "  the  holy  souls,"  of 
Abraham,  Orpheus,  Apollonius,  and  other  worthies.2  It  is 
possible  that  degrading  caricatures  of  Jesus,  which  had 
become  common  among  the  heathen,  led  to  this  nobler  con- 
ception of  His  beauty.3 

The  triumph  of  Christianity  over  heathenism  found  a 
partial  revenge  in  the  footing  gained  in  the  Church  for 
a  more  kindly  estimate  of  what  had  now  lost  its  religious 
power.  The  first  Christian  art  bearing  on  Jesus — that  of 
the  catacombs — was,  however,  purely  symbolical.  The  figure 
of  a  fish  stood  for  His  name,  from  the  significance  of  the 
letters  in  the  Greek  word  for  one  of  the  finny  race/  or  He 
was  represented  by  the  symbol  of  a  lamb,  or  of  a  shepherd. 
After  a  time,  the  further  ideal  of  a  teacher  of  mankind  was 
added,  and,  gradually,  in  the  fourth  century,  He  was  pic- 
tured as  a  child,  after  which  it  was  an  easy  step  to  portray 
Him  on  the  Cross.  With  the  general  introduction  of  such 
likenesses,  the  idea  of  any  repulsive  appearance  was  neces- 
sarily irreconcilable.  Eusebius,  of  Coesarea,4  describes  a 
statue  which  he  himself  saw  at  Panias,  or  Csesarea  Philippi, 
the  reputed  birthplace  and  residence  of  the  woman  who  was 
healed  of  the  issue  of  blood.  "  At  the  gates  of  her  house," 
says  he,  "  on  a  raised  pedestal,  stands  a  brazen  image  of  a 
woman  on  her  bended  knee,  with  her  hands  stretched  out 
before  her  like  one  entreating.  Opposite  her  is  an  image  of 
a  man,  erect,  of  the  same  materials,  in  a  full  pallium,8  stretch- 
ing out  his  hand  to  the  woman."  "  Before  her  feet,"  he 
adds,  "  and  on  the  same  pedestal,  a  strange  kind  of  plant 
grows,  which  rises  as  high  as  the  hem  of  the  brazen  gar- 

1  A.D.  208-235.  *  Lamprid.  Alex.  Sever.,  c.  29. 

*  Tcrtul.  Apologct.,  c.  16.  «  Born  about  A.D.  270.     Died  338. 


THE   PERSONAL  APPEARANCE   OF   CHRIST.          429 

ment,  and  is  an  antidote  to  all  kinds  of  diseases.11  This 
statue,  they  say,  is  a  statue  of  Jesus  Christ." 1  Unfortu- 
nately, the  credulity  which  believed  in  the  miraculous  plant 
is  a  poor  guarantee  for  the  worth  of  a  vague,  popular  fancy 
as  to  the  statue.  It  was,  doubtless,  a  relic  of  Grecian  art, 
transformed  by  a  fond  reverence  into  a  memorial  of  Jesus. 
There  can  be  no  doubt,  however,  that  paintings,  claiming  to 
be  actual  resemblances  of  our  Lord,  of  Peter,  and  of  Paul, 
were  to  be  found  in  the  time  of  Eusebius,  for  he  says  that 
he  himself  had  seen  them,  and  thought  them  old  thanks- 
memorials  of  devout  heathen  who  had  reverenced  Christ 
and  honoured  Him  in  this  way,  as  they  were  accustomed  to 
honour  their  own  gods.2 

The  old  conception  of  the  appearance  of  Jesus,  borrowed 
from  the  words  of  Isaiah,  had  now  finally  given  place  to  one 
which  exalted  His  beauty  to  the  utmost,  as  the  natural  out- 
ward expression  of  the  Divine  purity  and  perfection  of  His 
inner  being.  Gregory  of  Nyssa3  applies  the  imagery  of  the 
Song  of  Solomon  to  His  person,  no  less  than  to  His  doctrine. 
Jerome4  embodies  in  his  words  the  glorious  ideal  which 
Christian  art  was  afterwards  to  develop,  basing  the  thought 
of  Him  no  longer  on  the  description  of  the  suffering  "  servant 
of  God,"  in  Isaiah,  but  on  the  words  of  the  forty-fifth 
Psalm — "  Thou  art  fairer  than  the  children  of  men."  "  As- 
suredly," says  he,  "  that  splendour  and  majesty  of  the  hidden 
Divinity,  which  shone  even  in  His  human  countenance,  could 
not  but  attract,  at  first  sight,  all  beholders.  Unless  He  had 
had  something  heavenly  in  His  appearance,  the  Apostles 
would  not  immediately  have  followed  Him."5  Chrysostom  6 
tells  us  that  "  the  Heavenly  Father  poured  out  on  Him,  in 
full  streams,  that  personal  beauty  which  is  distilled  only 
drop  by  drop  upon  mortal  man  ;  "  7  and  Augustine,  with  his 
wonted  vigorous  eloquence,  says  that  "  He  was  beautiful  in 
His  mother's  bosom,  beautiful  in  the  arms  of  His  parents, 
beautiful  on  the  cross,  and  beautiful  in  the  sepulchre."  But 
that  this  glowing  language  was  only  metaphor  is  beyond  dis- 
pute, from  the  words  of  Augustine  himself.  "  Of  his  appear- 
ance," says  he,  "  we  are  wholly  ignorant,  for  the  likenesses 
of  Him  vary  entirely,  according  to  the  fancy  of  the  artist."  8 

1  Hist.  EC.  vii.  c.  18.  s  Ibid. 

•  A.D.  380.  4  Died  A.D.  420. 

'  Hieronym  in  Matt.  c.  ix.  9.    Epist.  ad  Princip.  Virginem, 

•  Born  A  D  354.     Died  407.  7  On  Psalm  xliv. 
8  De  Trin,  B.  vii.  c.  4,  5. 


430  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

Different  races  had  already  created  distinct  and  different 
ideals,  in  harmony  with  their  local  standards  of  perfection. 
The  old  conception  of  His  being  without  form  or  beauty  did 
not,  however,  at  once  lose  its  power.  St.  Basil l  clung  to  it 
strenuously,  and  the  monks  of  his  order  are  said  to  have  re- 
produced it  in  paintings  so  late  as  the  eighth  century.  The 
austere  Cyril  of  Alexandria  2  went  so  far  as  to  maintain  that 
He  was  "  mean  in  appearance  beyond  all  the  sons  of  men," 
a  proof,  in  its  very  contrast  with  the  then  prevailing  con- 
ception, that  there  was  no  historical  portrait  to  which  to 
appeal,  nor  even  a  traditional  ideal  respecting  our  Lord's 
appearance. 

Images  of  Christ  met  at  first  with  earnest  opposition, 
partly  because  it  seemed  impossible  adequately  to  represent 
the  glorified  Saviour  in  human  form,3  and  partly,  no  doubt, 
because  heretic  sects  were  the  first  to  introduce  them.  Cyril 
of  Alexandria  is  credited  with  having  brought  them  into  the 
service  of  the  Church.  Once  in  some  measure  sanctioned, 
their  use,  especially  in  the  East,  spread  far  and  wide,  and 
legends  were  invented  to  support  their  authenticity  as  like- 
nesses of  the  Saviour.  John  of  Damascus,4  in  his  fiery  zeal 
in  the  great  controversy  on  the  use  of  images,  sought  to 
paralyze  the  opposition  of  the  iconoclast  emperor  Constantino 
Copronymus,  by  bringing  forward  a  legend,  which  we  first 
meet  at  the  close  of  the  fifth  century,5  that  Abgarus,.  king  of 
Edessa,  had  once  sent  a  painter  to  Jesus  to  take  His  portrait, 
but  the  artist  failed,  from  the  dazzling  brightness  of  the 
Saviour's  features.  Jesus,  the  legend  went  on  to  say,  honour- 
ing the  spirit  that  had  prompted  the  attempt,  impressed  His 
likeness  on  the  cloth  with  which  He  was  wont  to  wipe  His 
brow,  and  sent  it  to  Abgarus.  But  though  a  letter  of 
Abgarus  to  Jesus,  and  of  Jesus  to  Abgarus,  are  noticed  by 
Justin  Martyr,  as  early  as  the  middle  of  the  second  century, 
this  wondrous  story  of  the  miraculous  portrait  appears  only 
as  an  addition  of  centuries  later. 

Not  to  be  outdone,  the  Western  Church  created  its  own 
version  of  this  wondrous  legend  in  that  of  Veronica,  a  fabled 
saint  of  Jerusalem,  who,  seeing  Jesus  pass  on  His  way  to 
Calvary,  His  face  streaming  with  the  blood  of  the  crown  of 
thorns,  unwound  the  cloth  of  her  turban  and  gave  it  Him  that 

1  A.D.  370.  »  Died  A.D.  444. 

1  So,  Eusebius.     Kurtz.     R.  Ges.  iii.  a  1.  2.  294. 

4  From  about  A. P.  700  to  787  (Herzog,  iu  Art.). 

5  Iu  Mosrg  Chorum-nail;,  A.D.  470. 


FIEST   IMAGES   OF   OUR  LORD.  431 

He  might  wipe  His  brow.  In  return,  it  is  said,  the  loving 
disciple  received,  on  the  cloth,  an  imprinted  likeness  of  her 
Lord,  not  calm  and  peaceful,  however,  like  that  of  Edessa, 
but  saddened  by  pain  and  sorrow.  A  third  miraculous  like- 
ness, embracing  Christ's  whole  body,  was  averred  to  have  been 
left  on  the  linen  in  which  He  was  wrapped  in  the  sepulchre,1 
and  it  was  said  that  this  passed  into  the  possession  of  Nico- 
demus,  and  then  to  the  Christians  of  Jerusalem,  from  whom 
after  passing  through  wonderful  fortunes,  it  was  brought  at 
last,  in  the  year  1578,  to  Turin,  where  it  now  is.2  Veronica's 
cloth  is  now  in  St.  Peter's,  at  Rome,  though  Milan,  in  northern 
Italy,  and  Jaen,  in  Spain,  both  boast  that  they  have  the 
authentic  relic. 

The  earliest  images  of  Christ,  as  has  been  said,  were  those 
introduced  among  the  Gnostics,  and  of  these,  two,  at  least, 
with  some  claim  to  authenticity,  are  still  extant.  Like  the 
images  of  Pythagoras,  Plato,  Aristotle,  and  other  sages, 
which  these  strange  sects  consecrated  along  with  that  of  the 
Saviour,  they  are  small,  and  rather  medallions  than  busts. 
The  one  is  of  stone,  with  a  head  of  Christ,  young  and 
beardless,  in  profile — the  name  xpwrros  (Christos)  in  Greek 
characters,  and  the  symbolical  fish,  below.  The  other  is  a 
kind  of  medal,  representing  Christ  with  His  hair  parted  over 
His  forehead,  covering  the  ears,  and  falling  down  on  the 
shoulders.  It  has  the  name  of  Jesus,  in  Hebrew,  below  it. 
Perhaps  it  was  the  work  of  some  Jewish  Christian.3  In  the 
fifteenth  century,  the  historian  Nicephorus4  ventured  on  a 
fuller  sketch  of  the  person  of  Christ  than  had  been  previously 
given,  and  it  may  be  well  to  quote  it,  if  only  to  reproduce 
the  conception  formed  by  the  Church  of  the  Middle  Ages. 
"  I  shall  describe,"  says  Nicephorus,5  "  the  appearance  of 
our  Lord,  as  handed  down  to  us  from  antiquity.  He  was 
very  beautiful.  His  height  was  fully  seven  spans ;  *  His 
hair  bright  auburn,  and  not  too  thick,  and  it  was  inclined  to 
wave  in  soft  curls.  His  eyebrows  were  black  and  arched, 
and  His  eyes  seemed  to  shed  from  them  a  gentle  golden 
light.  They  were  very  beautiful.  His  nose  was  prominent ; 
His  beard  lovely,  but  not  very  long.  He  wore  His  hair,  on. 
the  contrary,  very  long,  for  no  scissors  had  ever  touched  it, 
nor  any  human  hand,  except  that  of  His  mother  when  she 

1  Niceph.,  H.  Eccl.,  ii.  7.    About  A.D.  1400.  8  Hofmann,  p.  294 

3  Milman's  Christianity,  p.  492.  *  Died  A.D.  1450. 

1  Quoted  in  full  by  Vaihinger,  Art.  Lentidus,  in  Herzog. 


432  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

played  with  it  in  His  childhood.  He  stooped  a  little,  but 
His  body  was  well  formed.  His  complexion  was  that  of  the 
ripe  brown  wheat,  and  His  face,  like  that  of  His  mother,  rather 
oval  than  round,  with  only  a  little  red  in  it,  but  through  it 
there  shone  dignity,  intelligence  of  soul,  gentleness,  and  a 
calmness  of  spirit  never  disturbed.  Altogether,  He  was  very 
like  His  divine  and  immaculate  mother."" 

What  the  imaginary  description  of  Christ  by  Mcephorus 
has  been  in  the  Eastern  Church,  that  of  the  fictitious  letter 
of  Lentulus  to  the  Roman  Senate  has  been  to  the  Western. 
It  first  appeared  at  the  close  of  the  fifteenth  century,  when 
the  works  of  Anselm  were  collected  and  printed,  and  is  the 
forgery  of  some  monk  who  sought  a  good  end  by  one  of 
the  pious  frauds  then  very  widely  in  favour.  The  internal 
evidence  alone  shows  that  it  is  a  mere  fabrication,  and  as 
even  Nicephorus  makes  no  allusion  to  it,  its  date  may  safely 
be  assumed  as  later  than  his  lifetime.  "  There  has  appeared," 
says  Lentulus,  "  and  still  lives,  a  man  of  great  virtue,  called 
Jesus  Christ,  and,  by  His  disciples,  the  Son  of  God.  He 
raises  the  dead,  and  heals  the  sick.  He  is  a  man  tall  in 
stature,1  noble  in  appearance,  with  a  reverend  countenance, 
which  at  once  attracts  and  keeps  at  a  distance  those  behold- 
ing it.  His  hair  is  waving  and  curly  ;  a  little  darker  and  of 
richer  brightness,"1  where  it  flows  down  from  the  shoulders. 
It  is  divided  in  the  middle,  after  the  custom  of  the  Nazarenes 
(or  Nazarites) .  His  brow  is  smooth,  and  wondrously  serene, 
and  His  features  have  no  wrinkles,  nor  any  blemish,  while  a 
red  glow  makes  His  cheeks  beautiful.  His  nose  and  mouth 
are  perfect.  He  has  a  full  ruddy l  beard  the  colour  of  His 
hair ;  not  long,  but  divided  into  two.2  His  eyes  are  bright, 
and  seem  of  different  colours  at  different  times.  He  is  terrible 
in  His  threatenings  ;  calm  in  His  admonitions ;  loving  and 
loved ;  and  cheerful,  but  with  an  abiding  gravity.  No  one 
ever  saw  Him  smile,  but  He  often  weeps.  His  hands  and 
limbs  are  perfect.  He  is  gravely  eloquent,  retiring,  and 
modest,  the  fairest  of  the  sons  of  men."3 

It  may  be  interesting  to  add  to  these  older  ideals  that  of 
a  writer  of  the  present  day.  "  Our  eyes  were  restlessly 
attracted  to  Him,"  says  Delitzsch,  in  one  of  his  beautiful 
stories,*  "  for  He  was  the  centre  of  the  group.  He  was  not 

1  Some  MSS.  add  "  youthful." 

8  Some  MSS.  add,  "  He  looks  at  once  guileless  and  mature." 

*  Epist.  Lent.,  given  in  full  by  Vaihinger,  Art.  Lentulus,  in  Herzog. 

*  Selu  t  wclclte  ein  Meiisch,  p.  4. 


THE   PERSONAL  APPEARANCE   OP   CHRIST.          433 

in.  soft  clothing  of  byssus  and  silk,  like  the  courtiers  of 
Tiberias  or  Jerusalem,  nor  did  He  wear  long  trailing  robes, 
like  some  of  the  Pharisees.1"  On  His  head  was  a  white 
keffiyeh — a  square  of  linen  doubled  so  that  a  corner  fell 
down  on  each  shoulder,  and  on  the  back;  a  fillet  or  aybul 
roimd  the  head,  keeping  it  in  its  place.0  On  His  body  He 
wore  a  tunic  which  reached  to  His  wrists  and  to  His  feet, 
und  over  this  a  blue  tallith,  with  the  prescribed  tassels  of 
blue  and  white  at  the  four  corners,  hung  down  so  that  the 
under  garment,  which  was  grey  striped  with  red,  was  little 
seen.  His  feet  shod  with  sandals,  not  shoes,  were  only 
visible  now  and  then,  as  He  walked  or  moved." 

"  He  was  a  man  of  middle  size ;  beautiful  as  a  youth  in 
His  face  and  form.p  The  purity  and  charm  of  early  man- 
hood blended  in  His  countenance  with  the  ripeness  of  mature 
years.  His  complexion  was  fairer  than  that  of  those  around 
Him,  for  it  shewed  less  of  the  bronze  colour  of  the  nation. 
He  seemed,  indeed,  even  pale,  under  the  white  sudar,  for  the 
ruddy  glow  of  health,  usual  at  His  years,  was  wanting.  The 
type  of  His  features  was  hardly  Jewish,  but  rather  as  if  that 
and  the  Greek  types  blended  into  a  perfect  beauty,  which, 
while  it  awakened  reverence,  filled  the  heart,  still  more,  with 
love.  His  eyes  looked  on  you  with  light  which  seemed 
broken  and  softened,  as  if  by  passing  through  tears.  He 
stooped  a  little,  and  seemed  communing  with  His  own 
thoughts,  and  when  He  moved  there  was  no  affectation  as 
with  some  of  the  Rabbis,  but  a  natural  dignity  and  grace, 
like  one  who  feels  himself  a  king,  though  dressed  in  lowly 
robes.'"1 

We  owe  our  knowledge  of  the  period  immediately  follow- 
ing the  Temptation  to  the  narrative  of  the  fourth  Gospel, 
written  after  the  others.  In  the  other  Gospels,  the  splendour 
of  the  later  ministry  in  Galilee  seems  to  have  overshadowed 
the  humbler  beginnings  of  the  earlier  period,  so  that  they 
are  almost  passed  over  by  them.  Happily,  however,  John 
preserves  for  us,  in  comparative  detail,2  the  incidents  of 
these  silent  months,  in  which  the  public  life  of  Jesus  was 
slowly  opening  into  full  flower/  How  much  would  have 
been  lost  had  his  record  not  been  given  ?  There  is  a  peculiar 
charm  in  the  glimpses  they  supply  of  the  early  spring-time 
of  the  Saviour's  ministry ;  a  tender  fragrance  all  their  own. 

The  first  great  crisis  of  His  life  being  over,  with  its  forty 

1  Mark  xii.  38.  «  John  i.  35  to  iv.  54. 

29 


434  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

days  of  temptation  and  proof,  its  long  fastiug,  its  great 
victory,  and  its  ministrations  of  angels,  Jesus  returned  to 
the  Jordan,  and  mingled,  nnnoticed  and  unknown,  in  the 
crowd  round  the  Baptist.  It  was  apparently  the  early  spring  ; 
at  least,  a  fine  tradition  1  of  the  primitive  Church  •'vould  have 
so,  perhaps  to  link  together  the  opening  spiritual  year  with  it 
the  beauty  of  the  reviving  year  of  nature.  He  may  have 
held  communion  once  and  again  with  John,  but  He  lived 
apart  from  him,  silently  passing  to  and  fro  among  the  mul- 
titudes. Only  the  day  before  His  arrival,2  John  had  renewed 
his  homage  to  Him  in  His  absence,  before  a  deputation  from 
the  ecclesiastical  authorities  of  the  Temple,  sent  to  investigate 
his  own  teaching  and  authority.  "  Was  He  the  Christ  ?  or 
Elijah?  or  the  expected  prophet,  Isaiah,  Jeremiah,  or  some 
other  ?  "  3  The  nobly  humble  man,  though  at  the  height  of 
his  glory,  with  the  nation  looking  up  to  him,  in  reverence, 
as  a  prophet,  had  no  thought  of  hesitation  in  his  answer. 
Jesus  was  unknown,  but  John  yields  Him  the  first  place,  and 
proclaims  himself  unworthy  to  perform  the  lowliest  offices 
for  One  so  exalted.  "  I  am  only  he  of  whom  Isaiah  speaks, 
as  a  voice  crying  in  the  wilderness,  '  Make  straight  the  way 
of  the  Lord.'  I  only  baptize  with  water,  but  there  stands 
among  you  One  whom  ye  know  not' — He  who  is  to  come 
after  me  ;  I  am  not  worthy  to  kneel  before  Him  to  loose  the 
thong  of  His  sandal."  The  symbol  of  servitude  and  subjec- 
tion offered  by  a  slave  to  a  new  master  was  to  untie  his  shoo 
and  bind  it  again,4  but  even  this  was  too  great  an  honour,  in 
John's  opinion,  for  him  to  be  permitted  to  pay  to  Christ. 

The  Baptist  had  often  borne  similar  testimony,  lifting  up 
his  voice  and  crying  aloud54  to  the  people  to  prepare  for 
the  speedy  manifestation  of  the  Great  Expected  One, — 
but,  now,  he  was  able  to  bear  witness  to  Him  in  His  pre- 
sence. As  he  was  standing  the  next  day  among  his  follow- 
ers, Jesus  Himself  approached,  doubtless  to  speak  with  him 
on  the  affairs  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  in  which  both  were  so 
entirely  engrossed.  He  was  still  unknown,  unrecognised, 
and  unnoticed,  and  He  would  not  reveal  Himself  by  any  act 
of  self-assertion  on  His  own  part.  But  the  very  end  of 
John's  mission  was  that  the  Christ  should  "  be  made  mani- 


1  Clfm.  Horn.,  i.  6.  2  John  i.  29. 

a  Matt.  xvi.  14.     See  articles  by  Niigelsbach  and  Oehler,  in  Hertogt 
vols.  vi.  p.  482  ;  ix.  p.  432.     4  Esdras  ix.  18. 

4  Sepp,  Lcben  Jeisu,  vol.  ii.  p.  159.  •  K<?/c/>a>e,  verse  15. 


"  THE   LAMB   OF   GOD."  435 

f  est  to  Israel,"  and  the  hour  had  now  come  to  draw  aside  the 
veil.  Pointing  to  Him,  therefore,  while  yet  at  a  distance,  he 
proclaimed  His  glory  in  words  which  must  have  thrilled  those 
who  heard  them  :  "  Behold  the  Lamb  of  God,  who  takes  away 
the  sin  of  the  world.  This  is  He  of  whom  I  said,  '  After  me 
comes  a  Man"  who  is  preferred  before  me,  for  He  was  before 
me.'  And  I  knew  Him  not  (as  the  Messiah)  ;  but,  that  He 
should  be  made  manifest  to  Israel,  therefore  am  I  come  bap- 
tizing with  water.  I  have  seen  the  Spirit  descending  as  a 
dove  out  of  heaven,  and  it  abode  upon  Him.  And  I  knew 
Him  not  (as  the  Messiah) ;  but  He  that  sent  me  to  baptize 
with  water,  the  same  said  unto  me,  '  Upon  whom  thou  shalt 
see  the  Spirit  descending,  and  remaining'  on  Him,  He  it  is 
who  baptizes  with  the  Holy  Spirit.'  And  I  have  seen  and 
borne  witness  that  this  is  the  Son  of  God." 

It  is  possible,  as  Milman  suggests,1  that  flocks  of  lambs, 
intended  for  the  Temple  sacrifices,  then  passing  from  the 
rich  pastures  of  Perea  to  the  ford  beside  which  John  was 
baptizing,  may  have  suggested  the  name  "  Lamb  of  God," 
by  which  he  consecrated  to  the  Church,  for  ever,  that  most 
cherished  symbol  of  the  Redeemer.  Jesus  was  meek  and 
gentle  like  the  lamb,  but  there  was  much  more  in  the  use 
of  such  a  name  by  the  son  of  a  priest — a  Nazarite  and  a 
prophet,  like  John.  The  idea  of  sacrifice  was  natural  and 
inevitable  to  him,  in  connection  with  it.  The  nation,  indeed, 
in  Christ's  day,  had  so  little  idea  of  a  suffering  and  dying 
Messiah,  that  Jonathan  Ben  Uzziel,  the  contemporary  of 
Christ,  while  he  sees  the  Messiah  in  the  "  Servant  of  God," 
of  Isaiah's  prophecies,2  ingeniously  explains  His  sufferings  as 
meaning  those  of  Israel.3  But  the  number  of  passages  which 
spoke  of  the  Messiah  as  suffering,  even  then  arrested  atten- 
tion, and  raised  a  difficulty  which  the  Rabbis  of  a  later  day 
tried  to  solve  by  assuming  that  there  would  be  two  Messiahs 
— one,  the  son  of  Joseph,  who  should  suffer  and  die;  the 
other,  the  son  of  David,  who  should  live  and  reign.  Even 
then,  the  Rabbis  saw  in  the  words  of  Zechariah,  "  They  shall 
look  on  Him  whom  they  have  pierced,"  and  in  the  words  of 
Isaiah,  in  his  fifty-third  chapter,  a  reference  to  the  Messiah, 
and,  hence,  the  Jew,  in  Justin's  dialogue,  written  about  a 
hundred  years  after  Christ,  saw  nothing  surprising  in  tho 
idea  of  the  Messiah  suffering,  though  he  revolted  from  tho 

1  Milman's  Christiamtt/,  8vo,  p.  76.  2  Ch.  lii.  13. 

Nork,  Rabbin.  Quellen,  p.  xxiii.    Langen's  Judcntltum,  p.  423, 


436  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

thought  of  His  dying  in  a  way  cursed  by  the  Law,  like 
crucifixion,1  a  difficulty  met  with  by  St.  Paul  himself.2 

John,  who  had  studied  Isaiah  so  deeply,  and  was  so  pene- 
trated by  his  spirit,  could  not  have  overlooked  those  verses 
which  speak  of  the  "  Servant  of  God,"  as  "  brought  like  a 
lamb  to  the  slaughter,"  and  as  "  bearing  the  iniquities  of 
many,"  and  "  making  intercession  for  the  transgressors,"  s 
nor  the  words  of  Zechariah,  which  even  the  Rabbis  referred 
to  the  Messiah.  But  his  language,  after  the  return  of  Jesus 
from  the  wilderness,  shows  a  striking  contrast  to  his  previous 
tone.  Before  that,  he  spoke  of  the  Messiah  only  as  having 
the  fan  in  His  hand,  and  as  laying  the  axe  at  the  root  of  the 
tree,  and  baptizing  with  fire  as  well  as  the  Spirit.  Now, 
he  sees  in  Him  the  meek,  spotless,  and  patient  Lamb,  des- 
tined by  God  to  sacrifice.  That  He  was  to  "  take  away  the 
sin  of  the  world,"  leaves  no  question  as  to  the  sense  in  which 
John  saw  in  Him  the  "Lamb  of  God."  Isaiah  had  painted 
"  the  Servant  of  God "  as  making  peace  for  the  people,  by 
His  vicarious  sufferings  for  them,  and  this  "  Servant  "  John 
sees  in  Jesus.  .  Fitly  typified  by  "  the  Lamb,"  from  His 
gentle  patience,  He  is  still  more  so,  as  the  Antitype  of  Old 
Testament  sacrifice.  To  exclude  the  idea  of  expiatory  suffer- 
ing, is  to  trifle  with  the  words  of  the  Baptist,  and  the  ingen- 
ious fancy  that  finds  an  allusion  to  the  pastoral  imagery  of 
the  twenty-third  Psalm,4  is  even  more  arbitrary.  John  saw 
in  Jesus  the  propitiation,  which  was,  even  then,  bearing  and 
carrying  away  the  sin  of  the  world/ 

How  was  it  that  John  realized  so  much  more  clearly  than 
any  around  him  the  true  ideal  of  the  Messiah,  as  the  sacri- 
ficial Lamb,  appointed  of  God,  on  whom  had  been  laid  the 
sins  of  a  guilty  world  ?  It  can  be  explained  only  by  remem- 
bering that  his  very  mission  was  to  reveal  Him  to  the  world. 
For  this,  he  tells  us,  he  had  been  sent,  and  his  commission, 
therefore,  implied  a  disclosure  to  him,  not  only  of  the  person, 
but  the  true  work  of  the  Messiah.  We  know  that  revelation 
from  above  pointed  out  Jesus  to  him  by  a  heavenly  sign,5 
and,  from  the  same  source,  we  may  assume,  he  learned  the 
great  truth  that,  as  the  Messiah,  He  would  expiate  the  sin 
of  the  world  by  His  sufferings.  It  may  be  that  Jesus  Him- 
self talked  with  him  of  "  His  decease,  which  he  should  ac- 
complish at  Jerusalem."6  But  this,  itself,  would  te  a  reve- 

1  Oehler,  in  Herzog,  vol.  ix.  p.  440.  2  1  Cor.  i.  23. 

1  Isaiah  liii.  7.  11,  12.  «  Ecce  Homo,  p.  6. 

•  Verse  33.  •  Luke  ix.  31. 


JOHN'S   CONCEPTION   OF   THE   MESSIAH.  437 

lation.  Only,  however,  by  communication  from  a  higher 
source,  could  the  idea  have  been  formed  of  a  suffering  Mes- 
siah— an  idea  so  alien  to  the  conceptions  of  the  day,  though 
dimly  realized  by  individuals  like  the  aged  Simeon,  or 
Zacharias,1  to  whom  a  prophetic  insight  had  been,  for  the 
moment,  given.  "  We  have  heard  out  of  the  Law,"  said  the 
people  to  Jesus  Himself,  "  that  the  Christ  abideth  for  ever  " — 
that  is,  should  never  die — "  and  how  sayest  Thou,  'The  Son  of 
Man  must  be  lifted  up  ?  '  Who  is  this  Son  of  Man  ?  "  It  was 
in  the  face  of  such  a  universal  contrast  of  thought,  that  John 
announced  the  great  truth,  with  clear  and  precise  distinct- 
ness, noting  even  its  having  already  begun,  and  its  future 
world-embracing  greatness.  The  more  strange  the  idea  of  a 
s  offering  Messiah  might  be  to  the  nation ;  the  more  difficult 
it  proved  to  bring  it  home  even  to  the  disciples  themselves ; 
the  more  it  needed  to  be  slowly  developed  by  the  facts  of 
Christ's  life  and  death,2  to  secure  its  being  understood ; — so 
much  the  more  justified  is  the  belief  in  a  special  revelation 
throwing  light  into  the  Baptist's  soul,  on  the  full  meaning 
of  ancient  prophecy.1 

It  must  not  be  thought,  however,  that,  with  all  these 
heavenly  revelations,  the  knowledge  of  John  was  as  minute 
and  definite  as  that  of  those  whose  minds  the  teachings  of 
Jesus  afterwards  illuminated  from  above.  A  generation 
later,  some  disciples  of  John,  living  at  Ephesus,  when  asked 
by  Paul,  "  If  they  had  received  the  Holy  Ghost  since  they 
believed  ?  "  answered  that  they  had  not  so  much  as  heard  of 
there  being  any  Holy  Ghost  at  all.3  The  Jews  of  John's  day 
thought  of  the  Holy  Spirit  only  vaguely,  as  the  "  Spirit  of 
Jehovah "  4 — the  effluence  of  the  Divine  power  and  grace, 
and  we  owe  it  to  the  Gospels  and  the  Epistles  that  we  now 
have  clearer  conceptions. 

John  had  pointed  to  Jesus  as  "the  Lamb  of  God,"  and  had 
thus,  doubtless,  fixed  the  attention  of  those  around  on  one 
associated  with  a  symbol  so  sacred  and  tender.  But  he 
did  not  confine  himself  to  a  title  not  yet  familiar,  as  ad- 
dressed to  the  Messiah,  and  added  another  which  had  already 
been  appropriated  to  Him  in  the  literature  of  the  nation — "I 
saw,  and  bare  record  that  this  is  the  Son  of  God."  5  The 
Sibylline  verses,6  the  Book  of  Enoch,7  and  the  Fourth  Book 
of  Esdras,8  had,  for  generations,  applied  this  title  to  the 

1  Luke  ii.  34 ;  i.  77  2  Matt.  xvi.  21. 

8  Acts  xx.  2.  4  Buck  d.  Jubilaen,  c.  25,  xi.  28. 

*  John  i.  34.  •  iii.  775.  7  cv.  2.  8  xiii.  32  ;  xiv.  9. 


438  THE   LIFE   OP   CHRIST. 

expected  Messiah,  and,  thus,  there  could  be  no  misappre- 
hension in  the  mind  of  any  who  heard  it  given  to  Jesus.  It 
was  His  formal  proclamation  by  the  appointed  herald.1 

It  seemed  as  if  this  wondrous  testimony  had  been  lost  on 
those  who  heard  it ;  but  though  the  multitude  took  little  heed 
of  it,  there  were  some  hearts  in  which  it  found  a  worthy 
response.  The  next  day,  as  John  was  standing  with  two  of 
his  disciples,  Jesus  again  passed,  and  was  proclaimed  anew 
in  the  same  words.  Fixing  his  eyes  earnestly  on  Him,2 
John  called  on  his  companions  to  "  behold  the  Lamb  of 
God."  It  was  enough.  They  might  not  realize  the  full 
import  of  the  name,  but  they  felt  the  Divine  attractiveness 
of  Him  to  whom  it  was  given.  Waiting  with  anxious 
hearts  for  the  Messiah,  they  no  sooner  heard  John  proclaim 
that  Jesus  was  He,  than  they  forthwith  left  the  Baptist,  to 
to  follow  Him  whom  he  thus  honoured. 

Jesus,  Himself,  now  about  to  begin  His  public  ministry, 
was  ready  to  receive  disciples.  He  had  permanently  aban- 
doned His  obscure  life  of  Nazareth,  and  was,  henceforth,  to 
be  a  Rabbi  in  Israel. 

The  teachers  of  the  day  were  surrounded  by  an  inner  circle 
of  disciples,  able,  in  some  measure,  in  the  absence  of  their 
masters,  to  represent  them  in  public,  by  speaking  in  the 
synagogues,  answering  questions,  or  undertaking  missionary 
journeys,3  and  these  were  to  be  the  duties  of  the  disciples  of 
Jesus.  They  were  to  be  trained  by  Him  in  the  mysteries 
of  the  Kingdom,  as  those  of  the  Rabbis  were  in  the  mys- 
teries of  the  Law.  No  teacher  assumed  his  office  in  Israel 
without  a  group  of  such  followers,  for  it  was  reckoned  a 
grave  sin  for  a  Rabbi  to  be  at  any  time  without  some  one  to 
instruct  in  the  Law,"  and  even  their  scholars  were  required 
to  converse  habitually  on  this  one  study  of  their  lives. 
"  When  two  scholars  of  the  wise,"  says  the  Talmud,4  "  are 
making  a  journey  together,  and  do  not  make  the  Law  the 
subject  of  their  conversation,  they  deserve  to  be  burned 
alive,  as  is  written  in  2  Kings  ii.  11."  It  was,  therefore, 
only  an  adoption  of  the  custom  of  the  day  which  Jesus  now 
followed. 

The  two  who  now  joined  Him  seem  to  have  hitherto 
formed  part  of  such  an  inner  circle  round  John,  and  were 


1  On  the  use  of  the  title  "  Son  of  God,"  in  the  Gospels,  see  Westcott'a 
Introduction,  p.  120. 
"  ifj.p\t\f/at.  '  Nork,  pp.  ex.  cix.  *  Nork,  p.  cxcv. 


•\ 

THE   FIRST  DISCIPLES.  439 

the  beginning  of  a  group  of  trusted  friends,  with  whom  Jesus 
could  associate,  and  of  auxiliaries  in  His  great  work,  while, 
also,  a  nucleus  round  which  others  might  gather.  He  drew 
them  to  Him,  however,  in  a  way  new  and  significant,  for  He 
did  not  wait  till  they  asked  leave  to  attend  Him  and  did  not 
court  their  aid,  but  called  on  them  to  follow  Him ;  retaining, 
thus,  a  relation  of  superiority  even  in  this  detail. 

He  could,  hence,  more  freely  admit  them  to  the  most 
endearing  and  familiar  intimacy ;  and  speak  of  them,  before 
long,  as  His  friends,  His  brethren,  and  even  His  children 
and  little  ones,  though,  also,  His  servants.  He  had  chosen 
them,  not  they  Him ;  and  thus  He  could  the  better  train 
them  to  be  teachers  in  His  New  Society,  alluring  the  world 
to  it  by  the  example  of  their  lives,  or  spreading  it  by  their 
ministrations.  Standing  towards  them  in  a  relation  so 
dignified,  they  were  at  once  His  companions,  and  the  agents 
whom  He  could  employ  as  diligent  fishers  of  men,  and 
labourers  in  the  great  vineyard  of  the  kingdom  of  God.* 

Though,  like  the  Rabbis,  a  teacher  of  the  nation,  in  the 
streets,  in  the  houses,  and  in  the  synagogues,  as  the  custom 
of  the  day  required,  Jesus  did  not  try  to  gain  His  im- 
mediate followers  from  that  order,  or  from  their  disciples, 
for  He  had  little  sympathy  with  them.  He  rather  sought 
simple  children  of  the  people,  free,  as  far  as  possible,  from 
prejudice  and  self-sufficiency,  and  marked  only  by  their 
sincerity,  humility,  intellectual  shrewdness,  and  religious 
sensibility.  The  less  they  knew  of  the  schools,  the  less 
they  would  have  to  unlearn ;  the  more  they  derived  from 
Him,  the  more  undoubting  their  loyalty  to  Him.  He  found 
the  class  He  wanted,  mostly  in  lowly  fishermen  and  peasants. 

Of  the  first  two  disciples,  the  one  was  Andrew,  a  fisher- 
man, from  Bethsaida,  on  the  Lake  of  Galilee ;  the  other, 
doubtless,  was  John  himself,  a  native  of  the  same  town — 
though,  with  his  wonted  modesty,  he  withholds  his  name.2 
No  wonder  he  remembered  every  incident  of  his  introduc- 
tion to  Christ  so  minutely,  after  many  years,  for  it  was 
the  birth-hour  of  his  religious  life.  Very  probably  the 
proposal  to  join  the  new  teacher  came  from  him,  and,  if  so, 
he  was  the  first  to  follow  Jesus,  as  he  was  the  last  to  leave 
Him.  The  two  had  heard  Him  announced  as  the  Lamb  of 
God,  and  as  such  they  sought  Him.  Can  we  wonder  that 
the  name  became  such  a  favourite  with  one,  who,  hereafter, 

1  Ke'm,  vol.  ii.  p.  205.  *  Ewald'a  Geschichtc,  vol.  v.  p.  322. 


440  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

was  the  beloved  disciple,  that  we  find  it  in  his  writings 
alone,  or  that  he  repeats  it  in  the  Apocalypse  more  than 
thirty  times  ?  1 

The  two  followed  Jesus,  anxious  to  speak  to  Him,  but  in 
modest  difficulty  how  to  approach  Him.2  Their  embarrass- 
ment, however,  was  brief,  for  Jesus,  hearing  their  footsteps 
behind  Him,  and  judging,  with  the  quick  instinct  of  sym- 
pathy, that  He  was  being  sought  for  the  first  time,  turned 
and  spoke  to  them.  Asking  them  what  they  seek,  He  is 
answered  in  their  confusion,  by  the  counter-question, — 
"  Rabbi,  where  dwellest  Thou  ?  "  The  multitudes  attending 
such  gatherings  as  John's  preaching,  were  wont  to  run  up 
temporary  booths  of  wattled  boughs,  with  a  striped  abba,  or 
outer  cloak,  thrown  over,  for  cover,  and  some  one  had  given 
Jesus  a  share  in  such  a  shelter,  for  it  is  not  likely  that  there 
were  houses  near.  Rabbis  on  their  journeys  were  always 
welcome  to  hospitality,  and  He  was  already  regarded  as  one,3 
by  at  least  a  few.  The  title  had  been  given  even  to  John,4 
as  it  now  was  to  Jesus,  for  although  the  authorities  at  Jeru- 
salem discountenanced  those  who  had  not  studied  in  the 
schools,  and  the  people  half  distrusted  any  teaching  which 
did  not  address  them  with  that  sanction,  the  recognition 
was  never  withheld  where  evident  knowledge  of  the  Law,  or 
worthiness  to  teach,  was  seen.  Jewish  traders  and  Galileean 
teachers,  who  had  no  diploma  from  the  schools  of  Jerusalem, 
were  accepted  as  Rabbis  in  Rome ;  and  in  Palestine,  the 
dignity  and  wisdom  of  Jesus  drew  forth  towards  Him  the 
title  of  Rabbi  and  Teacher,  not  only  from  the  people  and 
the  disciples,  but  even  from  the  Pharisees  and  Rabbis  them- 
selves.bb 

The  simple  words  of  invitation,  "  Come  and  see,"  were 
enough  to  open  the  relationship  between  Jesus  and  heai-ts  so 
eager  to  know  more  of  Him,  and,  presently,  they  were  with 
Him,  where  He  dwelt.  The  day  passed  quickly,  for  they 
did  not  mark  the  hours,  as  time  stretched  on  from  noon, 
when  they  had  come,  till  towards  night.00  His  discourse, 
His  teaching,  and  His  whole  Being,  excluded  all  other 
thoughts.  If  any  doubt  respecting  Him  had  remained,  it 
soon  passed  away.  Both  were,  henceforth,  His  followers, 
and  both  equally  recognised  in  Him  the  promised  Messiah, 

1  Hanna's  Earlier  Years  of  Our  Lord,  p.  228. 

*  Jeremy  Taylor's  Life  of  Christ,  Part  ii.  Appendix  to  sect.  x.  8. 

8  Meyer,  in  loc.  4  John  iii.  23. 


SIMON   PETER.  441 

The  night  approached,  but  neither  was  willing  to  leave. 
They  had  found  rest  to  their  souls.  All  day  long,  and  into 
the  quiet  watches  of  the  night,  they  had  listened  to  His  first 
opening  of  His  great  message  of  mercy  from  the  Father,  and 
they  would  fain  hear  still  more.  But,  as  Jeremy  Taylor  puts 
it — "  in  accidents  of  the  greatest  pleasure,  our  joys  cannot 
be  contained  within  the  limits  of  the  possessor's  thoughts." 
Andrew  had  a  brother,  Simon,  and  longed  to  bring  him  to 
Jesus.dd  Retiring,  therefore,  for  a  time,  he  soon  returned 
with  him  in  company.  It  was  a  matter  of  the  gravest 
moment,  on  the  one  side,  that  a  right  choice  of  disciples 
should  be  made,  and  it  was  no  less  momentous  on  the  other, 
that  there  should  be  no  self-deception ;  but  on  neither  side 
was  there  long  hesitation,  or  cautious  inquiry,  or  demand  for 
evidence  of  character,  or  crafty  wariness.  Everything  was 
simple  and  direct,  in  all  the  fulness  of  mutual  confidence 
and  trust.  To  see  Jesus,  and  hear  Him  speak,  was  enough, 
and  He,  on  His  part,  "  needed  not  that  any  should  testify 
of  man :  for  He  knew  what  was  in  man."  ]  Looking  stead- 
fastly 2  at  Simon,  He  saw  in  him,  as  in  John  and  Andrew, 
the  characteristics  He  required  in  His  followers.  The  rare 
unbending  firmness  of  purpose,  the  tenacious  fidelity,  the 
swift  decisiveness,  the  (ralilaean  fire  and  manliness,  and  the 
tender  religiousness  of  spirit,  which  marked  him  to  the  end 
of  his  life,  were  read  at  once.  Jesus  had  found  in  him  His 
firmest,  most  rock- like  servant  and  confessor ;  the  man  who, 
from  this  first  moment — except  for  one  sad  instant — amidst 
all  changes  and  trials,  and  the  ever-growing  storms  of  the 
world,  would  never  be  untrue  to  Him.3  "  Thou  art  Simon," 
said  He,  "  the  son  of  Jonas.  Henceforth  thou  shalt  be  called 
'  The  Bock.'  "  No  wonder  that  he  is  best  known  as  Cephas, 
or  Peter,  the  Aramaic  and  Greek  equivalents  of  this  honour- 
able distinction  .w  The  Christian  Church  was  already  founded 
in  these  three  disciples. 

With  the  fine  modesty  of  his  nature,  John  says  nothing  of 
himself  in  relation  to  a  day  so  eventful  in  his  history.  The 
kingly  soul  of  Jesus  evidently  enchained  him  at  once. 
Henceforth,  he  was  altogether  His,  though,  for  a  time,  dis- 
missed to  his  home.  But,  once  more  permitted  to  follow 
Him,  he  is  ever  found  at  His  side,  forgetting  himself  in  his 
love  for  his  Master,  and  lost  in  the  contemplation  of  His 
life  and  words.  We  do  not  know  the  stages  by  which,  from 

1  John  ii.  25.  2  e^Xe^aj.  '  Ewald,  vol.  v.  p.  322. 


442  THE   LIFE   OF   CHKIST. 

tWs  moment  onwards,  his  faith  in  the  Saviour  grew,  till  it 
reached  that  blending  of  soul  with  soul,  in  inmost  love, 
which  made  him,  to  the  end  of  his  long  life,  the  ideal  dis- 
ciple. Writing  last  of  all,  he  allows  himself  to  be  seen  only 
twice  in  the  story  of  his  Master — now,  when  he  came  with 
Andrew,  as  the  first  to  join  Christ,  and  at  the  close,  on 
Calvary,  when  he  lifts  the  veil  for  a  moment  from  the 
unique  relation  in  which  he  stood  to  his  Lord. 

The  earliest  traditions  join  his  brother  James  with  John, 
as  one  of  the  very  first  disciples,  for  though  John,  from  the 
same  delicacy  as  shrank  from  speaking  of  himself,  does  not 
mention  his  brother's  name,  the  other  three  Gospels  always 
number  him  with  the  earliest  adherents  of  Jesus.  There 
can  be  little  question  that,  as  Andrew  went  to  seek  his 
brother  Simon,  John  also  brought.  James  to  Jesus.  The 
intimation  that  Andrew  went  first  on  his  errand  of  love, 
seems  to  leave  us  to  infer  that  he  himself  went  next. 

The  four  disciples  had  it  in  common  that  they  belonged 
to  the  same  town,  Bethsaida,1  that  they  were  of  the  fisher 
population,  and  that  both  families  were  in  a  comparatively 
prosperous  position.2  We  know  nothing  of  the  father  of 
Andrew  and  Simon,  but  James  and  John  were  the  sons 
of  one  Zabdai,  and  we  know,  from  comparison  of  texts,  that 
their  mother  was  Salome,  so  honourably  mentioned  in  the 
Gospels.3  Writers  so  acute  as  Ewald 4  have  seen  in  her  a 
sister  of  Mary,  the  mother  of  Jesus,  and,  if  so,  John  and 
James  were  cousins  of  their  Master.  If  it  be  correct  to 
honour  Salome  thus,  she  was  present  with  Mary  at  the  cru- 
cifixion.5 In  any  case,  she  belonged  to  the  number  of  pious 
souls  ready  to  accept  a  spiritual  Messiah,  and  hence  her 
sons  must  have  received  the  priceless  blessing  of  a  godly 
training  and  example.  It  seems  as  if  we  could  almost  trace 
the  beloved  disciple  in  the  character  of  a  mother,  who 
"  ministered  to  Jesus  of  her  substance  "  while  He  lived,6  and 
did  not  forsake  Him  even  when  He  hung  on  the  cross.7 

To  begin  His  public  career  in  a  way  so  humble  and  unos- 
tentatious, was  in  strict  keeping  with  the  work  and  character 
of  Christ.  It  was  easier  for  Him  to  train  a  few,  and  gradu- 
ally raise  them  to  the  high  standard  required  in  His  im- 
mediate followers.  That  His  first  adherents  were  attracted 

1  John  i.  44.  «  Mark  i.  20.     Luke  v.  10. 

8  See  Mark  xv.  40 ;  xvi.  1,  compared  with  Matt,  xxvii.  56. 
4  Gi'tchicltte,  vol.  v.  p.  239.  6  John  xix.  25. 

8  Luke  viii  3.  ^  Mark  xv    tO. 


THE   FAMILY   OF   MARY.  443 

only  by  religious  considerations,  tended  to  guard  against  any 
seeking  to  join  Him  who  were  not  moved  to  do  so  by  a  true 
spiritual  sympathy — itself  the  pledge  of  their  fitness  for 
disciples.  To  have  drawn  around  Him  great  multitudes  by 
a  display  of  supernatural  powers,  would  have  destroyed  all 
His  plans,  for  He  could  have  found  no  such  sympathy  in 
crowds  thus  gathered.  Having,  therefore,  begun  with  the 
lowly  band  of  four,  He  turned  His  thoughts  once  more 
towards  home,  and  set  out  with  them  next  day  to  Galilee. 
A  fifth  disciple  joined  Him  on  the  homeward  journey — Philip, 
a  townsman  of  the  others.  Nothing  is  told  of  the  circum- 
stances, though  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  he  had  heard  of 
Jesus,  either  from  the  Baptist,  to  whom,  like  the  others,  he 
seems  to  have  gone  out ;  or  from  the  four,  as  they  travelled 
with  him  on  his  own  return.  The  simple  words  "  Follow 
me,"  so  often  uttered  afterwards,  were  enough  to  add  him  to 
the  little  company.1 

The  family  of  Mary,  in  which  we  no  longer  hear  any 
mention  of  Joseph — now,  apparently,  dead  for  a  number  of 
years — seems  at  this  time  to  have  left  Nazareth  for  a  short 
sojourn  at  Cana,  a  village  a  few  miles  directly  north  of  its 
own  town,  on  the  other  side  of  the  hills  behind  it.  A  little 
later,  Capernaum  was  chosen  instead,  but  it  was  to  Cana, 
not  Nazareth,  that  Jesus  returned  from  the  Jordan.  It  lay 
upon  an  almost  isolated  hill,  rising  proudly  above  the 
pasture-land  of  the  little  valley  of  El  Battauf,  and  was 
afterwards  a  place  of  some  importance,  in  the  last  Jewish 
war,  from  its  strong  position.2 

Jesus  and  His  companions  had  scarcely  reached  it,  before 
Philip,  full  of  natural  joy  at  his  discovery  of  the  Messiah  in 
Jesus,  sought  out  a  friend  who  lived  in  Cana,  Nathanael  by 
name,  to  let  him  know  that  he  had  found  Him  "  of  whom 
Moses  in  the  Law,  and  the  prophets  wrote — Jesus  of  Nazareth, 
the  Son  of  Joseph." 3  Nazareth  was  only  a  few  miles  off, 
but  so  privately  had  Jesus  lived  in  it  that  the  name  was 
new  to  Nathanael,  and  the  town,  besides,  had  a  questionable 
name.  "  Can  any  good  thing,"  asked  he,  "  come  out  of 
Nazareth?  " 

Jesus  had  won  Peter  by  the  greeting  which  had  made  Lim 

1  On  the  character  of  Philip,  see  a  Sermon  by  Dr.  Newman,  Plain  and 
Parochial  Seimons,  vol.  ii.  p.  333. 

8  Jos.,  Vita,  16.  Ant.,  xiii.  15.  1.  Bell.  Jud.,  i.  17.  5  ;  4.  7.  Furrer,  in 
Biliel  Lex.,  Art.  Kana. 

1  John  i.  45. 


4:44  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

feel,  that,  by  a  knowledge  beyond  human,  He  had  already 
fixed  His  eye  on  him,  before  His  coming,  as  a  future  disciple. 
A  similar  display  of  superhuman  knowledge  now  kindled 
faith  in  Nathanael.  As  he  approached,  Jesus  greeted  him  as 
"  an  Israelite  indeed,  in  whom  there  was  no  guile."  A  glance 
had  been  enough  to  show  that  he  was  one  whose  simplicity 
and  uprightness  of  spirit  marked  him  as  a  member  of  the 
true  Israel  of  God.  Nathanael  felt  that  he  was  known,  but 
wondered  how  Jesus  could  have  learned  about  him.  A  few 
words  more,  and  he  was  gained  for  ever.  He  had  been  sitting 
alone,  under  the  fig-tree  before  his  house  or  in  his  garden, 
hidden,  as  he  thought,  from  all,  when  Philip  spoke  to  him. 
"  Before  that  Philip  called  thee,"  said  Jesus,  "  when  thou 
wast  under  the  fig-tree,  I  saw  thee."  a  The  first  words  had 
struck  him ;  but  these,  recalling  the  moments  just  gone,  when, 
very  likely,  he  had  been  pondering  the  misery  of  Israel,  in 
his  fancied  seclusion,  and  longing  for  the  Great  Deliverer, — • 
showed  that  his  inmost  soul  had  been,  all  the  while,  open  to 
the  eye  of  Jesus,  and  completed  the  conquest  of  his  soul. 
"  Rabbi,"  said  he,  "  Thou  art  the  Son  of  God ;  Thou  art  the 
King  of  Israel."  OT  He  felt  that  the  heart  of  the  Messiah  of 
God  had  turned  tenderly  towards  him,  even  before  they  had 
met. 

The  simple,  prompt  faith  of  Nathanael  was  no  less  pleasing 
to  Jesus  than  honouring  to  himself.  There  was  something 
so  fresh,  so  fervent,  so  full-hearted  in  his  words,  now  at  the 
very  beginning  of  Christ's  public  work,  that  they  won  a  reply 
alike  gracious  and  sublime.  "  Because  I  said  unto  thee,  I 
saw  thee  under  the  fig-tree,  believest  thou  ?  Thou  shalt  see 
greater  things  than  these."  Far  higher  grounds  of  faith 
would,  henceforth,  be  granted  ;  for,  from  this  time,hl1  "  the 
heavens  would  be  seen,  as  it  were,  open,  and  the  angels  of 
God  ascending  and  descending  upon  the  Son  of  Man," — the 
name  consecrated  to  the  Messiah  from  the  days  of  Daniel, 
and  now  permanently  appropriated  by  Jesus.  When  He  be- 
gius  His  work  in  its  full  activity,  there  will  be  no  longer  a 
momentary  opening  of  heaven,  as  lately  on  the  Jordan,  but 
a  constant  intercourse  between  it  and  earth,  as  of  old  in  the 
vision  of  Jacob ;  heavenly  ministrations  bringing  countless 
blessings  down,  and  bearing  back  the  tidings  of  the  work  of 
mercy,  in  reconciling  man  to  God.  Language  like  this  is,  of 
course,  metaphorical.  It  may  be  understood  literally,  in  one 
or  two  cases,  in  the  Saviour's  history,  but  He  cannot  have 
referred  to  these.  He,  rather,  spoke  of  the  connection 


NATHANAEL.  445 

between  earth  and  heaven,  which  He  had  opened.  They 
would  be  no  longer  isolated  from  each  other.  Intercourse 
between  them  was  henceforth  renewed,  never  again  to  cease ; 
intercourse,  at  first,  between  Him  and  His  Father,  but 
gradually  spreading  over  the  earth,  as  men  caught  His  image, 
and  reproduced  His  spirit.  The  angels  descending  from 
heaven  with  gifts  for  the  Son  of  Man  to  dispense  to  Hia 
brethren,  would  be  visible  to  all  who  saw  the  results  in  His 
kingdom  over  the  earth.1 

Nathanael's  name  does  not  occur  in  the  list  of  the  Apostles, 
but  it  has  been  assumed  from  the  earliest  times  that  he  was 
Bartholomew ,u  who  is  always  named  next  to  Philip.  It  was 
a  Jewish  custom  to  change  the  name  when  a  public  profession 
of  religion  was  made.  "Four  things,"  says  R.  Isaac,  "have 
power  to  change  a  man's  destiny — alms,  prayer,  change  of 
heart,  and  change  of  name."  2  We  have  instances  of  such 
a  change  in  that  of  Simon,  who  is  also  indifferently  mentioned 
us  Peter,  and  as  the  son  of  Jonas,  and  in  Barnabas,  whose 
proper  name  was  Joses.3  Nathanael  may  have  been  tho 
personal  name,  while  Bartholomew  was  simply  an  allusion  to 
him  as  the  son  of  Talmai.kk 

1  Schleiermacher's  Predigten,  vol.  iii.  p.  178.         *  Nork,  p.  cxeL 
»  Acts  iv.  36. 


CHAPTER  XXIX. 
THE   OPENING  OF  CHKIST'S  PUBLIC  MINISTET. 


plain  of  El  Battanf  —  on  a  hill  in  which  rose  the 
-•-  village  of  Cana,  now  utterly  forsaken  —  stretches  out  in 
a  pleasant  rolling  green  sea,  embayed  in  a  framework  of 
softer  or  steeper  hills.  On  the  south,  the  whitewashed  tomb 
of  a  Mohammedan  saint  marks  the  top  of  the  hill  behind 
Nazareth,  and  a  little  to  the  west  of  this,  the  ruined  tower 
of  Sepphoris  rises  from  a  lower  ridge.  Entering  the  plain 
from  the  north,  the  first  village  is  Kefr1  Menda,  with  its 
deep  spring,  the  water  of  which  is  carefully  kept  for  use  in 
the  hot  summer  ;  rain  water,  collected  in  an  open  pool,  being 
used  at  other  times.  The  flat  roofs  of  many  of  the  poor 
cottages  show  frail  shelters  of  wattled  wands  and  twigs,  the 
sleeping  places  of  the  inmates  below,  in  the  sultry  summer 
nights.  They  are,  doubtless,  the  counterparts  of  the  booths 
of  branches  of  olives,  pines,  myrtles,  palms,  and  other  trees, 
which  the  ancient  Jews,  in  Nehemiah's  day,  made  on  their 
house-roofs  in  Jerusalem,  at  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles.  2 

The  plain  undulates  for  two  and  three  miles,  in  alternate 
sheets  of  grass  and  grain,  from  Kefr  Menda  to  Sefuriyeh, 
the  ancient  capital  of  Galilee,  the  "bird-like"  Sepphoris. 
Several  broad  caravan  roads,  which  lead  to  the  fords  of  the 
Jordan,  cross  it  ;  groves  of  figs  and  olives  fringe  the  southern 
edge  and  parts  of  the  slopes  of  the  hill  on  which  Sefuriyeh 
stands.  One  overtakes  asses  bearing  heavy  loads  of  rich 
grass  to  the  village,  some  of  them,  perhaps,  with  an  ear 
cropped  off;  the  penalty  allowed  to  be  inflicted  by  any 
peasant  who  has  caught  it  feeding  in  his  unprotected  patch 
of  grain.  Seforiyeh  is,  even  still,  a  large  and  prosperous 
village,  stretching  out  on  the  western  and  southern  slopes  of 
its  hill.  A  half  -fallen  tower,"  of  great  antiquity,  crowns  the 

1  Kefr  is  the  Arab,  for  village.  *  Neh.  viii.  15,  16. 


CANA  OF   GALILEE.  447 

height,  and  from  its  top  the  eye  ranges  over  a  pleasant  land- 
scape— the  soft  green  plain,  the  fig  and  olive  groves  fringing 
it,  Kefr  Menda  to  the  north,  Cana  of  Galilee  a  little  further 
east,  and,  to  the  south-east,  the  white  tomb  on  the  hill  of 
Xazareth ;  a  southern  sky,  -with  its  deep  blue,  overarching 
all.1  It  is  A  delightful  idyllic  picture,  on  the  email  scale 
tliat  marks  everything  in  Palestine.* 

Cana — "  the  reedy  place  "  2 — as,  no  doubt,  the  first  settlers 
found  the  plain  below,  before  it  was  drained  and  cultivated, 
is  now  so  utterly  desolate  that  it  is  the  favourite  hunting 
ground  of  the  neighbourhood;  even  leopards  being  met  at 
times  among  its  broken  houses,  while  the  wild  boar  and  the 
jackal  find  haunts  in  the  thick  jungle  of  oak  coppice  on  the 
slopes  of  the  wadys  around. 3  The  houses  are  built  of  lime- 
stone, and  some  of  them  may  have  been  inhabited  within 
the  last  fifty  years.  Sepp  found  the  whole  space  on  which 
the  village  seemed  to  have  stood,  only  about  a  hundred 
paces,  each  way.  "  I  met,"  says  he,  "  not  a  living  soul ;  not 
even  a  dog :  the  watchman  one  never  misses  in  Palestine 
was  not  there  to  give  a  sound.  My  step  echoed  through 
the  deserted  little  street  and  open  square,  as  if  in  the  dead  of 
night ;  only  flies  held  their  marriage  rejoicings  in  the  sun- 
shine; while  a  splendid  rainbow  stretched  over  the  ruined 
tower  of  Sepphoris."  4 

It  was  very  different  in  the  days  when  Jesus  came  to  Cana, 
after  His  visit  to  the  preaching  of  John,  on  the  Jordan.  A 
marriage  was  afoot  in  the  circle  of  Mary's  friends ;  possibly 
of  her  connections.1*  That  She  and  Jesus  were  invited  to 
the  usual  rejoicings,  and  that  they  accepted  the  invitation, 
marks  the  worth  of  those  who  had  given  it,  for  the  presence 
of  the  saintly  mother  and  her  Son  at  such  a  time,  are  a  pledge 
that  all  that  was  innocent  and  beautiful  characterized  the 
festivities." 

A  marriage  in  the  East  has  always  been  a  time  of  great 
rejoicing.  The  bridegroom,  adorned  and  anointed,  and 
attended  by  his  groomsmen,  "  the  sons  of  the  bridechamber,"  5 
went,  of  old,  as  now,  on  the  marriage  day,  to  the  house  of  the 
bride,  who  awaited  him,  veiled  from  head  to  foot,6  alike  from 
Eastern  ideas  of  propriety,  and  as  a  symbol  of  her  subjection 

1  Furrer's  Wanderungen,  p.  301.  *  n.3|3  (kaneh),  a  reed. 

•  Land  and  Book,  p.  427.  4  k>epp,  vol.  ii.  p.  103. 

•  Matt,  ix  15.     John  iii.  29. 

•  Geii.  xxiv.  15 ;  xxxviii.  14,  15.  Eev.  xix.  8. 


448  THE   LIFE    OF   CHEIST. 

as  a  wife.1  A  peculiar  girdle — the  "  attire  "  which  a  bride 
could  not  forget  ~ — was  always  part  of  her  dress,  and  a  wreath 
of  myrtle  leaves,  either  real,  or  of  gold  or  gilded  work — Jike 
our  wreath  of  orange  blossoms — was  so  indispensable  that  it 
came  to  be  used  as  a  term  for  the  bride  herself.3  Her  hair, 
if  she  had  not  been  married  before,  was  left  flowing  ;  her 
whole  dress  was  perfumed,  and  she  glittered  with  as  many 
jewels  as  the  family  boasted,  or,  if  poor,  could  borrow  for  the 
occasion.4  Her  bridal  dress,  her  special  ornaments,  the  oint- 
ment and  perfumes  for  her  person,  and  presents  of  fruit  and 
other  things,  had  been  received  in  the  earlier  part  of  the  day 
from  the  bridegroom ;  the  bride,  on  her  part,  sending  him, 
as  her  prescribed  gift,  a  shroud,  which  he  wore,  as  she 
did  hers,  on  each  New  Year's  Day  and  Day  of  Atonement.5 
The  Rabbis  had  fixed  Wednesday  as  the  day  on  which  maidens 
should  be  married,  and  Friday  for  widows,6  so  that,  if  the 
bride  at  Cana  was  now  married  for  the  first  time,  we  know 
the  day  of  the  week  on  which  the  ceremony  took  place.  She 
might  be  very  young,  for  girls  become  wives  in  the  East  when 
twelve  or  fourteen,  or  even  younger.  The  bridegroom  and 
bride  both  fasted  all  day  before  the  marriage,  and  confessed 
their  sins  in  prayer,  as  on  the  Day  of  Atonement.7  When 
the  bride  reached  the  house  of  her  future  husband's  father, 
in  which  the  marriage  was  celebrated,  the  bridegroom  received 
her,  still  deeply  veiled,  and  conducted  her  within,  with  great 
rejoicings.8  Indeed,  he  generally  set  out  from  his  father's 
house  in  the  evening  to  meet  her,  with  flute-players  or 
singers  before  him  ;  his  groomsmen,  and  others,  with  flaring 
torches  or  lamps,  escorting  him  amidst  loud  rejoicing,  which 
rose  still  higher  as  he  led  her  back.  Neighbours  thronged 
into  the  streets.9  Flutes  and  drums  and  shrill  cries  filled  the 
air,  and  the  procession,  as  it  passed  on,  was  swelled  by  a  train 
of  maidens,10  friends  of  the  bride  and  bridegroom,  who  had 
been  waiting  for  it.  The  Talmud  has  preserved  a  snatch  n 
of  one  of  the  songs  sung  by  the  bridesmaids  and  girls  as  they 
danced  before  the  bride,  on  the  way  to  the  bridegroom's  house. 
In  a  free  translation  it  runs  something  like  this  : — • 

1  1  Cor.  xi.  10.  3  Jer.  ii.  32.  3  n^3}  kallah. 

4  Ps.  xlv.  8.     Isaiah  xlix.  18  ;  Ixi.  10.     Eev.  xxi.  2. 

*  Talmud,  quoted  in  Sepp,  vol.  ii.  p.  193.  a  Sepp,  vol.  ii.  p.  195. 
1  Gintburg,  Art.  Mairiatje,  Kitto's  Cyclo.,  3rd  edition. 

•  Sepp,  Jems.  u.  d.  Heil.  Land,  vol.  i.  p.  21.  »  Cant.  iii.  11. 
te  .Wtt.  xxv.  1.                              »  Quoted  by  Sepp,  vol.  ii.  p.  197. 


A  JEWISH   MARBIAGE    FEAST.  449 

"  Her  eyelids  are  not  stained  with  blue, 

Her  red  cheeks  are  her  own; 
Her  hair  hangs  waving  as  it  grew, 
Her  grace  were  wealth,  aloue !  " 

In  the  house  of  the  bridegroom's  father,  which  was,  for  a 
time,  the  home  of  the  young  couple,  things  went  merrily ;  a 
feast  being  prepared,  to  which  all  the  friends  and  neighbours 
were  invited.1  It  was  an  essential  part  of  the  ceremony,  for 
even  so  early  as  Jacob's  day,  "  to  make  a  feast  "  had  become 
the  common  expression  for  the  celebration  of  a  marriage.2 

The  bride  did  not  join  in  this  festivity,  however,  but  re- 
mained apart,  among  the  women,  shrouded  in  the  long  white 
veil  of  betrothal ;  unseen,  as  yet,  even  by  her  husband.  Nor 
did  she  take  any  part  in  the  subsequent  amusements,  or 
show  herself  at  all.  It  was  only  when  husband  and  wife  were 
finally  alone,  that  the  veil  was,  for  the  first  time,  removed  .d 

Meanwhile,  the  family  rejoicings  went  on  apace.  The 
feast  was  provided  at  the  cost  of  the  bridegroom,3  and  con- 
tinued usually  for  seven  days,4  with  the  greatest  mirth.5 
The  bridegroom  wore  a  crown,  often  of  flowers — the  crown 
with  which,  in  the  Song  of  Solomon,  it  is  said,6  "  his  mother 
crowned  him  in  the  day  of  his  espousals,  in  the  day  of  the 
gladness  of  his  heart" — and  sat  "  decked,  like  a  priest,  in 
his  ornaments  ; "  7  the  bride  sitting  in  the  women's  apartment, 
"adorned  with  her  jewels."  Singing,  music,  and  dancing,8 
merry  riddles,  and  the  play  of  wit,  amused  the  guests,  night 
after  night  while  the  feast  was  prolonged,  and  it  was  only 
after  the  excitement  had  worn  itself  out,  that  life  settled 
down  again  into  colourless  monotony. 

It  was  to  some  such  festivity  that  Jesus  had  been  invited 
with  His  five  disciples.  The  earthen  floor  and  the  ledge 
round  the  wall  would  be  spread  with  carpets,  the  walls  hung 
with  garlands  ;  the  spirits  of  all  bright  and  cheerful  as  the 
decorated  chamber,  and  the  modest  rejoicings  in  no  way 
clouded  by  the  presence  of  Mary's  Son  and  His  followers.9 
There  was  no  excess,  we  may  be  sure,  but  the  flow  of  harmless 
entertainment  brightened  all  faces.  John  had  been  an  ascetic 
— the  highest  form  of  religious  life  hitherto  known  in  Israel. 

1  Gen.  xxix.  22.     Matt.  xxii.  1-10.    Luke  xiv.  8. 

2  Gen.  xxix  22.    See  also  Esther  ii.  18.    Matt.  xxii.  4;  xxv.  10.    Luke 
xiv.  8. 

8  Jud.  xiv.  10.     John  ii.  9,  10.  4  Jud.  xiv.  12,  15      Tobit  xi.  20. 

•  Jer.  vii.  34  ;  xvi.  9.  •  Ch.  iii.  11.  ^  Isaiah  Ixi.  10. 

8  Jer.  xxv.  10.  •  John  ii.  10. 


450  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

He  had  spent  his  days  in  penitential  austerity  and  wilderness 
seclusion ;  had  drunk  no  wine,  had  eaten  no  pleasant  food, 
and  had  kept  apart  from  human  affairs  and  relationships. 
But  a  new  and  higher  ideal  of  religion  was  now  to  be  intro- 
duced. Jesus  came  to  spiritualize  the  humblest  duties  of  life, 
and  sanctify  its  simplest  incidents,  so  as  to  ennoble  it  as  a 
whole.  Henceforth,  pleasures  and  enjoyments  were  not  to 
be  shunned  as  unholy;  religion  was  not  to  thrive  on  the 
mortification  of  every  human  instinct,  and  the  repression  of 
every  cheerful  emotion.  It  would  mix  with  the  crowd  of 
men,  affect  no  singularity,  take  part  in  the  innocent  festivities 
of  life,  interest  itself  in  whatever  interested  men  at  large,  and 
yet,  amidst  all,  remain  consecrated  and  pure ;  in  the  world, 
by  sympathy  and  active  brotherhood,  but  not  of  it ;  human 
in  its  outward  form,  but  heavenly  in  its  elevation  and  spirit. 

The  rejoicings  had  continued  for  some  evenings,  when  a 
misfortune  happened  that  threatened  to  disgrace  the  bride- 
groom and  his  family  for  life  in  the  eyes  of  their  neigh- 
bours. The  supply  of  wine  ran  out.  As  in  all  wine-growing 
countries,  the  population  were  not  only  temperate,  but 
simple  in  their  mode  of  life,  beyond  what  the  natives  of  a 
colder  climate  can  imagine.  Yet  wine  was  their  symbol 
of  joy  and  festivity.  Jotham,  in  the  far-back  days  of  the 
Judges,  had  praised  it  as  "cheering  God  and  man,"1  and 
among  other  passages,  a  Psalm  had  spoken  of  it  as  making 
glad  the  heart,  2  though  its  immoderate  use  had  been  con- 
demned 3  in  many  Scriptures.  "  Wine  is  the  best  of  all 
medicines,"  said  a  Hebrew  proverb  :  "  where  wine  is  want- 
ing, doctors  thrive."  *  "  May  there  be  always  wine  and  life 
in  the  mouth  of  the  Rabbi,"  was  one  of  the  toasts  at  their 
merry  meetings.5  But,  withal,  this  referred  only  to  its  care- 
ful use.  Among  the  parables  in  which  the  people  delighted, 
one  ran  thus — "  When  Noah  planted  his  vineyard,  Satan 
came  and  asked  him  what  he  was  doing  ?  '  Planting  a 
vineyard,'  was  the  reply.  'What  is  it  for?'  'Its  fruits, 
green  or  dry,  are  sweet  and  pleasant :  we  make  wine  of  it, 
which  gladdens  the  heart.'6  'I  should  like  to  have  a  hand 
in  the  planting,'  said  Satan.  '  Good,'  replied  Noah.  Satan 
then  bi-ought  a  lamb,  a  lion,  a  sow,  and  an  ape,  killed  them 
in  the  vineyard,  and  let  their  blood  run  into  the  roots  oi 

1  Judges  ix.  13.  *  Ps.  civ.  15. 

1  Prov.  xx.  1 ;  xxiii,  29,  30.     Isaiah  xxviii.  7.     Hosea  iv.  11,  etc.,  etc. 

4  Dukes,  Rah.  lilnmcnlese,  p.  132.          *  Dukes,  p.  161.      •  PB.  civ.  la. 


THE   MIRACLE   AT   CANA.  451 

tre  vines.  From  this  it  comes  that  a  man,  before  he  has 
taken  wine,  is  simple  as  a  lamb,  which  knows  nothing,  and 
is  dumb  before  its  shearers ; 1  when  he  has  drunk  moderately 
he  grows  a  lion,  and  thinks  there  is  not  his  like ;  if  he  drink 
too  much,  he  turns  a  swine,  and  wallows  in  the  mire ;  if  he 
drink  still  more,  he  becomes  a  filthy  ape,  falling  hither  and 
thither,  and  knowing  nothing  of  what  he  does." 

The  good  and  the  evil  of  wine  were  thus  familiar,  but  we 
may  be  certain  that  only  its  better  side,  as  enjoyed  among 
a  people  at  once  simple  and  sober,  who  held  excess  in  ab- 
horrence, and  in  a  household  where  licence  was  not  to  be 
thought  of — was  seen  at  the  marriage  in  Cana,  and  this 
temperate  use  of  it  Jesus  cheerfully  sanctioned.  Mary, 
with  her  gentle  womanly  feeling  for  the  shame  of  seeing 
inhospitality  that  threatened  the  host,  indulged  the  hope 
that  He — whose  mysterious  birth,  honoured  by  a  special 
star  and  the  songs  of  angels,  and  whose  changed  look  and 
bearing,  since  His  Jordan  visit,  could  not  have  escaped  her — 
would  now  put  forth  the  hidden  powers  she  might  well 
believe  Him  to  have,  to  brighten  the  family  circle,  in  whose 
life  this  feast  was  so  great  an  event.  She  had,  however,  to 
learn,  by  a  gentle  rebuke,  that  His  human  relation  to  her 
was  now  merged  and  lost  in  a  higher.  2  Using  an  every-day 
form  of  words,  familiar  for  ages  to  his  nation, 3  with  a 
look  of  love  and  tenderness,  He  waived  her  implied  solici- 
tation aside — "  Woman,  what  is  there  to  me  and  thee  ? 
Mine  hour  is  not  yet  come."  There  was  no  disrespect  in 
the  word  "woman,"  for  He  afterwards  used  it  to  her,  when 
on  the  cross,  in  His  last  tender  offices  of  love.  It  was  as  if 
He  had  said,  "  Our  spheres  lie  apart.  Hitherto  you  have 
known  me  as  your  Son.  Henceforth,  I  am  much  more.  My 
Divine  powers  are  only  for  Divine  ends :  at  the  call  of  My 
Father  alone,  for  His  glory  only.  He  fixes  My  hour  for  all 
the  works  He  wills  me  to  do,  and  in  this  case  it  has  not  yet 
come."4  "Whatsoever  He  saith  unto  you,  do  it,"  said 
Mary,  on  hearing  His  answer — for  it  had  no  harshness  to  her. 

The  superstitious  dread  of  ceremonial  uncleanness,  among 
the  Jews,  made  ample  provision  necessary  in  every  house- 
hold, for  constant  washings  of  vessels,  or  of  the  person. 

1  Isaiah  liii.  7. 

1  Ellicott's  Life  of  Our  Lord,  p.  121.     Neander's  Life  of  Christ,  p.  175. 

3  Josh.  xxii.  24.  Judges  xi.  12.  2  Sam.  xvi.  16 ;  xix.  22.  1  Kings 
xvii.  18.  2  Kings  iii.  13.  Matt.  viii.  29 ;  xxvii.  19.  Mark  i.  24.  Luke 
viii.  28.  *  John  v.  36. 


452  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

No  one  ate  without  washing  the  hands ;  each  guest  had  hig 
feet  washed  on  his  arrival,  for  sandals  were  left  outside  and 
only  naked  feet  allowed  to  touch  a  host's  floor ;  and  the 
washing  of  "  cups,  and  jugs,  and  bottles,"  as  the  Talmud  tells 
us,  "  went  on  the  whole  day." 1  Six  great  jars  of  stone, 
therefore,  for  such  purifications,  stood  ranged  outside  the 
door,  or  in  the  chamber ;  their  narrow  mouths  perhaps  filled 
with  green  leaves,  as  is  still  the  custom,  to  keep  the  water 
cool.  "  Fill  the  waterpots  with  water,"  said  Jesus,  adding, 
when  they  had  carefully  filled  them  to  the  brim,  "  Draw 
out,  and  take  supplies  to  the  governor  of  the  feast."  But 
the  water  was  now  glowing  wine.  His  words  to  His  mother 
and  the  servants  had  been  unnoticed  by  the  company,  and 
the  fresh  supply,  when  tasted  first,  as  the  fashion  was,  by 
the  chief  man  of  the  feast,8  on  whom  it  fell  to  see  to  the 
entertainment  of  the  guests,  was  found  so  good,  that  he 
playfully  rallied  the  bridegroom  on  keeping  the  best  to  the 
last.1 

The  "  glory  "  of  Jesus  had  always  shone,  to  those  who  had 
eyes  to  see  it,  in  the  spotless  beauty  of  His  life ;  but  this  was 
a  revelation  of  it  in  a  new  form.  It  was  "  the  beginning  "  of 
His  miracles,  wrought,  as  was  fitting,  in  stillness  and  privacy, 
without  display, — to  cheer  and  brighten  those  around  Him. 
His  presence  at  such  a  feast  showed  His  sympathy  with 
human  joys,  human  connections,  and  human  relationships.2 
He  taught  by  it,  for  the  first  time,  that  common  life  in  all 
its  phases,  may  be  raised  to  a  religious  dignity,  and  that 
the  loving  smile  of  God,  like  the  tender  blue  above,  looks 
down  on  the  whole  round  of  existence.8  He  had  not  been 
invited  as  the  chief  guest,  or  as  in  any  way  distinguished, 
for  He  was  not  yet  The  Teacher,  famed  throughout  the 
land,  nor  had  His  miracles  begun  to  reveal  His  higher 
claims.  But  He  took  the  place  assigned  Him  as  one  among 
the  many,  as  naturally  as  the  lowliest  of  the  company,  and 
remained  unknown  till  His  Divine  glory  revealed  Him. 

His  miraculous  power,  indeed,  was  only  one  aspect  of  this 
"  glory."  In  a  far  higher  sense  it  was  "  manifested  "  in  His 
Person.  It  was,  doubtless,  amazing  to  possess  such  powers ; 
but,  that  One  whose  word,  or  mere  will,  could  command  the 
obedience  of  nature,  should  mingle  as  a  friend  in  an  humble 

1  Lightfoot,  vol.  iii.  p.  120. 

'*  Robertson's  Sermons,  vol.  ii.  p.  279.  Schleiermacher's  Prcdigtcn,  vol 
i.  p.  292. 


THE   MANY-SIDEDNESS  OF   CHEIST.  453 

marriage  festivity,  a  man  amongst  men,  was  still  more 
wonderful.  Nothing  could  better  illustrate  His  perfect 
manhood,  than  His  identifying  Himself  thus  with  the 
humble  incidents  of  a  private  circle.  He  had  grown  up 
under  the  common  ordinances  of  human  existence,  as  a  child, 
a  son,  a  brother,  a  friend,  and  a  neighbour.  As  a  Jew,  He 
had  shared  in  the  social,  civil,  and  religious  life  of  His 
nation.  His  presence  at  this  marriage,  showed  that  He 
continued  the  same  familiar  relations  to  His  fellow-men, 
after  His  consecration,  as  before  it.  Neither  His  nationality, 
nor  education,  nor  mental  characteristics,  nor  natural  tem- 
perament, narrowed  His  sympathies.  Though  burdened 
with  the  high  commission  of  the  Messiah,  He  retained  a 
vivid  interest  in  all  things  human.  With  us,  any  supreme 
pre-occupation  leaves  only  apathy  for  other  things.  But  in 
Christ,  no  one  faculty  or  emotion  appeared  in  excess.  His 
fulness  of  nature  suited  itself  to  every  occasion.  Strength 
and  grace,  wisdom  and  love,  courage  and  purity,  which  are 
the  one  side  of  our  being,  were  never  displayed  so  har- 
moniously, and  so  perfectly,  as  in  Him ;  but  the  incidents  of 
this  marriage  feast  show  that  the  other  side,  the  feminine 
gentleness  and  purity,  which  are  the  ideal  virtues  of  woman, 
were  no  less  His  characteristics.1  They  throw  light  on  the 
words  of  St.  Paul,  "  In  Him  is  neither  Jew  nor  Greek,  bond 
nor  free,  male  nor  female."  He  could  subdue  Pilate  by  His 
calm  dignity,  but  He  also  ministered  to  the  happiness  of  a 
village  festival.  He  could  withstand  the  struggle  with  the 
Prince  of  Darkness  in  the  wilderness,  and  through  life,  but 
he  wept  over  the  grave  of  Lazarus.  He  could  let  the  rich 
young  ruler,  if  he  would,  go  his  way  to  perish,  but  He  sighed 
as  He  healed  the  man  that  was  dumb.3  He  pronounced  the 
doom  of  Jerusalem  with  a  lofty  sternness,  but  He  wept  as 
He  thought  how  it  had  neglected  the  things  of  its  peace. 
He  craved  sympathy,  and  He  showed  it  with  equal  tender- 
ness :  He  was  calm  amidst  the  wildest  popular  tumult,  but 
He  sought  the  lonely  mountain  for  midnight  prayer.  He 
sternly  rebuked  Peter  for  hinting  a  temptation,  but  He 
ex?used  his  sleep  in  Grethsemane  by  the  weakness  of  the 
flesh.  He  gave  away  a  crown  when  on  the  cross,  but  He 
was  exceeding  sorrowful  unto  death  in  the  garden.  He 
never  used  His  miraculous  powers  to  relieve  Himself,  but 

1  Robertson's  Sermons,  vol.  ii.  p.  270.     Ullmann's  Siindlosigkeit,  p.  49. 
3  Mark  vii.  34. 


454  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

He  provided  for  the  multitude  in  the  wilderness.  His  judges 
quailed  before  Him,  but  He  forgot  His  dying  agonies,  to 
commend  His  mother  to  the  lifelong  care  of  a  friend.  He 
rebuked  death,  that  He  might  give  her  son  back  to  the 
widow ;  and  He  took  part  in  the  rejoicings  of  an  humble 
marriage,  that  He  might  elevate  and  sanctify  human  joys. 
In  the  fullest  sense  He  was  a  man,  but  not  in  the  sense  in 
which  manly  virtues  are  opposed  to  those  of  woman,  for 
He  showed  no  less  the  gentleness,  purity,  and  tenderness  of 
the  one  sex,  than  the  strength  and  nobility  of  the  other. 
He  was  the  Son  of  Man,  in  the  grand  sense  of  being  repre- 
sentative of  humanity  as  a  whole.  Man  and  woman,  alike, 
have  in  Him  their  perfect  ideal.1 

An  Indian  apologue  tells  us  that  a  Brahmin,  one  of  whose 
disciples  had  been  perplexed  respecting  miracles,  ordered  a 
flower-pot  filled  with  earth  to  be  brought  him,  and  having 
put  a  seed  into  it  before  the  doubter,  caused  it  to  spring  up, 
blossom,  and  bear  fruit,  while  he  still  stood  by.  "  A  miracle," 
cried  the  young  man.  "  Son,"  replied  the  Brahmin,  "  what 
else  do  you  see  done  here  in  an  hour  than  nature  does  more 
slowly  round  the  year  ?  "  The  wine  which  the  guests  had 
drunk  from  the  bridegroom's  bounty,  and  possibly  from  the 
added  gifts  of  friends,  had  been  slowly  matured  in  the 
vine  by  mysterious  elaboration,  from  light,  and  heat,  and 
moisture,  and  the  salts  of  the  earth,  none  of  which  had  more 
apparent  affinity  to  it  than  the  water  which  Jesus  trans- 
formed. The  miracle  in  nature  was  not  less  real  or  wonder- 
ful than  that  of  the  marriage  feast,  and  strikes  us  less,  only 
by  its  being  familiar.  At  the  threshold  of  Christ's  miracu- 
lous works  it  is  well  to  realize  a  fact  so  easily  overlooked. 
A  miracle  is  only  an  exercise,  in  a  new  way,  of  the  Almighty 
power  we  see  daily  producing  perhaps  the  same  results  in 
nature.  Infinitely  varied  forces  are  at  work  around  us  every 
moment.  From  the  sun  to  the  atom,  from  the  stone  to  the 
thinking  brain  and  beating  heart,  they  circulate  sleeplessly, 
through  all  things,  for  ever.  As  they  act  and  react  on  each 
other,  the  amazing  result  is  produced  which  we  know  as 
nature,  but'  how  many  mysterious  inter-relations,  of  which 
we  know  nothing,  may  offer  endlessly  varied  means  for  pro- 
ducing specific  ends,  at  the  command  of  God  ?  Nor  is  there 
anything  more  amazing  in  the  works  of  Christ  than  in  the 
daily  phenomena  of  nature.  The  vast  universe,  embracing 

1  On  the  name  "  Son  of  Man,"  gee  Keim's  Christw,  p.  105. 


THE   AGE   OF   OUR   LORD.  455 

heavens  above  heavens,  stretching  out  into  the  Infinite — • 
with  constellations  anchored  on  the  vast  expanse  like  tiny 
islet  clusters  on  the  boundless  ocean,  is  one  great  miracle. 
It  was  wonderful  to  create,  but  to  sustain  creation  is,  itself, 
to  create  anew  each  moment.  Suns  and  planets,  living 
creatures  in  their  endless  races,  all  that  the  round  sky  of 
each  planet  covers — seas,  air,  sweeping  valleys,  lofty  moun- 
tains, and  the  million  wonders  of  the  brain  and  heart  and 
life  of  their  innumerable  populations,  have  no  security,  each 
moment,  that  they  shall  commence  another,  except  in  the 
continued  expenditure  of  fresh  creative  energy.  Miracles 
are  only  the  momentary  intercalation  of  unsuspected  laws 
which  startle  by  their  novelty,  but  are  no  more  miraculous 
than  the  most  common  incident  of  the  great  mystery  of 
nature. 

The  beginning  of  the  public  career  of  Jesus  as  Messiah  at 
a  time  so  joyful  as  a  household  festival  was  appropriate. 
His  bounteous  gift  fitly  marked  the  opening  of  His  kingly 
work,  like  the  fountains,  flowing  with  wine  at  the  corona- 
tion of  earthly  kings.1  But  a  king  very  different  from 
earthly  monarchs  was  now  entering  on  His  reign.  No  out- 
ward preparation  is  made  :  He  has  no  worldly  wealth  or  rich 
provision  to  lavish  away.  Yet,  though  He  has  no  wine, 
water  itself,  at  His  word,  becomes  wine,  rich  as  the  finest 
vintage.  Till  His  hour  has  come,  He  remains  passive  and 
self -restrained,  awaiting  the  moment  divinely  appointed  for 
His  glory  shining  out  among  men.  Once  come,  the  slumber- 
ing power,  till  now  unrevealed,  breaks  forth,  never  to  cease 
its  gracious  work  of  blessing  and  healing,  till  the  kingdom 
He  came  to  found  is  triumphant  in  His  death. 

The  age  of  Jesus  at  His  entrance  on  His  public  work  has 
been  very  variously  estimated.  Ewald  supposes  that  He 
was  about  thirty-four,  fixing  His  birth  three  years  before 
the  death  of  Herod.2  Wieseler,  on  the  contrary,  believes 
Him  to  have  been  in  His  thirty -first  year,  setting  His  birth 
a  few  months  before  Herod's  death.3  Bunsen,4  Anger, 
Winer,  Schiirer,  and  Benan  agree  with  this :  Lichtenstein 
makes  Him  thirty-two.5  Hausrath  and  Keim,  on  the  other 
hand,  think  that  He  began  His  ministry  in  the  year  A.D.  34, 
but  they  do  not  give  any  supposed  date  for  His  birth,  though 

1  Ewald's  GescJ/ichte,  vol.  v.  p.  329. 

'*  Ewald,  Geschichtc,  vol.  vii.  p.  522.  8  Herzog,  vol.  xxi.  p.  543, 

*  Bibelwerk,  vol.  ix.  p.  195.  *  Art.  Jesus  Clirist,  in  Herzog. 


456  THE   LIFE    OF   CHRIST. 

if  that  of  Ewald  be  taken  as  a  medium,  He  must  now  have 
been  forty  years  old,  while,  if  Wieseler's  date  be  preferred, 
He  would  only  have  been  thirty-seven.11  The  statement  of 
the  Gospel,1  that  He  was  "  about  thirty  years  of  age  when 
He  began  "  His  public  work,  is  so  indefinite  as  to  allow  free 
conjecture.  In  any  case,  He  must  have  been  thirty-one 
at  His  baptism,  from  His  having  been  born  before  Herod's 
death.  It  was  even  supposed  by  IrenEeus,^  from  the  saying 
of  the  Jews,8 — "  Thou  art  not  yet  fifty  years  old,"  and  from 
His  allusion  to  the  forty-six  years  during  which  the  Temple 
had  been  building,  that  He  was  between  forty  and  fifty  at 
His  death.  Amidst  such  difference,  exactness  is  impossible, 
and  it  seems  safest  to  keep  to  the  generality  of  St.  Luke,  by 
thinking  of  Jesus  as  about  thirty — though  not  younger — at 
His  baptism. 

The  stay  at  Cana  seems  to  have  been  short.  It  may  have 
been  only  a  family  visit,  or  it  may  have  been,  that,  from 
some  cause,  Mary  had  gone  for  a  time  to  live  there  ;  but,  in 
either  case,  Jesus  very  soon  removed  from  a  locality  so  little 
suited  to  His  work,  from  its  isolation,  and  remoteness  from 
the  centres  of  life  and  population.  He  had  resolved  to  make 
Galilee,  in  which  He  was  at  home,  the  chief  scene  of  His 
labours.  He  was,  moreover,  safer  there  than  either  in  Judea 
or  Perea,  for  the  hierarchy  could  reach  Him  more  easily  in 
the  one,  and  the  tyranny  of  Antipas  was  less  restrained  in 
the  wild  territory  of  the  other.  The  kingdom  He  came  to 
set  up  must  grow  silently,  and  by  slow,  peaceful  degrees, 
like  the  mustard  seed,  to  which  He  compared  it,  and  it  could 
not  do  so  in  any  part  so  well  as  in  Galilee.  Far  away  from 
turbulent  Judea,  He  escaped  the  excitements,  more  or  less 
political,  the  insurrections,  and  wild  dreams  of  national 
supremacy,  ever  fermenting  at  Jerusalem,  and  avoided  ex- 
citing suspicion,  or  having  His  spiritual  aims  perverted  by 
the  revolutionary  violence  of  the  masses.4  His  kingdom 
was  not  of  this  world,  like  the  Messianic  dominion  fondly 
expected  by  the  nation,  but  the  far  mightier  reign  of  "  The 
Truth." 

Galilee  was,  however,  in  some  respects,  an  unfavourable 
centre.  Jerusalem,  always  morose  and  self-sufficient,  ridi- 
culed its  population,  and  affected  to  deny  that  any  prophet 
had  risen  in  it,  though  Elijah,  the  greatest  of  the  illustrious 

1  Luke  iii.  23.  *  (A.D.  202)  ii.  22.  5.  3  John  viii.  57  ;  ii.  20. 

4  John  vi.  15. 


GALIL2EAN   IDEA  OF   THE   MESSIAH.  457 

order,  Elisha,  Hosea,  and  Nahum, — had  been  Galilaeans.1 
The  wits  of  the  capital,  moreover,  ridiculed  them  for  their 
speech,  for  they  substituted  one  letter  for  another,  and  had 
a  broad  pronunciation.  Their  culture,  and  even  their  capa- 
city -  were  contemned,  though  so  many  prophets  had  risen 
amongst  them,  though  they  could  boast  of  Barak,  the  con- 
queror of  the  Canaanites,  and  of  many  famous  Rabbis,  and 
though  the  high-minded  Judas  the  Zealot  had  shed  honour 
on  them,  in  Christ's  own  day,  as  the  great  apostle  Paul, 
sprung  from  a  Gischala  family,  was  to  do  hereafter.3  But 
hatred,  or  jealousy,  like  love,  is  blind. 

It  is  hard  to  know  how  early  the  Rabbinical  fancy  of  two 
Messiahs  arose,  but,  if  it  had  already  taken  any  shape  in 
Christ's  lifetime,  it  must  rather  have  hindered  than  helped 
His  great  work.  The  Messiah  of  the  House  of  Joseph  was 
to  appear  in  Galilee,  and,  after  gathering  round  him  the 
long-lost  Ten  Tribes,  was  to  march,  at  their  head,  to  Jeru- 
salem, to  receive  the  submission  of  the  Messiah  of  the  House 
of  David,  and,  having  united  the  whole  kingdom  once  more, 
was  to  die  by  the  hands  of  Gog  and  Magog,  the  northern 
heathen,  as  a  sacrifice  for  the  sins  of  Jeroboam,  and  of  the 
nation  at  large.1  But  these  fancies  took  a  definite  form  only 
in  a  later  age,  and  we  find  no  trace  of  them  in  the  New 
Testament.  Who  can  tell,  however,  how  old  their  germs 
may  have  been  ?  They  show,  at  least,  what  the  application 
of  passages  from  the  prophets  to  Christ's  first  appearing  in 
Galilee4  also  implies,  that  the  Galiloeans  cherished  the  great 
promise  of  the  Messiah.  Frank,  high-spirited,  and  com- 
paratively unprejudiced,  they  were  more  ready  than  other 
Jews  to  listen  to  a  new  teacher,  and  the  thousands  who  had 
rekindled  their  zeal  on  the  banks  of  the  Jordan,  under  the 
preaching  of  John,  had  already,  on  their  return,  spread 
around  them  the  excited  expectation  of  an  immediate  advent 
of  the  Messiah,  which  the  Baptist  had  announced.  But 
though  the  soil  was  thus  specially  favourable  for  His  earlier 
work,  the  fame  of  Jesus  was  hereafter  to  spread,  in  spite  of 
all  local  prejudices,  till,  at  last,  He  should  hear  Himself  pro- 
claimed by  the  multitude,  even  in  the  streets  of  Jerusalem, 
as  Jesus,  the  prophet  of  Nazareth  of  Galilee.5 

Nazareth,  itself,  like  Cana,  lay  too  far  from  the  centres  of 

1  John  vii.  52. 

2  Matt.  xxvi.  69,  73.     John  i.  46  ;  xix.  19.     Acts  ii.  7. 

3  Keim,  Der  yeschicht.  Christus,  p.  74.  4  Matt.  iv.  14.     Isa.  he.  1 
*  Matt.  xxi.  11.     Keim,  vol.  i.  p.  592. 


458  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

population  for  Christ's  public  work,  and  there  was,  besides, 
the  inevitable  drawback  of  its  having  known  Him  during 
the  long  years  of  His  humble  privacy.  He,  doubtless,  felt, 
from  the  first,  what  He  afterwards  expressed  with  so  much 
feeling,  that  "  a  prophet  is  not  Avithout  honour,  save  in  his 
own  country,  and  in  his  own  house."  1  His  fellow-townsmen, 
and  even  His  own  family,  could  not  realize  that  one  whose 
lowly  position  and  unmarked  career,  they  had  had  before 
them  through  life,  could  be  so  much  above  them.  It  was,  in 
infinitely  greater  degree,  the  same  pettiness  and  inability  to 
estimate  the  familiar  justly,  that,  in  our  own  age,  made  John 
Wilson  write,2  that  as  "  the  northern  Highlanders  do  not 
admire  '  Waverley,'  so,  I  presume,  the  south  Highlanders 
despise  '  Guy  Mannering.'  The  Westmoreland  peasants  think 
Wordsworth  a  fool.  In  Borrowdale,  Southey  is  not  known 
to  exist.  I  met  ten  men  in  Hawick  who  do  not  think  Hogg 
a  poet,  and  the  whole  city  of  Glasgow  think  me  a  madman." 
With  such  counteracting  prejudices,  Nazareth  was  altogether 
unsuited  for  the  longer  residence  of  Jesus,  and  hence  He 
seems  never  to  have  returned  to  it,  after  His  baptism,  except 
for  a  passing  visit. 

He  chose  for  His  future  home  the  shores  of  the  Lake  of 
Galilee,  at  that  time  the  most  populous,  as  they  are  still  the 
most  delightful,  part  of  Palestine.  Henceforth,  the  "  jewel  " 
of  its  banks — Capernaum — became  "His  own  city,"3  and  for 
a  time,  at  least,  His  mother  and  His  "brethren"  seem  also 
to  have  made  it  their  home,4  though  a  little  later  we  find 
Jesus  living  permanently  as  a  guest  in  the  house  of  Peter, 
as  if  they  had  once  more  left  the  town,  and  returned  to 
Nazareth.5  From  this  centre  His  future  work  was  carried 
on.  From  it  He  set  out  on  His  missionary  journeys,  and  He 
returned  to  it  from  them  to  find  a  welcome  and  a  home. 

Capernaum  lay  on  the  western  shore  of  the  Sea  of  Galilee, 
at  the  spot,  a  little  way  from  the  head  of  the  lake,  where 
the  shore  recedes  in  a  more  westerly  arc,  forming  a  small 
cape,  from  which  the  view  embraces  the  whole  coast,  in  every 
direction.  It  could  never  have  been  very  large,  for  Josephus 
only  once  mentions  it,6  as  a  village  to  which  he  was  carried 
by  his  soldiers,  when  hurt  by  a  fall  from  his  horse,  which 
had  stuck  in  the  marsh  below  Bethsaida  Julias.  The  name 

1  Matt,  xiii,  57.  3  Professor  Wilson's  Life,  vol.  i.  p.  201. 

»  Matt.  ix.  1 ;  xiii.  1,  36.     Mark  ii.  1 ;  iii.  19,  31 ;  vii.  17. 

4  Johu  ii.  12.  *  Mark.  i.  29.  «  Vita,  72,  see  p.  460. 


CAPEENAUM.  459 

does  not  occur  in  the  Old  Testament.  Capernaum,*  was  the 
boundary  town  between  the  territory  of  Philip  and  Antipas, 
and,  as  such,  had  a  custom-house  1  and  a  garrison.2  One  of 
the  officers  stationed  for  a  time  in  it,  a  foreigner,  and,  doubt- 
less, a  proselyte,  had,  in  Christ's  day,  built  a  fine  synagogue, 
as  a  mark,  at  once  of  his  friendly  feeling  to  the  Jewish 
nation,  and  of  homage  to  Jehovah.  The  whitewashed  houses 
were  built  of  black  basalt  or  lava,  still  scattered  in  boulders, 
nere  and  there,  over  the  neighbourhood,  and  gives  the  ground 
a  dark  appearance  when  the  tall  spring  grass  has  withered 
and  left  it  bare.  The  synagogue,  however,  was  of  white 
limestone.  Great  blocks  of  chiselled  stone,  finely  carved — 
once  its  frieze,  architrave,  and  cornices — still  lie  among  the 
waving  thistles,  where  the  town  formerly  stood.  The  Avails  are 
now  nearly  level  with  the  ground,  most  of  the  pillars  and 
stones  having  been  carried  off  to  build  into  house  walls,  or 
burn  for  lime,  though  some  of  its  double  row  of  columns, 
hewn  in  one  block,  and  of  their  Corinthian  capitals  and 
massy  pedestals,  still  speak  of  its  former  splendour.  Round 
the  synagogue,  and  reaching  up  the  gentle  slope  behind, 
stretched  the  streets  and  squares,  covering  an  area  of  half-a 
mile  in  length,  and  a  quarter  in  breadth ;  the  main  street 
running  north,  to  the  neighbouring  Chorazin. 

At  the  north  end  of  the  town,  two  tombs  yet  remain ;  one 
built  of  limestone,  underground,  in  an  excavation  hollowed 
out  with  great  labour  in  the  hard  basalt ;  the  other,  a  rectan- 
gular building,  above  ground,  large  enough  to  hold  a  great 
number  of  bodies,  and  once,  apparently,  white- washed,3 1  to 
warn  passers  by  not  to  defile  themselves  by  too  near  an 
approach  to  the  dead. 

Capernaum,  in  Christ's  day,  was  a  thriving,  busy  town. 
The  "highway  to  the  Sea,"4  from  Damascus  to  Ptolemais, — 
now  Acre,  but  still  known  by  the  earlier  name  in  the  seven- 
teenth century,8 — ran  through  it,6  bringing  no  little  local 
traffic,  and  also  opening  the  markets  of  the  coast  to  the  rich 
yield  of  the  neighbouring  farms,  orchards,  and  vineyards, 
and  the  abundant  returns  of  the  fisheries  of  the  lake.  The 
townsfolk,  thus,  as  a  rule,  enjoyed  the  comfort  and  plenty 
we  see  in  the  houses  of  Peter  and  Matthew,  and  were  even 
open  to  the  charge  of  being  "  winebibbers  and  gluttonous," 

1  Mark  ii.  14.    Luke  v.  27.     Matt.  ix.  9.  2  Luke  vii.  5. 

3  Matt,  xxiii.  27.  "  Isaiah  ix.  1.     Matt.  iv.  16. 

'  Quuremnius,  a  Franciscan,  quoted  by  Kt-im,  vol.  i.  p.  597. 
•  Kiepert's  Handkart"  vuii  Pulacstina.  1875. 


160  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

which  implied  generous  entertainment.  They  were  proud  of 
their  town,  and  counted  on  its  steady  growth  and  unbounded 
prosperity,  little  dreaming  of  the  ruin  which  would  one  day 
make  even  its  site  a  question. 

It  was  in  this  town  that  Jesus  settled,  amidst  a  mixed 
population  of  fisher-people,  grain  and  fruit  agents,  local 
tradesmen,  and  the  many  classes  and  occupations  of  a 
thriving  station  on  a  great  line  of  caravan  traffic.  It  was  a 
point  that  brought  Him  in  contact  with  Gentile  as  well  as 
Jewish  life.  Households  like  that  of  Peter,  proselytes  like 
the  centurion,  and  the  need  of  a  large  synagogue,  imply 
a  healthy  religiousness  in  some,  but  the  woe  pronounced 
on  the  town  by  Jesus,  after  a  time,  shows  that  whatever 
influence  He  may  have  had  on  a  few,  the  citizens  as  a 
whole  were  too  much  engrossed  with  their  daily  affairs  to 
pay  much  heed  to  Him.1 

An  hour's  walk  behind  the  town  leads  to  gentle  hill  slopes, 
which,  in  April,  are  thinly  covered  with  crisp  grasses,  and 
stalks  of  weeds.  From  the  top  the  eye  follows  the  course 
of  the  Jordan  as  it  enters  the  lake  in  two  streams,  through 
a  marshy  delta,  the  favourite  pasture  ground  for  herds  of 
huge,  ungainly,  fierce,  and  often  dangerous  black  buffaloes, 
which  delight  to  wallow  by  day  in  such  marshy  places,  up 
to  the  neck  in  water  or  mud,  and  return  at  night  to  their 
masters,  the  Arabs  of  the  Jordan  valley.  Jesus  must  often 
have  seen  these  herds  luxuriating  idly  in  this  swampy  para- 
dise, for  they  are  not  used  for  labour  in  the  district  round 
die  lake,  though  ihey  are  sometimes  set  to  drag  the  plough 
in  the  parts  near  the  Waters  of  Merom.2  The  lake  itself 
stretched  out,  north  and  south,  like  a  pear  in  shape,  the 
broad  end  towards  the  north;  or  like  a  lyre,  from  which, 
indeed,  it  got  its  ancient  name  of  Chinneroth.3  m  Its  greatest 
width,  from  the  ancient  Magdala  on  the  west  side,  to  Gergesa 
on  the  east,  is  six  and  three-quarter  miles,  and  its  extreme 
length,  a  little  over  twelve.  There  are  no  pine-clad  moun- 
tains, no  bold  headlands,  no  lofty  precipices ;  the  hills — 
except  at  Khan  Minyeh,  the  ancient  Tarichaea,  a  little  below 
Capernaum,  where  there  is  a  small  cliff — rise  gradually,  in  a 

'  Matt.  xii.  23. 

•  Fnrrer,  Art.  Buffel.     Tristram,  Nat.  Hist,  of  Bible,  p.  72. 

s  Hitzig  derives  it  from  Persian,  Kenar,  the  shore,  as  orig.  a  name  of  a 
town  011  the  banks  of  the  lake,  and  then,  of  the  lake  itself.  Gesch.  d. 
Volkes  Israel,  p.  24.  Dr.  Grove  thinks  it  a  Canaanite  name  adopted 
by  the  Hebrews.  Diet,  of  Bible,  vol.  i.  p.  306. 


THE    LAKE    OF    GALILEE.  461 

dull  uniform  brown  from  the  lake,  or  from  a  fringe  of  plain, 
on  the  south  and  east,  to  about  1,000  feet ;  on  the  north-west 
to  about  500.  No  prominent  peak  breaks  the  outline,  but 
the  ever-changing  lights  and  the  rich  tints  of  sunrise  and 
sunset,  prevent  monotony.  From  the  south  of  the  lake,  the 
top  of  Hermon,  often  white  with  snow,  stands  out  sharp  and 
clear  in  the  bright  sky,  as  if  close  at  hand,  and,  towards  the 
north,  the  twin  peaks  of  Plattin  crown  a  wild  gorge,  a  littie 
way  below  Capernaum.  On  the  eastern  side  the  hills  rise  in 
a  barren  wall,  seaiued  with  a  few  deep  ravines,  black  basalt 
predominating,  though  varied  here  and  there  by  the  lighter 
grey  limestone.  Nor  trees,  nor  village,  nor  spots  of  cultivated 
land  break  the  desolation  which  spreads  like  a  living  death 
over  the  landscape,  except  along  the  narrow  stripe  of  green, 
about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  in  breadth,  that  fringes  the  lake. 
It  was  among  these  waste  and  lonely  hills  that  Jesus  often 
retired  to  escape  the  crowds  which  often  oppressed  Him. 
The  hills  on  the  western  side  slope  more  gently,  and  rise  and 
fall  in  rounded  tops,  such  as  mark  the  softer  limestone.  The 
line  of  the  shore,  in  the  upper  reaches,  is  broken  into  a  series 
of  little  bays  of  exquisite  beauty. 

The  Rabbis  were  wont  to  say  that  God  had  made  seven 
seas  in  the  land  of  Canaan,  but  had  chosen  only  one  for  Him- 
self— the  Sea  of  Galilee.1  Josephus  rightly  called  the  land 
on  its  borders,  "  the  crown  "  of  Palestine.  The  plain  of 
Gennesareth  begins  at  Khan  Minyeh,  about  two  miles  below 
Capernaum,  filling  in  the  bow-like  recess  which  the  hills 
make  from  that  point  to  Magdala.  It  as  romantic  as  beauti- 
ful, for  the  ravine  at  its  southern  end  leads,  at  a  short  dis- 
tance, to  the  towering  limestone  cliffs  of  Arbela,  on  whose 
heights  numerous  eagles  now  build  among  the  airy  caverns, 
once  the  fortress  alternately  of  robbers  and  patriots,  to  whom 
the  valley  offered  a  way  to  the  lake.  Gennesareth  was  the 
richest  spot  in  Palestine ;  five  streamlets  from  the  neigh- 
bouring hills  quickening  its  rich  dark  volcanic  soil  into 
amazing  fertility.  It  measures  only  about  two  and  a  half 
miles  from  north  to  south,  by  about  a  mile  in  depth,2  but,  in 
the  days  of  Christ  it  must  have  been  enchantingly  beautiful. 
"  Its  soil,"  says  Josephus,  "  is  so  fruitful  that  all  kinds  of 
trees  grow  in  it.  Walnuts  nourish  in  great  plenty ;  there 

1  Sep.,  vol.  ii.  p.  170.     Ligbtfoot,  Chor.  Cent.,  p.  144. 

2  Maps  of  Lieut.  Anderson,  R.E.  (from  actual  survey).     Pecovery  oj 
J<ru-ialfm,  pp.  339,  348. 


462  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

are  palm-trees  also,  which  require  heat,  and  figs  and 
olives,  which  require  a  more  temperate  air.  Nature  seems, 
as  it  were,  to  have  done  violence  to  herself,  to  cause  the 
plants  of  different  lands  to  grow  together.  Grapes  and  figs 
ripen  for  ten  months  in  the  year,  and  other  fruits  fill  up  the 
other  months."  1 

No  wonder  the  fruits  of  Gennesareth  put  to  shame  all  elso 
in  the  markets  of  Jerusalem.  Its  soil  is  still  fertile  in  the 
extreme,  and  it  lies  between  five  and  six  hundred  feet  below 
the  Mediterranean,  which  makes  it  very  warm.  Wheat, 
barley,  millet,  rice,  melons,  grapes,  the  common  vegetables, 
tobacco,  and  indigo  flourish,  and  date-palms,  figs,  citrons,  and 
oranges  are  not  wanting.  Gennesareth  melons  are  exported 
to  Damascus  and  Acre,  and  are  greatly  prized.  The  olean- 
ders and  wild  figs,  palms,  etc.,  rise  here  and  there  in  rank 
luxuriance,  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that,  in  former  times, 
when  the  whole  soil  was  carefully  tilled,  few  semi-tropical 
plants  would  have  failed  to  grow.  The  climate  of  the  lake 
shore,  generally,  is  so  mild  even  in  winter,  that  snow  seldom 
falls.  In  summer,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  oppressively  hot, 
for  except  at  the  plain  of  Gennesareth,  which  enjoys  cool 
breezes  from  Lebanon,  the  hills  shut  out  the  west  wind, 
almost  the  only  abatement  of  the  intensity  of  the  summer  in 
Palestine,  and  hence  the  people  of  Tiberias  are  glad  to  sleep 
in  shelters  of  straw  or  leaves  on  their  roofs  during  the  hot 
months.  Melons  ripen  four  weeks  sooner  than  at  Acre  and 
Damascus,  and  though  wheat  is  not  so  early  ripe  as  at  Jericho, 
where  the  harvest  is  in  May,  it  is  ready  for  the  sickle  in  June. 
A  spot  so  charming  could  not,  however,  escape  some  draw- 
back. This  sultry  moist  heat  causes,  along  the  marshy  lake 
edge,  a  prevalence  of  fever,  and  sometimes  brings  pesti- 
lence, and  ophthalmia  and  sickness  of  various  kinds  are  only 
too  common. 

The  shores  of  the  plain  are  white  with  myriads  of  little 
shells,  over  which  the  transparent,  crystal-like  waters  rise 
and  fall  with  the  wind,  and  the  side  next  the  hills  is  shut  in 
by  a  fringe  of  oleanders,  rich,  each  May,  in  red  and  white 
blossom.  In  the  days  of  Christ  the  whole  landscape  was  full 
of  life.  Busy  towns  and  villages  crowded  the  shores,  and  the 
waters  swarmed  with  boats  employed  in  the  fisheries,  which 
even  gave  their  names  to  several  of  the  towns.  South  of 
Capernaum  lay  the  busy  city  of  Tarichsea,  or  "  Pickling 

1  B:'ll.  Jud..  iii.  10.  8. 


THE  SHORES  OF  THE  LAKE.          463 

Town,"  1 — the  great  fish-curing  port — which  had  boats 
enough  to  meet  the  Romans,  a  generation  later,  in  a  deadly 
sea-fight  on  the  lake,2  in  which  eight  thousand  of  its  citi- 
zens, and  of  those  who  had  taken  refuge  in  it,  were  slain,  and 
nearly  forty  thousand  sold  as  slaves.3  n  This  and  Tiberias 
were  the  two  ports  in  which  the  fishermen  of  Capernaum  and 
Bethsaida  found  a  ready  sale  for  their  freights.  A  little 
further  south  rose  the  houses  of  Magdala,  or  Migdal-El — 
*'  the  Tower  of  God  " — now  Medschel — the  home  of  the  Mary 
who  bears  its  name.  Then  came  Tiberias,  with  its  splendid 
palace,  grand  public  buildings,  huge  arsenal,  famous  baths, 
glittering  in  the  bright  sunshine,  and  its  motley,  busy  popu- 
lation ;  town  after  town  rising  in  the  distance.  To  the 
north,  on  the  slope  of  the  hills,  a  short  way  off,  lay 
Chorazin,  named,  it  might  seem,  from  the  "  coracin  "  fish 
mentioned  by  Josephus  as  found  in  its  neighbourhood.  At 
the  head  of  the  lake,4  on  the  other  side  of  the  Jordan, 
Bethsaida — "  the  Fisher's  Town  " — rebuilt,  and  re-named 
Julias,  by  the  tetrarch  Philip,  was  fresh  from  the  hands  of 
the  masons  and  sculptors,  and  along  the  eastern  shore  lay 
Gergesa,  Gamala,  Hippos,  and  other  swarming  hives  of  men. 
The  landscape  is  now  very  different.  The  thickly  peopled 
shore  is  almost  deserted.  Tiberias,  then  so  magnificent,  has 
shrunk  into  a  small  and  decaying  town,  like  every  place  under 
Turkish  rule  ;  the  white  towns  and  villages,  once  reflected 
in  the  waters,  have  disappeared  ;  the  fleets  of  fishing  boats  are 
now  replaced  by  one  solitary  crazy  boat ;  °  the  richly  wooded 
hills  are  bare  ;  the  paradise-like  plains  are  overgrown  with 
thorns  and  thistles.  The  shore — varied  by  stretches  of  sand, 
intervals  of  white  tiny  shells,  shingle  with  larger  shells  here 
and  there,  and  great  beds  of  black  basalt,  which  show  the 
volcanic  nature  of  the  district,  as  do  also  the  warm  baths 
at  Tiberias — is  silent.  Near  the  water,  reeds  and  rushes  grow 
in  long  reaches,  in  the  flatter  swampy  parts — a  favourite  haunt 
of  the  pelican,  and  many  other  birds,  but,  above  all,  of  the 
turtle-dove,  the  bird  dearest  from  of  old  to  the  Jew.  The 
whole  must  have  been  beautiful,  however,  in  former  days  to 
make  the  Emperor  Titus  compare  it  with  the  Lake  of  Neuf- 
chatel,  in  Switzerland,5  though,  nowadays,  the  comparison 
seems  fanciful.' 

1  Ruetschi,  Art.  Gennesaret,  in  Herzog,  vol.  v.  p.  7. 

»  Bell.  Jud.,  iii.  10.  9.  •  Bell.  Jud.,  iii.  10.  9 ;  10.  10. 

«  Bell.  Jud.,  Hi.  10.  8.  *  Freculph.  Chron.,u.  a. 


464  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

It  was  in  Capernaum  that  Jesus  chose  His  home,  in  the 
midst  of  tliis  life  and  beauty,  beside  the  gleaming  lake, 
embosomed  deep  on  this,  its  western  shore,  in  soft  terraced 
hills,  laughing  with  fruitfulness ;  the  higher  hills  of  Upper 
Galilee  rising  beyond,  and  the  majestic  Hermon  closing  the 
glorious  landscape.  The  view  over  the  waters  showed  the 
steep  slopes — now  yellow  limestone,  now  black  basalt — 
which  led  up  to  the  Gaulonitis  country.  Capernaum  was 
the  town  of  His  three  chief  apostles,  Peter,  John,  and  James, 
and  also  of  Andrew.  Here  He  healed  the  centurion's  slave,1 
and  raised  the  daughter  of  Jairus ; 2  called  Matthew  from 
the  booth  where  he  took  the  customs  dues,  and  healed  the 
mother-in-law  of  Peter.  From  a  boat  near  the  shore,  close 
by,  He  preached  to  the  crowds,3  and  it  was  in  the  waters  off 
the  town  that  He  vouchsafed  to  Peter  and  his  brother  the 
miraculous  draught  of  fishes.4 

The  whole  neighbourhood,  indeed,  is  sacred  to  the  memory 
of  Jesus.  The  Lake  of  Galilee  had  been  chosen  by  God  for 
Himself,  and  honoured  above  all  seas  of  the  earth,  in  a  sense 
which  the  Rabbis  little  dreamed.  The  men,  the  fields,  the 
valleys  round  it,  are  immortalized  by  their  association  with 
the  Saviour.  There  were  the  vineyards  on  the  hill  slopes, 
round  which  their  owner  planted  a  hedge,  and  in  which  he 
built  a  watch-tower,  and  dug  a  wine-press.5  There  were 
the  sunny  hills,  on  which  the  old  wine  had  grown,  and  the 
new  was  growing,  for  which  the  householder  would  take 
care  to  provide  the  new  leather  bottles.6  The  plain  of  Gen- 
nesareth  was  the  enamelled  meadow,  on  which,  in  spring, 
ten  thousand  lilies  were  robed  in  more  than  the  glory  of 
Solomon,7  and  where,  in  winter,  the  grass  was  cast  into  the 
oven.  It  was  on  such  pastures  as  those  around,  that  the 
shepherd  left  the  ninety-and-nine  sheep,  to  seek,  in  the 
mountains,  the  one  that  was  lost,  and  bring  it  back,  on  his 
shoulders,  rejoicing  when  found.8  The  ravens,  that  have 
neither  storehouse  nor  barn,9  daily  sailed  over  from  the 
cliffs  of  Arbela,  to  seek  their  food  on  the  shore  of  the  lake, 
and  from  the  same  cliffs,  from  time  to  time,  flew  forth  the 
hawks,  to  make  the  terrified  hen  gather  her  chickens  under 
her  wings.10  The  orchards  of  spreading  fig-trees  were 
there,  on  which  the  dresser  of  the  vineyard,  in  three  years, 

1  Lnke  vil  1.  3  Luke  viii.  41.  3  Luke  v.  3.        *  Luke  v.  4. 

*  Matt.  xxi.  33.  •  Luke  v.  37.  1  Luke  xii.  27.  28. 

8  Luke  xv.  4.  •  Luke  xii.  24.  10  Matt,  xxiii.  37.  4. 


WEATHER   PROPHETS.  4G5 

found  no  fruit,1  and  in  which  the  grain  of  mustard  seed 
grew  into  so  great  a  tree  that  the  fowls  of  the  air  lodged  in 
its  branches.2  Across  the  lake  rose  the  hills  of  Gaulonitis, 
which  the  idly  busy  Rabbis  watched  for  signs  of  the  weather. 
A  murky  red,  seen  above  them  in  the  morning,  was  a  text 
for  these  sky-prophets  to  predict  "  foul  weather  to-day,  for 
the  sky  is  red  and  lowering," 3  and  it  was  when  the  sun 
sank,  red  and  glowing,  behind  the  hills  in  the  west,  that  the 
solemn  gossips,  returning  from  their  many  prayers  in  the 
synagogue,  made  sure  that  it  would  be  "  fair  weather  to- 
morrow.4 It  was  when  the  sea-cloud  was  seen  driving 
over  the  hill-tops  from  Ptolemais  and  Carmel  that  neigh- 
bours warned  each  other  that  a  shower  was  coming,5  and 
the  clouds  sailing  north,  towards  Safed  and  Hermon,  were 
the  accepted  earnest  of  coming  heat.6  The  daily  business 
of  Capernaum,  itself,  supplied  many  of  the  illustrations  so 
frequently  introduced  into  the  discourses  of  Jesus.  He  might 
see  in  the  bazaar  of  the  town,  or  on  the  street,  the  rich 
travelling  merchant,  who  exchanged  a  heavy  load  of  Baby- 
lonian carpets  for  the  one  lustrous  pearl 7  that  had,  perhaps, 
found  its  way  to  the  lake  from  distant  Ceylon.  Fishermen, 
and  publicans,  and  dressers  of  vineyards  passed  and  re-passed 
each  moment.  Over  in  Julias,  the  favourite  town  of  the 
tetrarch  Philip  ;  below,  in  Tiberias,  at  the  court  of  Antipas, 
lived  the  magnates,  who  delighted  to  be  called  "gracious 
lords,"  and  walked  in  silk  robes.8  The  young  Salome  lived 
in  the  one  town ;  her  mother,  Herodias,  in  the  other ;  and 
the  intercourse  between  the  two  courts  could  not  have 
escaped  the  all-observing  eye  of  Jesus,  as  He  moved  about 
in  Capernaum.9 

It  was  this  town,  on  the  border  between  the  districts  of 
Philip  and  Antipas,  and  on  the  highway  of  commerce  and 
travel  by  the  shore  of  the  lake,  in  the  midst  of  thickly  sown 
towns  and  villages,  that  Jesus  selected  as  His  future  home. 
He  seems,  at  first,  to  have  lived  with  His  mother  and  His 
brethren,  and  the  few  disciples  He  had  already  gathered ; 
but  His  stay,  at  this  time,  was  short,10  for  He  presently  set 
out  on  His  first  Passover  journey  to  Jerusalem.11  On  His 
return,  He  appears  to  have  made  His  abode,  as  often  as  Ho 

1  Luke  xiii.  7.  2  Luke  xiii.  19.  »  Matt.  xvi.  3. 

4  Matt.  xvi.  2.  6  Luke  xii.  54.  •  Luke  xii.  55. 

1  Matt.  xiii.  46.  8  Luke  xxii.  25. 

9  See  a  very  striking  passage  in  Hausrath,  vol.  i.  pp.  345,  346. 
l°  John  ii.  12.  "  John  ii.  13. 


4G6  THE   LIFE    OF   CHRIST. 

was  in  the  town,  in  the  house  of  Peter,1  who  lived  with  his 
bi'otber  Andrew  and  his  mother-in-law.  It  had  a  court- 
yard before  it,a  and  was  on  the  shore  of  the  Lake,3  but  it 
was,  at  best,  only  the  home  of  a  rough-handed  fisherman's 
household. 

1  Mark  i.  29.    Matt.  xvii.  24.  2  Mark  ii.  4  ;  ii.  2. 

3  Mark  ii.  13  ;  jy  1. 


CHAPTER  XXX. 


rriHE  choice  of  Capernaum  by  Jesus  as  His  future  centre 
-*-  was  significant.  John  had  chosen  the  "  terrible  wilder- 
ness," with  its  "  vipers  and  scorpions  and  drought."  l  Jesus 
selected  the  district  spoken  of  as  "  the  garden  of  God,"  and 
"  Paradise."  2  John  had  lived  amidst  the  silence  of  desola- 
tion ;  Jesus  came  to  a  centre  of  business  and  travel,  to  live 
amidst  men.  John  kept  equally  aloof  from  priest,  prince,  or 
governor,  from  Rome  and  from  Jerusalem  ;  Jesus  settled  in 
a  garrison  town,  noted  for  business  and  near  Tiberias,  with 
its  Idumean  prince,  the  f  nture  murderer  of  the  Baptist,  and 
its  gay  courtiers.  The  contrast  marked  the  vital  difference 
between  His  woi-k  and  that  of  His  herald.  He  was  to  wear 
no  prophet's  mantle  like  John,  but  the  simple  dress  of  other 
men : s  to  lay  no  stress  on  fasts,  to  enforce  no  isolation  from 
any  class,  for  He  came  to  all  men  irrespective  of  rank  or 
nation. 

Jesus  had  come,  in  fact,  to  preach  a  Gospel  of  which  the 
glorious  panorama  around  Him  was  the  fit  emblem.  The 
"  old  wine  "  of  Judaism,  which  had  in  a  measure  character- 
ized the  spirit  of  John,  was  to  be  replaced  by  the  "  new  wine 
of  the  kingdom  of  God."  *  John  had  sought  to  establish 
that  kingdom  anew,  on  a  Jewish  foundation,  by  trying  to 
blend  together  the  spiritual  and  the  external.  While  break- 
ing away  in  some  respects  from  the  old  theocracy,  he  had 
sought  to  build  up  a  new  outward  constitution  for  Israel 
alone,  and  had  imposed  it,  with  its  burden  of  fastings,  wash- 
ings, and  endless  legal  requirements,  in  part,  on  the  nation 
at  large,  and  in  all  its  severity,  on  himself  and  his  disciples. 
He  had  proposed  to  heal  the  wounds  of  mankind  by  an  un- 
natural withdrawal  from  the  world,  and  by  the  austerities 
of  ascetic  observance.  For  this  religion  of  endless,  hope- 

1  Dent.  viii.  15.  2  Lightfoot,  vol.  i.  p.  155.  3  Matt.  ix.  20. 

Mark  xiv.  25. 


468  THE   LIFE    OF   CHRIST. 

less  struggle  after  legal  purity,  which  carried  with  it  no 
balm  for  the  heart,  and  enforced  morbid  isolation,  Jesus,  by 
His  settling  in  Capernaum,  substituted  that  of  peace  and 
joy,  and  of  a  healthy  intercourse  with  mankind  and  citizen- 
ship in  the  great  world.  The  religion  of  John  was  national, 
local,  and  unsatisfying,  and  marked  by  the  spirit  of  caste  ; 
that  of  Jesus  offered  the  splendid  contrast  of  a  faith  which 
rose  high  over  all  that  had  hitherto  been  known.  Suited 
alike  for  the  peasant  and  the  prince,  it  cared  nothing  for 
outward  position  or  the  changes  of  states  or  nationality, 
but  sought  only  to  meet  the  wrants  and  longings  of  man,  in 
the  inner  infinite  world  of  the  heart  and  spirit,  which  no 
Herod  could  reach.  Recognising  all  good,  wherever  found, 
it  gladly  drew  to  itself  all  that  was  true  and  pure,  and  re- 
joiced to  ally  itself  with  the  gifts  which  dignify  human 
nature.  The  friend  of  man,  it  saw  in  every  soul  a  pearl, 
hidden  or  visible,  and  ennobled  every  honourable  human 
calling  by  enlisting  it  in  the  service  of  God.  It  lifted  men 
above  care  for  the  world  or  inclination  to  seek  it,  because 
it  was  not  a  religion  of  outward  forms,  of  harsh  legalities, 
or  unnatural  self-infliction  and  isolation,  but  the  religion 
of  peace  and  joy,  in  reconciliation  with  God  and  the  calm 
of  jarring  nature  within — a  religion  which  gave  calmness 
amidst  all  want,  and  reflected  the  untroubled  image  of 
heaven  in  the  soul,  amidst  suffering  and  trial — a  religion 
which  laid  the  agitations  and  cares  of  the  bosom  to  rest,  by 
the  pledge  of  Divine  love  and  pity.  The  sweet  fancy  of  the 
Portuguese  mariner,  who,  after  rounding  Cape  Horn,  amidst 
storm  and  terrors,  found  that  the  ocean  on  which  he  had 
entered,  lay  as  if  hushed  asleep  before  him,  and  ascribed 
its  calm  to  the  glittering  form  of  the  southern  cross  shining 
down  on  it,  was  to  be  turned  into  fact,  in  the  stillness  of  the 
hitherto  troubled  soul  under  the  light  of  the  Star  of  Bethle- 
hem. 

The  stay  of  Jesus  in  Capernaum  at  this  time  was  very 
short.1  He  had  resolved  to  attend  the  Passover,2  and  only 
waited  till  it  was  time  to  do  so.*  No  details  have  been  left 
us  of  this  earliest  ministry,  but  it  could  hardly  have  been 
encouraging,  for  even  at  a  later  date  its  recollections  waked 
painful  thoughts.3  The  determination  to  carry  His  message 
beyond  the  narrow  and  ungracious  circle  of  Capernaum,  and 

J  John  ii.  12.  2  John  ii.  13,  25. 

•  Matt  xi.  20,  24.      Luke  x.  13,  15. 


PALESTINE   IN   SPEING.  469 

the  towns  around,  to  a  wider  sphere,  would  be  only 
strengthened  by  this  result.  Jerusalem,  with  its  schools  and 
Temple,  was  the  place  fitted  beyond  all  others  for  His  work- 
ing with  effect.  He  did  not  wish  to  be  openly  recognised  as 
the  Messiah  as  yet,  but  it  was  imperative  now,  at  the  opening 
of  His  ministry,  that  he  should  visit  the  great  centre  and 
heart  of  the  nation,  and  unostentatiously  open  His  great 
commission.  The  whole  country  looked  to  Jerusalem  as 
its  religions  capital,  and  an  impression  made  there  would 
react  everywhere. 

The  month  of  April,  on  the  eve  of  the  15th  of  which  tho 
Passover  was  eaten,  was  the  bright  spring  month  of  the  year. 
The  plains  were  covered  with  rich  green,  for  it  was  the 
"  earing  month,"  l  and  the  grey  hills  lit  up  with  red  anemones, 
rock  roses,  red  and  yellow,  the  convolvulus,  marigold,  wild 
geranium,  red  tulip,  and  a  hundred  other  glories,  for  it  was 
the  "  month  of  flowers."  2  The  cuckoo,  unseen,  as  here,  was 
heard  around :  our  thrush  and  sweet- voiced  blackbird  flew 
off  at  the  approach  of  a  passer  by  :  the  voice  of  the  turtle 
was  heard  in  the  land :  the  song  of  the  lark  flooded  a 
thousand  acres  of  upper  air,  and  the  pastures  were  alive  with 
flocks  and  herds.  The  roads  to  Jerusalem  were  already 
crowded  when  the  month  began.  Flocks  of  sheep,  goats,  and 
cattle  from  Bashan,3  daily  passed  over  the  fords  of  the  Jordan, 
towards  the  Holy  City,  and  shepherds  with  their  flocks,  from 
"  the  pastures  of  the  wilderness,"  between  Bethany  on  the 
Mount  of  Olives,  and  the  Dead  Sea,  or  from  the  south  country 
stretching  away  from  Bethlehem,  were  in  great  excitement 
to  bring  their  charge  safely  to  the  Temple  market,  where 
one  hundred  thousand  lambs,  alone,  were  needed,  besides 
thousands  of  sheep  and  oxen.  The  roads  and  bridges  on  tho 
main  lines  of  travel  through  the  whole  country  had  been 
repaired ;  all  tombs  whitewashed,  to  guard  those  coming  to 
the  feast  from  defilement,  by  unconscious  approach  to  them  : 
the  fields  examined,  to  weed  out  whatever  illegal  mixtures 
of  plants  defiled  the  land  :  and  the  springs  and  wells  cleansed 
for  the  wants  of  the  pilgrims,  no  less  than  to  secure  their 
legal  purity.4 

Jerusalem  was  in  its  glory.  The  whole  population  was 
astir  from  the  earliest  morning,  to  enjoy  the  cool  of  the  day 

1  The  old  name  of  the  month  was  Abib— an  ear  of  corn:  "earing1' 
here  =  "  coming  into  ear." 

2  Its  later  name  was  Nisan — the  month  of  flowers. 

8  Deut.  xxxii.  14.  *  Steitz.  in  Herzog.  vol.  xi.  p.  147. 


THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

and  the  excitements  of  the  season.  The  hills  of  Moab  wera 
hardly  purple  with  the  dawn  before  the  Temple  courts  were 
crowded,  and  by  the  time  the  sun  rose  from  behind  the 
Mount  of  Olives,  leaving  the  morning  clouds  to  float  off  and 
lose  themselves  in  the  deep  valley  of  the  Dead  Sea,  the 
business  of  the  day  had  fully  begun.  The  golden  roofs  and 
marble  walls  of  the  Temple  reflected  a  dazzling  brightness  ; 
the  King's  Pool,  beyond  the  Tyropceon,  seemed  molten  silver, 
and  the  palms,  cypresses,  olives,  and  figs,  of  the  palace 
gardens,  and  among  the  mansions  of  the  rich  on  Zion  and 
round  the  city,  bent  in  the  soft  air.  The  concourse  at  the 
hour  of  morning  prayer  was .  immense,  but  it  grew  even 
greater  as  the  day  advanced.  The  streets  were  blocked  by 
the  crowds  from  all  parts,  who  had  to  make  their  way  to  the 
Temple,  past  flocks  of  sheep  and  droves  of  cattle,  pressing 
on  in  the  sunken  middle  part  of  each  street  reserved  for  them, 
to  prevent  contact  and  defilement.  Sellers  of  all  possible 
wares  beset  the  pilgrims,  for  the  great  feasts  were,  as  has  been 
said,  the  harvest  time  of  all  trades  at  Jerusalem,  just  as,  at 
Mecca,  even  at  this  day,  the  time  of  the  great  concourse  of 
worshippers  at  the  tomb  of  the  Prophet,  is  that  of  the  busiest 
trade  among  the  merchant  pilgrims,  who  form  the  caravans 
from  all  parts  of  the  Mohammedan  world.1 

Inside  the  Temple  space,  the  noise  and  pressure  were,  if 
possible,  worse.  Directions  were  posted  up  to  keep  to  the 
right  or  the  left,  as  in  the  densest  thoroughfares  of  London.2 
The  outer  court,  which  others  than  Jews  might  enter,  and 
which  was,  therefore,  known  as  the  Court  of  the  Heathen, 
was,  in  part,  covered  with  pens  for  sheep,  goats,  and  cattle, 
for  the  feast  and  the  thank-offerings.  Sellers  shouted  the 
merits  of  their  beasts,  sheep  bleated,  and  oxen  lowed.  It  was, 
in  fact,  the  great  yearly  fair  of  Jerusalem,  and  the  crowds 
added  to  the  din  and  tumult,  till  the  services  in  the  neigh- 
bouring courts  Avere  sadly  disturbed.  Sellers  of  do  yes,  for 
poor  women  coming  for  purification,  from  all  parts  of  the 
country,3  and  for  others,  had  a  space  set  apart  for  them. 
Indeed,  the  sale  of  doves  was,  in  great  measure,  secretly,  in 
the  hands  of  the  priests  themselves  :  Hannas,  the  high  priest, 
especially,  gaining  great  profits  from  his  dove-cots  on  Mount 
Olivet.  The  rents  of  the  sheep  and  cattle  pens,  and  the 

1  Burckhardt's  Trareh  in  Arabia.    Milman's  Christianity,  p.  79.    Steitz, 
in  Herzotf,  vol.  xi.  p.  117. 

2  Middoth,  c.  ii.  2,  quoted  by  $eni>,  vol.  iii.  p.  37. 
"  n.  Sanlud.,  xi.  1. 


THE   TEMPLE   AT   PASSOVER  TIME.  471 

profits  on  the  doves,  had  led  the  pinests  to  sanction  the 
incongruity  of  thus  turning  the  Temple  itself  into  a  noisy 
market.  Nor  was  this  all.  Potters  pressed  on  the  pilgrims 
their  clay  dishes  and  ovens  for  the  Passover  Lamb  ;  hundreds 
of  traders  recommended  their  wares  aloud  ;  shopsb  for  wine, 
oil,  salt,  and  all  else  needed  for  sacrifices,  invited  customers, 
and,  in  addition,  persons  going  across  the  city  with  all  kinds 
of  burdens,  shortened  their  journey  by  crossing  the  Temple 
grounds.  The  provision  for  paying  the  tribute,  levied  on  all, 
for  the  support  of  the  Temple,  added  to  the  distraction.  On 
both  sides  of  the  east  Temple  gate,  stalls  had  for  generations 
been  permitted  for  changing  foreign  money.  From  the 
fifteenth  of  the  preceding  month  money-changers  had  been 
allowed  to  set  tip  their  tables  in  the  city,1  and  from  the 
twenty-first — or  twenty  days  before  the  Passover — to  ply 
their  trade  in  the  Temple  itself.  Purchasers  of  materials  for 
offerings  paid  the  amount  at  special  stalls,  to  an  officer  of  the 
Temple,  and  received  a  leaden  cheque  for  which  they  got 
what  they  had  bought,  from  the  seller.  Large  sums,  more- 
over, were  changed,  to  be  cast,  as  free  offerings,  into  one  of 
the  thirteen  chests  which  formed  the  Temple  treasury.3 
Every  Jew,  no  matter  how  poor,  was,  in  addition,  required 
to  pay  yearly  a  half-shekel — about  eighteenpence — as  atone- 
ment money  for  his  soul,  and  for  the  support  of  the  Temple. 
As  this  would  not  be  received  except  in  a  native  coin,  called 
the  Temple  shekel,3  which  was  not  generally  current, 
strangers  had  to  change  their  Roman,  Greek,  or  Eastern 
money,  at  the  stalls  of  the  money-changers,  to  get  the  coin 
required.  The  trade  gave  ready  means  for  fraud,  which  was 
only  too  common.  Five  per  cent,  exchange  was  charged,  but 
this  was  indefinitely  increased  by  tricks  and  chicanery,0  for 
which  the  class  had  everywhere  earned  so  bad  a  name,  that, 
like  the  publicans,  their  witness  would  not  be  taken  before  a 
court.* 

Jesus  was  greatly  troubled  by  this  monstrous  desecration 
of  His  Father's  house.  He  was  a  young  unknown  man,  and 
a  Galilean  :  He  had  no  formal  authority  to  interfere,  for  the 
Temple  arrangements  were  under  the  priests  alone,  but  the 
eight  of  such  abuses,  in  a  place  so  holy,  roused  His  inmost 
spirit.  Entering  the  polluted  Temple  space,  and  gazing 
round  on  the  tumult  and  manifold  defilements,  He  could  not 

1  Misclina,  Shekalim,  i.  3.  *  Mark  xii.  41.     Luke  xxi.  1. 

*  Dercnbuurg,  p.  136.  *  Sepp,  vol.  iii.  p.  41. 


472  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

remain  impassive.  Hastily  tying  together  some  small  cords, 
and  advancing  to  the  sellers  of  the  sheep  and  oxen,  He  com- 
manded them  to  leave  the  Temple,  with  their  property,  at 
once,  and  drove  them  and  their  beasts  out  of  the  gates.  The 
sellers  of  doves  were  allowed  to  take  their  cages  away,  but 
they,  too,  had  to  leave.  The  money-changers  fared  worst, 
as  they  deserved.  Their  tables  were  overturned,  and  they 
themselves  expelled.  After  long  years  the  Temple  was  once 
more  sacred  to  God. 

That  one  man  should  have  effected  such  an  amazing  act 
may  have  been  due,  as  St.  Jerome  says,  "  to  the  starry  light 
Avhich  shone  from  His  eyes,  and  to  the  Divine  majesty  which 
beamed  from  His  features," d  but  it  is  not  necessary  to 
suppose  such  a  miraculous  aid.  The  weakness  of  a  guilty 
conscience  on  the  one  side,  and  the  grandeur  of  a  supremo 
enthusiasm  on  the  other,  account  for  it.  All  were  under  a 
spell  for  the  moment.  It  was  an  act  such  as  Mattathias  or 
Judas  Maccabreus  might  have  done,  and  prophet-like  as  it 
was,  in  such  a  place,  and  in  such  a  cause,  its  unique  heroism 
secured  its  triumph. 

The  authorities  who  were  responsible  for  the  abuse  so 
astoundingly  corrected,  were  no  less  paralyzed  than  the 
multitude  at  large,  by  the  lofty  zeal  for  God  shown  thus 
strangely.  Rules  of  a  strictness  hitherto  unknown  were  ere 
long  announced,*  and,  for  the  moment,  put  in  force,  though, 
three  years  later,  things  had  become  as  bad  as  ever.  No 
one  could  henceforth  go  up  to  "  the  hill  of  the  Lord  "  with  a 
staff  in  his  hand,  or  with  his  shoes  on  his  feet,  or  with  money 
in  his  girdle,  or  with  a  sack  on  his  shoulder,  or  even  with 
dust  on  his  feet,  and  no  one  might  carry  a  burden  of  any 
kind  through  the  Temple,  or  even  spit  within  the  holy 
precincts.1  It  was  felt  that  religion  had  received  a  deadly 
injury  by  the  evils  against  which  the  Galilsean  stranger  had 
thus  signally  protested,  and  a  vain  effort  was  made  to 
restore  the  prestige  they  themselves  had  so  fatally  injured. 

It  was  Ayholly  in  keeping  with  His  office  to  act  as  Jesus 
had  done.  As  His  Father's  House,  the  Temple  was  su- 
premely under  His  care,  and  He  only  exercised  His  rights 
and  duties  as  the  Messiah,  in  cleansing  it  as  He  did.  It 
was  a  sign  and  commencement  of  the  spiritual  cleansing 
He  came  to  inaugurate :  a  note  struck  which  disclosed  the 
character  of  His  future  work.  Zechariah 2  had  said  that 

1  Middoth,  ii.  2.     Bcrachoth,  ix.  5.       Jos.  c.  Apion,  ii.  8.      3  Ch.  xiv.  2L 


THE   CLEANSING   OF   THE   TEMPLE.  473 

in  the  days  of  the  Messiah  "  the  trader  would  no  more  be  in 
the  House  of  Jehovah," t  and  thus  even  the  prophets,  whom 
the  nation  honoured,  seemed  to  endorse  His  act. 

The  priests  could  say  nothing  condemnatory,  but  could 
only  raise  the  question  why  He  should  have  taken  it  upon 
Him  to  assume  authority  which  they  claimed.  They  were 
irritated  beyond  bounds,  and  doubtless  indulged  their  scom 
at  a  "  prophet,"  who  took  on  Himself  the  duties  of  the  Temple 
police.  Yet  the  people,  by  their  silence,  showed  that  they 
approved  the  act,  though  it  implied  condemnation  of  the 
high  priest  and  his  colleagues,  and  had  attacked  a  custom 
sanctioned  by  age,  established  by  formal  authority,  and 
identified  with  the  interests  of  the  Temple  and  its  services. 
The  crowds  of  pilgrims  also  honoured  the  act  of  the  young 
Galilasan,  of  whom  strange  rumours  had  reached  them  from 
the  Jordan ;  instinctively  feeling  that  it  was  right.  Jesus 
had  made  His  entrance  on  public  notice,  in  a  way  that 
struck  the  popular  imagination, — as  a  true  prophet,  who 
witnessed  fearlessly  for  God,  against  the  desecration  of  His 
house.  The  feeling  towards  Him  was  half  enthusiastic,  half 
respectful ;  His  enemies  were  confused  and  paralyzed.  He 
was  the  valiant  soldier  of  the  Lord  of  Hosts,  and  it  might 
have  seemed  as  if  the  way  to  an  easy  triumph  were  to  be 
expected  forthwith. 

But  He  and  the  people  had  wholly  different  conceptions  of 
the  office  of  the  Messiah.  He  had  acted  as  He  had  done 
from  no  personal  end.  His  disciples  saw  that  it  was  con- 
suming zeal  for  His  Father's  glory,  that  had  animated 
Him ; 1  a  welling  up  of  holy  indignation.  He  had  exercised 
the  prophet's  office,  of  striking  for  the  true,  and  the  pure  ;  a 
right  which  has  been  used  in  all  ages  by  lofty  natures,  when 
instituted  means  and  the  low  morality  of  the  times,  fail  to 
stem  growing  corruption.2  Such  an  act  could  not  be  done, 
without  overpowering,  unreflecting  earnestness,  and  zeal 
kindled  into  a  flame,  but  this  Divine  earnest  zeal  was  not 
unworthy  of  the  purest,  for  without  it,  in  fallen  times, 
nothing  great  can  be  done.3  Yet  He  was  the  Prince  of 
Peace.  It  was  not  His  nature  to  strive,  or  to  make  His 
voice  heard  in  the  streets.4  To  have  taken  the  tide  of 
popular  feeling  at  the  full,  would  have  led  Him  to  triumphs 
for  which  He  had  no  desire,  and  would  have  been  fatal  to 

1  John  ii.  17.  2  Liicke,  Komment.,  in  loc. 

«  Ullinann'B  Silndlosigkeit,  p.  136.  4  Matt.  xii.  19. 


474  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

His  views,  instead  of  advancing  them.  Numbers  were,  per- 
haps, willing  to  have  believed  that  He  might  be  the  Messiah, 
had  He  announced  Himself  as  such,  but  the  Law  had  been 
given  of  old  amidst  thunderings  and  lightnings,  and  they 
expected  the  Kingdom  of  the  Messiah  to  be  proclaimed 
with  equal  sublimity.  Unostentatious  illustrations  of  Divine 
power,  such  as.  healing  the  sick,  opening  the  eyes  of  the 
blind,  or  the  ears  of  the  deaf,  were  not  enough.  They 
desired  public  and  national  miracles,  which  would  glorify 
Israel  and  astonish  the  world.  But  it  was  no  part  of  His 
plan  to  attract  the  wonder  of  the  crowd,  or  to  minister  to 
national  pride,  or  inaugurate  a  dispensation  of  fear  or  force. 
His  Kingdom  was  in  the  hearts  of  men,  not  in  their  out- 
ward suffrages ;  in  the  calm  realms  of  truth,  not  in  those 
of  political  strife. 

The  authorities  could  take  no  violent  measures,  and  con- 
tented themselves  with  asking  Him  for  some  "  sign,"  to 
justify  His  act  by  its  Divine  authority,  and  incidentally 
reveal  His  claim  on  their  homage,  if,  perchance,  He  might 
prove  the  Messiah.  The  question  must  have  raised  that 
of  His  supreme  right  as  consecrated  Son  of  God,  and  in- 
volved the  condemnation  of  those  by  whom  snch  a  state  of 
things  had  been  allowed.  Why  had  they,  the  appointed 
guardians  of  the  Temple,  been  so  powerless  or  negligent 
against  such  desecration  ?  If  they  had  thus  failed,  who  but 
the  Messiah  alone,  could  cleanse  the  sanctuary,  not  partly, 
and  for  a  time,  bnt  perfectly,  and  for  ever  ?  He  answered 
them,  therefore,  as  their  Rabbis  were  wont  to  do,  with  an 
enigmatical  sentence,  which  He  left  them  to  unriddle  as 
they  could.8  "  Destroy  this  Temple,"  said  He,  doubtless 
pointing  as  He  did  so,  to  His  person — that  Temple  of  God, 
pure  and  sacred  beyond  all  others — "  and  in  three  days  I 
will  raise  it  np."  The  sound  of  the  words  to  a  Jew,  and 
their  apparent  meaning,  were  alike  audacious.  He  was 
standing  amid  the  long  and  lofty  marble  arcades  of  the 
sacred  building ;  amidst  its  courts,  paved  with  costliest 
stones,  and  rising  terrace  above  terrace ;  its  vast  spaces, 
built  up  with  incredible  labour  and  equal  magnificence 
from  the  valley,  hundreds  of  feet  below ;  its  sanctuary 
ablaze  with  gold;  its  wonderful  gates  of  silver  and  gold 
and  Corinthian  brass,  which  were  the  national  pride.  The 
very  existence  of  the  nation  was  identified  with  the  invio- 
lability of  the  Temple.  It  had  been  already  feuilding  for 
forty-six  years,  and  was  not  yet  finished,  for  eighteen  thou- 


"I  WILL  DESTROY   THIS   TEMPLE."  475 

sand  workmen  were  still  employed  on  some  incomplete  parts 
of  it  thirty  years  after  this,  and  were  paid  ofE  when  their 
work  was  done,1  only  a  few  years  before  the  destruction  of 
the  city.  The  passionate  fanaticism  for  a  structure  so 
splendid,  and  so  bound  up  with  the  hopes  and  pride  of  the 
nation,  was  extreme.  It  seemed  to  them  under  the  special 
protection  of  Jehovah.  Antiochus  Epiphanes,  its  great 
enemy,  had  perished  miserably  and  shamefully  in  Persia.2 
Crassus,  who  had  plundered  its  treasures,  had  fallen  with 
his  army,  amidst  the  thirsty  sands  of  the  desert.  Pompey, 
who  had  intruded  into  the  Holy  of  Holies,  had  been  mur- 
dered by  an  Egyptian  centurion,  and  his  headless  trunk  had 
been  left  exposed  on  the  strand  of  Egypt.  To  touch  the 
Temple  was,  in  the  eyes  of  the  Jew,  to  incur  the  vengeance 
of  the  Almighty.  Perverting  the  answer  of  Jesus,  therefore, 
into  an  allusion  to  the  building  which  they  revered  with 
such  a  zealous  idolatry,  they  tauntingly  reminded  Him  of 
the  years  it  had  taken  to  build,  and  scouted  His  supposed 
proposal  to  destroy  and  restore  it  so  quickly. 

No  utterance  ever  fell  from  the  lips  of  Jesus,  of  which  He 
did  not  foresee  the  full  effect,  and  this  answer,  as  He  knew, 
was  a  veiled  anticipation  of  His  earthly  end.  The  cry  that 
the  Temple  was  in  danger  would  at  any  moment  rouse  the 
whole  race  to  revenge  the  insult  with  the  fury  of  despair,  or 
perish  in  the  attempt.  The  resentment  felt  at  such  words, 
may  therefore  be  judged.  Three  years  later  it  was  by  their 
perversion  that  the  high  priests  sought  His  death,  and  they 
were  coarsely  flung  as  a  taunt  against  Him,  when  He  hung 
on  the  Cross.  Nor  were  they  forgotten  even  afterwards,  for 
they  were  made  an  aggravation  of  the  charges  against  the 
first  martyr,  Stephen,  as  His  follower.3 

But  they  meant  something  of  deepest  significance  to  the 
Jews  themselves.  Though,  doubtless,  in  their  direct  import 
a  concealed  announcement  of  His  own  death  and  resurrec- 
tion, they  had  wider  applications.  "  Your  whole  religion," 
they  implied,  "  in  as  far  as  it  rests  on  this  Temple,  is  corrupt 
and  sunken,  but  He  is  already  here,  who,  when  that  Temple 
passes  away,  as  pass  away  it  must,  will  restore  it  in  un- 
speakably greater  glory,  and  His  doing  so  will  be  the  sign 
He  gives."4  All  this  lay  in  His  veiled  sentence.  "  Do  you 

1  Under  the  Procuratorslrip  of  Albinus,  in  A.D.  63.    Jos.  Ant.,  xx.  9.  6. 

2  2  Mace.  ix.  3  Mark  xiv.  58  ;  xv.  29. 
*  Ewald,  Gtschickte,  vol.  v.  p.  337. 


476  THE   LIFE    OF   CHRIST. 

really  wish  a  sign  from  Me,  of  my  Divine  authority  over  thin 
Temple  ?  You  shall  have  the  highest.  Destroy  this  Temple, 
which  will  surely  one  day  fall,  though,  while  it  stands,  I 
wish  it  to  be  pure  and  worthy :  destroy  it,  if  you  choose,  and 
with  it  let  all  your  corrupted  religion  perish :  I  shall,  pre- 
sently, rebuild  it  again,  with  far  greater  glory  than  it  can 
now  boast,  for  this  Temple  is  the  desecrated  and  fallen  work 
of  men's  hands,  but  Mine  will  be  pure :  a  Temple  of  the 
religion  of  Spirit  and  truth,  which  will  be  established  by  My 
resurrection  on  the  third  day,  and  will  be  immortal  and 
indestructible ." 

In  the  answer  of  Jesus,  indeed,  lay,  already  the  whole 
future  of  His  Church.  The  history  of  His  life  and  of  His 
work  is  linked  to  this  earliest  utterance.  The  magnificent 
temple  He  that  day  cleansed  was  soon  to  be  destroyed, 
mainly  through  the  guilt  of  those  who  sought  so  fanatically 
to  preserve  it,  with  all  its  abuses.  But,  even  before  it  rose 
in  flames  from  the  torch  of  the  Roman  soldier,  or  fell,  stone 
from  stone,  before  his  tools,  another  temple,  far  more  won- 
derful, had  risen  silently,  in  the  spirits  of  men,  to  take  its 
place — a  temple,  pure  and  eternal,  which  He  had  now  dimly 
foreshadowed,  at  this  first  moment  of  His  public  career. 
Yet,  even  the  Church  was  in  no  such  high  sense  the  Temple 
of  God  as  the  mysterious  person  of  Jesus  Himself — the 
holiest  tabernacle  of  God  amongst  men  ever  vouchsafed, 
the  true  Shekinah,  the  visible  incarnation  of  the  Divine.1 
After  the  crucifixion,  and  the  resurrection,2  the  exact  ful- 
filment of  His  words,  in  these  two  great  events,  struck  the 
imagination  of  the  disciples  more  than  any  other  meaning 
they  might  have.  "  He  spoke  of  the  Temple  h  of  His  body."  3 
True  in  other  senses,  it  was  pre-eminently  so  in  this. 

With  such  an  old  prophet-like  first  appearance,  followed 
up,  as  it  was,  by  acts  of  miraculous  power,  equal,  no  doubt, 
in  character  and  greatness,  to  the  examples  elsewhere  re- 
corded in  the  Gospels,  it  is  no  wonder  to  learn  that  many 
believed  on  Him.4  Yet  He  received  no  one  into  the  circle 
of  His  closer  personal  following  from  those  thus  impressed. 
No  Scribe  or  Rabbi,  no  wealthy  citizen,  not  even  a  common 
townsman  of  Jerusalem,  was  called  to  follow  Him.  "  He 
did  not  trust  Himself  to  them,"  nor  honour  any  of  them  with 
the  confidence  He  had  shown  in  some  of  His  Galilean  dis- 

1  John  i.  14  ;  ii.  8.     Col.  ii.  9  ;  i.  19.  5  John  ii.  22. 

»  John  ii.  21.  4  j0hn  jj  23. 


NICODEMUS.  477 

ciples.  Nor  did  He  relax  this  caution  at  any  future  time ; 
for  though  He  gained  many  friends  in  Judea,  as  we  discover 
incidentally,  He  surrounded  Himself  with  Galilasars  to  the 
end  of  His  life.  The  people  of  Jerusalem  contrasted  un- 
favourably with  the  simpler  peasants  of  the  north  :  they 
were  curious  and  excitable,  rather  than  deep  and  earnest, 
and  the  wisdom  of  the  schools,  which  nourished  especially 
under  the  shadow  of  the  Temple,  was  pre-eminently  unfitted 
to  understand  Him,  or  ally  itself  closely  with  Him.  The 
keen  glance  of  Jesiis  saw  this  from  the  first.  There  were, 
doubtless,  many  of  the  rich  and  influential  men  of  Jerusalem 
who  felt  the  shortcomings  of  the  prevailing  school-wisdom 
and  priestly  system,  and,  fretting  uneasily  under  the  rule 
of  a  Herod,  or  of  a  Roman  governor,  were  well  inclined 
to  join  a  true  Israelitish  king ;  many,  possibly,  who  even 
secretly  admired  Jesus,  and  were  ready  to  recognise  Him  as 
the  Messiah,  as  soon  as  they  could  do  so  safely.  But  John, 
who  was  himself  a  Galilsean,  and  knew  that  Jesus  had  made 
only  Galilteans  His  confidential  friends,  reveals  in  his  sen- 
tentious epigrammatical  way,  His  estimate  of  such  doubtful 
support.  "  He  did  -not  trust  Himself  to  them  because  He 
knew  all  men,  and  because  He  needed  not  that  any  should 
bear  witness  respecting  Him,  as  man."  A  cheerful  witness 
to  Him  as  the  Son  of  God,  He  always  welcomed,  when  it 
came  freely ;  but  as  to  the  other — He  knew  men's  hearts. 
He  could  see  that  they  were  willing  to  honour  Him  as  a 
human  king,  and  that,  only  from  His  wonderful  works  and 
miracles,  and  they,  unmistakably,  expected  a  human  king- 
dom at  His  hands.  To  rule,  as  a  man  over  men,  it  would 
have  been  needful  to  seek  the  support  of  the  powerful,  who 
would  lend  themselves  for  personal  ends,  and  act  on  mere 
human  maxims.  But  such  men  would  be  no  counsellors, 
helpers,  or  servants  in  founding  and  spreading  the  Kingdom 
of  Truth. 

Among  the  upper  class  of  citizens,  however,  there  was 
one,  the  representative  of  many  whose  names  are  unrecorded,1 
who  was  deeply  moved  by  the  words  and  acts  of  the  young 
Galilaean.  He  bore  the  Greek  name  Nicodemus,1  and  was  a 
ruler,  or  foremost  man,  in  the  religious  world  of  Jerusalem, 
a  member  of  its  governing  class,  and,  in  sentiment  and  party, 
a  Pharisee.  He  was,  moreover,  wealthy,  and,  thus,  in  many 
respects,  one  Avhose  support,  at  such  a  time,  would  have  been 

1  John  xii.  42. 


478  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

eagerly  grasped  at,  had  Jesus  proposed  to  found  a  kingdom 
in  which  the  aids  of  human  expediency  were  admitted,  as 
in  political  systems.  He  was  a  man  of  advanced  years  and 
high  position,  and  might,  no  doubt,  have  done  good  service 
to  Christ's  worldly  interests  among  the  influential  classes, 
and  have  even  helped  towards  a  coalition  of  the  priests  and 
Pharisees  with  Him,  had  his  aims  been  national  and  religio- 
political,  like  theirs.  There  was,  inevitably,  a  strong  pre- 
jndico  in  Jerusalem,  against  a  movement  which  had  begun 
in  Galilee  and  was  supported  by  Galileans,  and  Nicodemus 
might  have  helped  to  counteract  it.  It  was  a  condition  of 
his  connection  with  Jesus,  however,  that  it  should  be  secret. 
Constitutionally  timid,  he  could  not  brave  the  social  pro- 
scription and  ridicule  which  would  follow  an  open  adherence  ; 
for,  though  no  overt  hostility  to  the  New  Teacher  had  yet 
broken  out  in  the  class  to  which  he  belonged,  it  was  clear 
that  its  doing  so  was  only  a  question  of  time.  He  was  honest, 
and  earnest,  but  could  not  yet  make  the  sacrifice  an  open 
alliance  demanded.  Indeed,  his  caution  clung  to  him  to  the 
end  of  Christ's  life,  for  in  the  only  two  instances  in  which 
his  name  re-appears,  his  weak  indirectness  is  plainly  shown. 
At  a  later  period,  when  the  rulers  had  determined  to  use 
violence  against  Jesus,  we  find  him  trying  to  turn  them 
aside  from  their  purpose,  by  a  general  question  which  did 
not  commit  himself,1  and  when  all  was  over,  it  was  not  till 
he  had  caught  spirit  enough  from  the  example  of  one  of  his 
own  class,  Joseph  of  Arimathea,  that  he  ventured  to  own 
his  reverence  for  the  dead  Saviour,  by  bringing  his  bountiful 
gift  of  spices  to  embalm.  Him.2  At  his  first  interview,  he 
did  not  venture  to  visit  Jesus  openly,  but  came  to  Him  by 
night. 

As  a  Rabbi,  Nicodemus  was  necessarily  skilled  in  the 
subtle  expositions  of  the  Law  for  which  his  order  was 
famous,  and  must  have  been  familiar  with  the  Scriptures 
throughout,  but  he  had  been  trained  in  the  artificial  expla- 
nations of  the  schools,  and  was  profoundly  unconscious  of 
their  deeper  meaning.  Like  others,  he  supposed  that  the 
Messiah  would  set  up  a  theocracy  distinguished  by  zealous 
fulfilment  of  the  Law;  every  Israelite,  as  such,  forming  a 
member  of  it.  Greeting  Jesus  as  one  whom  he,  and  others 
in  his  position,  acknowledged  to  be  a  Rabbi,  he  opened  the 
interview  by  a  compliment,  intended  to  lead  to  the  point  ho 

1  John  vii.  50.  *  John  xix.  39. 


JEWISH   NATIONAL   PEIDE.  479 

had  at  heart.  Any  question  as  to  his  own  admission  to  the 
Messiah's  kingdom  had  not  crossed  his  mind.  The  traditions 
of  his  brother  Rabbis  had  taught  him  that  while  "  the  nations 
of  the  world  would  be  as  the  burning  of  a  furnace  in  the  great 
Day  of  Judgment,  Israel,  as  such,  would  be  saved ; "  that 
"there  was  apart  allotted  to  all  Israel  in  the  world  to  come," 
or,  in  other  words,  in  the  kingdom  of  the  Messiah.  "  God 
had  sanctified  Israel  to  Himself  for  ever,"  and  made  every  Jew 
as  such,  on  a  footing,  as  to  His  love  and  favour,  with  "all 
the  Angels  of  the  Presence,  and  all  the  Angels  of  Praise, 
and  with  all  the  Holy  Angels  that  stand  before  Him."  1  k 
Hence,  he  only  wished  to  know  the  duties  required  of  him 
as  a  member  of  the  Messianic  kingdom,  which.  Jesus  appeared 
to  be  sent  from  God  to  set  up.  Christ,  in  an  instant,  saw 
into  the  speaker's  heart.  So  far  from  making  any  attempt 
to  win  him,  or  from  abating  His  demands,  as  a  compromise 
in  favour  of  one  whose  support  might  be  so  advantageous, 
He  cut  him  short  by  a  statement  which  must  have  thrown 
his  whole  thoughts  into  confusion.  Trusting  implicity  to  his 
being  a  Jew,  as  a  Divine  title  to  citizenship  in  the  new  theo- 
cracy, and  thinking  only  of  formal  acts  by  which  lie  might 
show  his  devotion,  and  increase  his  claim  to  the  favour 
of  God,  here  and  hereafter,  he  is  met  by  an  announcement 
that  neither  national  descent,  nor  the  uttermost  exactness 
of  Pharisaic  observance,  nor  any  good  works,  however  great, 
availed  at  all  as  such,  to  secure  entrance  into  the  kingdom 
of  God.  He  had  supposed  Jesus  a  Rabbi,  and  had  expected 
to  hear  some  new  legal  precepts,  but  is  told  that  not  only 
has  he  no  title  whatever,  as  a  Jew,  to  share  in  the  new 
kingdom,  but  that  he  cannot  hope  to  earn  one.  Jewish 
theology  knew  nothing  higher  than  an  exact  equivalent  in 
good  or  evil,  for  every  act.  "  An  eye  for  an  eye,"  both  here 
and  hereafter,  was  its  only  conception.  A  legal  precisian  had 
a  right  to  heaven ;  the  neglect  of  Levitical  righteousness 
shut  its  gates  on  the  soul. 

Jesus  broadly  told  him  that  his  whole  conceptions  were 
fundamentally  wrong.  "Every  man,  whatever  his  legal 
Bianding,  must  be  born  again,  if  he  would  see  the  kingdom 
of  God.1  To  do  so  is  not  a  question  of  outward  acts,  legal, 
or  moral,  but  of  their  motive."  The  idea  of  being  "  born 
again  "  should  not  have  been  incomprehensible  to  a  Jewish 

1  Buck  Henoch,  c.  ii.  p.  15.     Talmud,  quoted  in  Lightfoot,  vol.  iii.  pp, 

255, 269. 


480  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

Rabbi,  for  it  was  a  saying  of  the  Scribes  that  "  a  proselyte 
is  like  a  child  new  born,"1  and  "  circumcision  of  the  heart," 
and  the  "  creating  a  clean  heart  and  renewing  a  right 
spirit," 2  are  expressions  that  must  have  been  familiar  to 
him  in  the  Law,  the  Prophets,  and  the  Psalms.  But 
the  full  meaning  of  such  terms  had  been  lost  in  the  pre- 
vailing externalism.  He  took  the  words  in  their  literal 
sense.  In  his  perplexity,  he  supposed  that  what  was  de- 
manded was  in  some  way  connected  with  his  nationality, 
which,  he  assumed,  already  opened  an  unquestioned  entrance 
for  him  into  the  theocracy. 

Jesus  saw  his  embarrassment,  and  forthwith  explained 
His  meaning  more  fully.  "  The  kingdom  of  God,"  He  told 
him,  "  was  none  the  less  a  trne  kingdom  that  it  stood  aloof 
from  politics,  and  had  none  of  the  outward  characteristics 
of  earthly  states.  It  had  no  civil  judges,  but  it  had  its  laws, 
and  by  these  all  its  subjects  would  hereafter  be  tried,  beyond 
the  grave.  It  had  its  conditions  of  acceptance,  also,  and 
these  were,  belief  in  Himself  as  its  Founder,  Legislator,  and 
future  Judge,  and  open  confession  of  that  belief  by  the  rite 
of  Baptism,  with  which  Nicodemus  was  already  familiar, 
from  the  ministry  of  John.  There  could  be  no  admission  of 
any  one,  high  or  low,  at  a  secret  interview,  to  be  followed 
by  concealment  of  the  relation  thus  formed  with  Himself. 
There  must  be  personal  homage  and  submission  to  Him,  but 
it  must  also  be  frankly  and  publicly  avowed." 

Nor  was  Nicodemus  left  to  suppose  that  any  outward 
and  formal  act,  even  if  inclusive  of  these  demands,  would 
alone  suffice.  Baptism  was  but  the  symbol  of  a  spiritual 
revolution  so  complete  that  it  might  well  be  described  as  a 
new  birth.  All  men  were  by  nature  sinful,  and  needed  a 
moral  transformation,  which  would  make  them  as  naturally 
seek  the  pure  and  holy  as  they  had  sought  the  opposite. 
Citizenship  in  His  kingdom  was  a  gift  of  God  Himself ;  the 
re-creation  of  the  moral  nature  by  His  Spirit,  through  which 
the  soul  hungered  after  good,  as,  before,  it  had  done  after  sin. 

Nor  was  Nicodemus  to  wonder  at  such  a  statement.  God's 
influence  on  the  heart  was  like  the  flowing  wind3 — free, 
felt,  and  yet  mysterious.  It  came  as  it  listed,  its  presence 


1  Jevamoth,  Ixii.  1 ;  xcii.  1.    Sepp,  vol.  iii.  p.  68.     Lightfoot,  vol.  iii  p, 
205. 

8  Deut.  xxx.  6.     Ps.  li.  10.     Jer.  iv.  4. 
1  tSobleierruacher's  Predigtcn,  vol.  i.  p.  479. 


CHRIST'S  DISCOURSE  TO  NICODEMUS.          481 

felt  by  its  results,  but  all  besides  was  beyond  our 
knowledge.'" 

Teaching  so  fundamentally  different  from  all  his  previous 
ideas,  and  involving  conceptions  so  unique  and  sublime,  was 
for  the  time  incomprehensible.  The  startled  listener  could 
only  mutter,  "  How  can  these  things  be  ?  "  Nicodemus,  it 
seems  very  probable,  was  one  of  the  chief  men  of  the  religious 
world  in  Jerusalem,  for  the  three  officers  of  the  Sanhedrim, 
while  it  existed,  were  the  President,  the  Vice-President,  and 
the  "  Master,"  or  wise  man, l  and  Jesus  appears  to  address  him 
as  "  Master,"  in  subdued  reproach  at  his  perplexity.  "  Art 
thou,"  He  asked,  "  the  teacher," — well  known  and  recognised 
as  such — the  wise  man — even  by  title,  "  and  dost  not  know 
these  things  ?  I  speak  only  what  I  know  and  have  seen  in 
the  eternal  world,  and  you  hesitate  to  believe  Me.  If  I  have 
told  you  thus  of  what  is  matter  of  experience,  and  runs  its 
course  in  the  human  heart  during  this  earthly  life,  and  you 
think  it  incomprehensible,  how  will  you  believe  if  I  tell  you 
the  higher  truths  of  the  Kingdom — those  heavenly  mysteries 
which  concern  the  plan  of  God  for  the  salvation  of  man  ? 
No  other  can  reveal  such  matters,  for  no  man  has  ever 
ascended  to  heaven  to  learn  them  ;  but  I  am  He — the  Messiah, 
foretold,  as  the  Son  of  Man,  by  your  prophet  Daniel — who 
have  come  down  from  heaven,  and,  even  now,  have  there  My 
peculiar  home  and  seat.  Let  Me  vouchsafe  you  some  glimpses 
of  the  true  nature  of  My  kingdom.  I  come  not  as  a  triumphant 
earthly  monarch,  but  to  suffer.  As  Moses  lifted  up  the 
serpent  in  the  wilderness,  to  save  those  who  believed  in  it, 
so  must  I  be  lifted  up — how,  you  shall  know  hereafter — • 
that  all  who  believe  in  Me  may  not  perish,  but  have  eternal 
life.  I  have  come  to  carry  out,  as  a  suffering  Messiah,  the 
high  purpose  of  God's  eternal  love  for  the  salvation  of  man. 

"You  seek  eternal  life:  it  can  be  had  only  by  believing 
on  Me.  He  who  does  so,  has  his  reward  even  here,  in  the 
love,  light,  and  peace  which  flow  from  the  gift  of  the  Spirit, 
and  are  the  earnest  of  future  glory.  I  have  not  come  to 
judge  men,  for  to  judge  would  have  been  to  condemn.  I 
come  to  save.  They  who  reject  Me  are,  indeed,  judged  and 
condemned  already,  for  when  I,  the  Light,  have  come  to 
them,  they  have  shown  their  character  by  preferring  the 
darkness  of  sin.  Men  separate  themselves  into  good  and 
evil,  before  God,  by  their  bearing  towards  Me.  The  evil 

1  ScJwll,  quoted  by  Lilcke,  vol.  i.  p.  527.     John  iii.  10-21. 
32 


482  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

wish  not  to  be  disturbed,  and  to  be  let  stay  in  moral  dark- 
ness, to  follow  out  their  sinful  desires ;  but  he  who  seeks 
the  truth  comes  to  Me  to  have  more  light.11  Thus,  the  evil 
stand  self -condemned :  the  good  rejoice  in  their  growing 
light,  as  a  foretaste  of  heaven." 

The  astonishing  originality  of  such  language  is  altogether 
unique.  At  His  first  appearance,  though  still  a  young  man, 
without  the  sanction  of  success,  or  the  weight  of  position, 
or  the  countenance  of  the  schools,  Jesus  bears  Himself,  with 
calm  unconsciousness  of  effort,  as  altogether  superior  to  His 
visitor.  A  born  Jew,  He  speaks  as  the  Lawgiver  of  a  new 
theocracy  which  He  has  come  to  found,  in  place  of  that  of 
Moses,  whom  they  almost  worshipped.  He  lays  down  con- 
ditions of  unbending  strictness,  as  indispensable  to  an  en- 
trance into  the  new  community  thus  to  be  established, 
though  He  has  nothing  to  offer  but  privation  and  self- 
denial,  as  the  earthly  result  of  joining  it.  He  moves  at 
His  ease  amidst  subjects  the  most  august  and  mysterious : 
demands  the  personal  homage  of  those  who  would  enter 
His  kingdom,  and  promises  eternal  life  as  the  reward  of 
sincere  acceptance  of  His  claims.  Repudiating  the  aids  to 
which  others  might  have  looked ;  seeking  no  support  from 
the  powerful  or  from  the  crowd,  to  facilitate  His  design  ; 
He  speaks  of  Himself,  even  now,  when  obscure  and  alone, 
as  a  king,  and  shows  a  serene  composure  in  extending  His 
royalty  over  even  the  souls  of  men.  In  the  presence  of  a 
famous  Rabbi,  he  claims  to  be  the  light0  to  which  all  men, 
without  exception,  must  come,  who  love  the  truth.  His 
first  utterance  anticipates  the  highest  claims  of  His  last. 
An  humble  Galilsean,  easy  of  access,  sympathetic,  obscure, 
He  calmly  announces  Himself  as  the  Son  of  Man,  whose 
home  is  heaven :  as  knowing  the  counsels  of  God  from 
eternity :  as  the  only-begotten  Son  of  the  Eternal,  and  the 
arbiter  of  eternal  life  or  death  to  the  world.  It  is  idle  to 
speak  of  any  merely  human  utterances,  even  of  the  greatest 
and  best  of  our  race,  in  the  presence  of  such  thoughts  and 
words  as  these :  they  are  the  voice  of  a  higher  sphere, 
though  falling  from  the  lips  of  One  who  walked  as  a  man 
amongst  men. 


CHAPTER  XXXI. 
FROM  JERUSALEM  TO  SAMARIA. 

rTIHE  stay  of  Jesus  in  Jerusalem  was  short,  for  He  had 
-*-  come  up  only  to  attend  the  Passover,  and  to  open  His 
Great  Commission  in  the  religious  centre  of  the  nation, 
before  the  vast  throngs  of  pilgrims  frequenting  the  feast. 
Nor  were  the  results  disappointing,  for  "  many  believed  in 
His  name,  when  they  saw  the  miracles  which  He  did  "  dur- 
ing the  week.1  With  the  departure  of  the  multitudes,  how- 
ever, He  also  left,  to  enter,  with  His  disciples,  on  His  first 
wide  circuit  of  preaching  and  teaching ;  for,  though  a  begin- 
ning had  already  been  made  in  Galilee,2  it  had  been  on  a 
much  smaller  scale. 

The  district  thus  favoured  embraced  the  whole  of  Judea, 
which  extended,  on  the  south,  to  the  edge  of  the  wilderness 
at  Beersheba,  far  below  Hebron ;  to  the  lowlands  of  the 
Philistine  plain,  on  the  west ;  to  the  line  of  the  Jordan  and 
the  Dead  Sea,  on  the  east,  and,  on  the  north,  to  Akrabbim, 
the  frontier  village  of  Samaria,  which  lay  among  the  hills, 
twenty-five  miles,  as  the  crow  flies,  from  Jerusalem.*  We 
have  the  authority  of  the  Apostle  Peter,  who  very  likely 
shared  the  journey,  that  it  extended  "  throughout  all 
Judea," 3  but  we  have  no  record  of  the  towns  and  villages 
thus  early  favoured  with  the  Message  of  the  New  King, 
dom. 

How  long  the  tour  lasted  we  do  not  know ;  but  it  must 
have  occupied  some  months,  for  He  "  tarried  "  from  time  to 
time  at  different  points,  He  Himself  preaching  and  teaching, 
and  His  disciples  baptizing  the  converts  gained.  It  was  not 
fitting  that  Jesus  should  Himself  administer  the  rite  which 
admitted  citizens  to  His  spiritual  kingdom.  Baptism,  which 
had  been  introduced  by  John  as  a  symbol  of  repentance  and 

1  John  ii.  23.  2  Acts  x.  37.  *  JUd. 


484  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

spiritual  renewal,  in  expectation  of  the  coming  Messiah,  had 
now  acquired  the  far  grander  significance  of  a  profession  of 
faith  in  Jesus,  as  the  Messiah  already  come.  John's  baptism 
had  implied  a  vow  to  live  in  the  strict  and  painful  Jewish 
asceticism  of  washings,  fasts,  and  legal  observances ;  thafc 
of  Jesus  transformed  this  life  into  one  of  Divine  liberty  and 
loving  joy.1  The  material  baptism,  moreover,  was  but  the 
symbol,  and  might  well  be  left  to  His  disciples,  Himself  re- 
taining the  far  grander  ministry  of  the  dispensation  of  the 
Spirit,  which  cleansed  the  moral  nature,  as  water  did  the 
body.  They  had  the  emblem  :  He,  as  became  a  King,  kept 
in  His  own  hands  the  substance  and  reality.  To  preach  the 
Gospel,  not  to  baptize,  was  hereafter,  even  in  St.  Paul's 
view,  the  special  commission  of  an  Apostle.2  Humbler  agen- 
cies could  be  left  to  perform  the  rite :  to  the  higher  office 
Jesus  devoted  His  higher  rank. 

The  introduction  of  baptism  at  the  beginning  of  our  Lord's 
ministry,  is  mentioned  only  by  St.  John.  It  may  be  that  this 
is  simply  an  instance  of  the  omissions  of  the  Evangelists, 
and  that  careful  examination  would  find  indirect  indications 
that  it  not  merely  began  with  the  opening  of  Christ's  ministry, 
but  continued,  throughout,  till  the  close.  Yet,  both  St. 
Matthew  and  St.  Mark  mention  the  command  given  by 
Jesus,  immediately  before  His  ascension,  to  baptize  all 
nations,  without  any  indication  of  its  being  the  continuance 
of  an  existing  custom,  rather  than  the  reintroduction  of 
what  had  been  for  a  time  in  abeyance.  Possibly,  the  exten- 
sion of  the  rite  to  all  nations,3  may  have  been  the  special 
reason  of  its  being  thus  prominently  noticed ;  but,  more 
probably,  the  opposition  of  the  ecclesiastical  authorities, 
which  broke  out  into  active  hostility 4  as  soon  as  the  new 
movement  grew  popular,  and  forced  Jesus  to  leave  Judea, 
made  it  necessary  to  disarm  opposition  by  suspending  the 
practice. 

The  ecclesiastical  world  of  the  day— ^priests,  elders,  and 
scribes — had  rejected  the  mission  of  John.  They  had  in- 
quired into  his  claims,5  attended  his  preaching,6  and  held 
intercourse  with  his  disciples,7  but  they  had  not  been  bap- 
tized. They  "rejected  the  counsel  of  God  against  them- 
uelves,"  and  even  went  so  far,  in  order  to  discredit  John 

1  Ewald,  vol.  v.  p.  345.         2  1  Cor.  i.  17.         a  Ewald,  vol.  v.  p.  347. 

4  John  iv.  1.  •  John  i.  19,  24. 

•  Matt.  iii.  7.    John  in.  25 ;  iv.  1.     Mark  ii.  18.     Matt.  ix.  4. 

'  Luke  vii.  30.  33. 


HOSTILITY   TO   CHEIST.  485 

with  the  multitude,  as  to  insinuate  that  he  "  had  a  devil." 
His  real  offence  was  having  stood  aloof  from  them,  the 
established  religions  authorities  ;  and  he  had  shocked  their 
self-complacency,  and  impeached  their  theology,  by  declaring 
the  worthlessness,  before  God,  of  mere  nationality.  But 
Jesus  was  already  treading  in  the  same  steps,  and  had  shown 
even  greater  independence  of  the  priests  and  Rabbis,  in 
His  acts  and  teachings  ;  in  His  cleansing  the  Temple,  and  in 
His  discourse  with  Nicodemus.  Before  long,  moreover,  His 
movement  assumed  greater  importance  than  that  of  John,  and 
threatened  to  draw  the  whole  nation  from  allegiance  to  the 
dignitaries  of  Jerusalem.  The  fate  of  John,  moreover,  was 
perhaps,  in  great  part,  due  to  his  being  under  official  cen- 
sure, and  it  is  not  improbable,  if  Salim  were  in  Judea,  or 
even  in  Samaria,  as  many  suppose,  that  the  machinations 
of  the  authorities  had  contributed  to  his  arrest,  and  to  his 
being  handed  over  to  Antipas.1  He  had  fled  for  safety  to 
the  west  side  of  the  Jordan,  to  be  under  Roman  law  ;  but 
it  is  wholly  in  keeping  with  Pilate's  treacherous  nature  to 
believe,  that  in  his  dread  of  the  priests  and  Rabbis,  the 
Roman  governor  consented  to  seize  the  prophet,  and  deliver 
him  up  to  death,  as  he  afterwards  did  with  Jesus  Himself.2 
Having  such  a  catastrophe  in  mind,  it  would  have  been  op- 
posed to  the  calm  prudence  with  which  Jesus  at  all  times 
acted,  to  have  sought  the  publicity  and  excitement  soon 
developed  in  connection  with  His  early  baptismal  gather- 
ings. _ 

It  is  a  question,  besides,  whether  the  official  opposition, 
which  made  any  action  inexpedient  that  tended  to  agitate 
the  public  mind,  did  not,  also,  compel  delay  in  the  outward 
organization  of  the  new  communion  which  Jesus  came  to 
found.  His  spiritual  kingdom  could  be  proclaimed,  its  laws 
and  privileges  made  known,  and  citizens  quietly  gained  as 
disciples,  but  their  final  enrolment  as  a  distinct  society 
would  likely  have  resulted  in  the  instant  arrest  of  their 
Leader.  The  air  was  too  full  of  political  rumours,  in  con- 
nection with  a  national  Messiah,  to  have  made  that  organ- 
ization practicable  while  Jesus  lived,  which  was  at  once 
announced  after  His  death.  If  this  were  so,  baptism,  as 
the  synibol  of  entrance  into  the  New  Society,  might  be  well 


,  vol.  iii.  p.  106. 

s  Doilinger  thinks  Antipas  put  John  in  Machaerus  partly  to  protect  him 
from  the  violence  of  Herodias.     Christenthum  u.  Kirche,  p.  4. 


486  THE   LITE   OF   CHRIST. 

deferred  till  the  Church  was  actually  begun,  on  the  day  oi 
Pentecost.1 

The  burden  of  Christ's  preaching,  while  journeying 
throughout  Judea,  was,  no  doubt,  the  same  as  that  of  His 
Galilaean  ministry  a  little  later,  and  as  that  of  John — 
"  Repent,  for  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  at  hand." 2  The 
time  had  not  yet  come  for  His  openly  proclaiming  Himself 
as  the  Messiah,  though  He  acted  from  the  first  as  such, 
without  formally  assuming  the  title.  To  have  done  so  would 
have  arrested  His  work  at  once,  while  His  acts  and  words, 
without  compromising  Him  with  the  authorities,  were  such 
as  forced  men,  and  even  the  spirits  He  cast  out,  to  own  His 
true  dignity.3  Indeed,  the  very  nature  of  a  spiritual  king- 
dom like  His,  founded  necessarily  only  on  the  free  convic- 
tions of  men,  not  on  assertion  or  authority,  demanded  this 
reticence.  The  heart  of  man,  which  was  to  be  the  seat  of 
His  empire,  could  be  won  only  by  the  spiritual  attractions 
of  His  life  and  words.  Faith  and  loving  obedience  could 
only  spring  from  sympathy  with  the  truth  and  goodness 
His  whole  existence  displayed,  and  this  sympathy  must  be 
spontaneous  in  each  new  disciple,  and  was  often  of  slow 
attainment.  The  kingdom,  to  use  His  own  illustrations, 
must  grow  from  almost  unperceived  beginnings,  in  slow 
development,  like  the  mustard  seed,  and  spread  by  silent 
and  unseen  advance,  like  leaven.  It  was,  in  its  very  nature, 
to  come  "  without  observation  "  4 — unmarked — for  it  was  not 
political,  like  earthly  kingdoms,  but  the  invisible  reign  of 
truth  in  the  souls  of  men — a  growth  of  opinion — a  kingdom 
not  of  this  world.5 

In  this  opening  period  John  still  continued  his  great 
preparatory  work.  He  had  crossed  from  the  eastern  to  the 
western  side  of  Jordan,  and  was  baptizing  at  Enon,  near 
Salim — a  place  the  position  of  which  is  not  positively 
known.*  He  had,  apparently,  expected  Jesus  to  begin  His 
work  as  the  Messiah,  by  an  open  assumption  of  the  title, 
and  seems  to  have  been  at  a  loss  to  account  for  a  com- 
parative privacy  so  different  from  his  anticipations.  The 
idea  of  a  great  national  movement,  with  Jesus  at  its  head, 
was  natural  to  him,  nor  does  he  seem  to  have  realized  that 

1  See  on  this  point,  Hase,  Leben  Jesu,  p.  130.     Lange,  vol.  ii.  p.  342. 
8  Matt.  iii.  2  ;  iv.  17  ;  x.  7.     Mark  i.  15. 

3  Mark  iii.  11.      Luke  iv.  34,  41 ;  ix.  20.      Matt.  xvi.  16 ;  xiv.  3a 
John  vi.  69. 

4  Luke  xvii.  20.  5  John  xviii.  36. 


BAPTISM  BY  THE   DISCIPLES   OF   CHKIST.  487 

the  sublimes  fc  self -proclamation  our  Lord  could  make  was  by 
the  still  small  voice  of  His  Divine  life  and  words.  He  was 
waiting  calmly  for  a  signal  to  retire,  which  had  not  yet  been 
given.  Nor  was  it  a  superfluous  work  to  continue  to  point 
the  multitudes  to  the  Lamb  of  God,  and  thus  prepare  them, 
by  the  weight  of  a  testimony  so  revered,  for  accepting  Him 
to  whom  He  thus  directed  them. 

Human  nature,  however,  is  always  the  same ;  ready  to 
show  its  weakness,  even  in  connection  with  what  is  most 
sacred.  The  grand  humility  of  John — inaccessible  to  a 
jealous  thought — was  contented  to  be  a  mere  voice,  sending 
men  away  from  himself  to  his  great  successor.  But  his 
followers  were  not,  in  all  cases,  so  lowly,  and  occasion  soon 
offered  which  gave  their  feelings  expression.  A  Jew,"  who 
had,  apparently,  attended  the  ministry  of  both  John  and 
Jesus,  had  shown  the  common  bias  of  his  race  by  getting 
into  a  discussion  with  some  of  John's  disciples,  about  the 
comparative  value  of  their  master's  baptism  as  a  means  of 
purification,  perhaps  both  morally  and  Levitically,  com- 
pared with  that  of  Jesus.  A  theological  controversy  between 
Jews,  as  between  Christians,  is  dangerous  to  the  temper, 
and,  indeed,  the  Rabbis  denounced  quietness  and  composure 
in  such  matters  as  a  sign  of  religious  indifference.  Warmth 
and  bitterness  were  assumed  to  prove  zeal  for  the  Law.1 
Hence,  no  doubt,  there  was  abundant  heat  and  wrangling 
on  an  occasion  like  this,  the  whole  resulting  in  a  feeling  of 
irritation  and  jealousy  on  the  part  of  the  champions  of  John, 
against  One  who  had  thus  been  set  up  as  his  rival.  In  this 
spirit  they  returned  to  their  master,  and  proceeded  to  relieve 
their  minds  by  telling  him  that  He  who  was  with  him  beyond 
Jordan,  to  whom  he  had  borne  witness,  and  to  whom  he 
had  thus  given  a  standing  and  influence,  had  Himself  begun 
to  baptize.  It  appeared  like  unfair  rivalry,  and  was  creating 
just  such  a  sensation  as  John  had  caused  at  first,  for  now  all 
were  flocking  to  the  new  Rabbi,  as,  formerly,  to  the  banks  of 
the  Jordan. 

The  greatness  of  the  Baptist  could  not  have  been  shown 
more  strikingly  than  in  his  reply  to  a  complaint  so  fitted  to 
touch  his  personal  sensibilities.  "  You  are  wrong,"  said  he, 
"  in  thinking  thus  of  Him  to  whom  you  refer.  If  He  meet 
such  success,  it  is  given  Him  from  God,  for  a  man  can 
receive  nothing  except  it  have  been  given  him  from  heaven. 

1  Nork,  p.  cxcv.     See  also  Titus  iii.  9.    John  iii.  25-36. 


488  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

You  can  yourselves  bear  witness  that  I  said,  '  I  am  not  the 
Christ,  but  am  sent  before  Him.'  "  John  was  regarded  by 
the  nation  at  large  as  a  prophet,  and,  as  such,  he  was 
venerated  so  greatly,  that,  even  after  his  death,  many  ex- 
plained the  miracles  of  Jesus  by  supposing  that  He  was 
John,  risen  again  from  the  dead,  clothed  with  the  transcen- 
dent powers  of  the  spirit  world  from  which  he  had  returned.1 
Later  still,  the  ecclesiastical  authorities  were  afraid  the 
people  would  stone  them  if  they  spoke  of  his  baptism  as 
merely  human.  He  was  now  the  foremost  man  in  the  land, 
but  his  splendid  humility  never  for  a  moment  deserted  him. 
"  He  may  make  no  kingly  show,"  he  continued,  "  and  may 
have  raised  no  excitement,  but  He  is  far  above  me.  You 
know  how  the  friend  of  the  bride  leads  her  home  to  the  bride- 
groom— how  he  goes  before  the  choir  of  companions  that 
escort  her,  and  brings  her,  with  loud  rejoicings,  to  her  lord. 
I  am  only  that  friend,  the  Kingdom  of  God  is  the  bride,  and 
Jesus  the  Heavenly  Bridegroom.-  The  prophets  of  old  have 
foretold  the  espousals  of  heaven  and  earth :  they  are  fast 
approaching :  the  kingdom  of  the  Messiah  is  even  now  at 
hand,  and  will  fulfil  the  promise.3  Let  us  be  glad,  and 
rejoice,  and  give  honour  to  Him,  for  the  marriage  of  the 
Lamb  is  come,  and  His  wife  has  made  herself  ready.4  The 
friend  listens  for  the  Bridegroom's  voice,  to  obey  His  com- 
mands, and  promote  His  joy,  and  rejoices  to  hear  it,  when 
he  has  led  the  bride  to  Him.  My  joy  is  fulfilled,  in  having 
stirred  tip  the  multitude  to  flock  to  the  ministrations  of  the 
Lamb  of  God,  and  I  rejoice  in  His  being  so  near  me  that  I 
seem  to  catch  His  voice.  He  must  increase  ;  I  must  decrease. 
I  am  but  the  morning  star ;  He,  the  rising  sun.  He  comes 
from  above,  and  is,  thus,  above  all ;  I  am  only  a  man  like 
yourselves,  of  the  earth,  and  speak  as  a  man,  what  I  have 
been  sent  by  God  to  utter.  He  is  the  Messiah  from  heaven, 
and  speaks  what  He  has  seen  and  heard  in  the  eternal  world — 
speaks  from  His  own  direct  knowledge.  I  only  repeat  what 
may  be  revealed  to  me,  here  below.  My  mission  is  well- 
nigh  over,  and  I  now  only  finish  my  testimony  before  I  finally 
vanish.  But,  though  thus  worthy  of  all  honour,  few  receive 
His  witness :  it  is  an  evil  generation,5  that  seeks  a  Messiah 
very  different  from  the  holy  Messiah  of  God.  He  who 

1  Mark  viii.  28. 

*  Nork,  p.  167.     Sepp,  vol.  iii.  p.  109.     Ewald,  vol.  v.  p.  347.     Meyel 
and  De  Wette,  in  loc. 

*  Matt.  ix.  15 ;  xxv.  1.  4  Key.  xix.  7.  *  Luke  iii.  7. 


JESUS  LEAVES  JUDEA.  489 

believes  in  Him  glorifies  the  faithfulness  of  God  in  fulfilling 
His  promises  to  send  salvation  to  man.  For  the  Gospel  He 
proclaims  is  but  the  utterance  of  the  precious  words  of  God 
the  Father  to  our  race,  and,  thus,  in  believing  His  Son,  we 
honour  Him  who  sent  Him.  Prophets,  and  even  I,  the 
Baptist,  receive  the  Spirit  only  in  the  measure  God  is  pleased 
to  grant,  but  God  pours  out  His  gifts  on  Him  without 
measure." 

Such  thoughts  filled  the  speaker's  heart  with  tender  adora- 
tion, which  embodied  itself  in  closing  words  of  wondrous 
sublimity.  "  You  may  well  believe  on  Him,"  said  he,  "  for 
the  Father  has  given  all  things  into  His  hand — eternal  life 
and  outer  darkness.  He  has  not  only  the  Divine  anointing 
of  the  Messiah,  but  the  awful  power.  To  be  saved  by  the 
works  of  the  Law  is,  moreover,  hopeless  :  faith  in  Him  is  the 
one  Salvation.  It  is  momentous,  therefore,  that  you  receive 
Him,  for  to  reject  Him  is  to  perish.  Blessed  is  he  who 
believes  in  Him :  he  has,  even  now,  the  beginnings  in  his 
soul  of  the  Divine  life 1  which  survives  death,  and  never  dies. 
Woe  to  him  who  will  not  hear  His  voice.  He  shall  never 
see  life ;  but  the  wrath  of  God  will  burn  against  him  abid- 
ingly  !  " 

Jesus  had  now  remained  in  Judea  about  nine  months, 
from  the  Passover,  in  April,  to  the  winter  sowing  time,  in 
December  or  January.2  The  crowds  that  came  to  hear  Him, 
though  rarely  to  receive  His  "  witness,"  3  grew  daily  larger,4 
and  His  fame  spread  far  and  near,  even  to  Galilee.  His  very 
success,  however,  in  attracting  numbers,  made  His  retirement 
to  another  district  necessary,  for  in  Judea  He  was  under  the 
keen  and  unfriendly  eyes  of  the  bigoted  religious  world  of 
Jerusalem,  who  saw  in  Him  a  second  rival,  more  dangerous 
than  the  Baptist.  His  bearing  towards  them  had  been  seen 
in  the  cleansing  of  the  Temple,  and  His  miracles  were  likely 
to  give  Him  even  more  power  over  the  people  than  John  had 
had,  and  to  lead  them  to  a  revolt  from  the  legal  slavery  to 
Rabbinical  rules,  in  which  the  Jerusalem  Scribes  and  Phari- 
sees held  them.  There  had,  as  yet,  been  no  open  hostility, 
but  it  was  not  in  keeping  with  the  spirit  of  Jesus  to  provoke 
persecution.  His  hour  had  not  yet  come,  and  to  brave 
danger  at  present,  when  duty  did  not  demand  it,  would  have 
be<  n  contrary  to  His  whole  nature.  Hereafter,  when  duty 

1  Winer's  Grammatik,  p.  249.  a  John  iv.  35. 

3  John  iii.  32  ;  iv.  45.  4  John  iii.  2G. 


490  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

called  Him  to  do  so,  He  would  voluntarily  come,  not  to 
Judea  alone,  but  to  Jerusalem,  though  He  knew  it  meant 
His  death. 

But,  apart  from  the  kindling  jealousy  of  the  Pharisees,1 
the  people  themselves  were  sufficient  explanation  of  the 
return  of  Jesus  to  Galilee.  He  was  no  mere  popularity 
hunter,  flattered  by  the  idle  curiosity  that  drew  crowds  to 
Bee  what  wonder  He  might  perform.  He  attracted  crowds, 
but  yet  His  mission,  in  the  only  light  in  which  He  regarded 
results,  had  been  little  better  than  sowing  on  the  wayside, 
or  the  Btony  place,  or  among  thistles  and  thorns.  He  had 
made  so  few  disciples,  that  John  could  speak  of  them  as 
none.2  The  fame  He  had  gained  might  serve  Him  e's^- 
where,  but  He  measured  the  claims  of  a  locality  on  His 
ministrations,  not  by  the  numbers  who  came  to  Him,  but  by 
the  proportion  won  to  God. 

The  direct  road  to  Galilee  ran  through  the  half -heathen 
country  of  Samaria,  and  this  Jesus  resolved  to  take,  though 
men  of  His  nation  generally  preferred  the  circuitous  route 
by  Perea,  rather  than  pass  through  the  territory  of  a  race 
they  hated.3  It  ran  north  from  Jerusalem,  past  Bethel, 
between  the  height  of  Libona  on  the  left  hand,  and  of 
Shiloh  on  the  right,  entering  Samaria  at  the  south  end  of 
the  beautiful  valley,  which,  further  north,  stretches  past  the 
foot  of  Mounts  Gerizim  and  Ebal.4  He  must  have  started 
in  the  early  morning,  to  reach  Sychar  by  noon,  and  must 
have  been  near  the  boundary  to  have  done  so  at  all,  in  the 
short  morning  of  a  winter's  day.5  The  road  was  proverbially 
unsafe  for  Jewish  passengers,  either  returning  from  Jeru- 
salem or  going  to  it,  for  it  passed  through  the  border  districts 
where  the  feuds  of  the  two  rival  peoples  raged  most  fiercely. 
The  paths  among  the  hills  of  Akrabbim,  leading  into  Samaria, 
had  often  been  wet  with  the  blood  of  Jew  or  Samaritan,  for 
they  were  the  scene  of  constant  raids  and  forays,  like  our 
own  border  marches  between  Wales  or  Scotland,  in  former 
days.  It  had  been  dangerous  even  in  the  time  of  Hosea,6 
eight  hundred  years  before,  but  it  was  worse  now.  The 
pilgrims  from  Galilee  to  the  feasts  were  often  molested,  and 
sometimes  even  attacked  and  scattered,  with  more  or  lesa 
alaughter ; 7  each  act  of  violence  bringing  speedy  reprisals 

1  John  iv.  1.  *  John  iii.  32. 

•  Hcrzog,  vol.  iv.  p.  667.  4  Hcrzog,  vol.  xv.  p.  164. 

•  The  longest  day  in  Palestine  is  14  h.  12  m.;  the  shortest,  9  L.  48  m, 

•  Hosea  vi.  9.  7  Ant.t  xxvi.  1.    -Luke  ix.  53. 


SAMAKIA.  491 

from  the  population  of  Jerusalem  and  Judea,  on  the  one 
side,  and  of  Galilee  on  the  other ;  the  villages  of  the  border 
districts,  as  most  easily  reached,  bearing  the  brunt  of  the 
feud,  in  smoking  cottages,  and  indiscriminate  massacre  of 
young  and  old.1 

The  country,  as  He  approached  Samaritan  territory,  was 
gradually  more  inviting  than  the  hills  of  southern  Judea. 
"  Samaria,"  says  Josephus,2  "  lies  between  Judea  and  Galilee. 
It  begins  at  a  village  in  the  great  plain  (of  Esdraelon)  called 
Ginea  (Engannim),  and  ends  at  the  district  or  ' toparch,'d 
of  Akrabbim,6  and  is  of  the  same  character  as  Judea.  Both 
countries  are  made  up  of  hills  and  valleys,  and  are  moist  for 
agriculture,  and  very  fruitful.  They  have  abundance  of 
trees  (mostly  long  since  cut  down),  and  are  full  of  autumnal 
fruit,  both  wild  and  cultivated.  They  are  not  naturally 
watered  by  many  rivers,  but  derive  their  chief  moisture 
from  the  rains,  of  which  they  have  no  want.  As  to  the 
rivers  they  have,  their  waters  are  exceedingly  sweet.  By 
reason,  also,  of  the  excellent  grass,  their  cattle  yield  more 
milk  than  those  of  other  places,  and  both  countries  show 
that  greatest  proof  of  excellence  and  plenty — they  are,  each, 
very  full  of  people."  In  our  days  Samaria  is  more  pleasant 
than  Judea.  The  limestone  hills  do  not  drink  in  the  waters 
that  fall  on  them,  like  those  of  the  south.  Rich  level  stretches 
of  black  soil,  flooded  in  the  wet  season,  form  splendid 
pastures,  which  alternate,  in  the  valleys,  with  fertile  tracts 
of  corn-land,  gardens,  and  orchards.  Grape-vines,  and  many 
kinds  of  fruit-trees,  cover  the  warm  slopes  of  the  limestone 
hills,  and  groves  of  olives  and  walnut  crown  their  rounded 
tops.  The  meadows  of  Samaria  have  always  been  famous.3 
Even  the  prophets  speak  of  the  pastures  on  its  downs, 
and  of  the  thickets  of  its  hill- forests.4  As  Josephus  tells  us, 
the  supply  of  rain  was  abundant  on  the  hills,  and  made  them 
richly  wooded.  The  climate  was  so  good  and  healthy,  that 
the  Romans  greatly  preferred  the  military  stations  in  Sa- 
maria to  those  of  Judea.5  Yet  the  landscape  is  tame  and 
monotonous  compared  to  that  of  Galilee.  Its  flat  valleys, 
and  straight  lines  of  hills,  all  rounded  atop,  and  nearly  of  a 


1  Sell.  Jud.,  ii.  12.  4.     Vita,  52.  *  Bell.  Jud.,  iii.  3, 4. 

3  See  above  from  Josephus. 

4  Isa.  ix.  18 ;  xxviii.  1.   1  Sam.  xiv.  25.    2  Sam.  xviii.  6.    Jubil.  can 
34. 

•  Plin.  Hist.  Nat.,  14.     Strabo,  xvi.  2. 


492  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

height,  contrast  unfavourably  with  the  bold  scenery  of  the 
Galilaean  highlands — the  home  of  Jesus. 

Having  reached  the  top  of  the  steep  hill  up  which  the 
path  stretches,  the  large  and  fertile  plain  of  Mukhna,  running 
north  and  south,  lay  beneath  Mounts  Ebal  and  Grerizim.,  the 
giants  of  the  mountains  of  Ephraim,  which  rose  midway  ou 
its  western  side,  while  low  chains  of  gently  sloping  hills 
enclosed  it,  as  a  whole.  The  path  descends  towards  the 
hills  which  skirt  the  western  side  of  the  plain,  and  runs 
along  their  base,  rising  and  falling  in  long  undulations.  Pic- 
turesque clumps  of  trees  still  dot  the  hill-sides,  and  bare, 
precipitous  faces  of  rock  rise  above  the  green  fields  and 
olive-yards,  which  more  or  less  cover  the  slopes,  mingling, 
at  last,  with  tress  above.  Half-way  up  the  plain,  a  small 
valley  opens  to  the  west,  between  Ebal  and  Grerizim,*  which 
rise,  steep  and  precipitous  on  the  side  next  the  plain,  to  the 
height,  respectively,  of  1,250  and  1,100  1  feet,  both,  as  seen 
from  below,  equally  sterile.  The  path  enters  the  valley 
by  a  gentle  ascent,  and  a  brook  of  fresh,  clear  water,  which 
turns  a  mill  on  its  way,  flows  out  with  a  pleasant  murmur, 
into  the  plain.  On  the  left,  Grerizim  towers  in  rugged  and  bold 
masses  ;  on  the  right,  Ebal,  which,  though  steep,  is  terraced 
to  a  considerable  height,  with  gardens  fenced  by  the  fig 
cactus  ;  other  terraces,  planted  with  corn,  extending,  in  some 
parts,  even  to  the  summit. 

The  town  of  Nablus — the  ancient  Shechem — is  about  a  mile 
and  a  half  from  the  mouth  of  this  side  valley,  in  which  it 
stands.  Luxuriant  gardens,  richly  watered,  girdle  it  round 
outside  its  old  and  dilapidated  walls,  whose  gates,  hanging 
off  their  hinges,  are  an  emblem  of  all  things  else,  at  this  day, 
in  Palestine.  The  valley,  at  the  town,  is  so  narrow,  that 
that  a  strong  man  might  almost  shoot  an  arrow  from  the 
one  hill  to  the  other.  The  houses  of  Nablus  are  stone — a 
number  of  them  of  several  stories — with  small  windows  and 
balconies,  and  low  doors,  over  which  texts  of  the  Koran  are 
often  painted,  as  a  sign  that  the  householder  has  made  the 
pilgrimage  to  Mecca.  It  is  a  very  small  place,  stretching 
from  east  to  west ;  with  narrow  covered  streets,  running 
north  and  south  from  the  two  principal  ones.  Their  sides 
are  raised,  so  as  to  leave  a  filthy,  sunken  path  in  the  middle, 
for  cattle ;  but,  as  a  set-off  to  this,  many  copious  fountains 
and  clear  rivulets,  flow  through  those  on  the  west  of  the 
town. 

1  Pal.  Fund.  Rep.,  1873,  p.  66. 


NABLUS,   OB   SHECHEM.  493 

To  this  ancient  city,  then  in  its  glory,  and  very  different 
from  its  present  condition — along  this  path — Jesus  was 
coming,  no  doubt  agreeably  impressed  by  the  beauties  of  a 
spot  unequalled  in  Palestine  for  its  landscape.  Clumps  of 
lofty  walnut-trees,  thick  groves  of  almond,  pomegranate, 
olive,  pear,  and  plum-trees,  adorned  the  outskirts,  and  ran 
towards  the  opening  of  the  valley.  The  weather  was  bright 
and  warm,  and  the  brightness  would  fill  the  many-coloured 
woods  and  verdure,  with  the  melodious  songs  of  birds.  The 
clear,  sweet  notes  of  our  own  blackbird ;  the  loud  thrill  of 
the  lark,  high  overhead,  and  the  chirping  of  finches,  in  each, 
copse,  rose  then,  as  now.  The  brooks  of  clear  mountain 
water  then,  as  to-day,  played,  and  splashed,  and  murmured 
past.  Thousands  of  flowers  enamelled  the  grass  on  the 
slopes,  for  the  "  blessings  of  Joseph  "  l  reached  their  highest 
in  the  valley  of  Shechem.8  "  The  land  of  Syria,"  said  Ma- 
hornet,  "  is  beloved  by  Allah  beyond  all  lands,  and  the  part 
of  Syria  which  He  loveth  most  is  the  district  of  Jerusalem, 
and  the  place  which  He  loveth  most  in  the  district  of  Jerusa- 
lem is  the  Mountain  of  JSTablus."  2  The  contrast  with  nature 
was  only  an  anticipation  of  the  brighter  spiritual  prospect. 
But  before  Jesus  came  to  the  town,  He  halted  for  a  time  to 
rest. 

Close  under  the  eastern  foot  of  Gerizim,  at  the  opening  of 
the  side  valley  from  the  wide  plain,  on  a  slight  knoll,  a  mile 
and  a  half  from  the  town,  surrounded  now,  by  stones  and 
broken  pillars,  is  Jacob's  well.h  The  ruins  are  those  of  an 
old  church,  which  stood  over  the  well  as  early  as  the  fifth 
century,  but  has  long  ago  perished  in  the  storms  of  past 
ages.  Over  the  well,  a  few  years  since,  were  still  to  be 
seen  the  remains  of  an  alcove,  such  as  is  built  beside  most 
Eastern  wells,  to  give  a  seat  and  shelter  to  the  tired  way- 
farer. There  is  no  question  that  the  name  of  the  ancient 
patriarch  is  rightly  given.  Thirty  or  forty  springs  are  found 
in  the  neighbourhood,  but  they  were,  doubtless,  already,  in 
Jacob's  day,  private  property,  so  that  he  had  no  alternative 
but  to  sink  a  well  for  himself.  Nor  was  it  a  slight  under- 
taking, for  it  is  dug  through  the  alluvial  soil,  to  an  unknown 
depth,  and  lined  throughout  with  strong  rough  masonry.  It 
is  still  about  seventy-five  feet  deep,  but  so  recently  as  1838 
it  was  thirty  feet  deeper,  each  year  helping  to  fill  it  up,  from 
the  practice  of  all  who  visit  it,  both  natives  and  travellers, 

1  Gen.  xlix.  26.  s  Fundgr.  des  Oiientca,  vol.  ii.  p.  139. 


494  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

of  throwing  in  stones,  to  hear  their  rebound.  This  cnstom, 
which  may  be  recent,  adding  to  the  accumulations  of  nearly 
four  thousand  years,  has  filled  it 1  up  perhaps  one-half.  The 
shaft  is  seven  and  a  half  feet  in  diameter,  and  the  whole 
work  mast  have  been  the  labour  of  years.  It  is  exactly  on 
the  watershed  of  the  district,1  but  as  it  depends  on  rain- 
water only,  it  is,  now,  often  dry,  though,  perhaps,  when  of 
a  greater  depth,  always  more  or  less  full.  Lieut.  Anderson 
descended  it  in  1866  and  found  it  quite  dry,  but  an  un- 
broken pitcher  at  the  bottom  showed  that  there  was  water 
in  it  at  some  seasons.  Latterly,  it  has  been  buried  under  a 
great  heap  of  stones,  hiding  its  mouth,  which  Lieut.  Anderson 
found  in  a  sunken  chamber,  twenty  feet  deep,  the  opening 
being  just  large  enough  to  admit  a  man's  body. 

Tired  with  His  long  mountain  walk,  and  by  the  heat  of 
noonk — for  it  was  midday,  and  noon  in  Palestine,  even  in 
December,  is  often  warm — Jesus  was  glad  to  turn  aside,  and 
rest  by  Jacob's  well.  It  was,  moreover,  the  hour  for  refresh- 
ment,2 and  He  resolved  to  stay  in  the  grateful  shade  of  the 
trees  and  the  alcove,  while  His  disciples  went  up  to  the  little 
valley  to  the  town  to  buy  food.  The  funds  supplied  by 
friends,  who  delighted  to  minister  to  Him,3  provided  the 
ready  means. 

As  He  thus  rested,  a  Samaritan  woman,  from  Sychar,1 
which  may  have  been  the  same  place  as  Shechem,  or,  perhaps, 
was  the  village  near  the  well,  now  known  as  Askar, 
approached,  with  a  water  jar  on  her  head,  as  is  the  custom, 
and  a  long  cord  in  her  hand,  with  which  to  let  the  jar  down 
the  well.  Few  sought  the  place  at  that  hour,  for  evening 
was  the  common  time  for  drawing  water,  and  thus  Jesus 
and  she  were  alone.  To  ask  a  draught  of  water  is  a  request 
no  one  in  the  East  thinks  of  refusing,  for  the  hot  climate 
makes  all  feel  its  value.  Hence,  under  ordinary  circum- 
stances, it  might  have  been  expected,  on  Jesus  craving  this 
favour,  that  it  would  be  granted  as  a  matter  of  course.  His 
dress,  or  dialect,  however,4  had  shown  the  woman  that  He  was 
a  Jew,  and  the  relations  between  Jews  and  Samaritans  made 
His  seeking  even  such  a  trifling  courtesy  from  her  seem 
strange,  for  the  two  nations  were  mortal  enemies.  After  the 

1  Mill's  Nablus,  p.  45.  Lieut.  Anderson,  in  Our  Work  in  Palestine,  p. 
201.  Palest.  Fund.  R'p.,  1871,  p.  73. 

1  Winer,  vol.  ii.  p.  47.  3  Luke  viii.  2. 

4  For  the  peculiarities  of  the  Samaritan  dialect,  see  Herzoq.  vol.  xiil 
p.  374. 


THE    SAMARITANS.  495 

deportation  of  the  Ten  Tribes  to  Assyria,  Samaria  had  been 
repeopled  by  heathen  colonists  from  varions  provinces  of  the 
Assyrian  empire,1  by  fugitives  from  the  authorities  of  Judea, 
and  by  stragglers  of  one  or  other  of  the  Ten  Tribes,  who  found 
their  way  home  again.  The  first  heathen  settlers,  terrified  at 
the  increase  of  wild  animals,  especially  lions,  and  attributing 
it  to  their  not  knowing  the  proper  worship  of  the  God  of  the 
country,2  sent  for  one  of  the  exiled  priests,  and,  under  his 
instructions,  added  the  worship  of  Jehovah  to  that  of  their 
idols 3 — an  incident  in  their  history,  from  which  later 
Jewish  hatred  and  derision  taunted  them  as  "  proselytes  of 
the  Lions,"  as  it  branded  them,  from  their  Assyrian  origin, 
with  the  name  of  Cuthites.  Ultimately,  however,  they 
became  more  rigidly  attached  to  the  Law  of  Moses  than  even 
the  Jews  themselves.  Anxious  to  be  recognised  as  Israelites, 
they  set  their  hearts  on  joining  the  Two  Tribes,  on  their 
return  from  captivity,  but  the  stern  puritanism  of  Ezra  and 
Nehemiah  admitted  no  alliance  between  the  pure  blood  of 
Jerusalem  and  the  tainted  race  of  the  north.  Resentment 
at  this  affront  was  natural,  and  excited  resentment  in  return, 
till,  in  Christ's  day,  centuries  of  strife  and  mutual  injury, 
intensified  by  theological  hatred  on  both  sides,  had  made 
them  implacable  enemies.  The  Samaritans  had  built  a  temple 
on  Mount  Gerizim,  to  rival  that  of  Jerusalem,  but  it  had 
been  destroyed  by  John  Hyrcanus,  who  had  also  levelled 
Samaria  to  the  ground.1"  They  claimed  for  their  mountain 
a  greater  holiness  than  that  of  Moriah ;  accused  the  Jews 
of  adding  to  the  word  of  God,  by  receiving  the  writings 
of  the  prophets,  and  prided  themselves  on  owning  only 
the  Pentateuch  as  inspired;  favoured  Herod  because  the 
Jews  hated  him,  and  were  loyal  to  him  and  the  equally 
hated  Roman;  had  kindled  false  lights  on  the  hills,  to 
vitiate  the  Jewish  reckoning  by  the  new  moons,  and  thus 
throw  their  feasts  into  confusion,4  and,  in  the  early  youth  of 
Jesus,  had  even  defiled  the  very  Temple  itself,  by  strewing 
human  bones  in  it,  at  the  Passover.5 

Nor  had  hatred  slumbered  on  the  side  of  the  Jews."  They 
knew  the  Samaritans  only  as  Cuthites,  or  heathen  from 
Cuth.  "  The  race  that  I  hate  is  no  race,"  says  the  son  of 
Sirach.6  It  was  held  that  a  people  who  once  had  worshipped 

1  2  Kings  xvii.  24.  *  2  Kings  xvii.  26. 

8  2  Kings  xvii.  33.  4  De  Sacy,  Chrestom.,  vol.  i.  p.  158. 

*  Ant.,  xviii.  2.  2.    A.D.  10.  6'Ecclus.  1.  27. 


496  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

five  gods  could  have  no  part  in  Jehovah.  The  claim  of  the 
Samaritans,  that  Moses  had  buried  the  Tabernacle  and  its 
vessels  on  the  top  of  Gerizim,  was  laughed  to  scorn.  It  was 
said  that  they  had  dedicated  their  temple,  under  Antiochus 
Epiphanes,  to  the  Greek  Jupiter.1  Their  keeping  the  com- 
mands of  Moses  even  more  strictly  than  the  Jews,  that  it 
might  seem  they  were  really  of  Israel,  was  not  denied  ;  but 
their  heathenism,  it  was  said,  had  been  proved  by  the  discovery 
of  a  brazen  dove,  which  they  worshipped,  on  the  top  of 
Gerizim.2  It  would  have  been  enough  that  they  boasted  of 
Herod  as  their  good  king,  who  had  married  a  daughter  of 
their  people ;  that  he  had  been  free  to  follow,  in  their  country, 
his  Roman  tastes,  so  hated  in  Judea  ;  that  they  had  remained 
quiet,  after  his  death,  when  Judea  and  Galilee  were  in  uproar, 
and  that,  for  their  peacefulness,  a  fourth  of  their  taxes  had 
been  remitted  and  added  to  the  burdens  of  Judea.  Their 
friendliness  to  the  Romans  was  an  additional  provocation. 
While  the  Jews  were  kept  quiet  only  by  the  sternest  severity, 
and  strove  to  the  utmost  against  the  introduction  of  anything 
foreign,  the  Samaritans  rejoiced  in  the  new  importance  which 
their  loyalty  to  the  empire  had  given  them.  Shechem. 
flourished  ;  close  by,  in  Csesarea,  the  procurator  held  his 
court ;  a  division  of  calvary,  in  barracks  at  Sebaste — the  old 
Samaria — had  been  raised  in  the  territory.  The  Roman 
strangers  were  more  than  welcome  to  while  away  the  summer 
in  their  umbrageous  valleys. 

The  illimitable  hatred  rising  from  so  many  sources,  found 
vent  in  the  tradition  that  a  special  curse  had  been  uttered 
against  the  Samaritans,  by  Ezra,  Zerubbabel,  and  Joshua. 
It  was  said  that  these  great  ones  assembled  the  whole  con- 
gregation of  Israel  in  the  Temple,  and  that  three  hundred 
priests,  with  three  hundred  trumpets,  and  three  hundred 
books  of  the  Law,  and  three  hundred  scholars  of  the  Law, 
had  been  employed  to  repeat,  amidst  the  most  solemn  cere- 
monial, all  the  curses  of  the  Law  against  the  Samaritans. 
They  had  been  subjected  to  every  form  of  excommunica- 
tion ;  by  the  incommunicable  name  of  Jehovah ;  by  the 
Tables  of  the  Law,  and  by  the  heavenly  and  earthly  syna- 
gogues.3 The  very  name  became  a  reproach.  "  We  know 
that  Thou  art  a  Samaritan,  and  hast  a  devil,"  said  the  Jews, 

1  Ant.,  xi.  2.  8 ;  xii.  2.  1,  5.  J  Talmud ;  quoted  by  Cohen,  p.  144. 

*  Tnnchnma,  xvii.  4.      Pirke   Eliezer,   c.  38,  in  Godwyn  (48). 
vol.  iii.  p.  143.    Litjhtfoot,  vol.  iii.  p.  274. 


HATRED  BETWEEN   JEWS   AND   SAMAEITANS.       497 

to  Jesus,  in  Jerusalem.1  "  There  may  be  friendliness 
between  Samaria  and  Jerusalem,"  said  a  young  Rabbi, 
Bumming  up  the  points  in  dispute  between  his  nation  and 
the  Samaritans,  "  when  the  Cuthites  have  no  more  to  do 
with  Mount  Grerizim ;  when  they  praise  Israel,  and  believe 
in  the  resurrection  of  the  dead — but  not  till  then."  2  No 
Israelite  could  lawfully  eat  even  a  mouthful  of  food  that 
had  been  touched  by  a  Samaritan,  for  "  to  do  so  was  as  if 
he  ate  the  flesh  of  swine."  3  No  Samaritan  was  allowed  to 
become  a  proselyte,  nor  could  he  have  any  part  in  the 
resurrection  of  the  dead.  A  Jew  might  be  friendly  with  a 
heathen,  but  never  with  a  Samaritan,  and  all  bargains  made 
with  one  were  invalid.4  The  testimony  of  a  Samaritan  could 
not  be  taken  in  a  Jewish  court,  and  to  receive  one  into  one's 
house  would  bring  down  the  curse  of  God.5  It  had  even 
become  a  subject  of  warm  controversy  how  far  a  Jew  might 
use  food  or  fruit  grown  on  Samaritan  soil.  What  grows  on 
trees  or  in  fields  was  reckoned  clean,  but  it  was  doubtful 
respecting  flour  or  wine.  A  Samaritan  egg,  as  the  hen  laid 
it,  could  not  be  unclean,  but  what  of  a  boiled  egg  ?  Yet  in- 
terest and  convenience  strove,  by  subtle  casuistry,  to  invent 
excuses  for  what  intercourse  was  unavoidable.  The  country  of 
the  Cuthites  was  clean,  so  that  a  Jew  might,  without  scruple, 
gather  and  eat  its  produce.  The  waters  of  Samaria  were 
clean,  so  that  a  Jew  might  drink  them  or  wash  in  them. 
Their  dwellings  were  clean,  so  that  he  might  enter  them, 
and  eat  or  lodge  in  them.  Their  roads  were  clean,  so  that 
the  dust  of  them  did  not  defile  a  Jew's  feet.6  The  Rabbis 
even  went  so  far  in  their  contradictory  utterances,  as  to  say 
that  the  victuals  of  the  Cuthites  were  allowed,  if  none  of 
their  wine  or  vinegar  were  mixed  with  them,  and  even  their 
unleavened  bread  was  to  be  reckoned  fit  for  use  at  the  Pass- 
over. Opinions  thus  wavered,  but,  as  a  rule,  harsher  feeling 
prevailed.0 

Jesus  was  infinitely  above  such  unworthy  strifes  and 
prejudices,  and  His  disciples  had  caught  something  of  His 
calm  elevation,  for  they  had  already  set  off  to  the  city  for 
food,  when  He  spoke  to  the  woman.  She  could  only,  in  her 
wonder,  ask,  in  reply,  "  How  is  it  that  Thou,  being  a  Jew, 
askest  drink  of  me,  who  am  a  Samaritan  woman  ?  "  Her 

1  John  viii.  48.  8  Hausrath,  vol.  i.  p.  18. 

8  Lightfoot,  vol.  iii.  p.  275.         *  Gittin,  f.  10.  1.    Sanhedrin,  f.  104.  1, 

«  Pirke,  R.  KL,  c.  38. 

•  Hieros.  Avodah  Zar.,  xliv.  4-,    quoted  by  Lightfoot,  vol.  iii.  p.  273. 

33 


498  THE   LEFE   OF   CHRIST. 

frankness  and  kindly  bearing  had  its  reward.  With  Hia 
wondrous  skill  in  using  even  the  smallest  and  commonest 
trifles  to  lead  to  the  highest  and  worthiest  truths,1  He  lifts 
her  thoughts  to  matters  infinitely  above  the  mere  wants  of 
the  body.  By  an  easy  transition,  He  tells  her  of  living 
water,  the  gift  of  God,  which  He  has  to  give — so  preciout, 
that,  if  she  knew  what  it  was,  and  who  He  was  who  spoke 
with  her,  she,  in  her  turn,  would  ask  Him  to  allow  her  to 
drink.  He  meant,  of  course,  the  Divine  grace  and  truth 
given  by  Him  to  those  who  sought  it,  the  true  living  water, 
ever  fresh  in  its  quickening  power  and  efficacy  to  satisfy 
the  thirst  of  the  soul.  Such  a  metaphor  was  exactly  fitted 
to  arrest  her  attention,  but,  like  Nicodemus,  she  rises  no 
higher  than  the  literal  sense.  "  You  cannot  mean  the  water 
in  the  well  here,"  says  she  :  "  You  cannot  give  me  that,  for 
you  have  nothing  to  draw  with,  and  the  well  is  deep. 
Whence,  then,  can  you  get  this  living  water  of  which  you 
speak  ?  Are  you  greater  than  our  father  Jacob,  who  gave 
us  the  well  ?  It  was  good  enough  for  him  and  his  to  drink 
from,  and  you  speak  as  if  you  had  other  and  better ! " 
Samaritan  tradition  had  traced  the  well  to  the  gift  of  Jacob, 
though  it  is  not  mentioned  in  Genesis ;  and  Jacob — to  a 
Samaritan,  as  to  a  Jew — was  almost  more  than  a  man.3 
Her  curiosity  was  now  fairly  roused,  and  her  willingness  to 
hear  was  evident.  "  This  water  is,  no  doubt,  good,"  replied 
Jesus,  "  but  any  one  who  drinks  it  will  thirst  again  ;  whereas 
he  who  drinks  the  water  that  I  give  will  never  thirst,  but 
will  find  it  like  a  well  of  water  in  his  soul,  springing  up  into 
everlasting  life."  More  and  more  interested,  the  woman 
craves  some  of  this  miraculous  water,  that  she  may  not 
thirst,  nor  need  to  come  all  the  way  thither  to  draw.  She 
still  thinks  only  of  common  water. 

But  now  followed  a  question  which,  while  apparently  of 
no  moment,  showed  her  that  she  was  before  One  who  knew 
the  secrets  of  her  life,  and,  while  it  woke  a  sense  of  guilt, 
opened  the  way  for  penitence.  "  Go,  call  thy  husband." 
She  answered  that  she  had  none.  "  You  are  right,"  replied 
Jesus,  "  for  you  have  had  five  husbands,  and  he  whom  you 
now  have  is  not, your  husband."  The  five  had  either  divorced 
her  for  immorality,  or  were  dead :  to  the  sixth  she  was  not 
married. 

1  See  Sermon  by  SchleiermacJier,  vol.  i.  p.  391.     John  IT.  9-90. 
1  Petermunn,  Art.  Samaria,  in  Herzog,  vol.  xiii.  p.  361. 


MOUNT   GERIZIM.  499 

The  light,  half -bold  mood  of  the  woman  was  now  entirely 
past.  "  My  lord,"  said  she,  "  I  perceive  that  Thou  art  a 
prophet,"  and,  doubtless,  with  the  conviction,  there  flashed 
through  her  breast  the  kindred  thought,  that  the  Jewish 
religion,  which  He  seemed  to  represent,  must  be  the  true  one. 
Then,  perhaps  half  wishing  to  turn  the  conversation — with  a 
glance  at  the  holy  hill,  towering  eight  hundred  feet  above 
them — she  added,  "  Our  fathers  worshipped  in  this  moun- 
tain, and  ye  say,  that  in  Jerusalem  is  the  place  where  men 
ought  to  worship." 

To  the  Samaritans,  Gerizim  was  the  most  holy  spot  on 
earth.  It  was  their  sacred  mountain,  and  had  been,  as  they 
believed,  the  seat  of  Paradise,  while  all  the  streams  that 
water  the  earth  were  supposed  to  flow  from  it.  Adam  had 
been  formed  of  its  dust,  and  had  lived  on  it.  The  few 
Samaritans  still  surviving,  show,  even  at  this  day,  the  spot 
on  which  he  built  his  first  altar,  and  that  on  which,  after- 
wards, the  altar  of  Seth,  also,  was  raised.  They  fancied 
that  Gerizim  was  Ararat,  fifteen  cubits  higher  than  the  next 
highest  and  next  holiest  mountain  on  earth — Mount  Ebal, 
and  that  it  was  the  one  pure  and  hallowed  spot  in  the  world, 
which,  having  risen  above  the  waters  of  the  flood,  no  corpse 
had  defiled.  Every  Samaritan  child  of  the  neighbourhood 
could  point  out  the  places  on  it  where  Noah  came  out  from 
the  ark,  and  where  he  raised  his  altar,  and  show  its  seven 
steps,  on  each  of  which  Noah  offered  a  sacrifice.  The  altar 
on  which  Abraham  bound  Isaac,  and  the  spot  where  the 
ram  was  caught  in  the  thicket,  were  amongst  its  wonders. 
In  the  centre  of  the  summit  was  the  broad  stone  on  which 
Jacob  rested  his  head  when  he  saw  the  mystic  ladder,  and, 
near  it,  the  spot  where  Joshua  built  the  first  altar  in  the 
land,  after  its  conquest,  and  the  twelve  stones  he  set  up,  on 
the  under  side  of  which,  they  believed,  the  Law  of  Moses 
had  been  written.  On  this  holy  ground  their  Temple  had 
stood  for  two  hundred  years,  till  destroyed  by  the  Jews  a 
hundred  and  twenty-nine  years  before  Christ.1  Towards 
Gerizim  every  Samaritan  turned  his  face  when  he  prayed, 
and  it  was  believed  the  Messiah  would  first  appear  on  its 
top,  to  bring  from  their  hiding-place  in  it  the  sacred  vessels 
of  the  Tabernacle  of  Moses.2  It  was  unspeakably  dear  to 

1  Winer,  vol.  i.  p.  390.     Art.  Gerizim. 

*  Petermann,  Art.  Samaria,  in  Hcrzog,  vol.  xiii.  pp.  378,  879.  Light- 
foot,  vol.  iii.  p.  279. 


500  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

tlie  nation,  as  tlie  one  spot  on  earth  where  man  was  nearest 
his  Maker.  The  simple  Samaritan  woman  with  whom  Jesus 
talked,  had  been  trained  up  in  the  undoubting  belief  of  all 
these  legends,  and  her  respectful  mention  of  Jerusalem,  a 
place  sacred  in  the  eyes  of  the  Jew,  showed  a  spirit  ready  to 
be  taught. 

She  was  only  a  humble  woman,  and  withal,  of  poor  ante- 
cedents, but  it  was  the  characteristic  of  Jesus  to  recognise 
the  better  self,  even  in  the  outcast  and  lost.  The  hope  and 
joy  of  the  triumphant  future  of  His  kingdom  rose  in  His 
soul  as  He  discoursed  with  her.1  No  narrow  intolerance 
had  place  in  His  breast ;  no  haughty  Jewish  nationality 
prejudiced  Him  against  man  as  man.  Away  from  the  close 
stifling  bigotry  and  fierce  self-righteousness  of  Judea,  He 
breathed  more  freely.  To  the  Samaritans  He  always  seems 
to  have  felt  kindly ;  for  in  His  immortal  parable,  it  was  a 
Samaritan  whom  He  chose  to  illustrate  the  law  of  neigh- 
bourly love  ; 2  it  was  a  Samaritan  who,  alone,  of  the  ten  lepers 
He  healed,  returned  to  give  glory  to  God ; 3  and,  now,  it 
was  a  Samaritan  woman  who,  by  opening  her  heart  to  His 
words,  first  cheered  His  spirit,  after  the  cold  unbelief  of 
Judea.4  The  influences  of  the  spot,  moreover,  had,  doubtless, 
their  effect  on  one  so  much  in  communion  with  nature.  The 
towering  hills  on  each  side — steep — well-nigh  precipitous, 
and,  as  seen  from  the  well  where  He  sat,  naked  and  sterile  ; 
the  undulating  valley  between  them,  with  its  babbling  brook  ; 
the  busy  and  prosperous  Shechem,  embowered  in  gardens 
and  orchards  ;  the  great  plain  at  hand,  ten  miles  in  length 
and  half  as  broad,  with  its  cornfields,  vineyards,  and  olive 
groves,  spread  far  and  near  ;  the  framework  of  hills  enclosing 
it  round;  the  whole  flooded  by  the  bright  Eastern  noon, 
must  have  touched  His  delicate  sensibility,  as  they  could  not 
have  affected  duller  natures.  The  very  associations  of  the 
scene  must  have  breathed  a  sacred  inspiration  ;  for  here  Jacob 
had  wandered ;  he  had  paid  a  hundred  pieces  of  money  for 
the  very  ground  on  which  this  well  had  been  dug ; p  and 
here,  Joseph,  his  famous  son,  lay  buried,  within  the  boiinds 
of  his  father's  purchase.  Here  Joshua  had  gathered  the 
tribes  to  hear  the  Law  from  the  rounded  hill-tops  above,  and 
Gideon,  and  a  long  roll  of  judges  and  kings,  had  made  it  the 
centre  of  their  rule.  The  plain  before  Him  had  been  the 

1  Hase,  Leben  Jesu,  p.  131.  *  Luke  x.  30. 

8  Luke  xvii.  15.  4  John  iii.  32. 


CHEIST'S  DISCOUBSE  TO  THE  WOMAN.         501 

gathering  place  of  the  hosts  of  Israel,  and  now  He,  the  greater 
Joshua,  a  mightier  judge  than  Gideon,  and  the  true  "  Prince 
of  God,"  l  was  about  to  summon  the  peaceful  soldiers  of  the 
spiritual  Israel  to  a  loftier  struggle  than  ever  earth  had  seen 
— for  Truth  and  God.  A  Divine  enthusiasm  filled  His  soul, 
and  the  vision  of  the  sacred  future  He  came  to  inaugurate 
for  man  rose  within  Him,  when  the  local,  national,  and  tran- 
sitory in  religion  should  have  passed  away  before  the  univer- 
sal, spiritual,  and  eternal.  "Believe  me,"  said  He,  "an  hour 
comes,  when  ye  shall  neither  in  this  mountain,  nor  in  Jeru- 
salem, worship  the  Father.  Te  worship  God  without  knowing 
Him — ignorantly.  Your  Temple,  when  it  stood,  was  without 
a  name  ;  2  still  worse,  your  forefathers,  after  a  time,  dedicated 
it  to  idols.3  You  have  rejected  the  prophets  and  all  the 
Scriptures  after  Moses,  and,  thus,  are  not  in  living  connection 
with  the  earlier  history  of  the  kingdom  of  Grod ;  have  no 
intelligent  knowledge  of  the  advancing  steps  by  which  God 
has  revealed  Himself,  but  rest  on  dark  traditions  and  fancies, 
natural  in  a  people  whose  religion  began  with  the  worship  of 
strange  gods  along  with  Jehovah.  We,  Jews,  worship  that 
which  our  having  received  the  Scriptures,  has  taught  us  to 
know.  The  Messiah  and  His  salvation  must  come  from 
among  the  Jews.  They  have  cherished  the  firm,  pure,  and 
living  hope  of  Him,  revealed  more  and  more  fully  in  the 
prophets,  and  their  Temple,  which  has  always  been  sacred  to 
Jehovah  alone,  has  kept  this  hope  ever  before  them.  But, 
though  the  Jews  be  right,  as  against  the  Samaritans,  in  so 
far  as  relates  to  the  past,  both  are  on  equal  footing  as  to  the 
far  more  glorious  future.  An  hour  comes,  and  now  is,  when 
the  true  worshippers  will  worship  the  Father  in  spirit  and 
truth,  for  the  Father  seeketh  such  as  worship  Him  thus.q 
God  is  a  Spirit,  and  they  that  worship  Him  must  worship  in 
spirit  and  truth." 

Words  like  these  marked  an  epoch  in  the  spiritual  history 
of  the  world;  a  revolution  in  all  previous  ideas  of  the  re- 
lation of  man  to  his  Maker.  They  are  the  proclamation  of 
the  essential  equality  of  man  before  God,  and  show  the 
loftiest  superiority  to  innate  human  prejudice  or  narrowness. 
Christ  speaks,  not  as  a  Jew,  but  as  the  Son  of  Man ;  the 
representative  of  the  whole  race.  The  bitter  controversy 
between  race  and  race  is  only  touched,  in  passing,  with  a 

1  "  Israel" — the  name  given  by  the  angel  to  Jacob. 

2  Ant.,  xii.  5.  5.  3  Ibid. 


502  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

Divine  mildness.  Rising  high,  not  merely  above  his  own  age, 
but  even  above  the  prejudices  of  all  ages  since,  He  gives 
mankind  their  charter  of  spiritual  liberty  for  evermore. 
Jerusalem  and  Gerizim  are  only  local  and  subordinate  con- 
siderations. The  worth  of  man's  homage  to  God  does  not 
depend  on  the  place  where  it  is  paid.  The  true  worship  has 
its  temple  in  the  inmost  soul ;  in  the  spirit  and  heart.  It  is 
the  life  of  the  soul ;  it  is  communion  with  God ;  the  reverent 
espousal  of  our  nature  to  truth.  It  is  spiritual  and  moral, 
not  outward  and  ritual ;  springing  from  the  great  truth, 
rightly  apprehended,  which  Jesus  had  first  uttered,  that  God 
is  a  Spirit.  The  revelation  of  this,  in  the  wide  application 
now  given  it,  was  the  foundation  of  the  New  Religion  of  all 
Humanity.  The  isolation  and  exclusiveness  of  former  creeds 
were  swept  away  by  it  for  ever.  Religion  was  henceforth 
no  tribal  privilege  jealously  kept  within  the  narrow  bounds 
of  mere  nationality.  The  universal  presence  of  a  spiritual 
God  made  the  whole  world  alike  His  shrine.  The  veil  of  the 
Temple  was  first  rent  at  Jacob's  Well,  and  He  Who,  till  then, 
had,  as  men  thought,  dwelt  only  in  the  narrow  limits  of  the 
chamber  it  shrouded,  went  forth  thence,  from  that  hour,  to 
consecrate  all  the  earth  as  one  great  Holy  of  Holies.  Samari- 
tans, Heathen,  Jews,  were,  henceforth,  proclaimed  children 
of  a  common  heavenly  Father,  and  Jesus,  when  He  claimed, 
the  next  moment,  to  be  the  Messiah,  announced  Himself  as 
the  SAVIOUR  of  the  WORLD.* 

Perplexed  to  understand  words  so  lofty,  the  simple- 
minded  woman  was  fain  to  put  off  any  attempt  to  solve 
them,  till  He  came,  for  whom,  in  common  with  the  Jews,  she 
waited.  She  felt  hardly  convinced,  and  wished  to  leave  the 
question  about  Gerizim  and  Jerusalem  till  the  Great  Pro- 
phet appeared.  "  I  know  that  Messiah  comes,  who  is  called 
Christ ;  when  He  shall  come,  He  will  tell  us  all  things." 
Even  the  Samaritans  had  their  hopes  of  a  great  Deliverer, 
expecting  Him  to  restore  the  kingdom  of  Israel,  and  renew 
the  worship  at  Mount  Gerizim,  but  they  thought  of  him 
only  as  acting  by  human  agencies  for  inferior  ends.' 

Jesus  was  far  from  recognising  her  as  right  in  all  she 
meant  by  such  an  answer,  but  she  had  displayed  a  modest  and 
docile  spirit,  such  as  He  always  loved.  She  had  acknow- 
ledged Him  as  a  prophet,  had  listened  eagerly  to  His  words, 
and  shown  how  she  hoped  that  the  Messiah,  when  He  came, 

1  Schenkel,  p.  176. 


WOMEN  AMONG  THE  JEWS.          503 

would  set  the  long  controversy  to  rest.  Her  honest  wish  to 
know  the  truth ;  her  interest  in  the  standing  of  her  people 
to  God  and  the  Law,  and  her  anxious  yearning  for  the 
coining  of  the  Messiah,  revealed  a  frame  of  mind  fitted 
to  receive  further  light.  "  You  need  not  wait,"  said  He,  "  I 
that  speak  unto  thee  am  HE."  The  first  great  revelation  of 
the  Saviour  was  to  humble  shepherds.  The  first  direct  dis- 
clcsure  of  Himself  as  the  Messiah  was  to  an  humble  Sama- 
ritan woman ! " 1 

Meanwhile,  the  disciples  had  returned  from  the  city,  and 
wondered  to  find  him  talking  with  a  woman.  The  relations 
of  the  sexes,  even  in  common  life,  were  very  narrow  and  sus- 
picious among  the  Jews.  That  a  woman  should  allow  herself 
to  be  seen  unveiled  was  held  immodest,  and  she  was  reckoned 
almost  unchaste  if  heard  singing  a  song  even  in  private. 
In  Judea  a  bridegroom  might  be  alone  with  his  bride,  for 
the  first  time,  an  hour  before  marriage,  but  in  Galilee  even 
this  was  thought  unbecoming.  Trades  which  brought  the 
two  sexes  in  any  measure  into  contact  were  regarded  with 
suspicion,  and  no  unmarried  person  of  either  sex  could  be 
a  teacher,  lest  the  parents  of  the  children  might  visit  the 
school.2*  In  Rabbis  especially,  even  to  speak  with  a  woman 
in  public  was  held  indecorous  in  the  highest  degree.  "  No 
one  "  (that  is,  no  Rabbi),  says  the  Talmud,  "  is  to  speak  with 
a  woman,  even  if  she  be  his  wife,  in  the  public  street."  3  It 
was  forbidden  to  greet  a  woman,  or  take  any  notice  of  her.  * 
"  Six  things,"  we  are  told,  "  are  to  be  shunned  by  a  Rabbi. 
He  must  not  be  seen  in  the  street,  dripping  with  oil,  which 
would  imply  vanity  :  he  must  not  go  out  at  night  alone  :  he 
is  not  to  wear  patched  shoes  (which  in  certain  cases  would 
be  carrying  a  burden,  when  it  was  unlawful  to  do  so)  :  he 
must  not  speak  with  a  woman  in  a  public  place  :  he  must 
shun  all  intercourse  with  common  people  (for,  not  knowing 
the  Law,  they  might  be  '  unclean  ')  :  he  must  not  take  long 
steps  (for  that  would  show  that  he  was  not  sunk  in  the  study 
of  the  Law)  :  and  he  must  not  walk  erect  (for  that  would 
betray  pride)."5  Though  higher  in  position  and  respect 
among  the  Jews  than  in  other  Eastern  nations,  woman,  at 
the  time  of  Christ,  was  treated  as  wholly  inferior  to  man. 
"  Let  the  words  of  the  Law  be  burned,"  says  Rabbi  Eleazer, 

1  Schleiermacher,  Predigten,  vol.  i.  p.  399. 
a  Delitzsch's  Handwerkerleben,  etc.,  p.  40. 

*  Joma,  66.  *  Kiddusldm,  Ixx.  1. 

*  Bcrachoth,  xliii.  2.    Nork,  p.  171.     Liyhtfoot,  vol.  iii.  pp   286,  287. 


504  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

"  rather  than  committed  to  women." l  "  He  who  instructs 
his  daughter  in  the  Law,"  says  the  Talmud,  "  instructs 
her  in  folly."2  But  He  who  came  to  raise  mankind  to 
spiritual  freedom  and  moral  purity,  included  woman,  as  well 
as  man  in  His  grand  philanthropy,  and  treated  with  silent 
contempt  the  prudery  by  which  it  was  sought  to  humble  the 
one  sex  and  exalt  the  other.  He  was  a  teacher  not  for  a  n 
age,  but  for  all  time,  and  woman  owes  her  elevation  to  social 
equality  with  man  to  the  lofty  respect  shown  her  by  Jesus 
of  Nazareth.  To  hare  the  courage  of  one's  opinions  is  rare, 
and  it  is  rarer  still  to  retain,  with  it,  a  modest  humility  and 
simple  worship  of  truth.  With  most  of  us,  it  is  rather 
supercilious  contempt  of  inferior  judgments  than  lowly 
homage  to  conviction.  In  Jesus  alone  is  it  found  as  an 
instinctive  and  never-failing  characteristic,  with  no  blemish 
or  qualification  of  attendant  weakness.  He  acts,  at  all  times, 
as  before  God  alone,  and  as  if  unconscious  of  the  presence 
or  opinions  of  man. 

Strange  as  the  incident  must  have  seemed  to  the  dis- 
ciples, the  awe  and  reverence  which  Jesus  had  already 
excited  in  their  minds  checked  any  expression  of  surprise. 
Meanwhile  the  woman,  leaving  her  pitcher,  hurried  off  to 
the  city,  to  make  known  the  presence  of  the  wonderful 
stranger,  and  urge  as  many  as  she  could,  to  go  to  Him,  and 
see  if  He  were  not  the  expected  Messiah.  In  her  absence,  the 
disciples  once  and  again3  invited  Jesus  to  take  some  re- 
freshment.4 But  His  soul  was  too  full  of  other  thoughts, 
which  drove  away  all  sense  of  hunger.  "  I  have  meat  to  eat," 
said  He,  "  that  ye  know  not  of," — words,  which  to  their  dull 
material  range  of  mind,  seemed  only  to  refer  to  food  brought 
in  their  absence.  "  My  meat,"  said  He,  seeing  their  mis- 
conception, "  is  to  do  the  will  of  Him  that  sent  Me,  and  to 
finish  His  work."  Then,  lifting  His  eyes,  and  looking  up  the 
stretching  valley,  or  round  the  wide  sweep  of  the  plain,  in 
both  of  which,  doubtless,  the  busy  peasants  were  scattering 
the  seed  for  the  harvest,  then  four  months  distant,  He  caught 
sight  of  a  multitude  coming,  under  the  guidance  of  the 
voman,  to  hear  His  words.  Fired  at  the  sight,  He  went 
on, — "  You  say,  '  After  four  months  will  come  the  harvest.' 
But  I  say,  look  yonder  at  the  throng  approaching  us.  They 

1  Lifjhtfoot,  vol.  iii.  p.  287.  2  Delitzsch's  Handwerkerleben,  p.  40. 

3  Tjptirrwv. 

4  They  address  Him  as  Eabbi      In  the  English  version  it  is  translated 
Master. 


A  GLEAM   OF  LIGHT.  505 

are  the  noblest  harvest,  and  their  coming  shows  that  you 
have  not  to  wait  to  reap  it,  as  they  have  to  reap  the  seed  now 
sowing  ;  for  their  souls,  like  autnnm  fields,  are  already  white 
for  the  sickle.  And  how  rich  the  reward  for  yon,  my 
disciples,  who  will  be  the  reapers !  You  will  gather  fruit, 
no  t  like  the  harvest  of  earth,  but  fruit  unto  life  eternal.  You 
and  I,  the  Sower  and  the  reapers,  may  well  rejoice  together 
in  iLe  parts  assigned  us  by  God.  Think  of  the  final  harvest- 
home,  when  Heaven,  the  great  garner,  shall  have  the  last 
sheaf  carried  thither  !  The  sower  and  the  reaper  are  indeed 
distinct,  as  the  proverb  has  it,  speaking  of  common  life.  I 
have  prepared  and  sown  the  field ;  you  shall,  hereafter,  do 
the  labour  that  is  needed  as  it  grows,  and  reap  the  sheaves 
as  they  ripen.  Your  work  will  be  real  of  its  kind,  but  to 
bi-eak  up  the  soil,  and  cast  in  the  seed,  is  harder  than  to 
watch  the  rising  green.  I  send  you  to  enter  on  the  fruit  of 
My  toil." 

Judea  had  yielded  no  harvest,  but  the  despised  people  of 
Shechem  were  better  spiritual  soil.  There  was  no  idle 
thronging  around,  as  in  Judea,  in  hopes  of  seeing  miracles  : 
none  were  asked,  and  none  were  wrought.  The  simpler  and 
healthier  natures  with  which  He  here  came  in  contact,  were 
satisfied,  in  many  cases,  by  the  words  of  the  woman  alone. 
Gathering  to  hear,  His  words  deepened  the  convictions  of 
those  impressed  already,  and  roused  the  hearts  of  others.  At 
their  request,  two  days  were  spent  in  teaching.  To  have 
stayed  longer  might,  perhaps,  have  compromised  the  future, 
by  raising  Jewish  prejudice.  Meanwhile,  the  work,  thus 
auspiciously  begun,  could  not  fail  to  spread.  "  We  believe," 
said  the  new  converts,  after  the  two  days'  intercourse  with 
Jesus,  "  not  because  of  the  woman's  saying,  for  we  have  heard 
Him  ourselves,  and  know  that  this  is,  indeed,  the  Saviour  of 
the  world." l  Jews  might  have  acknowledged  Him  as  the 
Messiah,  but  only  Samaritans,  with  their  far  more  generous 
conceptions  of  the  Messianic  Kingdom,  could  have  thought 
of  Him  as  the  Saviour  of  mankind. 

Thus,  naturally,  from  the  most  indifferent  trifle  of  daily 
life,  had  come  the  disclosure  of  the  highest  truths,  as  a  legacy 
to  all  ages.  The  well  of  Jacob  had  become  the  seat  of  the 
Great  Teacher,  before  whose  words,  then  spoken  to  a 
humble  woman  of  Samaria,  the  most  embittered  enmities  of 
nations  and  religious  will,  one  day,  pass  away. 

1  The  Sinaitic  and  Vatican  MS3.  omit  "  the  Christ." 


CHAPTER  XXXII. 
OPENING   OF   THE   MINISTET  IN   GALILEE. 

A  NATURE  like  that  of  Jesus,  as  sensitive  as  strong,  must 
•*••*•  have  felt  the  pleasure  which  only  first  successes  can 
give,  at  His  hearty  reception  by  the  Samaritans.  Rejected 
in  Judea,  He  had  found  willing  hearers  in  the  despised 
people  of  Shechem.  A  nucleus  of  His  kingdom  had  been 
formed,  and  it  must,  by  its  nature,  spread  from  heart  to 
heart.  Intensely  human  in  His  sensibility,  He  now  enjoyed 
the  happiness  He  had  called  forth  in  others,  as,  before,  He 
had  been  depressed  by  its  absence.  He  neither  expected  nor 
desired  noisy  popularity,  for  He  knew  that  His  Kingdom 
could  grow  only  by  the  secret  conviction  of  soul  after  soul. 

Yet,  in  one  sense,  it  was  already  complete  in  every  new 
disciple,  for  each  heart  that  received  Him  was  a  spot  in 
which  it  was  fully  set  up — its  laws  accepted,  and  the  will 
and  affections  entirely  His.  To  every  new  adherent  He  was 
more  than  king,  for  He  reigned  over  their  whole  nature, 
with  a  majesty  such  as  no  other  king  could  command.  The 
highest  bliss  of  each  was  to  have  no  thought  or  wish  apart 
from  His,  for  in  the  measure  of  likeness  to  Him,  lay  their 
spiritual  purity,  peace,  and  joy.  They  felt  that  to  become 
His  disciples,  was  to  anticipate  the  brightest  hopes  of  the 
eternal  world,  for  it  was  to  have  their  bosoms  filled  with  the 
light  and  love  of  God.  Earth  never  saw  such  a  king,  or  such 
a  kingdom. 

But  He  could  not  stay  in  Samaria.  His  work  lay  in 
Israel.  Its  people  had  been  prepared  for  it  by  the  train- 
ing of  two  thousand  years,  by  cherished  hopes,  and  by  the 
possession  of  the  oracles  of  God ;  the  one  grand  treasure  of 
eternal  truth  in  the  hands  of  man.  They,  alone,  of  all  man- 
kind realized  the  idea  of  a  true  kingdom  of  God  ;  they, 
n,kno,  were  aglow  for  its  advent.  Misconceptions  removed, 
thry  were  fitted  above  all  other  races,  to  be  the  apostles  of 


RETURN   TO   CAPERNAUM.  507 

the  new  religion,  which,  in  reality,  was  only  the  completing 
and  perfecting  of  the  old.1 

After  a  stay  of  two  days,  therefore,  at  Shechem,  or  near 
it,  Jesus  went  on  northwards,  towards  Galilee.  The  road 
passes  through  Shechem,  to  Samaria,  which  lies  on  its  hill,2 
at  three  hours'  distance,  on  the  north-west.  It  was  then  in 
its  glory,  as  Herod  had  left  it ;  no  longer  the  old  Samaria, 
but  the  splendid  Sebaste,  named  thus  in  compliment  to  Au- 
gustus.* Its  grand  public  buildings,  its  magnificent  temple, 
dedicated,  in  blasphemous  flattery,  to  Augustus,  its  colon- 
nades, triumphal  arches,  baths,  and  theatres,  and  its  famous 
wall,  twenty  stadia  in  circuit,1*  with  elaborate  gates 3  en- 
closing the  whole — were  before  Him  as  He  passed  on.  At 
Engannim,  "  the  Fountain  of  Gardens,"  on  the  southern 
slope  of  the  great  plain  of  Esdraelon,  He  crossed  the 
Samaritan  border,  and  was  once  more  in  Galilee. 

Avoiding  Nazareth,  with  a  wise  instinct  that  a  prophet 
had  no  honour  in  His  own  country,4  He  continued  His 
journey  to  Cana,  across  the  green  pastures  and  corn-fields 
of  the  plain  of  Battauf.  He  had,  indeed,  felt,  before  leav- 
ing Samaria,  that  a  district  where  He  had  been  familiarly 
known  in  His  earlier  life  would  be  less  disposed  to  receive 
Him  than  others  in  which  He  was  a  stranger,  but  this  could 
only  apply  to  the  immediate  bounds  of  Nazareth  or  Caper- 
naum. On  the  other  hand,  the  news  of  his  popularity  in 
Judea,  and  of  His  miracles  and  discourses  in  Jerusalem,  had 
been  carried  back  to  Galilee,  by  pilgrims  who  had  returned 
from  the  feast,5  and  had,  doubtless,  secured  Him  a  much 
better  reception  in  the  province  at  large  than,  as  Himself  a 
Galilsean,  He  would  otherwise  have  found.  But  even  had 
He  felt  that  He  would  be  rejected  in  Galilee  as  He  had  been 
in  Judea,  His  homage  to  duty,  and  grand  self-sacrifice  to  its 
demands,  would  have  so  much  the  more  impelled  Him  to 
carry  His  great  message  thither.  Personal  feelings  had  no 
place  in  His  soul.  It  would  have  been  only  one  more,  added 
to  His  life-long  conflicts  with  human  perversity  and  evil,  to 
brave  foreboded  indifference  and  neglect,  and  offer  even 
to  those  who  slighted  Him  the  proofs  of  His  Divine  dignity 
and  worth.  The  prophet  had  foretold  that  the  Great  Light 
of  the  Kingdom  of  God  would  shine  in  Galilee  of  the 

1  Baur  aptly  calls  Christianity   "  Spiritualized  Judaism."    Oesch.  d, 
Christlichcn  Kirche,  vol.  i.  p.  16. 
3  Samaria  is  1,551  feet  above  the  Mediterranean. 
3  Ant.,  xv.  8.  5.  4  John  iv.  44.  s  John  iv.  45. 


508  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

Gentiles,1  and  amidst  whatever  humiliation  and  pain  of 
heart  in  anticipated  rejection,  He,  its  King,  would  have 
gone  thither  to  proclaim  it,  and  honour  the  Divine  pre- 
diction." 

Tho  first  return  of  Jesus  to  Galilee,  from  the  Jordan,  had 
been  marked  by  the  miracle  at  the  wedding  feast  of  Cana, 
as  if  to  rouse  the  general  mind,  and  now,  His  second  return 
was  proclaimed  in  the  same  way.2  He,  perhaps,  had  gone  to 
live  for  a  time  with  the  friends  for  whom  He  had  turned  the 
water  into  wine,  or,  it  may  be,  He  was  a  guest  of  Nathanael, 
as,  in  Capernaum,  of  Peter.  His  reception,  as  He  passed  on 
His  way  to  Cana,  had  been  cheering  in  the  extreme,  for  the 
reports  from  the  south  had  raised  Him  to  an  undefined 
greatness  in  the  popular  eyes.  They  had  learned  to  be 
proud  of  Him  as  their  countryman,  when  they  found  Him 
so  famous  elsewhere.  That  crowds  had  followed  Him  in 
Judea,  secured  Him  favour,  so  far,  among  the  multitude  in 
the  north.3  His  return  had  risen  to  the  dignity  of  a  public 
event,  and  passed  from  lip  to  lip  through  the  whole  district. 

It  had  thus  speedily  become  known  in  Capernaum  that  He 
was  once  more  in  Cana,  after  His  nine  or  ten  months  absence 
from  Galilee.  His  miraculous  power  over  sickness  and  physi- 
cal evil,  as  shown  in  Jerusalem/  had  become  a  subject  of  uni- 
versal report,  finding  its  way  even  into  the  gilded  seclusion 
of  mansions  and  palaces.  Among  others,  a  high  officer  of  the 
court  of  Herod  Antipas,  whose  mansion  was  in  Capernaum, 
had  heard  of  the  wonderful  Teacher.  We  know  how  the 
miracles  of  Christ  reached  the  ears  of  Antipas  himself  ;4  that 
Menahem,*  his  foster-brother,  actually  became  an  humble  fol- 
lower of  Jesus,5  and  that  Joanna,  the  wife  of  Chuza,  the  house 
steward  or  manager  of  the  private  affairs  6  of  Antipas,  was 
one  of  many 7  devoted  female  disciples  and  friends,  of  the 
richer  classes — and  can,  thus,  easily  fancy  how  such  a  digni- 
fied official  had  learned  respecting  the  new  wonder-working 
Rabbi.'  The  close  heat  of  the  borders  of  the  Lake  of  Galilee, 
with  their  fringe  of  reeds  and  marsh,  though  then  tempered 
by  the  shade  of  countless  orchards  and  wooded  clumps,  now 
wholly  wanting,  has  in  all  ages  induced  a  prevalence  of  fever, 
at  certain  seasons,  and  the  malady  had  now  seized  his  only 
eon,8  who  was  still  a  child.9  He  had  been  led  to  look  on  Jesua 

1  Matt  iv.  15.     Isa.  xlii.  7.  J  John  iv.  54. 

3  John  iv.  15.  *  Matt.  xiv.  1.  5  Acts  xiii.  1. 

•  tirirpoiros  (epitopros).     See  Matt.  xx.  8.  7  Luke  viii.  3. 

8  The  article  before  vlbs  (son)  shows  this.  •  Verse  49. 


THE  EULEB'S  SON.  509 

as  a  wonderful  Healer,  by  the  cures  reported  to  have  been 
wrought  by  Him,  but  he  had  not,  apparently,  thought  of  Him 
as  more.  Hearing  of  His  arrival  at  Cana,  the  hope  that  He 
might  save  his  son  instantly  determined  Him  to  go  thither 
and  ask  His  aid.  The  child,  he  said,  was  at  the  point  of  death, 
would  Jesus  come  down  g  and  heal  him  ? 

There  was  something  in  the  poor  man's  bearing,  however, 
that  showed  the  superficial  conception  he  had  formed  of 
Christ's  character  and  work.  Miracles,  with  Jesus,  were 
only  means  to  a  higher  end,  credentials  to  enforce  the  re- 
ception of  spiritual  truth.  That  truth  was  its  own  witness, 
and  had  sufficed  to  win  a  ready  homage  from  the  despised 
people  of  Sychar.  To  be  the  Healer  of  souls,  not  of  the 
body,  was  His  great  mission,  but  the  nobleman  had,  as  yet, 
no  idea  of  Him  except  as  a  Hakim  or  Rophai,h  who  had 
proved  His  power  to  overcome  disease.  He  had  been  led  to 
Him  not  by  the  report  and  acceptance  of  the  great  truths 
He  taught :  only  the  rumour  of  His  miracles  had  created  in- 
terest enough  to  pass  through  the  land.  That  he  was  utterly 
unconscious  of  the  spiritual  death  from  which  he  himself 
needed  to  be  rescued,  touched  the  sympathy  of  Christ 
"  How  is  it,"  asked  He,  in  effect,  "  that  you  come  to  Me 
only  for  outward  healing,  and  believe  on  Me  only  as  a 
worker  of  signs  and  wonders  ?  Have  you  no  sense  of  sin  ; 
no  craving  for  spiritual  healing ;  no  inner  sympathy  with 
the  teaching  of  My  life  and  words  ?  "  Without  moral  pre- 
paration in  his  own  mind,  the  healing  of  his  son  might  con- 
firm belief  in  the  power  of  the  Healer ;  but  would  bring  no 
spiritual  reception  of  the  truth,  to  heal  the  soul.  Apparently 
repelling  him  for  the  moment,  Jesus  was,  in  fact,  opening 
his  eyes  to  the  far  greater  blessings  he  might  freely  obtain. 
With  royal  bounty  He  wished  to  bestow  the  greater  while  He 
gave  the  less,  for  it  was  His  wont,  after  needed  reproof,  to 
give  more  than  had  been  asked.  Meanwhile,  the  only  thought 
of  the  parent's  heart  was  his  dying  boy.  "  Sir,  come  down 
ere  my  child  die."  Jesus  knew  that  he  would  believe  if  his 
son  were  healed,  but  wished  to  raise  a  higher  moral  frame, 
which  would  do  so  from  kindled  sympathy  with  spiritual 
truth  without  such  an  outward  ground.  To  believe  His 
word,  from  its  own  internal  evidence,  showed  higher  faith 
than  that  which  only  followed  miracles.  It  revealed  a  re- 
cognition of  the  truth  from  interest  in  it :  a  sensibility  of 
soul  to  what  was  pure  and  holy.  But  belief  as  the  result  of 
miracles  was  not  discountenanced :  it  was  only  held  inferior. 


510  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

The  nobleman  had  assumed  that  Jesus  would  go  back 
with  him  to  Capernaum,  and  heal  the  child ;  but  he  was 
before  One  to  whose  power  distance  offered  no  hindrance. 
With  the  easy,  unaffected  dignity  of  conscious  superiority, 
he  is  told  to  "go  his  way;  his  son  lived:"  words  few  and 
simple,  but  enough  to  let  him  know  that  the  Speaker  had, 
on  the  instant,  healed  the  child.  Nor  could  he  doubt  it. 
To  have  spoken  with  Jesus  assured  him  that  he  might  be- 
lieve His  word.  Forthwith  he  set  out  on  his  return. 

It  was  about  twenty  miles  from  Cana  to  Capernaum,  and 
the  miracle  had  been  wrought  an  hour  after  noon.1  Resting 
by  the  way,  at  early  nightfall,  as  he  well  might  on  a  road  so 
insecure,  he  started  again  next  morning,  but  erelong  met 
some  of  his  own  slaves,  sent  to  tell  him  the  good  news  that 
the  boy  was  convalescent,  and  to  prevent  his  bringing  Jesus 
any  further.  "  Tour  son,"  said  they,  "  is  not  dead,  but  is 
getting  better.  The  fever  has  left  him."  "  When,"  asked 
the  father,  "  did  he  begin  to  amend  ?  "  "  Yesterday,  about 
one  o'clock  the  fever  broke."  It  was  the  very  time  when 
Jesus  had  told  him  that  the  boy  would  live.  What  could  he 
do  but  accept  Him  as  what  he  now  knew  He  claimed  to  be — 
the  Messiah.  "  Himself  believed  and  his  whole  house." 

How  long  Jesus  remained  in  Cana  is  not  known,  but  that 
He  was  for  a  time  unattended  by  the  small  band  of  disciples 
who  had  accompanied  Him  to  the  Passover,  is  certain . 
They  had  remained  with  Him,  in  Judea,  and  had  returned 
with  Him,  through  Sychar,  to  Galilee,  but,  after  so  long  an 
absence  from  home,  He  had  let  them  go  back  to  the  Lake  of 
Galilee,  to  their  occupations,  till  He  should  once  more  call 
them  finally  to  His  service. 

He  had  rttired  to  the  north,  before  the  rising  signs  of 
opposition  from  the  Pharisees,2  who  had  at  last  found  means 
to  get  John  imprisoned,3  by  their  intrigues  with  Antipas,  and 
might,  at  any  moment,  have  effected  His  own  arrest.  An 
interval  of  some  months  now  elapsed,4  perhaps  in  stillness 
and  privacy,  the  time  not  having  yet  come,  for  some  reasons 
unknown  to  us,  for  His  final  and  permanent  entrance  on  His 
public  work.  His  mother  and  the  family  had  returned  to 

1  John  iv.  52.  »  John  iv.  1. 

•  Malt.  iv.  12.  Mark  i.  14.  The  word  is  TrapaSoetjixii—the  delivering 
uj>  of  John. 

4  Lichtenstein  thinks  it  was  nine  months.  Jesus  Chnstus.  Herzog, 
vol.  vi.  p.  569. 


MASSACRE   OF   TEMPLE   PILGRIMS.  511 

Nazareth1  from  their  short  stay  at  Capernaum,  and,  it  is 
most  probable,  therefore,  that  He,  once  more,  withdrew  to 
the  seclusion  of  His  early  home,  and  lived  there  for  a  time 
in  retirement.  The  fate  of  the  Baptist  may  have  made 
it  necessary  to  avoid  for  a  time  giving  any  pretext  of  political 
alarm  to  Herod  by  His  at  once  taking  John's  place.  That 
one  so  venerated  had  been  thrown  into  the  dungeons  of 
Machaerus  doubtless  spread  to  the  farthest  valleys.  Men 
almost  hoped  that  the  mighty  preacher  would  soften  the 
heart  even  of  Antipas,  and,  in  any  case,  could  not  credit  that 
a  man  so  cowardly  and  politic  would  dare  to  take  the  life  of 
the  honoured  prophet.2  This  and  that  measure  of  the  tyrant 
were  attributed  by  the  credulous  multitude  to  John's  influence.3 
The  whole  country  was  agitated,  day  after  day,  by  rumours 
respecting  him. 

Nor.  were  other  subjects  of  popular  excitement  wanting1. 
In  the  autumn  of  that,  or  the  year  before,  apparently  at  the 
Feast  of  Tabernacles,  there  had  been  a  fierce  struggle  between 
the  Roman  garrison  at  Jerusalem1  and  the  pilgrims  from 
Galilee,  ever  excitable  and  ready  to  fight.  In  the  heat  of  the 
contest  the  soldiers  from  Antonia  had  pressed  into  the  very 
courts  of  the  Temple,  and  had  hewn  down  the  Galilseans  at 
the  great  altar,  beside  their  sacrifices,  mingling  their  blood 
with  that  of  the  slain  beasts.4  The  sons  of  Judas  the  Gali- 
Igean,  the  famous  leader  of  the  Zealots  in  their  first  great 
insurrection  against  Rome,5  had,  moreover,  grown  up  to 
manhood  in  the  hills  near  Nazareth,  and  cherished  in 
their  own  breasts,  and  kept  alive  among  the  people,  their 
father's  fierce  scheme  for  the  erection  of  the  kingdom  of  God 
by  the  sword ;  a  fatal  inheritance,  for  which  they  were  one 
day,  like  Christ,  to  be  crucified.  The  whole  land  heaved 
with  religious  fanaticism  like  an  ever-threatening  volcano. 
Above  all  the  tumult  of  such  a  state  of  things,  however,  the 
imprisoned  prophet  was  the  one  thought  of  the  country. 
Laments  over  him,  mingled,  doubtless,  with  fierce  mutterings, 
filled  every  market-place  and  every  home.  It  was  a  sign  of 
the  glowing  religious  sensibility  of  the  times,  and  a  summons 
to  Jesus  to  take  up  the  great  work  thus  interrupted.  Tho 
tyi-ant  in  Perea  had  silenced  the  voice  that  had  proclaimed 
the  coming  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  but  He,  whose  herald 
John  had  been,  was  at  hand  to  take  it  up  again,  with  grander 

1  Mark  vi.  3.  *  Matt.  xiv.  5,  9.  »  Mark  vi.  20. 

4  Luke  xiii.  1.  •  Ant.,  xvii.  5.  2  ;  xx.  5.  2. 


512  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

emphasis,  on  a  more  commanding  theatre.  Isaiah,  the  son  of 
Amoz,  had  once  seen  a  vision  of  Jehovah  in  the  Temple,1  and 
had  recognised  his  summons  as  a  prophet,  when,  amidst  the 
chants  of  the  Levites,  and  the  clouds  of  incense,  and  the 
blasts  of  the  sacred  trumpets,  the  house  was  filled  with 
smoke,  and  the  very  earth  seemed  to  tremble.  The  Spirit 
came  on  Amos,  the  shepherd,  as  he  followed  his  flocks  on 
the  lonely  pastures,  when  he  thought  how  the  Syrians  had 
threshed  Gilead  with  iron  sledges,  and  how  Tyre  had  sold 
the  sons  of  Israel  to  Edom  as  slaves ;  and,  seeming  to  hear 
Jehovah  call  to  him  from  Zion,  and  thunder  from  Jerusalem, 
he  forsook  his  hills,  to  be  a  shepherd  to  Israel.2  The  loud 
universal  lamentations  over  John  were  such  a  final  Divine 
call  to  Jesus.3 

Finally  leaving  His  early  home,  therefore,  He  bent  His 
steps  once  more  towai-ds  Capernaum,  which  was,  henceforth, 
to  become  "His  own  city,"  and  the  centre  of  His  future  work. 
The  prophet,  ages  before,  had  painted  the  joyous  times  that 
should  efface  the  memory  of  the  Assyrian  invasion,4  and  in 
the  appearance  of  Christ  in  these  regions,  their  full  realiza- 
tion had  now  come.  The  land  of  Zebulon,  and  the  land  of 
Naphtali ;  the  country  towards  the  Sea  of  Galilee ; 5  the 
districts  beyond  the  Jordan ;  and  Galilee  of  the  Gentiles,  in 
the  far  north,  towards  Tyre  and  Sidon — the  people  that  sat 
in  darkness, — saw  a  great  light,  and  to  them  that  sat  in  the 
region  and  shadow  of  death,  a  light  sprang  up.6k  Galilee 
was  to  be  pre-eminently  the  scene  of  the  ministry  of  Jesus, 
and  it  is  curious  that  even  the  Rabbis,  in  their  earliest  tradi- 
tions, express  the  belief  that  it  would  be  that  of  the  manifes- 
tation of  the  Messiah.  To  this  day,  Jews  gather  in  Tiberias, 
one  of  their  four  holy  cities,  from  all  parts  of  the  earth,  to 
wait  for  the  coming  of  the  Messiah,  or,  at  least,  to  be  buried 
there,  in  expectation  of  His  advent.1 

It  would  seem  as  if  Jesus  had,  for  a  time,  been  alone.  The 
country  was  densely  peopled  and  He  may  have  passed  on, 
slowly,  from  village  to  village,  opening  His  mission.  The 
burden  of  His  preaching  was  the  same  as  that  of  John. 
"  The  time  is  fulfilled,  and  the  kingdom  of  God  is  at  hand : 

1  Isa.  vi.  1.  3  Amos  i.  2 ;  vii.  14. 

*  Hausrath,  vol.  i.  p.  341.  4  B.C.  740. 

5  Called  "  The  Way  of  the  Sea,"  from  the  great  high  road  running 
fioua  Damascus  to  Ptolemais,  p.  1G4,  n.  17.  Meyer,  on  Matt.  iv.  15, 
speaks  of  it  as  in  the  text. 

«  Isa.  is.  1,  2. 


THE   TEACHING   OF  JOHN   AND   OF   CHRIST.         513 

repent  and  believe  in  the  Gospel." l  But  though  the  same  in 
form,  the  import  of  the  words  in  the  mouth  of  Jesus  was 
very  different  from  that  of  their  earlier  utterance  by  His 
herald.  John  had  striven  to  reform  Israel  by  demanding 
strict  outward  observances,  as  strict  morality,  but  Jesus  went 
deeper,  and  required  a  revolution  of  the  will  and  affections, 
flowing  from  changed  relations  to  God.  He  would  have  no 
ne  w  pieces  on  old  garments  ;  no  new  wine  in  old  bottles  ;  no 
religious  reform  on  the  basis  of  a  compromise  with  formal 
Judaism.  Israel  had  sunk  into  spiritual  death,  in  spite  of 
its  zeal  for  the  precepts  of  the  Rabbis,  and  the  letter  of  the 
Scriptures :  its  piety  had  degenerated  largely  into  hypo- 
critical affectation,  and  merely  lip  and  outward  assent  to  the 
requirements  of  God's  law.  Its  mission  to  the  great  heathen 
world  had  become  a  failure.  A  wholly  new  principle  was 
needed  to  take  the  place  of  the  now  decayed  and  obsolete 
dispensation  of  Moses ;  the  principle  of  direct  personal  re- 
sponsibility to  God  and  spiritual  freedom,  instead  of  priestly 
mediation  and  theocratic  slavery.  The  Baptist  was,  through- 
out, an  upholder  of  the  ceremonial  law,  and  had  no  adequate 
conception  of  a  purely  spiritual  religion.2  It  was  reserved 
to  Jesus  to  teach  that  only  a  religious  and  moral  new  birth 
of  Israel  and  of  humanity  could  avail.  He  was  the  first  who 
founded  a  religion,  not  on  external  precepts,  or  on  a  priest- 
hood, or  on  sacrificial  rites,  but  in  the  living  spirit ;  in  indi- 
vidual personal  conviction ;  in  the  free,  loving  surrender  of 
the  will  to  God,  as  the  eternal  Truth  and  Good :  a  religion 
which  looked  first,  not  at  mere  acts,  but  at  what  men  were, 
and  set  no  value  on  actions  apart  from  the  motive  from  which 
they  sprang.3 

Hence,  the  call  to  repentance  was  addressed  to  all  without 
exception.  He  recognised  the  difference  between  man  and 
man,  and  acknowledged  the  existence  of  possible  good  even 
in  the  apparently  hopeless.  He  spoke  of  the  good  and  evil, 
the  righteous  and  unrighteous,  the  just  and  unjust,  thosn 
who  had  gone  astray  and  those  who  had  not ;  of  the  sound 
and  the  sick ;  of  the  pure  and  the  impure ;  of  green  trees  and 
dry ;  of  a  good  and  an  evil  eye,  and  of  good  soil  and  bad. 
Surveying  men,  as  a  whole,  with  a  calm  and  searching  in- 
sight, He  rejoiced  in  the  light  which  shone  in  some  souls  in 
the  midst  of  darkness  around  and  within  them,  and  acknow- 

1  Matt.  iv.  17.     Mark  i.  14.  a  Hagfnbach,  vol.  i.  p.  37. 

'  Schenk'd,  in  Dibel  Lex.,  vol  iii.  p.  274. 
84 


514  THE   LIFE   OF   CHKIST. 

lodged  its  worth.  No  cold  fear  of  compromise  damped  His 
ardour;  frank  joy  and  radiant  hopefulness,  that  detected 
good  with  instinctive  quickness,  cheered  His  spirit  to  greater 
effort.  It  is,  indeed,  His  glory  that  He  led  not  only  the 
humble  and  penitent,  but  the  openly  evil,  to  a  higher  and 
purer  life. 

Yet,  though  thus  wide  in  His  charity,  He  had  a  standard 
by  which  all  men  alike  were  pronounced  sinful,  and  in  need 
of  repentance.  In  the  highest  sense,  God  alone  was  good. 
Tried  by  this  awful  test  of  comparison  with  Him,  all  men 
were  "unclean,"  "corrupt,"  "dark,"  "blind,"  "lustful," 
"  selfish,"  worldly  in  thought,  word,  and  act ;  dry  trees,  dead 
and  lost. 1  All  are  pronounced  in  danger  of  the  wrath  of 
God.  They  may  be  more  or  less  sinful  in  degree ;  but  all 
alike  must  seek  forgiveness ;  all  must  repent  and  be  changed, 
or  perish. 

Thus,  when  comparing  men  with  men,  He  recognised 
better  and  worse ;  but  before  God,  and  in  relation  to  citizen- 
ship in  His  kingdom,  He  acknowledged  no  difference,  but 
condemned  all  alike  as  sinners.  Before  the  One  who  alone 
is  pure  and  holy,  He  humbles  all.  He  will  suffer  no  empty 
pride  in  the  presence  of  the  Creator.  In  His  sight  no  one 
is  to  be  called  good.  All  are  guilty,  and  even  the  best 
need  pardon.  In  this  view  of  man  He  declared  that  He  had 
not  come  to  call  the  righteous  but  sinners  to  repentance.3 
Even  the  best  of  men,  though  righteous  before  their  fellows, 
are  guilty  before  God.  It  is  the  unique  characteristic  of  the 
teaching  of  Jesus,  that  while  He  distinctly  proclaims  the 
moral  differences  between  man  and  man,  He  insists  with 
supreme  and  unchangeable  earnestness  on  the  infinite  moral 
distance  and  contrast  between  the  creature  and  the  Creator. 
All  before  Him  are  evil,  or  have  evil  in  them.  There  may 
be  good  among  the  bad,  but  sin  is  not  wanting  even  in  the 
best.  The  repentance  He  preached  was  the  child-like  humi- 
lity which  has  no  claim  to  merit,  but,  conscious  of  its  own 
weakness,  resigns  its  will  to  the  guidance  of  God,  and  seeks 
His  forgiveness.  It  has  already  entered  His  kingdom. 

Nothing  is  told  respecting  the  extent  of  this  first  northern 
missionary  tour,  beyond  the  incidental  remark  that  it  em- 
braced the  towns  and  villages  thickly  studded  round  the 

1  Matt.  ix.  2.  13;  xxvi.  45;  vii.  11;  vi.  22;  xii.  39:  xv.  20;  xvi.  6; 
xvii.  17 ;  vi.  23  ;  xv.  14  ;  xxiii.  16  ;  v.  28  ;  xvi.  25 ;  vii.  17  ;  xii.  33 ;  viii, 
22  ;  x.  6. 

2  Mark  ii.  17.     Keim,  vol.  ii.  p.  80. 


CALL   OF  FOUJB  APOSTLES.  615 

western  shore  of  the  Lake  of  Galilee.™  The  fame  of  His 
deeds  at  Jerusalem  had  everywhere  preceded  Him,  and 
attracted  large  crowds  wherever  He  came.1  As  yet  He 
was  alone,  for  His  early  followers  had  returned  to  their 
calling  of  fishermen,  at  Bethsaida  and  Capernaum.  Reach- 
ing this  neighbourhood  after  a  time,  an  incident  occurred 
which  once  more  drew  them  from  their  nets,  and  transformed 
them  into  future  apostles. 

Jesus  had  risen  early  in  the  morning,2  as  is  the  custom  with 
Orientals,  and  had  gone  out  to  the  shore  of  the  lake,  which 
was  close  at  hand.  The  stillness  of  the  morning  promised 
temporary  relief  from  the  crowds  who  daily  thronged  Him, 
and  a  much  needed  interval  for  peaceful  solitude.  But 
there  was,  henceforth,  no  rest  for  the  Son  of  Man.  The 
people  were  already  afoot,  and  had  hurried  out  to  the 
beach,  in  numbers,  "to  hear  the  Word  of  God;"  for  they 
recognised  Him  as  speaking  with  Divine  authority,  like  John, 
or  one  of  the  prophets.  Unable  to  advance,  and  willing  to 
feed  these  "  sheep  of  the  House  of  Israel,"  He  turned  towards 
two  boats  drawn  up  on  the  white  beach;  the  fishermen 
having  come  ashore,  after  a  fruitless  night's  labour,  to  wash 
and  mend  their  nets.  The  one  boat  was  that  of  His  old 
disciples  Peter  and  Andrew,  the  other,  that  of  James  and 
John,  who  with  their  father  Zebedee,  and  some  hired  men, 
were  busy  preparing  for  the  next  evening's  venture.  To 
meet  again  must  have  been  as  pleasant  to  their  Master  as 
themselves,  and  their  lowly  occupation  must  have  lost  its 
charm  at  the  recollection  of  the  time  when  they  had  shared 
His  society.  Entering  into  Peter's  boat,  and  asking  him  to 
thrust  out  a  little  from  the  land,  that  He  might  have  freedom 
to  address  the  people,  He  sat  down,  as  was  usual  with  the 
Rabbis  when  they  taught,  and  spoke  to  the  crowd  stand- 
ing on  the  shore.  The  clear  rippling  water  playing  gently 
round  the  boat ;  the  fields,  and  vineyards,  and  olive  groves 
behind ;  the  eager  listeners,  with  their  varied  and  picturesque 
Eastern  dress  ;  the  wondrous  Preacher ;  the  calmness  and 
delicious  coolness  of  morning,  and,  over  all,  the  cloudless 
Syrian  sky,  must  have  made  the  scene  striking  in  the 
extreme. 

The  public  addresses  of  the  Rabbis  were  always  very 
short,  and  so,  doubtless,  were  those  of  Jesus.  The  people 
were  soon  dismissed,  and  wandered  off,  to  discuss,  as  Jewish 

1  Lukev.  1.  »  Luke  v.  1-11      Matt.  iv.  18-22.    Mark  i.  16-20. 


516  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

congregations  always  did,  the  sayings  they  had  heard.  But 
Jesus  had  received  a  service,  in  the  use  of  His  strange  pulpit, 
and  wished  to  repay  it,  as  only  He  could.  Telling  Peter,  the 
steersman  of  the  boat,  to  push  off  into  the  deep  water,  He 
bade  him  and  his  brother  let  down  the  net.  It  was  a  circular 
one, l  cast  from  the  boat,  and  then  dragged  slowly  behind, 
towards  the  shore.  The  fish  in  the  Sea  of  Galilee  must 
always  have  been  very  abundant,  even  when  the  fisheries 
were  so  active,  for,  at  this  day,  their  number  can  scarcely  be 
conceived  by  those  who  have  not  been  on  the  spot.  The 
shoals  frequently  cover  an  acre  of  the  lake,  or  even  more, 
and  the  fish,  as  they  slowly  move  along  the  surface,  with 
their  back  fins  just  seen  on  the  level  of  the  water,  roughen 
it  so  that  it  looks,  a  short  way  off,  as  if  beaten  by  a  heavy 
shower.  2  But  Simon  and  his  brother  had  had  no  success, 
though  they  had  spent  the  night,  when  fishing  is  best,  in 
fruitless  efforts.  There  was  no  hesitation,  however,  in 
obeying  the  command,  and  they  had  hardly  done  so,  when 
they  swept  into  a  shoal,  and  had  to  beckon  to  James  and 
John,  their  partners,  to  come  quickly,  and  save  their  net 
from  breaking  with  the  catch.  Even  then,  however,  the  two 
boats  were  loaded  to  the  water's  edge,  and  seemed  as  if  they 
would  sink. 

Peter,  ever  impulsive,  could  not  restrain  his  feelings  at 
such  an  incident — so  unexpected,  so  grateful.  He  who  had 
wrought  so  great  a  wonder  must  have  unknown  and  incon- 
ceivable powers,  before  which  man,  guilty  as  he  feels  himself, 
might  well  be  afraid.  Falling  down  at  the  feet  of  Jesus,  he 
could  only  utter  the  words — "  Depart  from  me,  for  I  am 
a  sinful  man,  O  Lord."  Nor  were  his  companions  less 
astonished  at  the  miracle.  But  Jesus  had  a  high  purpose 
with  these  simple,  open-hearted  friends.  They  had  shown 
their  sympathy  of  spirit  with  Him  already,  and  now  He 
designed  to  attach  them  permanently  to  His  service.  "  Pear 
not ;  "  said  He,  "  come  ai'ter  me  ;  from  henceforth  I  will  make 
you  fishers  of  men.  You  catch  the  fish  to  their  death  ;  you 
will  take  men  alive,3  to  save  them  from  death,  and  give  them 
eternal  life."  It  was  enough.  Words  so  apt  had  their  effect. 
Prom  that  moment  the  four  were  His  devoted  followers." 
The  rich  gain  they  would  have  prized  so  highly  but  an 

1  a/.i<j>l3\r)ffTpoi>,  Matt.  iv.  18. 

2  Tri&traui's  Act.  Hist,  of  the  Bible,  p.  285.     For  the  whole  scene,  sea 
The  Land  and  the  Book,  p.  356. 

3  fuypelv,  "  to  take  alive." 


THE   BEGINNINGS   OF   THE   NEW  KINGDOM.         517 

hour  before,  had  lost  its  charm.  Called  to  decide,  there  and 
then,  as  a  proof  of  their  meetness  for  discipleship,  they  for- 
sook all,  and  followed  Him  at  once.0 

The  few  who  had  first  joined  Christ,  and  by  doing  so  had 
shown  their  fitness  for  His  special  intimacy  and  confidence, 
were  thus,  once  more  gathered  round  Him,  and  lived  with 
Him.  henceforth,  apparently  in  the  same  dwelling,  on  a 
nearer  and  more  tender  footing  than  any  He  afterwards 
received.  They  had  often  heard  Him  speak  of  the  kingdom 
of  God;  of  the  need  of  faith  in  Himself  and  of  a  sincere 
religious  spirit,  as  the  conditions  of  entering  it,  and  they 
yearned  for  closer  intercourse  with  Him,  that  they  might 
learn  more  respecting  it.  Their  instant  obedience  showed 
their  devotion.  All  that  had  hitherto  engaged  their  thoughts 
and  care, — their  boats,  their  nets,  their  fishing  gear,  their 
daily  toil  for  daily  bread, — were  left  behind.  They  placed 
themselves,  henceforth,  under  the  higher  authority  of  God 
Himself ;  ready  at  any  time  to  separate  themselves  even 
from  their  families,  in  the  interest  of  the  new  Kingdom. 
Jesus  had  drawn  them  to  Himself  as  they  were  to  draw 
others,  not  by  craft  or  force,  but  .by  the  power  of  His  living 
words  and  the  spirit  of  love.  Their  loyalty  was  free  and 
spontaneous.  The  calm  greatness  of  the  character  of  Christ 
shines  out  in  such  an  unpretending  beginning,  as  the  germ 
and  centre  of  a  movement  which  is  to  revolutionize  the 
world.  But  insignificant  as  it  might  seem,  it  was  only  so 
when  judged  by  a  human  standard.  Tainted  by  no  selfish- 
ness, weak  ambition,  or  love  of  power,  the  four  simple, 
child-like,  uncorrupted  natures,  touched  with  the  love  of 
Heavenly  Truth,  and  eager  to  win  others  to  embrace  it,  were 
living  spiritual  forces,  destined  by  a  law  of  nature  to  repeat 
themselves  in  ever  wider  circles,  though  successive  genera- 
tions. 

The  fishermen  and  sailors  of  the  Lake  of  Galilee  were  a 
numerous  and  redoubted  class,  with  something  of  the  feeling 
of  a  clan.  In  the  last  Jewish  war  we  find  them,  under  the 
leadership  of  Jesus  son  of  Sapphias,  seizing  Tiberias,  and 
burning  and  plundering  the  great  palace  of  Antipas. l  Of 
the  four  who  had  now  definitely  cast  in  their  lot  with  Christ, 
Peter  and  Andrew  were  apparently  poor ;  James  and  John, 
in  a  better  position.  For  the  convenience  of  trade,  both 
families  had  left  the  neighbouring  town  of  Bethsaida,  and 

1  Jos.,  Vita,  12. 


518  THE    LIFE    OF   CHRIST. 

had  settled  in  Capernaum,  one  of  the  centres  of  the  local 
fisheries,  and  of  the  occupations  connnected  with  them.  Peter 
alone  seems  to  have  been  married,  and  in  his  house  Jesus 
henceforth  found  a  home,  as  perhaps  He  had  done  on  His 
former  short  stay. 


END  OF  VOL.  I. 


NOTES   TO  VOLUME   I. 


CHAPTER    L 

•  In  the  Talmud,  God  is  often  called  "  Our  Father  in  Heaven,"  as  Mr. 
Deutsch  points  out  (Lit.  Remains,  1874,  p.  148),  but  it  is  as  the  Father 
of  the  Jew,  not  of  mankind.  So  also  in  Isa.  Ixiii.  15,  16. 

b  "  The  Greeks  and  Romans,  before  the  time  of  Christianity,  had  no 
idea,  or  even  the  faintest  vestige  of  an  idea,  of  what  in  the  Scriptural 
system  is  called  Sin ;  and  the  idea  was  utterly  and  exquisitely  inappreci- 
able by  Pagan  Greece  and  Borne." — De  Quincey,  Works,  vol.  ix.  p.  240. 

c  Dolling er,  vol.  ii.  p.  126.  Leland,  Advantages  of  Rev.,  vol.  ii.  pp. 
170-175  (ed.  1764),  quotes  many  passages  of  a  similar  import  from 
Epictetus,  Seneca,  Marcus  Antoninus,  and  others. — Gieseler's  Kirchen- 
geschichte,  vol.  i.  p.  23.  Neunder's  Ch.  Hint.,  vol.  i.  p.  22. 


CHAPTER  II. 

•  The  plain  of  Philistia  is  thirty-two  miles  long,  from  Ekron  to  Gaza, 
with  a  breadth  of  from  nine  to  sixteen  miles,  and  a  height  above  the  sea 
of  from  50  to  300  feet. — Capt.  Warren,  R.E.,  in  Quarterly  Statement  of 
Palest.  Explor.  Fund,  April,  1871,  p.  82. 

b  In  the  hill  country  (behind  the  plain  of  Philistia),  the  spurs,  not 
more  than  one  mile  or  so  apart,  are  often  separated  by  narrow  ravines, 
1,500  to  2,000  feet  deep,  at  the  bottom  of  which,  in  the  rainy  season, 
rapid  torrents  roll. — Capt.  Warren,  R.E. 

c  What  is  peculiar  in  Palestine,  in  the  spring  they  glow  with  a  profu- 
sion of  wild  flowers — daisies,  the  white  flower  called  the  Star  of  Beth- 
lehem, but,  especially,  with  a  blaze  of  scarlet  flowers  of  all  kinds,  chiefly 
anemones,  wild  tulips,  and  poppies. — Sinai  and  Palestine,  p.  136. 

d  So  lately  as  1871,  not  more  than  one-fifth  or  one-sixth  of  the  plaiu 
was  uuder  cultivation.  The  Turkish  government  having,  however,  taken 
steps  to  protect  the  fellahin  from  the  Arabs,  nearly  the  whole  plain, 
though  rudely  cultivated,  was  covered  with  splendid  crops  in  June,  1872. 
— Tyrwhitt  Drake,  in  Palest.  Explor.  Fund  Rep.,  Oct.,  1872,  p.  181. 

0  iT?B2'  from  7SB'  to  be  depressed.     "  The  low  country,"  as  opposed 
to  the  "hill-country." 

1  IIPI'I  from  TV  "  to  go  down,"  "  to  descend." 


520  NOTES. 

CHAPTER  HI. 
B  Seriphus  was  a  small  rocky  island  in  the  Mge&n  Sea. 

b  Ovid  was  banished  to  Tomi,  at  the  mouths  of  the  Danube,  on  the 
Black  Sea.  He  only  received  an  order  to  leave  Rome  in  so  many  days, 
and  transport  himself  to  his  place  of  banishment.  Guards  and  jailors 
were  unnecessary. 

c  Cic.  de  Invent,  i.  29  : — "  In  eo  autem  quod  in  opinione  positum  est, 
nujusruodi  sunt  probabilia  — eos,  qui  philosophise  deiit  operam,  non  arbi- 
trari  decs  esse."  Thus,  on  Cicero's  evidence,  those  who  gave  themselves 
to  philosophy  disbelieved  in  the  existence  of  the  gods. 

d  Politicians  and  philosophers  regarded  the  popular  religion  as  deserv- 
ing support  from  motives  of  policy,  but  only  on  such  grounds.  "  Retin- 
etur  autem  et  ad  opiuiouem  vulgi,  et  ad  magnas  utilitates  reipublicse, 
rnos,  religio,  disciplina,  jus  augurum,  collegii  auctoritas." — Cic.  de  Leg. 
ii.  7. 

e  The  Edomites  had  been  conquered,  and  forced  to  submit  to  circum- 
cision by  John  Hyrcanus,  B.C.  135-106.  Antipater  was  the  son  of  a 
powerful  "governor"  of  Idumea,  who  had  amassed  great  wealth  under 
Alexandra,  by  leagues  with  the  Arab  princes  and  with  the  people  of  Gaza 
and  Askelon,  whose  trade  passed  through  his  territory. 

f  The  chronology  of  this  disastrous  period  is  briefly  as  follows  :  — 
B.C.  69-64.  Disputes  between  Hyrcanus  and    Aristobulus  respecting 

the  throne. 

64.  The  Roman  commander  in  Sma,  Scaurus,  being  appealed 
to,  gives  the  throne  to  Aristobulus. 

63.  Poinpey  annuls  the  act  of  Scaurus,  and  gives  the  kingdom 

to  Hyrcauus.  Aristobulus  is  carried  off  as  prisoner 
to  Rome.  Hyrcanus  becomes  priest  and  prince  (nasi), 
but  not  king  (rex). 

67.  Alexander,  son  of  Aristobulns,  having  returned  from  im- 
prisonment in  Rome,  raises  a  momentarily  successful 
insurrection,  to  obtain  the  crown.  The  country  is  di- 
vided into  five  political  districts  by  Gabinius,  Governor- 
General  of  "  Syria"  from  B.C.  57  to  B.C.  55. 

64.  Crassus  plunders  the  Temple. 

43.  Caspar  grants  the  Jews  many  privileges  after  the  battle  of 

Pharsalia. 

47.  Aristobulus  having  been  poisoned  at  Rome  (B.C.  49)  by  the 
partj'  of  Poinpey,  just  as  Cassar  was  about  to  send  him 
to  Syria  with  two  legions,  and  his  son  Alexander  hnving 
been  beheaded  at  Autioch,  by  Pompey's  orders,  Hjr- 
canus  is,  therefore,  recognised  by  Cassar. 

44.  Antipater,  father  of  Herod,  poisoned  by   JIalichus,  a  Jew, 

who  wished  to  supplant  him,  and  free  Hyrcanus  from 
his  domination.  Herod  marries  Mariamne,  grand- 
daughter of  Hyrcanus,  and  he  and  his  brother  Phasael 
are  made  tetrarchs  under  Hyrcanus. 

40-37.  The  Parthians  invade  Judea,  in  alliance  with  Antigonus 
son  of  the  murdered  Aristobulus,  and  make  him  king. 
Hyrcanus  is  taken  prisoner,  and  sent  into  Asia  by  the 
Parthiaus- 


NOTES.  521 

40.  On  this  the  Senate,  at  the  instigation  of   Antony,  name 

HEROD  as  king. 
37-  Herod,  aided   by   Antony,   expels   the   Parthians,    storms 

Jerusalem,  and  begins  his  actual  reign. 

*  A  email  kingdom  in  Lebanon. 

h  Jchn  Hyrcanus  (B.C.  135-106)  had  destroyed  Samaria,  thrown  down 
its  ten.ple,  and  turned  a  stream  through  the  site  of  the  city. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

•  He  wrote  a  History  of  the  World  in  144  vols.,  which  seems  to  have 
closed  with  the  Life  of  Augustus,  and  was,  doubtless,  the  source  of 
much  of  the  information  Josephus  gives  of  Herod's  reign.  He  had  also 
a  drama  on  the  "  History  of  Susanna,"  which  seems  to  have  been  acted 
in  the  theatre  at  Jerusalem,  and  he  composed  geographical  books,  and 
a  commentary  on  Aristotle's  Metaphysics. 

b  The  visit  of  the  Magi  must  have  happened  about  this  time.  No 
wonder  Herod  was  alarmed  at  reports  about  a  new  king  of  the  Jews, 
since  he  heard  them  from  so  many  quarters. 

c  As  a  Jew,  or  half -Jew,  Herod  could  not,  of  course,  touch  swine. 


CHAPTER  V.      - 

•  Winer,  Ewald,  and  Diet,  of  G.  and  R.  Biog.  and  Myth.    Bosanquet 
gives  B.C.  513  as  the  date. — Trnns.  Soc.  Bib.  Archaol.,  vol.  ii.  p.  177. 
Pisistratus  was  then  tyrant  of  Athens,  B.C.  560—527  (De.nseler,  and  Diet, 
of  G.  and  R.  fiiog.  and  Myth.),  and  Servius  Tullius  was  closing  his  reign 
in  Rome    to  be   succeeded  in   B.C.   534  by  Tarquinius  Superbus  (the 
Haughty). 

b  Zerubbabel  was  of  the  Jewish  royal  race,  and  seems  to  have  been 
early  recalled  to  Persia,  from  jealousy.  Jndea  was,  henceforth,  for  a 
long  time,  under  Persian  pachas,  such  as  Nehemiah. 

c  See  John  vii.  49,  where  the  very  proverb  occurs.  "  This  rabble." 
say  the  Pharisees,  "  who  do  not  know  the  law,  are  accursed"  (of  God). 

d  Simon  the  Just,  who  was  high  priest  B.C.  224,  may  be  regarded  as 
one  of  the  last  of  them.  The  Great  Synagogue  had  thus  survived  for 
about.  250  years,  i.e.  from  Ezra's  days,  B.C.  458. — Derenbounj,  Lssai,  p. 
46.  Mu.-h  respecting  it  is,  however,  legendary. 

•  The  name  Pharisee  is  from  the  verb  L/HS  to  divide,  and  means  "  me 
separated,"    "  standing    by  one's    self." — Fur*t,    Ci-sentus.      "  Rabbini 
D^'-nS   dixerint  Pharisaaos,  quod  ab  aliis  vitas  sanctimonia  et  munditie 
sejuncti  essent."     The  Rabbis  gave  the  Pharisees  their  name  because 
they  were  separated  from  others  by  the  holiness  and  (ceremonial)  purity 
of  their  life. — Pagnini,  Lex.  Heb.,  p.  2256.    Sadducee  is  probably  derived 
from  the  name  of  the  founder  of  the  party.     So  Geiger  (Urschrift,  p. 
24).     Derenbourg  (Kssai,  p.  453),  on  the  contrary,  thinks  both  names 
were  originally  given  in  mocking  insult. 


522  NOTES. 

*  The  wife  of  his  brother,  Pheroras,  her  mother  and  sister,  and  Doris, 
Herod's  first  wife. 

8  The  Jews  used  the  title  Rabbi  as  equivalent  to  our  Doctor.  It  comes 
from  the  root  H3"1  to  increase  (Ps.  iii.  1).  The  cognate  word  in  Arab, 
means  "  to  be  great."  and  in  Syr.  and  Chald.  "to  magnify."  Rabbi  was 
a  higher  title  than  Rab.  the  original  form,  and  Rabban  is  still  higher, 
Rabbi  is  simply  Rab,  with  the  Heb.  pronom.  suffix  "  my,"  and  Rabbon* 
(Mark  x.  51 ;  John  xx.  16)  is  the  same  word  with  Syro-Chald.  suffix  for 
"  my." — Winer,  Pagninus,  and  Robinson's  Lex. 

h  One  of  the  lower  officials  of  the  Temple. 

1  A  native-born  proselyte,  not  a  Jew.  The  word  is  derived  from  the 
Gibeonites  being  made  hewers  of  wood,  etc.,  by  Joshua  (Josh.  ix.  27). 
The  word  is  D^fl}  "  the  given,"  "the  devoted,"  from  JH3,  to  give. 

k  A  Mamser,  or  bastard,  is  the  grossest  word  of  reproach  amongst  the 
Jews. 

1  Ginsburg  (Cyclo.  Bib.  Lit.,  Art.  Pharisee)  describes  tho  fifth  class 
as  the  What-am-I-yet-to-do  Pharisee,  who  knew  the  Law  so  badly,  that 
after  each  act  he  had  to  ask  what  was  next  to  be  done. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

•  The  Talmud  was  not  put  in  writing  for  centuries  after  Christ's  day, 
but  its  teachings  are  even  older  than  His  age. 

b  On  Gen.  xlix.  11.  There  was  an  idea  abroad,  however,  with  many, 
that  no  man  knew  from  whence  the  Christ  was  to  come.  See  John  vii. 
27. 

e  The  Book  Sohar  is  assigned  by  Eeuss  to  the  eighth  century  (Herzog, 
vol.  vii.  p.  196) ;  but  its  ideas  are  very  much  older. 

d  The  texts  quoted  are  a  sample  of  Rabbinical  interpretation : — 

Exod.  xix.  8  says,  "  All  the  people  answered  together"  etc.  ; 

therefore  there  could  be  no  dumb  among  them,  nor  any  deaf. 

Exod.  xx.  18  says,  "  And  all  the  people  sate  the  thunder,"  etc. ; 

therefore  there  could  be  no  blind  among  them. 
Exod.  xix.  17  says,  "  Moses  brought  (led)  forth  the  people  out  of 
the  camp,"  etc. ;  therefore  there  could  be  no  lame  among 
them. 
No  wonder  that  Jesus  spoke  of  them  as  blind  leaders  of  the  blind ! 


CHAPTER  VH. 

ft  Simon  was  made  "prince,"  as  well  as  high  priest,  but  only  "until 
there  should  arise  a  faithful  prophet." — 1  Mace.  xiv.  41. 

b  David,  separating  the  priests  from  the  rest  of  the  tribe  of  Levi, 
found  them  to  be  twenty-four  families,  and  ordained  that  each  family 
should  serve  in  ministry  for  a  week,  settling  the  order  by  lot,  whicb 
order  continues  to  this  day. — Jos.  Ant.,  vii.  147, 


NOTES.  523 

«  The  course  of  Abijah,  or  Abia,  to  which  Zacharias  belonged,  was  the 
e;ghth. — 1  Chron.  xxiv.  10.  It  is  mentioned  in  Neh.  xii.  4,  17.  The 
course  took  its  name  from  a  priest  who  bore  it,  descended  from  Eleazar, 
Aaron's  son. — 1  Chron.  xxiv.  2,  3. 

d  They  were  so  numerous  that  it  was  a  Jewish  tradition  that  it  had 
never  fallen  to  the  lot  of  any  priest  to  offer  incense  twice. — Ugolmi,  vol. 
xii.  p.  18. 

•  There  was  a  regular  profession  of  "  instructors  of  the  priests,"  who 
trained  them  to  a  knowledge  of  the  details  of  their  duties.     Even  the 
high  priest  had  each  year  to. go  through  a  seven  days'  preparatory  train- 
ing from  some  expert,  to  fit  him  for  the  duties  of  the  Day  of  Atonement. 
The  "learned"  priests  were  called    Haberim,  or   "companions,"   and 
formed  a  "Union,"  or  close  brotherhood,  the  condition  of  membership 
of  which  was  a  pledge  to  observe  the  prescriptions  of  the  Eabbis  with  the 
utmost  strictness.     All  priests  and  others  who  were  not  members  were 
despised  as  Am-ha-aretzin,  "  rnde  peasants."     Every  priest,  on  admission 
to  the  "  Union,"  swore  before  three  members  of  it  to  be  faithful  to  its  laws, 
and  must  be  a  zealot  for  the  least  detail  of  Rabbinism. — Jost,  vol.  i.  pp. 
155,  162,  201.     Cohen  (Historisch.  Kritische  Darstellung  d.  Jiidischen 
Gottesdienxtes,  p.  165)  quotes  a  curious  passage  from  the  Talmud  which 
says  that  "  seven  days  before  the  Day  of  Atonement,  the  high  priest  was 
taken  into  a  particular  chamber,  where  he,  like  a  scholar,  stood  tinder 
Rabbinical  teachers,  who  instructed  and  watched  him,  that  he  did  not 
perform  the  sacrificial  rites,  or  those  of  the  incense  offering,  after  the 
forms  used  on  some  points  by  the  Sadducees." 

*  They  were  employed  to  select  the  wood  for  the  sacrifices — in  which 
there  must  be  no  worm-holes — and  in  other  similar  humble  duties. 

K  See  Acts  vi.  7.  The  Temple  services  were  in  no  way  interrupted  by 
this  large  secession  of  priests.  The  Council  was  not  restricted  to  priests. 
It  was  rather  a  high  council  of  Rabbis,  as  such. 

h  Herod  Agrippa  II.,  son  of  Herod  Agrippa  I.,  reigned  from  A.D.  52 
till  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem,  over  the  provinces  formerly  under 
Philip  and  Lysaiiias.  He  held  the  charge  of  the  Temple,  and  the  choice 
of  the  high  priests  from  A.D.  84. —  Winer,  Realworteibuch,  vol.  i.  p.  485. 

1  Mine  is  no  mean  descent,  as  one  of  the  line  of  priests,  which,  with  us 
Jews,  is  the  mark  of  nobility  of  birth  :  I  am  also,  which  is  a  high  dis- 
tinction, of  the  first  of  the  twenty-four  courses. — Jos.  Vit.,  1.  See 
also  Keim's  Jesu  von  Nazara,  vol.  i.  p.  230.  Jost  (vol.  i.  p.  147)  points 
out  rightly  that  the  commanding  sanctity  and  grandeur  of  the  priestly 
office  was  lost  from  the  time  that  the  creation  of  kings  overthrew  the 
old  theocratic  constitution,  in  which  the  priests  ruled  over  the  nation, 
as  the  direct  and  exclusive  representatives  of  Jehovah. 

k  Maimonides,  quoted  by  Jost,  reckoned  fifty  blemishes  common  to 
men  and  beasts ;  ninety  found  only  in  men,  and  twenty-three  found  only 
in  animals. — Vol.  i.  p.  155. 

1  Ewald's  Alterthumer,  pp.  369  ff.  Jost  says  that  the  priests  were  not 
anointed  with  holy  oil,  there  being  none  under  the  second  Temple, 
and  therefore  the  consecration  of  the  high  priest  was  performed  by 
clothing  him  with  the  eight  pieces  of  his  official  robes. — Vol.  i.  p.  149. 
Ewald  must  therefore  speak  of  consecration  in  the  early  ages  ol 


524  NOTES. 

Israel.  The  holy  oil  was  said  by  the  Rabbis  to  hare  been  mixed  by  Moses 
himself,  and  to  have  been  miraculously  increased  in  quantity  as  it  was 
used,  so  that  no  more  was  ever  needed  to  be  made. — Leyrer,  in  Herzo<;t 
vol.  xiii.  p.  322. 

m  Vitellius,  the  last  governor  of  Syria  under  Tiberius,  won  great  favour 
with  the  Jews  by  giving  up  the  custody  of  the  high-priestly  robes.  They 
had  been  taken  possession  of  by  John  Hyrcanus,  and  had  been  kept  by 
the  Herods  and  the  Romans,  and  given  out  only  a  week  before  the  Day 
of  Atonement,  and  taken  back  the  day  after  it.  Vitellius,  by  consent  of 
Tiberius,  gave  them  up,  permanently,  to  the  high  priests. — Jost,  vol.  i. 
.333. 

n  The  Jews  could  neither  sell  nor  work  on  the  day  of  the  new  moon, 
aud  it  was  also  devoted  to  special  religious  services. — Ps.  Ixxxi.  3  ; 
2  Kings  iv.  23  ;  Amos  viii.  5  ;  1  Chron.  xxiii.  31  ;  Ezra  iii.  5  ;  Neh.  x. 
33 ;  Col.  ii.  16,  etc.  Delitzsch  says  that  Ps.  cxxxiv.  was  that  of  the 
night-watch  in  the  Temple. 

0  Derenbourg  (p.  36)  remarks  that  this  mixture  of  priests  and  laity  had 
been  characteristic  of  the  Great  Synagogue  itself.     Priests,  from  their 
greater  leisure,  had  necessarily  most  opportunity  for  becoming  eminent 
Rabbis.     The  Sanhedrim  rose  about  B.C.  150. — Derenbourg,  p.  37. 

Jost,  a  great  authority,  differs  (vol.  i.  p.  278)  from  most  in  regard  to 
the  power  or  even  active  existence  of  the  Sanhedrim  under  Herod  and 
the  Romans.  He  thinks  that  it  had  virtually  ceased  under  Herod.  This 
point  will  come  up  for  fuller  consideration  hereafter. 

P  The  high  priest  might  not  mourn  for  his  nearest  kin  (Lev.  zxi.  10, 
11).  The  uncovering  of  the  head  was  one  form  of  mourning  ;  the  rend- 
ing of  the  garments  a  second.  The  Talmudists,  however,  say  tliat  it 
was  lawful  for  the  high  priest  to  rend  the  skirt,  or  lower  part  of  his 
garment ;  but  to  rend  it  from  the  bosom  downwards  was  not  allowed. 
This  explains  how  Caiaphas  could  rend  his  clothes  (Matt.  xxvi.  65).  The 
ordinary  priests  might  mourn  for  six  degrees  of  relations— a  father, 
mother,  son,  daughter,  brother,  and  sister  that  had  no  husband. — God* 
wyn'*  Aaron  and  Moses,  p.  17. 

1  Ezekiel  (xliv.  22)  tried  to  introduce  a  rule  that  priests  should  hi  no 
case  marry  widows,  except  the  widow  of  a  priest,  but  it  was  not  earned 
out.     The  first  traces  of  modifications  of  the  laws  of  the  Pentateuch, 
since  greatly  developed  by  the  Rabbis,  are  found  in  Ezekiel. — Zuuz,  p. 
40. 

1  The  course  of  Abia,  to  which  Zacharias  belonged,  ended  its  autumnal 
half-yearly  course  in  October  of  the  year  748  A.D.C.  ;  and  to  this  period 
Wieseler  refers  the  Annunciation  by  the  angel. — Herzog's  Ency.,  vol. 
xxii  p.  544. 

Lichteustein  assumes  that  the  spring  course,  in  April,  748,  was  the 
(ime. — Jesus  Christus,  Herzog's  Ency.  Bunsen  thinks  it  was  at  the 
autumnal  course.  Kibelwerk,  vol.  ix.  p.  18'.).  So  also  does  Guder. 
Caspari  fixes  the  time  as  in  July. — Citron.,  Geog.  Einleitung,  p.  50. 
These  differences  only  show  how  uncertain  the  exact  season  is.  Tha 
autumn  seems  to  me,  however,  to  suit  the  requirements  of  the  history 
best. 

BenRel  fixes  the  date  as  from  the  2nd  to  the  9th  Sept..  adding  in 
his  striking  way,  "  Et  2  Sep.  eo  anno,  apnd  gentcm  hraclit., 


NOTES.  525 

'bat  1  Tisri  [the  Jewish  l?ew  Tear's  Day]  .  Ecce  I  ineunte  anno,  cum 
nuncio  angelica  Zachariee  oblato  N.T.  priinordium  cepit.''  (Gnomon, 
Luke  i.  5.)  These  calculations  are  made  by  reckoning  backwards  from 
the  date  of  the  destruction  of  the  Temple,  because  that  is  known  as 
having  been  the  9th  of  the  month  Ab,  and  the  course  of  priests  (Jojarib) 
then  serving,  is  also  known. 

8  The  village  of  Juttah,  in  the  "  hill-country  "  of  Judea,  south  of 
Hebron,  has  been  con  j  ectured  by  Reland  (  Pa  1.  ,  p.  870)  to  have  beeu  the  home 
of  Zacharias  ;  but  Hebron  has  the  support  of  long-standing  Rabbinical 
tradition.  Juttah  is  supported  by  Dr.  Robinson,  Winer,  Renan,  and 
Arnold;  Hebron  by  Keini  (vol.  i.  p.  472),  Ewald  (vol.  v.  p.  213),  and 
most  others.  Caspari  thinks  a  place  in  the  Wady  Bettir,  near  Jerusalem, 
Kirbet  el  Jehud  by  name,  —  which  in  Hebrew  would  be  iTTirP  V17  (irfau 


'lovSa),  the  name  given  by  St.  Luke,  —  to  have  been  John's  birthplace. 

*  This  was  the  name  of  Aaron's  wife,  in  the  form  Elisheba  —  jn^vS 
("  God  her  oath,"  that  is,  a  worshipper  of  God).  —  Exod.  vi.  23.     Fiirst 
renders  it,  "El  de*  Bnnde*,"  "  the  Covenant  God." 

Zechariah.  Heb.  i"I*"12t  ("  whom  God  remembers)."  A  name  singularly 
striking  in  his  case. 

u  Commandments  —  evro\a.l.  Moral  precepts,  injunctions,  prohibitions 
(Mark  x.  19  ;  xii.  28).  •  But  also  traditions  of  the  Rabbis  (Titus  i.  14),  or 
precepts  of  the  Mosaic  Law  (Mark  x.  5). 

Ordinances  —  8iKa.iwfia.Ta..  Decrees,  ordinances,  precepts,  rites,  and 
ceremonies.  —  Heb.  ix.  1.  But  also  the  p  >sitive  requirements  of  the  Law 
of  Moses,  —  Rom.  ii.  26.  Meyer  is  therefore  evidently  right  in  saying  that 
"  the  distinction  made  by  Calvin  and  Bengel  between  the  two  words  — 
frro\7i  being  referred  to  moral  precepts,  Si/ccu'w/xara  to  ceremonial  —  is  not 
well  founded."  —  Kommentar  :  Luc.  i.  6. 

*  Thus  a  citizen  of  Nablus,  whose  name  was  Abdallah,  was  known, 
after  the  birth  of  a  son  to  him,  as  Abu  Dadud  (the  father  of  Dadud), 
and  the  mother,  in  the  same  way,  was  thenceforth  Im  Dadud  (the  mother 
of  Dadud).     "  The  new  name  tbus  adopted  is  used,  not  only  in  common 
parlance,  but  also  on  the  gravest  occasions,  and  even  in  legal  documents." 
—  hill's  Nablus,  p.  119. 

See,  on  this  subject  generally,  Ewald's  Alterthiimer,  pp.  276  ff. 

y  I  have  reckoned  the  cubit  as  18  inches.  The  common  cubit  was 
204-8  lines  =  18  inches.  The  sacred  cubit  '234-33  lines  =  21  £  inches. 

T  Josephus  several  times  speaks  of  the  Temple  as  an  exact  square  of 
a  stadium  =  606f  English  feet.—  Ant.,  xv.  11.  3,  9. 

The  Talmud,  which  is  the  only  other  written  authority,  says  that  the 
Temple  was  a  square  of  500  cubits  (Mischna,  v.  334),  biit  the  Rabbis  ex- 
plain that  in  this  case  the  cubit  was  only  15  inches,  which  would  make 
the  square  625  feet.  I  do  not  understand  how  Jost  (vol.  i.  p.  139)  can 
make  it  to  have  been  a  square  of  500  cubits,  each  cubit  equal  to  6  hand- 
breadths  (jede  Seite  500  Ellen,  die  Elle  zu  6  Handbreiten),  as  this  would 
give  a  square  of  about  1,000  feet.  Yet  Captain  Warren,  R.E.,  wbo  is  a 
very  high  authority,  gives  it  as  the  result  of  his  prolonged  researches  on 
the  spot,  that  the  Temple  square  must  have  been  one  of  900  feet.  — 
Recovery  of  Jerusalem,  p.  310.  The  whole  size  of  the  platform,  on  part 
of  which  the  Temple  stood,  is,  however,  much  larger.  It  measures  about 
1,500  feet  from  north  to  south,  and  about  900  feet  from  east  to  west 


526  NOTES. 

Almost  in  the  centre  of  this  plateau  is  an  irregular,  four-sided,  paved 
platform,  rising  some  sixteen  feet  above  the  general  level  of  the  plateau, 
and  above  the  centre  of  this  platform  the  summit  of  the  Sacred  Hill 
crops  out,  inside  a  Mahomedan  building  known  as  the  Dome  of  the  Bock. 
— Recovery  of  Jerux. ,  p.  312.  This  spot  is  supposed  by  many  to  have 
been  the  site  of  the  Holy  of  Holies.  The  whole  immense  area,  once 
covered  with  royal  or  sacred  buildings,  has  been  created  artificially,  by 
building  up  huge  walls  on  the  four  sides  from  the  valleys  below,  and 
filling  in  the  space  thus  obtained,  with  earth,  etc.,  when  it  was  not  utilized 
by  substructures,  in  the  shape  of  tanks,  arches,  etc.  The  size  of  the 
tanks  may  be  imagined  when  it  is  stated  that  the  total  number  of 
gallons  of  water  which  could  be  stored  in  those  now  known,  probably  ex- 
ceeded ten  millions. — Recovery  of  Jerus.,  p.  17." 

•*  The  Jews  called  these  points  "  raven-scarers  "  2"NU.  The  roof  it- 
self seems  to  have  had  low  gables  with  a  balustrade  all  round  it. 

•*  The  interior  of  the  Temple,  strictly  so  called,  seems  to  have  been 
only  about  30  feet  by  60. 

««  Josephus  says  they  were  55  cubits  (82  feet)  high,  and  16  cubits  (24 
feet)  wide. — Bell.  Jud.,  v.  5.  4. 

dd  The  Veil  of  the  Temple,  according  to  the  vice  high-priest  (Sagan) 
Simon,  who  had  seen  it,  was  woven  with  72  stratfds.  Each  strand  con- 
tained 24  threads ; — 6  of  purple-blue,  6  of  purple-red,  6  scarlet,  and  6 
white.  These  were  the  four  specially  holy  colours. — Delitzsch,  Jud. 
Handwerkerlfben,  p.  15. 

66  This  great  vine  was  made  from  the  gold  offered,  from  time  to  time, 
at  the  Temple,  and  was  the  embodiment  of  a  symbol  often  used  by  the 
prophets. — Jer.  ii.  21 ;  Ezek.  xix.  10 ;  Joel  i.  7 ;  Ps.  Ixxx.  8.  There  was  a 
golden  olive  in  the  Temple  of  Hercules  at  Gades  (Cadiz) ;  and  vines  of 
gold  were  frequent  as  costly  decorations  among  the  Greeks.— Herod.,  vii. 
27;  Pan.,  xxxiii.  15,  et  al.  The  charge  made  against  the  Jews,  that 
they  worshipped  Bacchus,  probably  rose  from  this  temple  ornament ;  and 
it  is  not  impossible  that  our  Lord  may  have  had  a  reference  to  it  when 
He  spoke  of  Himself  as  the  True  Vine.— John  xv.  1. 

u  So,  Winer  (Rauchern).  Others  speak  of  a  third  priest,  who  carried 
out  the  ashes  of  the  preceding  service. 

«t  The  number  of  the  priesthood  prevented  the  danger  of  this,  but 
the  rule  shows  the  dignity  associated  with  the  act. 

hh  Luke  i.  9  ;  it  was  determined  in  the  same  way  who  should  slay  the 
beasts,  who  lay  them  on  the  altars,  who  dress  the  lamps,  etc. 

11  The  "light  of  Jehovah  "  in  Zion,  and  His  ever-burning  "  altar  fire 
ii  Jsrusalem,"  are  alluded  to  in  Isa.  xxxi.  9. 

tt  Num.  iv.  7.  That  is,  the  bread  ever  renewed,  and,  thus,  ever  before 
God. — 1  Sam.  xxi.  6.  It  is  called  the  Bread  of  the  Presence.  So  Lev. 
xxiv.  6,  et  al. 

u  "  When  the  incense  and  prayers  were  ended,  the  parts  of  the  sacri- 
fice were  laid  on  the  altar,  and  then  the  Levites  began  their  psalmody, 
and  their  sounding  the  trumpet." — Lightfoot,  Bora  Hcbraica,  vol.  iii.  p. 
18. 

mm  Tradition    affirmed   that   John  Hyrcanus,   son   and  successor  of 


NOTES.  527 

Simon  Maccabams,  when  alone  in  the  Temple,  offering  incense,  heard  a 
voice  saying  that  his  sons  had  just  then  won  a  victory  over  Antiochua, 
brother  of  the  great  enemy  of  the  nation,  at  Samaria,  which  proved  ti 
be  true. — Jos.  Ant.,  xiii.  10.  3. 

*"*  In  the  Second  Book  of  Maccabees  i.  18-36,  and  ii.  1,  a  curions 
legend  is  given  of  the  preservation  of  the  sacred  fire  during  the  period 
of  the  exile.  Jeremiah  and  other  priests,  we  are  told,  took  it  from  the 
altar,  and  hid  it  in  a  dry  water-cistern,  whence  Nehemiah  recovered  it  by 
a  miracle.  Having  put  wood  in  order,  for  an  offering,  close  by,  he  caused 
water,  drawn  from  the  cistern,  which  was  no  longer  dry,  to  be  poured 
over  it,  and  while  the  priests  prayed  and  sang  around,  the  sun  suddenly 
burst  through  the  clouds,  and  kindled  the  wood  to  a  great  flame,  con- 
suming the  sacrifice.  In  the  time  of  Antiochus  Epiphanes  the  holy  fire 
was  extinguished,  and  the  altar  polluted,  but  legends  soon  rose  to  show 
that  even  in  this  case  the  sacred  flame  had  been  miraculously  preserved. 
— See  Winer,  R.  W.  B.,  Art.  Brando pferaltar,  and  Ewald's  Gesch.,  vol. 
iv.  pp.  210  ff. 

00  Simon  the  Just  (B.C.  221-202). — Zunz,  d.  Gottesdienstliche  Vortrage 
d.  Juden,  p.  36.  The  Son  of  Sirach  lauds  him  as  having  "  beautified 
the  House  of  God,"  and  "  renewed  the  Temple,"  "doubling  the  height 
of  the  wall  of  the  sanctuary."  "  In  his  days,"  he  continues,  "  was  made 
a  water-laver  of  copper,  like  a  sea  in  circumference.  He  guarded  his 
people  against  danger,  and  strengthened  the  city  against  siege." — Chap. 
1.  1-5.  The  Jews,  in  his  time,  were  under  the  Greek  dynasty  of  Egypt, 
which  the  Greek  dynasty  of  Syria  was  victoriously  assailing.  The 
Egyptian  king,  Ptolemy  Philopator,  in  one  of  his  campaigns,  visited 
Jerusalem,  and  not  only  offered  in  the  Temple,  but  wished  to  go  into  the 
Holy  of  Holies.  The  whole  priesthood,  with  the  high  priest  at  their 
head,  resisted,  begging  and  imploring  him  not  to  profane  the  sacred 
place,  and  the  people  were  with  difficulty  kept  from  rising  in  arms. 
Tradition  says  he  fell  to  the  ground  senseless  as  he  entered  within  the 
veil,  and  had  to  be  carried  out. — Jost,  vol.  i.  p.  109.  Pressel,  in  Herzog, 
vol.  xii.  p.  475. 

Derenbourg  (pp.  46-52)  assigns  no  date  to  Simon's  pontificate,  ita 
exact  time  being  very  uncertain.  Leyrer  (Herzog,  vol.  xv.  p.  297)  assigns 
B.C.  300  as  the  date. 

PP  Lightfoot  assumes  that  it  was  a  Sabbath  day  when  Zacharias 
offered  incense,  as  there  were  few  people  present  on  ordinary  days. 

<w  The  word  in  Greek  refers  to  the  holy  festal  procession,  in  which 
the  people  marched  round  the  Temple  courts,  on  the  great  Day  of  Atone- 
ment.— Fritzsche,  in  loc.  Ewald,  Geschichte,  vol.  iv.  p.  31. 

™  Of  the  Holy  of  Holies,  which  the  high  priest  alone  entered  once  a 
year,  on  that  day. 

88  Literally,  in  the  days  of  the  first-fruits. 

**  To  bring  God  to  a  remembrance  that  Israel  was  His  people. 

nn  The  worship  of  God. 

**  I  have  adopted,  for  the  most  part,  the  translation  of  Fritzsche,  in 
the  Exeg.  Handbuch  z.  d.  Apokryphen. 

yy  Prseludium  legis  ceremonialis  finiendae  Christo  veniente. — Benrjel. 

Origen  (in  Luc  ,  Horn,  v.)  and  Ambrose  (in  Luc.,  lib.  i.  41)  make  similar 
reflections. 


528  NOTES. 

«  The  naming  a  cliild  took  place  on  the  eighth  day,  at  its  circum- 
cision. This  was  then,  as  it  still  is,  an  occasion  of  quiet  rejoicing,  to 
n-hich  the  friends  of  the  family  gather.  The  following  is  the  account  of 
the  ceremony  in  Mill's  British  Jiws  (pp.  8-14). 

"  The  first  thing  to  be  done  is  to  choose  Sandakin — something  similar 
to  a  godfather  and  godmother  in  the  Christian  world.  The  Sandakin, 
however,  undertake  no  future  responsibilities  towards  the  child  ;  all  their 
duties  are  over  on  the  day  of  circumcision.  They  are  generally  husband 
ind  wife,  and  selected  from  among  the  relations  or  immediate  friends  of 
ihe  parents.  .  . 

"  The  parents  must  also  give  the  child  a  name,  that  it  may  be  men- 
tioned  at  the  circumcision.  It  must  be  a  Hebrew  name,  and,  generally, 
one  adopted  in  the  family,  or  that  of  some  celebrated  man.  He  may 
have  another  name,  a  common  one,  by  giving  a  Gentile  turn  to  his 
Hebrew  one,  or  by  adopting  a  Gentile  name  altogether.  For  example, 
his  Hebrew  name  maybe  Mothe,  and  his  common  name  Moses  or  Philip. 
Whenever  he  is  named  in  the  synagogue,  or  elsewhere,  connected  with 
any  religious  duty,  Le  is  called  by  his  Hebrew  name,  but  in  all  other 
affairs  he  is  called  by  his  common  name. 

"  On  the  Friday  evening  before  the  circumcision,  it  is  announced  in 
the  synagogue,  that  to  A.,  son  of  B.,  a  son  is  born  ;  and  after  the  service 
a  few  friends  are  entertained  at  the  parents'  house  with  fruit  and  wine, 
known  by  the  name  Zachar,  i.e.  male.  The  ceremony  ought  to  be  per- 
formed in  the  synagogue,  but  if  the  parents  live  at  a  distance  from  it,  or 
if  the  weather  be  rough,  they  may  have  it  done  at  home.  There  must  be 
ten  persons  present  to  form  a  Minyan,*  or  '  private '  meeting,  and  among 
these  must  be  the  Chozan\  and  the  secretary  of  the  synagogue. 

"  The  child  is  brought  to  the  door  of  the  synagogue  by  the  godmother, 
and  there  is  received  by  the  godfather.  As  he  carries  the  child  towards 
the  congregation  they  say — Blessed  is  he  that  cometh.  In  the  middle  is 
a  large  chair,  with  two  seats,  one  for  the  godfather,  the  other  to  be  left 
vacant:  it  is  the  seat  of  Elijah  the  prophet,  who  is  called  'the  angel  of 
the  covenant,'  who,  it  is  believed,  is  present  to  witness  the  ceremony, 
though  invisible.  .  . 

"  The  rite  performed,  prayers  follow  by  the  official  who  has  thus  ad- 
mitted the  child  to  the  privileges  of  Israel,  and  an  offering  for  the  poor 
concludes  the  ceremony.  There  is  afterwards  a  social  gathering,  in 
honour  of  the  occasion,  at  the  father's  house." 

Among  a  people  so  unchanging  as  the  Jews  the  customs  of  to-day  are 
the  same  as  those  of  the  remote  past,  and  thus  we  have  only  to  give  an 
Eastern  setting  to  this  picture,  to  have  before  us  the  incident  of  the 
circumcision  of  the  infant  Baptist,  nearly  two  thousand  years  ago,  at 
Hebron. 

Ewald  thinks  that  circumcision  is  a  symbolical  dedication  of  the  child 
to  God  by  an  offering  of  part  of  its  body,  the  idea  being  that  its  very 
life  is  a  forfeit,  though  allowed  to  be  redeemed  by  this  acknowledgment 
of  the  fact.J  The  child's  blood  must  he  spilt  that  its  life  be  saved.  It 
v-as  thought  so  well-pleasing  to  God  that  it  could  save  even  a  father's 
life,  as  the  circumcision  of  the  child  of  Moses  saved  that  of  the  great 
lawgiver.§ 


"  Number."  t  Ezra  vi.  17.    The  Reader  (TTaznn). 

-rtlUrUittm,  pp.  121-123.  §  Exod  iv.  24-.;8. 


NOTES.  529 

CHAPTEB  VIII. 

*  This  priest  is  said  in  our  English  version  to  be  the  grandson  of 
Manasseh,  but  it  should  be  Moses.      The  word  Manasseh  is  printed  in  the 

Hebrew  Bible  thus,  n&'-p  the  nun  being  suspended,  so  as  to  show  that  it 
is  in  the  original  text,  though  omitted  in  reading;  the  remaining  letters 
being  read  as  !"IK>O — Moses.  The  copyists  of  the  Old  Testament  HSS. 
were  equally  unwilling  to  own  that  the  descendant  of  Moses  could 
Lave  sunk  to  be  a  priest  of  idols,  or,  on  the  other  hand,  to  alter  the 
sacred  text.  That  the  reading  should  be  Moses  is  granted  by  the  Talmud 
(Haba  buthra,  109a),  but  the  Egyptian  wife  of  Moses  is  blamed  for  the 
grandson's  apostasy.  The  note  of  Raschi  (called  Jarchi),  a  great  Rabbi 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  is — "  On  account  of  the  honour  of  Moses  he  wrote  nun 
to  change  the  name,  and  it  is  written  suspended,  to  show  that  it  waa 
Muses  and  not  Manasseh."  The  Vulgate  retains  the  original  true  reading 
— Moses. 

b  The  later  Rabbis  assigned  a  descent  from  David,  through  the  female 
side,  to  Hillel  "  pour  rehausser  ainsi  1'eclat  des  descendants  de  Hillel." — 
Jjerenbouig,  p.  339. 

c  A  fragment  of  Papias,  the  grammarian  of  the  llth  century,  not  the 
Bishop  of  Hierapolis,*  printed  by  Dr.  Routh  in  his  Eeliqiue  Sacra,  says 
that  both  Mary  the  wife  of  Cleophas,  and  Mary  Salome,  were  aunts  of 
our  Lord,  and  consequently  sisters  of  his  mother. .  The  habit  of  giving 
the  same  name  to  more  members  of  a  family  than  one  was  not  unknown 
among  the  Jews.  Thus  the  high  priest  Onias  III.  had  a  brother  who, 
also,  was  called  Ouias. 

<*  In  the  Talmud  J^np  from  EHf),  "to  be  holy,  or  sacred." 

•  The  school  of  Shammai  fixed  this  at  90  grains  of  pure  gold ;  that  of 
Hillel  fixed  it  at  half  a  grain  of  pure  silver.     The  sum  was  indifferent. 
The  contract  was  binding  if  eveu  a  farthing  was  given. 

(  At  the  present  day  a  Jewish  betrothal  is  effected  thus  : — The  parties 
and  their  parents,  with  a  number  of  invited  friends,  meet  at  an  appointed 
time,  and  a  deed  of  penalty,  which  has  been  drawn  up,  is  read  to  the 
company.  A  certain  sum  is  named  as  forfeited  to  the  other  party  should 
either  break  the  engagement.  A  cup  is  then  broken,  as  a  sigu  that  a 
covenant  is  made,  and  a  betrothal  feast  follows.  This  takes  place  six  or 
twelve  months,  or  even  longer  in  some  cases,  before  the  marriage. — Mill's 
British  Jews,  p.  25. 

On  Jewish  Betrothal,  see  Godwyn's  Aaron  and  Moses,  p.  231 ;  Winer 
]t.  W .  B.,  Herzog's  Ency.,  and  Schenkel's  Bibel  Lexicon,  Arts.  Eke,  etc. ; 
Dr.  Ginsburg's  Art.  Marriage,  in  Kitto's  Cyclo.  of  Bib.  Lit.,  etc. 

8  The  morning  and  evening  sacrifice  were  at  the  third  hour  (9  a.m.), 
and  at  the  ninth  hour  (3  p.m.),  respectively. 

h  6#77eXos  (the  angel)  is  wanting  in  the  MSS.  B.,  L.,  and  is  omitted 
by  Tischendorf. 

The  MSS.  etc.  to  which  reference  may  be  made  hereafter,  are  distin- 
guished in  different  ways,  according  to  the  class  to  which  they  belong. 
The  most  important  authorities  for  the  New  Testament  text  are  tha 

•  See  LigUfoot  on  the  Galatiane,  ed.  2,  p.  261,  note.     (1866.) 
35 


530  NOTES. 

Greek  Uncial  MSS.,  tbat  is,  those  written  in  capital  letters.  The  prin- 
cipal ones  are  :  1.  The  Sinaiticits,  known  by  the  sign  tf.  Its  date  is  the 
third  quarter  of  the  fourth  century  ;  it  contains  the  complete  New  Testa- 
ment. 2.  A.  Alexandrinus.  Date,  first  quarter  of  fifth  century;  New 
Testament,  nearly  complete.  3.  B.  Vaticanus.  First  quarter  of  fourth 
century  ;  New  Testament,  with  some  parts  wanting.  For  the  sake  of 
simplicity  I  shall  refer  to  these  by  their  first  letters  —  S,  A,  and  V.  They 
are  by  far  the  most  important  authorities.  4.  C.  Ephraemi.  Second 
quarter  of  fifth  century  ;  New  Testament,  but  with  a  considerable  por- 
tion wanting.  5.  D.  Bezce.  First  quarter  of  sixth  century  ;  Gospels 
and  Acts  with  lacuna.  6.  E.  Basiliensis.  Eighth  century  ;  the  four 
Gospels,  with  some  lacunae  in  St.  Luke.  7.  F.  Boreali.  Ninth  cen- 
tury :  four  Gospels,  many  lacunae.  8.  G.  Wolfii  A.  Tenth  century; 
four  Gospels,  but  many  lacunae.  9.  H.  Wolfii  B.  Ninth  century  ;  four 
Gospels,  but  many  lacunae.  10.  I.  Tischend»r/inus  II.  Fifth  to  seventh 
century;  fragments  of  Gospels,  Acts,  1  Corinthians,  and  Titus.  11.  K. 
Cyprius.  First  quarter  of  ninth  century  ;  four  Gospels  complete.  12.  L. 
Regius.  Eighth  or  ninth  century  ;  four  Gospels,  complete  except  sixty- 
six  verses.  13.  M.  Campianus.  Fourth  quarter  of  ninth  century  ;  four 
Gospels  complete.  14.  N.  Pu>purens.  Last  quarter  of  sixth  century  ; 
small  fragments  of  each  Gospel.  15.  P.  Guelpherbi/tanus  A.  Sixth 
century;  small  fragments  of  four  Gospels.  16.  Q.  Gudpherlxjtanus  B. 
Fifth  or  sixth  century  ;  fragments  of  SS.  Luke  and  John.  17.  B.  Nitri- 
eiisis.  Sixth  century  ;  fragments  of  St.  Luke  only.  18.  S.  Vaticanus. 
No.  354.  Tenth  century  ;  four  Gospels  complete.  19.  T.  Boryianus  I. 
Fifth  century  ;  some  parts  of  St.  John's  Gospel.  20.  U.  Nanianus  I. 
Tenth  century  ;  four  Gospels  complet  .  21.  V.  Mosquensis.  Eighth 
or  ninth  century  ;  four  Gospels,  as  far  as  John  vii.,  with  lacunae.  22.  X. 
Moiuicensis.  Ninth  century;  four  Gospels,  with  many  lacunae.  23.  Z. 
Ditltliiiensis.  Sixth  century  ;  fragments  of  St.  Matthew  only.  An  easily 
accessible  list  of  these  and  the  other  classes  of  MSS.  "of  inferior  value, 
with  interesting  details,  will  be  found  in  McClellau's  New  Testament,  vol. 
i.,  and  in  the  l)ictionary  of  tlie  Bible,  Art.  New  Testament.  Lists  of  the 
ancient  versions  of  the  New  Testament  are  also  given,  but  I  shall  not 
refer  to  these  or  to  the  inferior  MSS.  Fuller  lists  may  be  found  in  Mill's 
Prolegomena,  Scholz,  Tischendorf,  and  elsewhere. 


E.  V.  "  highly  favoured."  Mr.  Meyrick,  in  Smith's 
Bib!e  Dictionary,  translates  it  "  Thou  that  hast  bestowed  on  thee  a  free 
gift  of  grace."  Webster  and  Wilkinson  give  it  as  "  endued  with  favour." 
Meyer,  "  Welcher  Huld  (von  Gott)  widerfahren  ist  "  (who  has  found 
favour  with  God).  De  Wette,  "Begnadigte,"  which  is  much  the  same 
in  meaning  ;  and  so  Oosterzee  and  others.  Bengel  has  the  fine  note  : 
"  Non  ut  mater  gratiaa  sed  ut  filia  gratiae  "  (not  as  mother  but  as  child  of 
grace). 

Mr.  Meyrick  translates  the  words  6  Ktf/>tos  /tera  <rou  —  "  the  Lord  be  with 
thee  ;  "  but  he  is  apparently  alone  in  this.  "  Blessed  art  thou  among 
women,"  is  wanting  in  S,  V,  L,  and  in  many  of  the  ancient  versions.  It 
ia  rejected  by  Tischendorf. 

k  Jesus.  The  name  Jesus  is  a  later  form  of  Joshua.  The  name  origin- 
ally was  ttg>ln,  Hoshea,  "  he  saves  "  —  Num.  xiii.  8,  16.  This  was  changed 
by  Moses  into  W^tn^  '«  Jehovah  (is)  his  help  or  salvation."  It  is  given 
thus  (Jchofhua)  in  the  English  version,  Num.  xiii.  16  ;  1  Chron.  vii 


NOTES.  531 


27.  Elsewhere  he  is  called  Joshua.  After  the  exile  he  is  called 
Jeshua,  Neh.  viii.  17,  and  this  in  the  Greek  became  Jtsus  —  the  Greek 
'ITJO-OUJ.  A  striking  illustration  of  the  sense  in  which  St.  Matthew  uses 
this  form,  Jesus,  "  for  He  shall  save  His  people  from  their  sins,"  occurs 
in  Ecclus.  xlvi.  1,  where  it  is  said  of  Joshua  (Jesus)  —  ds  tyevero  (car  i 
TO  6vofta  aiirov  /xeyas  eirl  fftartjpiq.  €K\eicruv  avrov  —  who,  accord  ing 
to  his  name,  was  made  great  for  the  saving  of  the  elect  (of  God),  i.e.  the 
Jewish  nation. 

The  name  was  not  uncommon  among  the  Jews.  Ecclesiasticns  was 
written  by  Jesus,  son  of  Sirach,  and  a  Jesus  called  Justus  was  a  fellow- 
•worker  with  St.  Paul  (Col.  iv.  11).  Jason  is  a  Greek  form  of  Jesus,  and 
was  of  frequent  occurrence.  It  is  found  twice  in  the  Apocryphal  list  of 
the  seventy-two  commissioners  sent  by  Eleazar  to  Ptolemy  (Ariat.  Hist. 
ap  Hody,  De  text.,  p.  vii.).  It  is  striking  that  one  Joshua  conquered 
Canaan  and  that  the  first  high  priest  after  the  return  was  another 
Joshua,  Ezra  v.  2.  Several  other  Joshuas  are  mentioned  in  the  Old  Test- 
ament, and  there  was  a  town  called  Jeshua  in  Judah  (Neh.  xi.  26). 
Some  of  the  Fathers,  not  knowing  Hebrew,  fancied  that  "  Jesus  "  was  of 
Greek  origin,  and  traced  it  to  fa<ris  (lasis)  "  healing,"  but  not  more  cor- 
rectly that  when  they  derived  AidSoXos  from  Svo  and  /Jc3\oj,  because  the 
devil  swallows  man  at  two  bites,  first  of  the  soul  and  then  of  the  body. 
The  fancy  has  often  been  set  at  work  to  find  hidden  meanings  in  the 
name  of  our  Lord.  Thus  the  Valentinians,  according  to  Irenseus  (lib.  ii. 
c.  41)  held  it  to  mean  "  Him  who  possesseth  Heaven  and  earth,"  because 
the  three  letters  in  the  Hebrew  form  of  it  12",  are,  respectively,  the  first 
letters  of  the  words  nT!"P  (Jehovah).  D^Ct?  (heaven),  and  p~)JO  (and  the 
earth),  thus  making  up  "Jehovah  of  heaven  and  earth."  Osiauder,  one 
of  the  most  learned  of  the  Eeformers,  was  equally  fanciful,  for  he  main- 
tained that  Jesus  is  no  other  than  the  name  which  it  is  not  lawful  to 
utter  —  the  Shem-hamphorash  —  "rendered  unutterable  by  the  insertion 
of  the  letter  E>."  The  phrase  itself  BnbSH  D£*  may  mean  "  the  name 
distinctly  declared."  See  Neh.  viii.  8,  where  Knbp  is  used  adverbially 
for  "distinctly."  Or  —  "the  name  which  reveals"  —  or  "the  name 
known"  (only  to  the  initiated).  It  is  an  invention  of  the  Jewish 
Kabbala,  and  it  is  no  wonder  that  its  meaning  is  disputed,  for  no  crazed 
brain  ever  created  wilder  confusions  and  follies  than  those  which  make 
up  this  system.  Any  one  who  wishes  may  find  details  to  his  satisfaction 
in  the  articles  Kabbala  and  Jehovah,  by  Keuss  and  Oehler,  in  Herzog. 
One  of  the  Fathers  says,  in  reference  to  the  number  of  persons  in  Scrip- 
ture bearing  the  name  of  Jesus  —  "  In  tanta  multitudine  scripturarum 
neminem  s  dmus  Jesum  peccatorem  "  —  but  the  wish,  as  in  too  many 
cases,  is  father  to  the  thought  ! 

1  The  genealogies  given  by  both  Matthew  and  Luke  seem  unquestion- 
ably to  refer  to  Joseph.  Meyer,  De  \Vette,  Lord  Hervey,  McClellan,  and 
others,  who  may  be  taken  as  representing  different  schools  of  thought, 
agree  in  this.  Matthew  seems  to  give  Joseph's  legal  descent  as  heir  of 
David's  throne;  Luke  his  private  genealogy.  Through  him,  Jesus,  aa 
his  adopted  son,  became  his  legal  heir.  Lord  Hervey,  like  many  others, 
supposes  that  Mary  was  the  daughter  of  Jacob  (Matt.  i.  16),  and,  in  this 
way,  the  cousin  of  Joseph,  and  that  thus,  in  point  of  fact,  if  not  in  form, 
both  genealogies  are  as  much  hers  as  his.  But  apart  from  hypothesis, 
which  must  always  be  unsatisfactory,  the  descent  of  Mary  from  David. 


532  NOTES. 

though  not  established  like  that  of  Joseph  by  a  transcript  from  the 
public  registers,  is  abundantly  proved  by  the  constant  testimony  of  the 
New  Testament  See  Matt.  i.  1 ;  Acts  ii.  30  ;  Rom.  i.  3  ;  2  Tim.  ii.  8 ; 
Heb.  vii.  14;  John  vii.  41,  42;  Eev.  v.  5,  xxii.  16.  Jesus  Himself,  in- 
deed, assumes  a  descent  from  David  as  necessary  in  the  Messiah  (Matt. 
xxii.  42).  Ensebius  (bk.  i.  c.  7)  mentions  descendants  of  our  Lord  s 
family,  known  as  the  Desposyui  (TTCHS  TOV  dfcnrorov  ecrri — Suidas)  as  living 
in  Nazara  and  Coebata.  villages  of  Judea,  and  relates  from  Hegesippus 
how  they  were  summoned  before  the  Emperor  Dornitian  as  being  of  the 
lineage  of  David  (bk.  iii.  c.  20).  I  shall  allude  to  this  hereafter.  There 
is  a  further  striking  confirmation  of  our  Lord's  descent  from  David  in  a 
statement  by  Ulla,  a  Rabbi  of  the  third  century,  that  "  Jesus  was  treated 
in  an  exceptional  way,  becatise  He  was  <>f  the  royal  race." — Sanhedrln 
43a  (in  uumutilated  editions),  quoted  by  Derenbourg,  L'Histoire  de  la- 
Palestine,  p.  349. 

m  The  relationship  of  Mary  to  Elisabeth  is  not  known.  It  was  probably 
a  connection  through  marriage,  which  the  fact  of  Mary's  family  belong- 
ing to  the  tribe  of  Judah,  and  Elisabeth's  to  that  of  Levi,  did  not  at  all 
affect.  Marriages  between  members  of  different  tribes  were  customary. 
The  traditions  respecting  Mary's  family  are  numerous  and  curious.  Thus 
she  is  said,  in  the  Pr<>tevang.Jac.,&nd  in  the  Hi*tor.  de  A'u/iv.  Maria,  to 
have  been  the  daughter  of  Joachim,  a  prosperous  owner  of  sheep  aud 
cattle,  and  of  Anna,  a  daughter  of  the  priest  Matthan  (Matt.  i.  15),  tho 
grandfather  of  Joseph  and  Mary. —  Niceph,  H,  E.,  ii.  3.  She  was  born 
when  both  her  parents  were  old,  and  was  baptized  by  Peter  and  John. — 
Coteler,,  ad  Herm.,  iii.  9,  16. 

n  Acts  i.  14.  Tradition  relates  that  Mary  lived  with  John  till  her 
death  at  the  age  of  fifty-nine,  in  the  fifth  year  of  Claudius,  at  Ephesus, 
•whither  she  had  followed  her  guardian. 

0  Compare  Mary's  hymn  with  Hannah's  (1  Sam.  ii.  1-10)  and  Judith's 
(Judith  xvi.  2-17)  throughout.      "  Low  estate,'1  TaTreivuais.     Acts  viii. 
33:  "  in  his  humiliation  his  judgment  was  taken  away."     James  i.  10: 
"  But  the  rich,  in  that  he  is  made  low."     Phil.  iii.  21 :  "  Our  vile  body  " 
(the  body  of  our  humiliation). 

P  The  principal  Christian  Apocryphal  writings  are  : — 

1.  The  Protevannelium  Jacobi  minoris  is  of  a  very  early  date.     It  is 
noticed  by  Origen  (A.I>.  250),  Epiphanius  (A.D.  402),  and  other  Fathers; 
and  some  of  the  incidents  it  contains  are  spoken  of  by  Justin  Martyr 
(A.D.  K'6),  and  Clement  of  Alexandria  (A.D  217). 

2.  The  Evangelium  de  Nativitate  S.  Maria  seems  to  date  from  the 
sixth  century. 

3.  The  Historia  de  Nativitate  Marice  is  of  uncertain  date. 

4.  The  Evangelium  Iiifantite  Servatoris  (the  Gospel  of  the  Infancy) 
vnibraces  narratives  whicb  were  current  in  the  second  century. 

5.  The  ErangeLium  Thomce  Ixrarlitce.     This  is  supposed  to  have  been 
the  foundation  of  all  the  Gospels  of  the  Infancy  of  our  Lord,  though  it 
has  been  recast  and  altered. 

These  five  are  known  as  the  Gospels  of  the  Infancy. 

1  There  were  little  children,  thus,  in  the  chambers  round  the  Temple ; 
but,  as  in  the  case  of  Mary,  they  lived  in  it  only  while  quite  young. 
Mary  left  it,  we  are  told,  when  she  was  fourteen. — Hoj'mann,  Das  Lr6e» 
Jexu  itac/t  d;n  Apokrijphen,  p.  36. 


NOTES.  533 

r  Mary  is  said  to  have  woven  a  new  "  veil "  for  the  Holy  of  Holies. — 
Hnfmann,  p.  66. 

There  are  Mahomedan  legends  of  the  childhood  of  Mary  very  like 
those  given  here. — See  Weil's  Legends  of  the  Mussulmans,  p.  216. 


CHAPTEB  IX. 

•  Pompeius  captis  Hierosolymis  tributaries  Judseos  fecit." — Chron. 
Euseb.  ad  Olymp.,  p.  179.  Jos.  Ant.,  xiv.  4.  5. 

b  "  Opes  publicse  continebantur,  quantum  civium,  sociorumque,  in 
armis :  quot  classes  regna,  provinciee,  tributa,  et  vectigalia,  et  necessi- 
tatis,  et  largitiones :  quas  cuncta  sua  manu  perscripserat  Augustus." — 
Tac.  Annal.,  i.  11.  See  also  Suetonius,  Aug.,  28:  "  Magistratibus  ao 
Senatu  domum  accitis,  Rationarium  imperil  tradidit."  It  must  have 
been  something  of  the  same  kind  as  the  l)omesday  Book  of  William  the 
Conqueror.  In  the  later  Kepublic  the  census  of  Roman  citizens — that 
is,  of  all  Italy  and  of  the  colonies  which  had  Italian  rights — was  of  small 
importance  to  the  empire,  since  Roman  citizens  were  no  longer  subject 
to  military  conscription,  and  paid  no  direct  taxes.  But  the  census  of 
the  provinces  was  very  different,  its  chief  end  being  the  due  assessment 
of  population  and  property  for  taxation. — Zumpt,  d.  Gcburtxjahr  (Jliristi, 
pp.  147-175.  There  were  apparently  two  kinds  of  direct  taxes  raised 
throughout  the  empire — first,  the  laud  tax  (tribntiun  soli,  or  agri),  and, 
second,  a  poll  or  head  tax  (tributum  capitis).  The  first  was  paid,  partly 
in  kind,  partly  in  money.  Under  the  second,  various  taxeg  seem  to  have 
been  included — the  income  tax,  for  example,  which  was  assessed  much 
as  the  same  tax  is  with  us.  Every  one  was  liable  to  the  head  tax,  and 
the  amount  was  the  same  for  all.  Women  and  slaves  had  to  pay  it  as 
well  as  men.  In  Syria  the  men  were  liable  to  it  from  the  age  of  four- 
teen, the  women  from  that  of  twelve — both  till  the  age  of  sixty-five  ; 
and  only  children  and  the  aged  were  excepted.  Each  householder  had 
to  give  the  particulars  of  his  liabilities,  as  with  us,  aud  the  taxation 
lists  were  made  up  from  these  returns  or  declarations.  There  seems  to 
have  been  a  system  of  "  offices  of  inland  revenue  "  all  over  the  empire, 
to  keep  the  lists  duly  corrected,  and  to  collect  the  imposts.  If  any  one 
owned  land  in  another  district  than  that  in  which  he  lived,  he  had  to  go 
to  that  district  and  make  his  return,  or,  at  least,  had  to  get  it  made  for 
him  in  that  district,  "  for  the  laud  tax  must  be  paid  in  that  district  in 
which  the  particular  land  is  owned." — See  Schiirer's  L.  B.  d.  N.  T.  Zeit- 
geschichte,  pp.  263  ff. 

c  It  is  frequently  said  that  Tacitus  tells  us  (Ann.,  vi.  41)  that  thft 
Clitffi  in  Cilicia,  though  subject  to  a  King  Archelaus,  of  Cappadocia,  were 
required  to  make  census  returns  after  the  Roman  manner,  and  to  sub- 
mit to  tribute.  But,  as  Schiirer  points  out  (N.  T.  Zeitgefchiclite..  p.  272), 
this  passage  does  not  say  that  the  Romans  made  a  census  in  the  terri- 
tories of  Archelaus,  but  that  Archelaus  sought  to  make  one  in  the  Roman 
way  among  a  people  subject  to  himself. 

d  Ewald  thinks  that  this  probably  happened  when  the  people  were 
gathered  together  for  the  registration  or  taxing  to  which  Joseph  and 
Mary  are  related  by  St.  Luke  to  have  come. — Gtschichte,  vol.  v.  p.  206 


534  NOTES. 

The  taking  an  oath  of  allegiance  was  usually  connected  with  a  census.— 
See  authorities  quoted  in  Elsley's  Annotations,  vol.  ii.  p.  145. 

•  The  numbering  of  the  people  under  David,  with  its  fatal  results 
(2  Sam.  xxiv.),  was  deeply  fixed  on  the  Jewish  memory.  It  was,  more- 
over, believed  that  a  census  would  be  the  fulfilment  of  an  old  prophecy 
that  the  kingdoms  of  Syria  (including  Palestine)  and  Egypt  were  to  be 
destroyed. — Grotii,  Annot.,  Luke  ii.  3. 

f  Grotius  remarks,  "  The  custom  of  the  Jews  was  that  a  census  shosld 
be  made  by  tribes,  houses,  and  families.  But  this,  after  the  many  re- 
volutions and  changes  the  Jews  had  suffered,  could  not  be  done,  except 
by  each  person  going  to  the  place  to  which  his  ancestors  had  belonged." 
— AnnotaUones  ad  Luc.,  ii.  3. 

B  The  statement  by  St.  Luke  that  "  this  taxing  was  first  made  when 
Cyrenius " — or  Quirinius,  as  it  should  be  written — "  was  governor  of 
Syria,"  has  provoked  much  discussion.  It  is  urged  tbat  Sentius  Satur- 
ninus  was  governor  of  Syria  from  744  to  748  of  Borne,  and  Quintilius 
Varus  from  748  till  after  Herod's  death,  as  is  supposed,  in  750.  It  has 
been  shown,  however,  by  Zumpt,  that  Quirinius  was  twice  Legate  of  the 
Province  of  Syria,  first  in  750-753  of  fiome,  and  a  second  time,  some 
years  later.*  Caspari  has,  moreover,  shown  very  strong  grounds  (Chrono- 
logisch-Geographixche  Einleitnng,  pp.  28-30)  for  believing  tbat  Herod  did 
not  die  in  750,  as  has  been  supposed,  but  on  tbe  1st  of  Schebet  (24th 
January),  753,  in  which  case  all  difficulty  would  vanish.  Ewald, 
Wieseler,  and  some  others  render  the  verse  of  Luke  :  "  This  taxing  took 
place  before  Qnirinius  was  governor,"  f  etc.;  but  this  is  condemned  by 
Winer  (Grammutik,  1867,  p.  229).  and  cannot  be  sustained.  Kohler  also 
rejects  Wieseler's  translation,  and  supposes  that  the  census  was  begun 
before  Quirinius  came  the  first  time,  but  was  discontinued,  owing  to 
an  uproar  having  been  made,  till  he  arrived,  after  Herod  s  death,  as  is 
supposed,  in  750.  This  is  also  the  explanation  of  Oosterzee. — Kommentar, 
p.  25.  Wieseler  also  supposes  that  the  tumult  with  which  Judas  and 
Mattathias  were  connected,  and  for  which  they  were  burnt  alive,  took 
place  at  this  time. — Herzog's  Ency.,  vol.  xxi.  p.  545.  One  thing  is 
certain,  that  Luke,  who  mentions  the  second  census  (Acts  v.  37),  is,  by 
that  very  fact,  fully  reliable  when  he  speaks  of  an  earlier  one,  at  the 
birth  of  Christ.  Bnnsen  (Bibelwerk,  vol.  ix.  p.  195)  supposes  that  the 
census  in  the  Gospel  took  place  in  tbe  second  half  of  April,  750,  imme- 
diately after  Herod's  deatb  (as  generally  fixed).  Keim  (Jesu  von  Nazaro, 
vol.  i.  p.  398)  and  Meyer  (Kommentar,  in  loc.)  think  Luke  has  mistaken 
the  date  of  Quirinius'  census,  and  Hagenbach  (Kirchenge*chiclite,  vol.  i. 
p.  34)  is  inclined  to  think  with  them ;  but  enough  has  been  said  above 
to  make  it  easy  to  decide  whether  Luke,  at  the  time,  is  likely  to  be  right, 
or  scholars,  nearly  2,000  years  after.  It  is  worth  noting  that  even  so 
destructive  a  critic  as  Ernest  de  Bunsen  (Cl>ronolo<;y  of  the  Bill<',  1874, 
p.  70)  has  to  admit  tbat  Quiiinius  may  have  been  governor  of  Syria  in 
tho  latter  part  of  the  year  750.  See  also  Keim,  vol.  i.  p.  390,  where  the 
whole  subject  is  treated  very  fully. 

Curiously,  the  three  years  specified  as  those  in  which  a  census  was 
taken,  726,  746,  and  767,  were  Jewish  Sabbatic  years,  when  the  laud  lay 

*  Mcrivale's  Roman  Empire,  vol.  Iv.  p.  457. 
t  Ewald's  GtscMchie,  vol.  v.  p.  201.    Ilerzog,  vol.  xxi.  p.  615. 


NOTES.  535 

idle,   and  the  people  were  able  to  travel  where  they  wished,  without 
hindrance. 

h  Luke  ii.  4.  The  tribes  which  sprang  from  the  sons  of  Jacob  were 
called  <f>v\ai  (JTft2?P),  the  branches  which  sprang  1rom  these  Patriarchs 
were  called  warpicd  (JTfnQi/'p),  the  separate  families  were  called  ot/cot 
(JTDS  JV3).  The  second  and  third  words  are  used  here.  Joseph  was 
thus  of  the  direct  family  of  David,  and  of  the  same  branch  to  which 
David  had  belonged. 

1  Lightfoot,  Hora  Hebraicce  (Luke  ii.  8)  says,  "  The  spring  coming  on 
they  drove  their  beasts  into  wildernesses,  or  champaign  grounds,  where 
they  fed  them  the  whole  summer,  keeping  watch  over  them  night  and  day, 
that  they  might  not  be  impaired  either  by  thieves  or  ravenous  beasts. 
The  winter  coming  on,  they  betook  themselves  home  again  with  the 
flocks  and  herds."  He  quotes  the  Talmud  in  illustration,  but  as  Wieeeler 
says,  the  rule  cannot  be  regarded  as  having  been  always  observed.  The 
particular  season  would  decide  for  itself.  Even  in  Canada  I  have  seen  a 
man  ploughing  at  Christmas.  Mr.  Tyrwhitt  Drake  writes  on  the  loth  of 
December,  1872,  from  near  Haifa : — "  The  winter  rains  still  hold  off, 
though  the  quantity  that  fell  in  October  and  November — '  the  former 
rain ' — has  proved  quite  sufficient  to  enable  the  fellahin  to  begin  their 
ploughing.  These  rains  produced  an  immediate  change  in  the  appear- 
ance of  the  country ;  grass  began  to  sprout  all  over  the  hills,  the  wasted 
grain  on  the  threshing-floors  (in  the  open  air)  soon  produced  a  close  en  p 
some  six  inches  high.  The  cyclamen,  white  crocus,  saffron  crocus,  and 
jonquil  are  in  full  flower  on  the  mountains  ;  the  oak  (Qtiercus  cerjilnps)  is 
fast  putting  out  its  new  leaves,  and  in  sheltered  nooks  some  of  the 
hawthorn  trees  are  doing  the  same.  The  Zemzarut  (species  of  Judas 
tree?)  is  gorgeous  at  the  foot  of  Carmel,  with  its  clusters  of  lilac  blos- 
soms."— Quart.  Rep.  of  Palest.  Explor.  Fund,  April,  1873,  p,  61. 

k  The  population  of  Malta,  in  1849,  was  1,182  to  the  square  mile; 
that  of  Middlesex  is  nearly  7,000  to  the  square  mile.  We  must  assume 
that  it  is  an  Oriental  exaggeration  when  Josephus  speaks  of  the  least 
place  having  over  15,000  inhabitants,  but  undoubtedly  the  population 
was  very  great.  See  Furrer  in  Bibel.  Lex.,  Art.  Galilee. 

1  "  He  who  tastes  the  bread  of  a  Samaritan  is  as  one  who  eats  the 
flesh  of  swine." — Pirk.  R.  El.c.38.  "Sychar"  was  even  said  by  the 
Jews,  in  their  hatred,  to  be  derived  from  "IDS'  (Shakur)  to  be  drunken. 

m  The  Talmud  has  the  same  figure  as  is  used  by  St.  Matthew,  of 
Rachel  weeping  for  her  children  (chap,  ii.  ver.  18).  "  When  the  children 
of  Israel,  laden  with  chains,"  it  tells  us,  "  were  being  driven  off  by  the 
Boldiers  of  Nebuchadnezzar  to  Babylon,  the  road  led  past  the  grave  cf 
our  mother  Rachel.  As  they  came  near  her  grave  they  heard  cries  and 
bitter  weeping.  It  was  the  voice  of  Rachel,  who  had  risen  from  her 
ton'b,  aud  was  lamenting  the  fate  of  her  unhappy  children."  Quoted  in 
Rom.  und  Jerusalem,  p.  20. 

n  The  population,  now,  is  about  3,000 ;  the  number  of  houses  about 
600,  and  the  streets  narrow  and  crooked. 

0  Jer.  xli.  17.  2  Sam.  x.  37,  38.  The  word  is  H-IIS  which  occurs  only 
once  in  the  Bible,  but  can  only  mean  a  khan.  It  is  from  "1-13,  "  to  sojourn," 


536  NOTES. 

"  to  dwell  for  a  time  ;"  "13,  "a  stranger,"  "a  traveller." — Gesenius,  Heb, 
Lexicon.     Fiirst's  Hebr.  H.  W,  B. 

The  "  inn  "  (Luke  x.  34)  to  which  the  Good  Samaritan  took  the  man 
who  had  fallen  among  thieves,  was  a  khan.  The  host  was  the  man  in 
charge  of  it,  to  keep  it  clean,  and  attend  in  some  slight  measure  to  the 
•wants  of  travellers  and  their  beasts. 

P  Quicunque  libenter  hospitalitatem  exercet,  ejus  est  paradisus. — 
Jalktit  Rubeni,  xli.  2.  Majus  quid  est  recipere  viatorem  quam  ap- 
pnvitionem  Schechinas  habere. — Shebuoth,  xxxv.  2.  Both  quoted  from 
Schottgen,  by  Winer,  Eealworterbitch,  p.  391.  With  the  Essenes  hospi- 
tality was  a  religious  command.  Among  other  particulars  we  read  that 
"In  every  city  where  they  live  there  is  one  appointed  particularly  to 
take  care  of  strangers,  and  provide  garments  and  other  necessaries  for 
them. — Jos.,  Bell.  Jud.,  ii.  8.  4.  nj'QZJ',  Shechinah,  among  the  later 
Jews,  the  visible  presence  or  glory  of  Jehovah — from  J3&?  "  to  dwell  " — 
in  allusion  to  the  cloud  over  the  Tabernacle,  etc.,  in  which  Jehovah 
dwelt. — Huxtorf,  Lex.  Talrn.,  p.  2394.  In  Luke  ix.  52,  we  see  that  this 
sacred  right  of  hospitality  was  recognised  in  some  cases  even  by 
Samaritans  to  Jews. 

i  Kard\vfj.a  from  naraXiju  "to  unbind,"  "to  unyoke,"  "to  put  up 
for  the  night"  (when  the  beasts  of  burden  are  unloaded).  The  verb 
occurs  Luke  ix.  12  ;  xix.  7,  in  which  latter  passage  it  is  translated  gone 
"to  be  a  guest."  It  has  the  same  meaning  in  the  former  verse.  Even 
at  the  passover.  the  countless  strangers  visiting  the  city,  for  the  feast, 
were  provided  gratuitously  with  the  necessary  apartments,  as  far  as  was 
possible.  They  left,  in  return,  the  skins  of  the  paschal  lambs,  and  the 
vessels  they  had  used  in  the  ceremonies. — Joma,  12a.  See  also,  Luke 
xxii.  10-12 ;  Matt.  xxvi.  18. 

On  the  whole  subject  the  reader  may  consult  articles  by  Vaehinger, 
Buetschi,  and  Lichtenstein,  respectively,  in  Herzog's  Encyklopadie,  vol. 
v.  p.  745;  vol.  vi.  p.  564,  and  vol.  iv.  p.  666. 

*  "  It  is  not  impossible,  to  say  the  least,  that  the  apartment  in  which 
our  Saviour  was  born  was,  in  fact,  a  cave.  I  have  seen  many  such, 
consisting  of  one  or  more  rooms,  in  front  of  and  including  a  cavern, 
where  the  cattle  were  kept." — Thomson's  Land  and  the  Book,  p.  645. 
The  evidence  in  favour  of  "the  manger"  having  been  in  a  cave — most 
likely  the  very  cave  now  shown  as  that  of  the  Nativity — is  exceedingly 
strong.  Justin  Martyr,  a  native  of  the  country,  who  was  born  little 
more  than  a  century  later  (A.D.  103),  speaks  of  our  Lord's  birth  as  having 
taken  place  "  in  a  certain  cave  very  close  to  the  village  " — iv  crmjXcuy  nvl 
ffuveyyvs  rrjs  /ofyujj,  K.T.\. — Tryph.,  chap.  Ixxviii.  Winer  (Art.  Bethlehem) 
refers  to  passages  in  Origen,  Eusebius,  Jerome,  Epiphanius,  and  other 
Fathers,  who  repeat  the  tradition.  So  profound,  indeed,  was  St. 
Jerome's  belief  in  it,  that  he  settled  in  Bethlehem  in  A.D.  386,  and  lived, 
for  thirty  years  after,  in  a  cave  close  beside  the  one  now  said  to  have 
been  the  scene  of  (  hrist's  birth,  to  be  near  so  holy  a  spot ;  nor  would 
the  most  tempting  offers  induce  him  to  leave  it. 

The  limestone  hills  of  Palestine  are  pierced  by  innumerable  caves, 
which  have  in  different  ages  been  used  for  the  most  various  purposes,  as 
a  reference  to  the  word  in  any  concordance  will  show.  They  are  still 
used,  not  only  as  Thomson  describes  above,  but  as  dwellings,  by  shep- 
herds, while  pasturing  their  flocks  in  the  field,  and  by  harvesters, 


NOTES.  537 

through  the  whole  summer. — Robinson's  Pal.,  vol.  i.  p.  353  ;  vol.  iii.  pp. 
10,  215.  Being  quite  dry,  they  are  very  suitable  for  this.  Mr.  Palmer 
found  the  whole  hilly  region  of  the  desert  of  the  Tih,  which  is  south  of 
Judea,  full  of  natural  caverns,  which  had  been  used  for  dwellings,  etc., 
in  former  times,  and  are  even  still  used  in  this  way  by  the  Arabs. — 
Quart.  Statement  of  Pal.  Explor.  Fund,  Jan.,  1871,  p.  38.  Thus,  of  one 
part,  he  says,  "  The  dwellings  consist  principally  of  caves  in  the  natural 
rock,  some  of  them  with  rude  arches  carved  over  the  doorways,  and  all 
of  them  of  the  greatest  antiquity.  The  spots  selected  for  their  excava- 
tions are  small  terraces  on  the  hill-side,  and  these  are  walled  round  with 
mud  fences,  and  form  a  sort  of  courtyard  in  front  of  the  cave  itself,  in 
which  dogs,  goats,  chickens,  children,  and  other  members  of  the  family 
take  the  air." 

8  The  birth  of  Christ,  without  doubt,  took  place  some  years  before  the 
date  at  present  received.  The  Christian  era,  as  we  reckon  it,  was  fixed 
by  Dionysius  Exiguus  (the  small  or  lean),  a  Koman  abbot  of  the  sixth 
century,*  a  Scythian  by  birth  ;  and  it  bears  the  mark  of  the  age  that 
produced  it,  in  its  incorrectness.  The  date  of  Christ's  birth  is  calculated 
from  various  notes  of  time,  some  of  which  are  as  follows  : — 

1.  We  know  from  the  Talmud,  that  on  the  day  of  the  destruction  of 
Jerusalem — the  9th  of  the  month  Ab,  the  4th  of  August,  A.D.  70 — the 
first  of  the  twenty-four  classes  of  priests,  that  of  Jojarib,  was  on  duty. 
— M.   Taanith,   iv.   6,  quoted    by   Derenbourg,    L'Histoire,   etc.,   de    la 
Palestine,  p.  291.     This  can  be  proved  to  be  correct,  for  tho  passage 
above  quoted  says  that  the  9th  Ab  was  a  Sabbath  day,  and  it  has  been 
found  that  it  really  was  so.     It  is  easy  to  reckon  backwards  from  this, 
and  find  on  what  months  of  the  years  before  Herod's  death  the  course  of 
Abia  entered  on  its  term  of  service ;  and  it  is  found  that  it  did  so,  for 
its  autumn  duty,  on  the  3rd  of  October,  748,  and  ended  its  week  on  the 
9th. 

2.  Christ  was  certainly  born  before  the  death  of  Herod,  who,  at  the 
earliest  did  not  die  before  March,  750.     Josephus  says  that  Archelaus, 
his  son,  was  banished  in  the  tenth  year  of  his  ethnarchy  (ArMq.,  xvii. 
13.  2),  or  in  the  ninth  (Bell.,  ii.  7.  3)  ;  but  elsewhere  (Antiq.,  xviii.  2.  1) 
he  says  that  his  property  had  already  been  confiscated  in   the  thirty- 
seventh  year  after  the  battle  of  Actium,  which  would  be  the  year  760. 
His  banishment  must  have  taken  place,  therefore,  at  the  latest,  by  760, 
and  thus  Herod  would  seem  to  have  died  in  750  or  751.     But  Josephuj 
tells  us  that  an  eclipse  of  the  moon  took  place  shortly  before  Herod  died, 
and  it  is  found  that  there  was  one  on  the  13th  of  March,  750.     This  has 
been  thought  to  confirm  the  date  of  750  as  that  of  Herod's  death. 

3.  The  visit  of  the  Magi.     These  illustrious  visitors  perhaps  came  from 
the  neighbouring   Arabia,   and  were  induced   to   make  the  journey  to 
Bethlehem  on  astrological  grotinds.     Now  it  appears  that  there  was  & 
"conjunction  "  of  Jupiter  and  Saturn,  in  the  sign  Pisces,  in  the  year  747, 
A  year  later  Mars  was  in  conjunction  with  both  the  other  planets,  and, 
a  year  later  still,  a  new,  hitherto  unseen  star  or  other  heavenly  body, 
came  into  sight — that  is,  in  749  or  750.     It  is  striking  that  the  Babbis 
believed  that  there  had  been  a  conjunction  of  Jupiter  and  Saturn  in  the 
constellation  of  the  Fish  three  years  before  the   birth   of    Moses,   and 
expected  a  repetition  of  the  same  phenomenon  before  the  birth  of  the 

*  He  died  A.D.  556. 


538  NOTES. 

Messiah.  The  knowledge  of  this  belief  may  have  led  the  Magi  to  make 
the  journey.  Professor  Pritchard,  has,  however,  pointed  out  that,  at 
their  conjunctions,  the  planets  Jupiter  and  Saturn  were  never  seen  as  a 
single  star,  hut,  at  their  nearest,  were  at  the  very  considerable  distance 
from  each  other  of  double  the  moon's  diameter  (M.  R.  A.  S.,  vol.  xxv.). 
But  Wieseler  (p.  61)  shows  from  a  notice  of  Miinter,  that  "  the  astro- 
nomical tables  of  the  Chinese  actually  record  the  appearance,  for  seventy 
days,  of  a  new  .star  in  750,  and  this  is  corroborated  by  Hmuboldt  (Kosnws, 
vol.  i.  p.  389,  anm.  iii.  p.  561).  and  by  the  astronomer  Piugre  (Cometo- 
graphie,  torn.  i.  p.  281),  who  calls  this  new  star  a  comet,  and  records  the 
appearance  of  two  comets— one  in  February  and  March,  749,  and  the 
other  in  April  750  (ll'ii'seler,  p.  62).  If  those  comets  be  accepted  as 
the  Star  of  the  Messiah,  to  which  the  previous  conjunction  of  the  planets 
had  attracted  the  attention  of  the  Magi,  Christ  would  appear  to  have 
been  born  in  749  or  750. 

4.  The  date  of  the  census,  which  I  have  noticed  already,  is  another 
datum  from  which  the  time  of  Christ's  birth  is  reckoned. 

The  season  at  which  Christ  was  born  is  inferred  from  the  fact  that  he 
was  six  mouths  younger  than  John,  respecting  the  date  of  whose  birth 
we  have  the  help  of  knowing  the  time  of  the  annunciation  during  his 
father's  ministrations  in  Jerusalem. 

htill,  the  whole  subject  is  very  uncertain.  Ewald  appears  to  fix  the 
date  of  the  birth  as  five  years  earlier  than  our  era.  Petavius  and  Usher 
fix  it  as  on  the  25th  of  December,  five  years  before  our  era  ;  Bengel,  ou 
the  25th  December,  four  years  before  our  era ;  Anger  and  Winer,  four 
years  before  our  era,  in  the  spring;  Scaliger,  three  years  before  our  era, 
in  October ;  St.  Jerome,  three  years  before  our  era,  on  December  25th  ; 
Eusebius,  two  years  before  our  era,  on  January  6  ;  and  Ideler,  seven 
years  before  our  era,  in  December. 

4  Joseph's  two  sons  by  his  former  wife. 

n  See  Les  Evanr/iles  Apocryphes,  par  Gustave  Brtinet.  Hofmann,  Das 
Leben  Jesu  nach  d.  Apocryphen. 

x  Eusebius,  Bishop  of  Caesarea  (A.D.  264-340)  wrote  a  topographical 
account  of  places  mentioned  in  Scripture.  To  this  the  name  Onomasticon 
is  given. 

y  On  the  more  dangerous  pasturages,  towers  were  erected,  into  the 
enclosures  of  which  the  herds  might  be  driven  on  the  approach  of 
enemies,  and  in  which  the  shepherds  themselves  might  find  safety.  In 
Gen.  xxxv.  21,  there  is  a  village  mentioned  near  Bethlehem,  named, 

"  The  Tower  of  the  Flock  "  TlV  ^1}*9  See  also  2  Chron.  xxvi.  10. 
In  Micah  iv.  8,  Migdal  Eder  is  us^d  for  the  city  of  Bethlehem  itself 
(Gfteniiu),  or  for  a  tower  on  Mount  Zion  (Fiirst). 

'  The  Greek  is  "watching  the  watches  of  the  night."  The  night 
watches  were  four  in  numher,  and  ended  at  9,  12,  3,  and  6. 

"*  There  is  no  article  before  "  angel  "  in  the  Greek. 

bb  «i  rphe  glory  of  the  Lord."  The  celestial  splendour  round  about 
God — the  Shechinah  of  the  Kabbis.  The  expression  is  used  of  the 
heavenly  splendour  revealed  to  St.  Stephen  (Acts  vii.  55),  of  the  over- 
powering  light  that  will  surround  Christ  at  His  second  coming  (2  Tiiess. 
i.  9),  of  the  radiant  splendour  of  the  New  Jerusalem  (Rev.  xxi.  11,  23) 


NOTES.  539 

This  latter  verse  may  be  fitly  quoted  in  connection  with  the  vision  seen 
by  the  shepherds — "  And  the  city  had  no  need  of  the  sun,  neither  of  the 
moon,  to  shine  in  it :  for  the  glory  of  God  did  lighten  it,  and  the  Lamb 
is  the  light  thereof." 

00  Travrl  T<£  Xa£,  "  to  the  whole  people  "  (of  Israel). 
dd  There  is  no  article  before  "  babe  "  in  the  Greek. 

ee  The  Vulgate  reads  euSoictas,  instead  of  e^Soda,  its  version  beifig 
"  hominibus  bonae  voluntatis."  Tischendorf,  Meyer,  Tregelles,  Alford, 
and  a  number  of  others,  support  tbis  reading,  but  Meyer  candidly  admits 
that  weighty  authorities  are  to  be  found  for  both  readings. 

Meyer's  translation  is  "  Preis  [ist]  in  Hitnmel  Gotte,  und  auf  Erden 
Heil  unter  Menschen,  welche  wohlgefalleu,"  which  he  paraphrases  thus 
— "  God  is  praised  in  heaven,  by  the  angels,  on  account  of  the  birth  of 
the  Messiah  ;  and  peace,  with  all  its  joys,  has  begun  its  reign  on  earth, 
among  men  who  enjoy  the  favour  of  God." 

Griesbach,  Bengel,  Kuinoel,  Oosterzee,  Godet,  McClellan,  Webster, 
Wilkinson,  Scrivener,  siipport  the  received  text.  It  is  the  reading  in  the 
MSS.  Kc,  B3,  E,  G,  H,  and  others.  The  genitive  is  found  in  N*,  A,  B*, 
D.  Ital.  Vulg. 

But,  not  to  lay  stress  upon  the  violation  of  rhythm  by  using  the 
genitive,  the  sense  seems  also  to  require  the  nominative.  "  Peace  to 
men  of  good  will  on  earth  "  is  Dr.  Farrar's  rendering,  and  is  thought  by 
him  to  "best  maintain  the  obvious  poetic  parallelism."  Whether  it  do 
so,  the  reader  can  judge.  As  to  the  sense,  the  introduction  of  the  idea 
of  the  elect  as  those  to  whom  only  the  message  of  the  Saviour  is  pro- 
claimed by  the  angels  is  equally  opposed  to  the  declarations  of  God's 
loving  the  world,  aud  to  the  grandeur  of  Christ's  mission.  I  therefore 
retain  the  reading  of  the  received  text. 

Some  of  Bengel's  notes  on  this  passage  are  very  striking.  Thus : 
ver.  9  :  "  d^eXos,  angelus.  In  omni  humiliatione  Christi,  per  decoram 
quandam  protestationem  cautum  est  gloriaa  ejus  divinse.  Hoc  loco,  per 
prseconinm  angeli :  in  circumcisione,  per  nomen  Jesu :  hi  purificatione, 
per  testimoniuin  Simeonis :  in  baptismo,  per  exceptionem  Baptist® ;  in 
passione,  modis  longe  plarimis."  Ver.  14 :  "  Gloria  in  excelsissimis  Deo 
[sit] ,  et  in  terra  pax  [sit] ;  cur  ?  quoniam  in  hominibus  beneplacitum 
[est] .  tv  {i\j/l<rTois — in  excelsissimis.  Non  dicunt :  in  ccelo  ubi  etiam 
angeli:  sed,  rara  locutione,  in  excelsissimis,  quo  angeli  non  aspirant." 

f£  Curiously,  the  Talmud  ranks  shepherds  among  those  whose  callings 
were  to  be  avoided.  "  Let  no  one,"  says  it,  "  make  his  son  an  ass- 
driver,  a  camel-driver,  a  barber,  a  sailor,  a  shepherd,  or  a  shopkeeper — • 
they  are  dishonest  callings."  (Quoted  by  F.  Delitzsch,  in  Jiidisches 
Handwerkerlebtn  zur  Zeit  Jesu,  p.  42.) 

88  "It  is  common  to  find  two  sides  of  the  one  room  where  the  nativo 
farmer  resides  with  his  cattle  fitted  up  with  these  mangers,  and  tho 
remainder  elevated  about  two  feet  higher,  for  the  accommodation  of  the 
family.  The  mangers  are  built  of  small  stones  and  mortar,  in  the  shape 
of  a  box,  or  rather  of  a  kneading-trough,  and,  when  cleaned  tip  and 
whitewashed,  as  they  often  are  in  summer,  they  do  very  well  to  lay  little 
babes  ia.  Indeed,  ~»ur  own  children  have  slept  in  them,  hi  our  rude 
summer  retreats  on  the  mountains." — Thomson's  Land  and  the  Book, 
p.  413. 


540  NOTES. 

CHAPTER   X. 

•  The  Book  of  Jubilees  is  a  Jewish  book,  evidently  written  before  the 
destruction  of  the  Temple.  Ewald  thinks  it  dates  from  about  the  bircii 
of  Christ ;  Dillmann  and  Frankel  suppose  it  was  written  in  the  century 
before  Christ ;  while  Kriiger  maintains  that  it  is  as  old  as  between  332 
and  320  B.C.  It  was  composed  in  Hebrew,  then  translated  into  Greek, 
and  from  Greek  into  Ethiopia,  in  which  language  a  copy  was  found  by 
Dr.  Krapff,  some  years  since,  in  Abyssinia.  Dillmann  published  a  trans- 
lation of  this  version  in  Ewald's  Jahrbiicher,  1851-1853.  It  is  a  most 
important  authority  for  Jewish  opinions  and  customs  in  the  time  of  our 
Lord. 

b  Female  children  received  their  names  when  they  were  weaned. 

0  The  subject  of  Hebrew  names  is  interesting.     The  same  feelings 
which  obtain  in  all  human  hearts  led  to  the  names  chosen,  but  the  form 
of   the  names  themselves,    at    different  periods,   marks   the   successive 
changes  of  the  national  history.     After  the  lleturn,  when  Hebrew  ceased 
to  be  a  spoken  language,  and  Aramaic  had  taken  its  place,  names  from 
the  new  dialect  were  naturally  introduced — such  as  Martha,  Tabitha, 
or  Caiaphas.     After  Alexander  the  Great's  time,  Greek  names  came  into 
fashion ;  and  Latin  names,  in  the  same  way,  followed  the  conquest  by 
Pompey.     Thus  we  have  Alexander,  Antipater  or  Antipas,  Aquila,  and 
Marcus,    among  many  others.     Old  Hebrew  names  were  also  changed 
into  the  prevailing  mode.    Thus,  Eleazar  became  Lazarus,  and  Amitthai 
Matthew. 

d  The  hour  of  morning  prayer  was  9  a.m.,  the  third  hour. 
e  Nicanor's  Gate  was  fifty  cubits  high. 

f  Bab  Taanith,  fol.  xviii.  2,  quoted  in  Lightfoot's  Chorographical 
Century,  p.  69. 

8  Jos.,  Bell.  Jud.,  vi.  5.  3.  It  seems  impossible  to  understand  the 
description  of  Josephus  exactly.  He  describes,  apparently  the  same 
gate,  differently,  in  different  places.  Lightfoot  (Ciwrog.  Cent.,  pp.66,  69) 
makes  the  Beautiful  Gate  that  of  the  Court  of  the  Women,  011  the  east 
side,  and  so  also  does  Delitzsch  (Durch  Krankheit,  p.  168), — as  here. 
Ewald  (Geschichte,  vol.  iv.  p.  420)  makes  the  Nicauor  Gate  the  same  as 
the  Beautiful  Gate,  but  this  seems  an  error. 

h  It  would  seem,  however,  from  a  note  in  Derenbourg  (Histoire  de  la 
Palestine,  p.  467),  that  the  sale  of  doves  was  a  monopoly  of  the  priests, 
or  rather  of  the  powerful  family  of  Hannas  (John  xviii.  If!),  who  sold 
them  to  retailers  from  bazaars  kept  by  them  on  Mount  Olivet.  They 
had,  it  seems,  so  multiplied  the  cases  in  which  doves  were  used  in  sacri- 
fice that  a  dove  had  come  to  be  sold  at  a  golden  deuarius  =  half  a  guinea. 
— Aurum,  Diet,  of  Antiq. 

1  The  Talmud,  quoted  by  Pressel. — Herzog  Real  Ency.,  vol.  xii.  p.  624. 
It  is  curious  to  notice  the  similarity  of  some  rites  in  other  religions,  to 
this  Mosaic  one.     In  the  East  Indies  the  mother  and  child  are  unclean 
for  ten  days :  the  house  must  be  purified  with  holy  water ;  the  mother 
by  baths  ;  the  other  people  in  the  house  by  careful  washings. — Sonnerat, 
Travels,  vol.  i.  p.  71.       Among    Mahomedaus   there  is  an  interval  of 
forty  days  required  from  birth,  for  purification  of  mother  and  child.     A 


NOTES.  541 

Greek  mother  could  not  go  to  a  temple  till  the  fortieth  day.  Rites  more 
or  less  similar  have  prevailed  from  the  earliest  antiquity  in  many  other 
nations. — Meiner's  Gesch.  d.  Eel.,  vol.  ii.  pp.  106  ff. 

k  Thus  Onkelos  supports  it  from  Exod.  xxiv.  5. — Targ.  Hieros.. 
xlix.  3.  Exod.  xix.  22,  where  priests  are  spoken  of  before  Aaron  and 
his  sons  were  set  apart,  seems  also  to  favour  it.  So,  also,  Num.  xviii. 
22.  It  was,  besides,  the  custom  of  all  antiquity. 

1  A  "  Shekel  of  the  Sanctuary,"  the  coin  required  by  the  priests,  was 
worth  2s.  &d.  of  our  money. — Gesenius,  Heb.  Lex.  ;  Robinson,  Greek  Lex. 
New  Test.  Fiirst  (Heb.  H.  W.  B.),  says  the  shekel  was  worth  two- thirds 
of  a  Prussian  thaler,  or  2s. ;  but  this  may  refer  to  the  common  shekel, 
which  was  less  pure. 

m  On  the  Continent,  the  "  redemption  money  "  may  be  as  much  as 
seven  or  eight  florins,  but  not  more.  It  is  generally,  however,  only 
about  two.  lu  Britain  twelve  shillings  are  reckoned  equal  to  five  shekels. 
A  poor  father  gives  much  less. 

n  According  to  Jewish  jurisprudence,  the  Cohen  can  claim  the  firstborn 
as  his  own. 

0  For  the  details  of  the  ceremony  of  redemption  among  the  Jews  of 
this  day,  see  Mill's  British  Jews,  p.  15  :    Pressel,  Erstyeburt,  and  Leyrer, 
Reinigungen,  in  Herzog's  Ency. 

P  Nothing  was  more  common  with  the  Jews  of  Christ's  day  than  to 
swear  by  "  the  Consolation  of  Israel."  Lightfoot  gives  many  examples. 
— Horte  Heb. ,  vol.  iii.  p.  41. 

1  "  Instigante  spiritu." — Grot. 

1  The  MSS.  B,  D,  L,  X,  and  Vulgate  have  6  varrip  O.VTOV  "  his  father," 
and  Griesbach  and  Tischendorf  have  adopted  it,  rightly.  So  Stier  und 
Theile  (Bib.  Polyglot.),  Meyer,  McClellan,  and  others. 

8  Anna  is  said  to  have  been  of  the  tribe  of  Asher,  one  of  the  ten  tribes 
carried  off  to  Assyria  720  years  before.  That  her  genealogy  had  been 
preserved  shows  that  some  at  least  of  the  ten  tribes  had  joined  Judah, 
and,  also,  that  in  spite  of  the  confusion  caused  by  Herod's  burning  the 
legal  registers  of  family  descent  formerly  kept  in  the  Temple,  not  a  few 
could  still  trace  their  pedigree  correctly,  just  as  St.  Paul  traced  his  from 
the  tribe  of  Benjamin. 

The  Mischna  furnishes  many  proofs  of  this,  as,  for  example,  where 
it  names  the  different  families  who  were  required  to  supply  wood  for 
the  Temple  on  special  days. —  Taanith,  iv.  5.  We  find  the  members 
of  the  house  of  Arach,  of  the  tribe  of  Judah  ;—  of  the  house  of  David,  of 
the  tribe  of  Judah; — of  the  house  of  Jonadab  the  Eechabite ; — of  the 
house  of  Senaa,  of  the  tribe  of  Benjamin, — and  a  number  of  others, 
mentioned.  Those  of  uncertain  descent  supplied  the  wood  on  a  special 
day  known  as  the  day  of  the  "  common  wood  delivery." — Jos.,  Bell.  Juii  , 
ii.  17.  6.  In  Nehemiah's  time  only  the  members  of  the  tribes  of  Judah, 
Benjamin,  and  Levi,  are  mentioned  separately.  The  others  are  classed 
as  "  the  remnant  of  Israel"  (chap.  xi.).  Only  these  three  tribes  also 
are  mentioned  separately  in  the  Mishna. 

*  Augustine  has  a  sermon  on  Anna,  which  is  a  good  specimen  of  the 
allegorizing  system  in  too  great  vogue  in  the  early  Church.  The  seven 
years  of  htr  married  life  are  a  symbol  of  the  Law,  the  eighty-four  of  her 


549  NOTES. 

widowhood,  of  the  Gospel.  The  law  is  only  seven,  while  the  Apostlea, 
who  represent  the  Gospel,  are  12x7  =  84— that  is,  are  of  twelve  times 
more  value. 

•  St.  Jerome's  bones  are  said  to  have  been  removed  to  Rome. 


CHAPTER  XL 

•  See  Isaiah  xlv.  7,  which,  while  addressed  to  Cyrus,  directly  opposes 
this  fundamental  article  of  his  faith. 

b  Zech.  iii.  1,  2  ff. ;  iv.  14.  Also  in  names  of  angels,  as  in  Daniel. 
See  also  Tobit  passim. 

°  Jos.,  Bell.  Jud.,  vi.  5.  4.  Td  5£  eirapav  a.vroi>s  yttdXwra  Trpos  rbv 
iroXe/jLov  tyv  xjnjfffj.os  d/juptifioXos  6/xoiW  fv  rots  tepoij  evpo/jtevos  ypdfj.fj.a<jt.v, 
uij  /card  rbv  Kaipov  tKelvov  airb  TVJS  x^P0-*  TtJ  aurwv  d/>|et  TTJS  oiKov/jLevr)?. 
TOVTO  ol  /J.&  us  oiicelov  €^e\aj3ov,  KO.L  iro\\ol  r(av  ffo<f>Civ  €ir\a.vj)6t)(rav 
Trfpi  TTJV  Kpiffiv  eSijXov  8"  &pa.  TT]v  Ov'-ffTTaffiavov  T&  \6yiov  Tjyffj.ovia.vt 
d,Tro8eix0f>'Tos  eirl  'lovSaias  avroKpaTopos' 

"  But  what  did  most  elevate  them  in  undertaking  this  war  was  an 
ambiguous  oracle  that  was  also  found  in  their  sacred  writings,  how, 
about  that  time  one  from  their  country  should  become  goveruur  of  the 
habitable  earth.  The  Jews  took  this  prediction  to  belong  to  theinsel/es 
in  particular ;  and  many  of  the  wise  men  were  thereby  deceived  in  their 
determination.  Now,  this  oracle  certainly  denoted  the  government  of 
Vespasian  who  was  appointed  emperor  in  Judea." 

Piuribus  persuasio  inerat,  antiquis  sacerdotum  literis  contineri,  eo  ipso 
tempore  fore  ut  valesceret  oriens,  profectique  Judaea  rerum  potireutur. 
Quaa  ambages  Vespasianum  ac  Titum  praedixeraut ;  sed  vulgus  more 
humanas  cupidinis  sibi  tantam  fatoruin  magnitudiuem  interpretati,  lie 
adversis  quidem  ad  vera  inutabantur. — Tacit,  hist.,  v.  13. 

"  Many  believed  that  it  was  written  in  the  ancient  books  of  the  priesta 
that  the  East  would  revive  about  that  time,  and  that  there  would  come 
from  Judea  those  who  should  gaiu  the  empire.  These  prophecies  referred 
to  Vespasian  and  Titus  ;  but  the  common  people,  in  the  usual  way  with 
human  nature,  interpreted  such  a  grand  destiny  in  their  own  favour, 
and  would  not  be  persuaded  of  the  truth  even  by  their  troubles." 

Percrebuerat  oriente  toto  vetus  et  constaus  opinio,  esse  in  fatis,  ut  eo 
tempore  Judaea  profecti  rerum  potirentur.  Id  de  imperatore  Romano, 
quantum  postea  eveiitu  paruit,  pnedictum  Judasi  ad  se  trahentes  re- 
bellarunt.  —  Stieton.  Ve*p.,  c.  4. 

"  An  old  and  fixed  belief  was  spread  through  the  whole  East,  that  at 
that  tin:  e,  some,  springing  from  Judea,  should  obtain  the  empire.  This, 
though  foretold,  as  the  event  proved,  of  the  Roman  Emperor,  the  Jews 
applied  to  themselves,  and  consequently  rebelled." 

Gieseler  (Kirchengesch.,  I.  i.  5.  51),  and  Schiirer  (Lehrbuch,  p.  576), 
believe  that  Tacitus  and  Suetonius  only  copied  Josephus.  Keim,  on  the 
other  hand,  in  Herzog's  Reat-Enc.,  vol.  xvii.  p.  164,  Art.  Vespasiamix, 
rejects  such  an  idea.  It  certainly  was  quite  unnecessary  for  them  to 
transcribe  an  opinion  which  must  have  been  universally  known. 

d  Prof  Dr.  Bastiau's  d.  Rechtverhaltnisse  bei  verschiedejien  Vollcern,  p. 
242.  Mr.  Baring-Gould,  also,  in  his  very  interesting  and  learned  book 


NOTES.  543 

On  fie  Origin  and  Development  oj  Religious  Belief,  2  vols.  8vo,  throws 
great  light  on  this  subject.  It  is  an  injustice  to  the  purchasers  of  such 
books  that  no  index  is  provided. 

e  A  very  curious  and  learned  paper,  by  the  Bev.  A.  H.  Sayce,  M.A., 
in  the  Transactions  of  the  Society  of  Biblical  Archaeology,  vol.  iii.  pp. 
145-339,  on  the  Astronomy  and  Astrology  of  the  Babylonians,  may  be 
referred  to  on  this  subject.  Each  day  of  the  year  (of  360  days)  was 
noted  as  lucky  or  the  reverse.  Like  the  Jews,  they  intercalated  a  month 
when  necessary,  to  correct  the  length  of  the  year.  They  had  seven 
planets,  the  Moon,  the  Sun,  Mercury,  Venus,  Saturn,  Jupiter,  Mars, 
always  given  in  this  order.  Twelve  fixed  stars  iu  the  western  heavens, 
and  twelve  in  the  eastern,  were  thought  to  bring  with  them  invasions, 
misfortune,  rain,  justice,  peace,  bad  laws,  pestilences,  blessing,  strength, 
happiness,  prodigies,  plenty,  obedience,  floods,  and  so  on.  The  con- 
junctions of  the  planets  were  also  thought  to  have  especial  importance 
in  affecting  nature  and  human  affairs.  —  See  also  Dollinger's  Gentile  and 
Jew,  vol.  i.  p.  423. 

f  In  Persian  mogh  means  priest.  In  Zend  it  is  meh,  mae,  mao,  and 
seems  to  be  related  to  the  Sanscrit  mahat,  mahd,  in  which  lies  the  Greek 
root  ufyas,  Latin  magis,  magnus.  —  Gesenius,  s.  v.  3D.  Fikst  says  the 
word  means  "  a  wise  man." 

8  The  Chaldeans,  whose  name  became  after  a  time  synonymous  with 
Magi,  have  been  credited  with  a  Hainitic  origin,  but  Kenan  (tlistoire  des 
Langues  Semitiques,  pp.  66,  67)  gives  very  good  reasons  for  believing  the 
earlier  Chaldeans  as  of  Aryan  extraction.  See  also  Mommsen's  liomische 
Veschichte,  vol.  i.  p.  30. 

h  Similar  prodigies  are  recorded  in  Luc.,  i.  529  ;  Senec.  nat.  quces., 
i.  1;  Seru.  ad  Virg.  Eel.,  ix.  47;  Ju-ttin,  xxxvii.  2,  etc.  See  list  in 
Hofmann's  Leben  Jesu,  n.  d.  Apok.,  p.  12y.  Allusions  to  astrologers  and 
their  science,  generally,  abound.  See  e.g.  Juv.  Sat.,  vi.  553,  570  ;  Per*. 
Sat.,  v.  45. 


1  There  is  a  place  called  tOT3,  perhaps  the  birthplace  of  the  false 
Messiah,  from  which,  very  possibly,  the  idea  of  Cochba  rose.  —  Fiir.-it. 
Pressel,  however,  says  that  Bar-Cosiba  was  the  name  given  him  after  his 
death  —  from  3T3  "to  lie"  —  with  the  meaning  "the  Son  of  Lying."  — 
Herzog,  vol.  i.  p.  789. 

There  is  a  capital  story  from  the  Talmud,  in  Buxtorf,  under  the  word 
2D13  a  star,  which  is  worth  giving  in  English  :  —  "  •  I  know  the  number 
of  the  stars,'  said  a  conceited  astronomer  to  a  llabbi.  '  Do  you  ?  '  said 
the  Rabbi  ;  '  then  tell  me  the  number  of  teeth  in  your  mouth.'  The 
astronomer  put  his  finger  into  his  mouth  to  count.  '  Ha,  ha  !  '  cried 
the  llabbi,  laughing,  '  you  don't  know  what's  in  your  mouth,  and  yet 
you  know  all  that's  in  heaven!  '"  So  went  life,  with  its  many  colours, 
the  same  two  thousand  years  ago,  in  the  streets  of  Jerusalem,  as  round 
us  to-day. 

k  For  curious  details  on  astrological  science,  see  Bell's  Chaucer,  vol. 
i.  p.  79,  note. 

1  Wieseler  (p.  59)  quotes  from  the  great  Jewish  Kabbi  Abarbanel 
(fifteenth  century),  a  passage  as  follows  :  —  "  The  most  important  changes 
in  this  sublunary  world  are  portended  by  the  conjunctions  of  Jupiter  and 


544  NOTES. 

Satuin.  Moses  was  born  in  the  third  year  after  such  a  conjunction  in 
Ike  const'-llation  Pisce*,  which  is  the  constellation  of  Israel,  and  a  similar 
conjunction  will  herald  the  advent  of  Messiah."  (The  italics  are  my 
own.) 

The  "star"  has  been  thought  by  some  to  have  been  a  temporary 
phenomenon,  and  this  is  not  impossible.  Temporary  stars  have  ap- 
peared from  time  to  time  in  different  parts  of  the  heavens,  blazing  forth 
with  extraordinary  lustre ;  and  after  remaining  awhile  apparently  im- 
movable, have  died  away,  and  left  no  trace.  Such  was  the  star  which, 
suddenly  appearing  in  the  year  125  B.C.,  is  said  to  have  attracted  the 
attention  of  Hipparchus.  Such,  too,  was  the  star  which  blazed  forth  A.D. 
389,  remaining  for  three  weeks  as  bright  as  Venus,  and  then  disappearing 
entirely.  In  the  years  945,  1264,  and  1572,  brilliant  stars  appeared. 
In  1572,  the  appearance  of  the  star  was  so  sudden,  that  Tycho  lirahe,  a 
feelebrated  Danish  astronomer,  returning  one  evening  (the  llth  November) 
from  his  laboratory  to  his  dwelling-house,  was  surprised  to  find  a  group 
of  country  people  gazing  at  a  star,  which  he  was  sure  did  not  exist  half 
an  hour  before.  This  was  the  star  in  question.  It  was  then  as  bright 
as  Sirius,  .and  continued  to  increase  till  it  surpassed  Jupiter  when 
brightest,  and  was  visible  at  mid-day.  It  began  to  diminish  in  December 
of  the  same  year,  and  in  March.  1574,  had  entirely  disappeared.  So, 
also,  on  the  10th  of  October,  1604,  a  star  of  this  kind,  and  not  less 
brilliant,  burst  forth,  and  continued  visible  till  October,  1605.  In  1670, 
a  star  of  the  third  magnitude  appeared  in  the  head  of  the  Swan,  which, 
after  becoming  completely  invisible,  reappeared,  and  after  fluctuating  in 
its  brightness  for  two  years,  at  last  died  away  entirely,  and  has  not  been 
seen  since.  On  a  careful  re-exainination  of  the  heavens,  moreover,  it  is 
found  that  many  stars  once  visible  are  now  missing  — Herschel's  Astro- 
nomy, p.  383.  Within  the  last  few  years  a  bright  star  appeared  for  a 
short  time,  and  then,  like  those  mentioned  by  Herschel,  disappeared 
altogether. 

m  Gen.  xlix.  10.  Sept.  ret  airoi<ei/j.ei>a  oi)ry.  Vulg.  "  qui  mittendus 
est." 

n  The  Targums  quoted  are  of  a  somewhat  later  date,  but  they  doubt- 
less embody  the  views  of  Christ's  time. 

0  The  Sohar  is  a  Middle- Age  Jewish  book,  but  its  opinions,  in  a  people 
BO  unchangeable,  are  no  doubt  those  of  early  ages. 
See  Gfrorer's  Jahrhundert,  vol.  ii.  p.  360. 

P  That  the  Eabbis  believed  Christ  to  be  descended  from  David  seems 
clear  from  the  fact  that  in  the  Talmud,  Mary  is  called  "  the  daughter 
of  Eli,"  and  Jesus,  in  Sanhediin,  43b,  is  said  to  have  been  "related  to 

the  royal  house  (of  David)."  n^ju?  Tip.  See  Delitzsch,  Jesus  it, 
Hillel,  p.  13. 

Q  He  is  not  so  bad  as  the  Eabbis,  however.  So  sunk  were  these 
pedants  in  their  mostly  useless  studies,  that  they  do  not  even  mention 
the  name  of  the  Maccabees — including  that  of  Judas  ! — Derenboury, 
Histoire  de  la  Palestine,  p.  58.  Nor  do  they  make  any  mention  of  the 
building  of  the  Second  Temple. — Just,  vol.  i.  p.  323.  In  the  same  way 
Joseplms  does  not  mention  Hillel,  the  greatest  of  the  Babbis. 

Josephus,  though  he  does  not  expressly  name  the  incident  at  Beth- 
lehem, has  two  allusions  to  a  massacre  which  Herod  ordered  shortly 


NOTES.  545 

before  his  death,  which  very  prohably  refer  to  it.  He  says :  Herod  "  did 
not  spare  those  who  seemed  most  dear  to  him  " — "he  slew  all  those  of 
his  own  family  who  sided  with  the  Pharisees,  and  refused  to  take  the 
oath  of  allegiance  to  the  Emperor,  because  they  looked  forward  to  a 
change  in  the  royal  line." — Ant.,  xvii.  2,  4. 

r  They  are  brought  forward  by  Caspari  in  his  Chron.  Geog.  Einleitung, 
p.  28. 

•  Jannffius  Alexander,  a  great  persecutor  of  the  party  of  the  Pharisees. 
Reigned  B.C.  105-78. 

1  Keim  and  others  reject  Caspari's  arguments  and  date,  believing  that 
they  are  irreconcilable  with  other  events,  before  and  after. — Keim,  in 
Schenkel's  Bibel  Lexicon,  Art.  Herodes. 

n  See  respecting  these  traditions,  Hofmann,  d.  Leben  Jesu ;  Brunet, 
Les  Evangiles  Apocnjphes ;  Winer,  R.  W.  B.,  Art.  Stern  d.  Weisen; 
Herzog,  Ency.,  vol.  vi.  p.  564,  etc.  Schleiermacher's  Sermons  on  thia 
period  are  well  worth  notice.  Predigten,  vol.  iv.  pp.  802,  494. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

ruler  of  the  people.  Simon  Maccabseus  was  elected 
ethnarch  by  the .  people.  It  was  a  title  somewhat  below  tetrach.  He 
stamped  Nasi  WW3  =  prince,  on  his  coins, — the  title  assumed  by  the 
president  of  the  Sanhedrim.  John  Hyrcanus,  Simon's  son,  was  also 
styled  etbnarch,  and  Pompey  made  Hyrcanus  II.  ethnarch,  though  at 
tunes  he  called  himself  king.  Herod,  like  Aristobulus,  son  of  John 
Hyrcanus,  took,  or  rather  got,  the  title  of  king.  Archelaus  had  to 
content  himself  with  that  of  ethnarch.  There  was  an  ethnarch  of  the 
Jews  in  Alexandria,  and  Aretas  was  ethnarch  of  Damascus. 

b  The  origin  of  the  name  Nazareth  has  been  much  disputed.  The 
principal  explanations  offered  have  been  that  it  comes : — 1.  From  "1\T3 
(nazir)  "consecrated,"  or  "devoted"  to  God.  2.  From  ^"IV!)  (  notzeri) 
"my  Saviour."  3.  From  "1X3  (ndtzer)  a  "sprout"  or  "shoot."  But 
the  word  sbould  have  been  some  form  of  HEX  if  it  had  been  intended 
to  have  had  a  reference  to  the  Messiah,  as  the  "branch,"  or  "  sprout' 
of  David.  These  are  to  be  rejected.  The  true  etymology  seems  to  be 
that  derived  from  the  characteristic  of  the  locality,  the  high  hill  over 
looking  Nazareth,  and  as  it  were  guarding  it.  In  this  case  it  would 
come  from  ")¥3  (natzar)  "  to  look,  to  watch,  to  guard."  If  from 

(netzurah)  it  would  mean  "  the  watched  or  guarded  one."  If  from 
(notzerah),  it  would  mean — "  the  watcher  "  or  "  guardian."  The  im- 
portance of  hills  as  outlooks,  or  defences,  in  ancient  tunes,  needs  not 
be  more  than  recalled  to  mind.  Moreover,  it  was  the  custom  to  give 
towns  their  names  from  some  leading  feature  of  their  site.  Thus 
Sepphoris,  on  its  hill,  is  "  the  bird,"  TlSV  (tsippor).  Safed — high  on 
the  northern  hills— is  "the  watch  tower,"  DSV  (zephath).  Magdala  is 
"the  tower,"  P^iD  (migdal).  Ramah  is  the  "high  place,"  HO^,  and 
is  the  name  of  several  trwns  on  heights.  Gibeon — "  the  hill  city" — 
36 


546  NOTES. 

pin  3  Gibeon.     jfoll?— Lebanon,  "  the  white  " — from  the  whitish  colotu 

of  its  rocks.  ysp^— Gilboa,  "  the  boiling  fountain  " — from  a  fountain 
on  the  hills  of  the  name.  These  are  only  a  sample  of  a  law  common  to 
all  lands  and  ages. 

c  Tobler  (Nazareth  in  Palaestina,  p.  4)  describes  it  as  twenty  minutes 
long  by  eight  or  ten  broad.  . 

d  Furrer,  under  date  of  April  8th,  speaks  of  the  hills  as  lonely  and 
barren. —  Wanderungen  durch  Palastina,  p.  267. 

8  Mr.  Tyrwhitt  Drake,  writing  on  the  20th  March,  from  Mizpph,  a 
little  north  of  Jerusalem,  says  : — "  While  I  am  writing,  hail  is  falling, 
and  dense  fogs,  accompanied  by  sharp  showers,  at  intervals,  are  hurried 
up  by  the  violent  equinoctial  gale  from  the  south-west,  which  threatens 
every  moment  to  tear  the  frail  cotton  shelter  from  over  my  head,  and 
hurl  it  into  the  neighbouring  valley.  Only  a  few  days  ago,  the  weather 
was  like  a  fine  June  day  in  England.  These  fine  days  of  early  spring 
are  rare,  however,  and  we  must  often  look  for  cold,  pelting  raius,  mists, 
hail,  and  even  snow — though  the  latter  very  rarely,  and  only  on  the 
central  ridge.  A  fine  day  at  this  time  of  the  year  shows  the  country  in 
its  best  cloak.  A  little  later  in  the  season  every  blade  of  grass  will  be 
withered  up;  the  shrubs  on  the  hills  will  be  blackened  and  parched  ;  the 
plain  will  be  covered  with  an  impenetrable  veil  of  white  mist,  known  to 
the  African  traveller  by  the  appropriate  name  of  '  smokes.'  Above  head, 
the  sky  will  be  that  pitiless  glare  of  changeless  blue,  never  to  be  relieved 
by  a  single  speck  of  cloud,  till  the  welcome  rains  of  autumn  begin  to 
cool  the  scorched  soil  and  burning  rocks. 

"  Such  are  the  changes  of  temperature  to  be  found  in  this  country, 
from  Petra  to  Damascus.  Just  two  years  ago  I  was  snowed  up,  near  the 
former  place,  at  an  elevation  of  4,500  feet,  and  three  weeks  later,  in 
Moab,  being  only  1,500  feet  lower,  I  sighed  for  a  lump  of  snow  to  put 
in  my  tea,  the  thermometer  standing  at  105°  Fahr.  in  the  shade.  At 
Damascus  (2,340  feet,  in  the  Salahiyeh  suburb),  snow  is  rare,  though 
sleet  is  not  uncommon  in  winter.  In  summer,  the  thermometer  ranges 
up  to  100°  Fahr.  in  the  shade,  and  there  is  at  times  a  difference  of 
as  much  as  30  degrees  between  the  dry  and  wet  bulbs." — Palest.  Explor. 
Fund  Rep.,  October,  1872,  p.  175.  See,  also,  Furrer's  admirable  Art. 
Witte'rung,  in  Schenkel's  Bibel  Lexicon. 

*  Josephus  says  that  no  "village"  in  Galilee  had  fewer  than  15,000 
inhabitants ;  but  this  seems  to  be  an  exaggeration.  Keim  supposes  the 
population  of  Nazareth  in  Christ's  day  to  have  been  about  10,000. — Jesu 
von  Nazara,  vol.  i.  p.  318.  It  has  now  about  3,000. 

8  I  have  altered  the  received  translation  where  it  was  desirable  to  give 
a  more  literal  rendering  of  the  Hebrew. 

h  Ewald  thinks  chapters  xxx.  and  xxxi.  of  Proverbs  date  "  from  tha 
last  age  before  the  exile."  Hitzig  assigns  them  to  "  the  last  quarter  of 
the  seventh  century  B.C.,  which  is  about  the  beginning  of  the  exile." 
Delitzsoh  says,  "  the  time  immediately  after  Hezekiah "  (B.C.  726-698). 
Zockler  thinks  that  Lemuel  and  Agur  were  shepherd  princes  of  a  Jewish 
colony,  of  the  tribe  of  Simeon,  which  settled  in  the  territories  of  tha 
almost  exterminated  Amalekites,  in  the  reign  of  Hezekiah  (1  Chron. 
iv.  39-43).  Hitzig,  Delitzsch,  and  Bertheau,  agree  with  him,  that 


NOTES.  547 

peculiarities  in  the  language  of  the  two  chapters  prove  this  Israelitish- 
Arabian  origin.  Verse  10,  begins  with  N,  the  first  letter,  and  the  thirty- 
first  verse  begins  with  J"l,  the  last,  the  other  letters  coming  between  in 
their  proper  order.  This  form  of  poetical  construction  is  found  also  in 
Jeremiah,  and  in  the  Psalms. 

1  It  is  to  be  remembered  that  Wordsworth  was  a  staunch  Protestant, 
with  no  thought,  the  most  distant,  of  Mariolatry. 

k  The  history  of  Susanna  was  a  Greek  addition  to  the  Book  of  Daniel. 
Herzog,  vol.  xv.  p.  265.  Eiietschi  assigns  it  to  the  century  before  Christ. 
Ewald  (vol.  iv.  p.  636)  classes  it  with  the  copious  literature  of  the  later 
Grecian  age  —  that  is,  a  little  earlier  than  Eiietschi's  date. 

airb  fipe<t>ovs.    It  may  be  translated  "  from  the  cradle." 

m  Probably  the  high  priest  of  that  name  —  A.D.  63-65.  —  Schurer,  p.  468. 
So,  Keim,  vol.  i.  p.  428.  Isa.  ii.  3. 

n  This  law  dates  from  B.C.  80.  —  Ginsburg,  Cyclo.  Bib.  Lit,,  vol.  i.  p. 
728. 

0  Dr.  Ginsburg  quotes  the  saying  of  the  Talmud,  "  The  world  is  pre- 
served by  the  breath  of  the  children  in  the  schools,"  as  evidence  of  the 
value  attached  to  education,  but  Dukes  explains  it  as  referring  to  the 
innocence  of  young  children.  —  lilumenlese,  p.  104. 

P  The  Hazan,  according  to  Buxtorf,  led  the  prayers  and  the  singing 
of  the  congregation,  and  conducted  the  discussion  of  some  point  of  the 
Law  which  followed.  He  also  presided  over  the  reading  of  the  Law, 
showing  what  part  was  to  be  read,  and  directed  in  other  similar  matters 
connected  with  public  worship.  Buxtorf  calls  him  a  deacon.  Winer 
makes  him  no  higher  than  a  sexton.  He  was  sometimes  called  the 
"Messenger  of  the  Synagogue,"  and  was  evidently  the  person  to  whom 
the  necessary  details  of  synagogue  work  generally  were  entrusted.  In 
the  Talmud,  his  position  is  beneath  that  of  the  scribe,  and  above  that 
of  the  "  boor,"  or  Am-ha-aretz.  —  Buxtorf,  Lex.  Heb.  Chal.  et  Tal.,  pp. 
730,  731.  Benan  (Vie  de  Jesus,  p.  18),  calls  the  Hazan  "  the  Beader." 
Delitzsch  makes  the  Hazan  of  the  prayer-house  of  Bethany  a  village 
baker  (Durch  Krankheii  zur  Genesung,  p.  99)  ;  and  in  a  recent  law  case 
in  London,  a  "  Beader,"  examined  as  a  witness,  proved  to  be  also  a 
butcher  (1875). 

Am-ha-aretz,  literally  means  "  countryman,"  but  was  used  for  an 
illiterate  clown  —  just  as  Bauer,  "  a  peasant,"  has  come  to  mean  "  boor  ;  " 
or  paganus,  "  a  countryman,"  what  we  understand  by  "  a  pagan  "  ;  while 
urbaim*,  "  a  city  man,"  meant  an  educated  person.  Indeed,  "  civilized," 
"  civil,"  "  civility,"  and  the  related  words,  all  refer  to  supposed  cha- 
racteristics of  a  citizen,  as  contrasted  with  a  countryman. 

1  The  words  "  in  spirit  "  are  not  in  the  Sinaitic  or  Vatican  MSS.,  and 
are  omitted  by  Mill,  Lachmann,  Griesbach,  Tischendorf,  and  Meyer. 

1  The  same  word  x<>«)  is  used  here  and  in  verse  52. 


8  irpotKoiTTe.  For  a  very  striking  sermon  of  Schleiermacher,  on  Jesus 
being  the  "  Son  of  God,"  and  possessing,  from  the  first  of  His  life, 
Divine  power  which  qualified  Him  to  be  the  Saviour  of  the  world,  see 
Predigtcn,  vol.  ii.  p.  56. 


548  NOTES. 

CHAPTER  XIIL 

•  This  prayer,  in  later  times,  has  been  incorporated  with  the  morning 
prayers  of  the  synagogue  service,  as  the  Eabbis  have  taught  that  it  ia 
not  proper  to  utter  it  at  once  on  awaking,  because  the  hands  are  not 
as  yet  washed. — Cohen,  p.  200. 

b  That  is,  who  leaves  the  world  as  blameless  as  he  enters  it.  All  thea» 
sentences  are  ancient  Jewish  proverbs. 

c  Seek  the  company  of  the  learned  and  the  good. 

d  A  warning  against  bad  companions. 

e  The  least  ground  of  suspicion  should  be  avoided. 

f  He  worships  himself. 

8  The  first  trace  of  synagogues  in  Palestine  is  in  Psalm  Ixxiv.  8, 
which  is  apparently  of  the  Maccabaaan  period.  Josephus  (Bell.  Jud.) 
speaks  of  a  synagogue  in  Antioch,  under  the  Syro-Grecian  kings. 

h  The  Rabbis  based  the  duty  of  prayer  on  the  text,  "  And  ye  shall 
serve  the  Lord  your  God."  From  this  they  deduced  the  obligation  of 
praying  three  times  a  day.  R.  Ramban,  however,  a  great  Jewish  com- 
mentator, thought  he  could  show,  from  a  number  of  quotations  from  the 
Talmud,  that  prayer  was  only  a  Rabbinical,  not  a  Mosaic,  law.  —  Cohen, 
p.  186. 

1  The  Targums  claim  that  synagogues  existed  even  in  the  times  of  the 
Patriarchs. — Targ.  Onk.,  Gen.  xxv.  27. 

k  Cohen,  says,  however,  "It  would  appear  from  the  Talmud,  that 
there  were  many  synagogues  in  Alexandria,  but  none  in  Jerusalem.  As 
regards  what  is  said  in  the  Talmud  of  Jerusalem  (Megilla,  3,  73),  of  480 
schools  in  Jerusalem,  it  may  fairly  be  understood  of  schools,  but  not  of 
synagogues,  since  there  public  worship  could  be  held,  nowhere  but  in  the 
Temple." — Cohen,  p.  194.  See  Vitringa,  de  Vetere  Synag.,  p.  28.  But 
in  that  case,  what  shall  we  make  of  Acts  vi.  9  ? 

I  Of  seven  synagogues  of  Galilee,  of  which  Captain  Wilson  examined 
the  ruins,  the  largest  was  90  feet  long,  inside,  ty  44  feet  8  inches  broad. 
The  smallest  of  them  was  48  feet  6  inches  by  35  feet  6  inches.     Their 
shape  was  by  no  means  always  the  same.     One  was  60  feet  by  46  feet 
6  inches ;  another  57  feet  3  inches  by  53  feet.     The  walls  were  from  2 
to  4  feet  thick,  and  even,  in  one  instance,  7  feet  thick.     The  space 
between  the  columns  or  pillars,  inside,  varied  from  9  feet  6  inches  to 
6  feet  1  inch.     The  spaces  in  the  roof  stones  for  the  rafters  are  8J  inches 
deep  by  2  feet  broad.—  Quarterly  Statement,  No.  2,  p.  42. 

m  They  were  the  Morning  Service  or  Morning  Offering,  the  Mincha  or 
Vespers,  and  the  Evening  Service  or  Evening  Offering.  The  Rabbis 
said  that  these  were  invented  by  the  Patriarchs,  Abraham,  Isaac,  and 
Jacob ;  each  having  introduced  one. 

II  Often  called  "  rulers  of  the  synagogue,"  in  the  New  Testament,  e.g. 
Mark  v.  22  ;  Acts  xiii.  15,  etc. 

0  Antiquity  seems  to  have  paid  more  respect  to  the  wisdom  and  ex- 
perience  of  age  than  later  times,  if  we  may  judge  from  the  names  of  theil 
dignitaries.  The  Arab  Sheikh,  the  Italian  Signer,  the  French  Seigneur. 


NOTES.  549 

the  Spanish  Senor,  all  mean  an  old  man.    So  also  does  the  German 
Graf,  a  count,  which  is  simply  graw,  krawo,  grey-headed. 

P  The  Semicha,  introduced  by  the  Babbis  about  B.C.  80. — Pressel, 
Rabbinismus,  in  Herzog,  vol.  xii.  p.  474.  The  president  and  members  of 
the  Sanhedrim  were  ordained  in  the  same  way. — Leyrer,  Synedrium,  in 
Herzog,  vol.  xv.  p.  318.  See  also  the  Art.,  Volk  Gottes,  Herzog,  vol.  xii. 
p.  318,  and  Schenkel's  Art.  Handauftegung,  in  Bibel  Lexicon.  Priests 
had  been  thus  consecrated  from  the  first,  Exod.  xxxii.  29. 

i  Luke  iv.  20.  Translated  "  minister."  The  word  VTTT^TTJS  means 
prop,  an  under-rower  (in  a  galley) — a  common  sailor — a  "hand"  as 
distinguished  from  ol  vavrai — seamen,  or  ol  tirifiaTcu,  mariners.  Used 
for  a  constable— a  beadle*  Matt.  v.  25 ;  John  vii.  32.  Translated  "  ser- 
vants," Matt.  xxvi.  58 ;  xiv.  54,  65. 

r  It  is  now  used  to  cover  the  head  of  worshippers  in  the  synagogue 
during  prayer,  but  1  Cor.  xi.  4,  would  seem  to  imply  that  this  was  not 
done  in  the  time  of  Christ. 

8  The  fringes  of  the  Tallith  were  a  good  illustration  of  the  pedantry 
of  Babbinism.  They  were  fastened  to  it  as  follows : — A  hole  was  made 
about  two  inches  from  each  of  the  corners,  and  through  this  were  drawn 
four  threads  of  white  lamb's  wool,  which  were  secured  by  a  double  knot. 
Seven  of  these  threads  were  half  a  yard  long,  but  were  doubled  so  as  to 
make  them  half  that  length,  one  of  the  threads  being  left  longer  than 
the  rest.  This  was  wound  seven,  times  round  the  other  seven  threads, 
and  then  a  second  double  knot  was  made.  It  was  then  wound  nine  tunes 
more  round  the  other  threads,  and  another  double  knot  made.  It  was 
next  wound  eleven  times  round  them,  and  a  fourth  double  knot  made  ; 
then  thirteen  times,  after  which  a  fifth  double  knot  was  made.  The 
whole  of  the  threads  were  now  of  an  equal  length.  The  space  from  the 
hole  in  the  Tallith  to  the  first  double  knot  needed  to  be  equal  to  that 
from  this  knot  to  the  fifth,  and  from  the  fifth  to  the  end  of  the  thread  it 
required  to  be  three  times  the  space  between  each  of  the  remaining 
knots.  A  kind  of  pocket  was  further  made  in  each  corner  of  the  Tallith, 
in  which  to  keep  the  fringes,  lest  they  should  be  denied  by  touching  the 
body. — Mill's  British  Jews,  pp.  16,  18. 

*  Schiirer  says,  that  they  might  also  be  white ;  but  this  is  a  later 
innovation  of  the  Babbis.  They  are  now  made  of  seven  white  threads 
and  one  blue.  The  inner  Tallith  only  is  now  worn,  to  prevent  the 
notice  such  an  outward  sign  of  Judaism  would  attract. 

u  Ths  fringes  had  to  be  kissed  three  times  during  a  prayer,  in  which 
the  word  '•  fringe"  was  repeated  thrice.  The  prayer  is,  in  fact,  a  repe- 
tition of  Num.  xv.  38,  39. 

x  The  Tephillin  and  the  Zizith  were  introduced  before  the  time  of 
Alexander  the  Great. — Jost,  vol.  i.  p.  95. 

y  Besides  the  separate  verses,  the  parts  read  were,  1  Chron.  xvi.  10-37 ; 
Ps.  c.,  except  on  Sabbaths  and  feasts,  and,  as  said  above,  the  last  six 
Psalms. 

1  It  is  impossible  to  know  exactly  the  form  of  worship,  in  detail,  in 
the  time  of  Christ.  The  prayers,  however,  are  the  same,  for  the  most 
part,  as  they  were  then,  and  so  are  the  lessons.  Jost  (vol.  i.  p.  174) 
ascribes  both  prayer?  and  Isssons,  with  slight  developments  and  additions 


550 


NOTES. 


since,  to  the  time  of  the  Great  Synagogue.  Schiirer  (p.  499)  confirms 
the  substantial  identity  of  the  Sch'ma,  at  present  in  use,  with  that  used 
in  Christ's  day.  Zunz  (pp.  367,  369,  371)  says,  that  only  the  Benedic- 
tions have  received  additions  to  any  extent  since  the  Christian  times. 

»"  It  consisted  of  Deut.  vi.  4-9 ;  xi.  13-21 ;  Num.  xv.  37-41.  Every 
child  was  taught  the  Sch'ma,  as  soon  as  it  could  speak.  So  that  we  thus 
know  the  first  verses  learned  by  our  Saviour. 

bb  The  Sch'mone  Esre  JTD"}?  rn£W  nji»£>  or  the  "  Eighteen  Bene- 
dictions." 

cc  The  Great  Synagogue  rose  about  350  years  before  Christ  (in  B.C. 
348-342). — Hitzig.  The  14th  and  17th  benedictions  are  of  the  later 
date.  For  their  antiquity,  see  Cohen,  p.  191?  The  Jews  ascribe  them 
to  Ezra.  Herzfeld  (vol.  ii.  p.  133)  thinks  the  first  three  and  the  last 
three  prayers  of  later  origin.  Comp.  Jost,  vol.  i.  p.  39 ;  vol.  ii.  p.  262 ; 
Zunz,  pp.  305,  367.  Cohen  thinks  the  7th,  10th,  llth,  13th,  14th,  and 
16th,  of  later  date  than  the  destruction  of  the  Temple  (p.  216). 

dd  Lightfoot,  p.  281,  "  Obmurmuravit  totus  ccetus  et  dixit  interpreti, 
Tace,  et  tacuit."  See  also  1  Cor.  xiv.  13 ;  Matt.  xiii.  54  ;  Acts  xviii.  6. 

ee  On  Sabbath  and  Feast  days,  only  the  first  three  and  the  last  three 
portions  of  "  The  Prayer  "  were  read ;  forms  for  the  special  day  being 
introduced  instead.  Many  short  praters  of  different  kinds  were  also 
early  introduced,  in  addition.  On  feast  days,  etc.,  etc.,  special  lessons. — 
Jost,  vol.  i.  p.  177. 

a  The  word  used,  Tr\i}po6fj,€vov,  implies  a  continuous  growth  in  wisdom. 
It  would  have  been  treir\t)pw/ji.&oi>  if  a  finished  and  perfect  act  had  beeu 
meant. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 
•  The  names  of  the  months  of  the  Hebrew  year  were  : — 

.  "  the  month  of  flowers,"  corresponding  nearly  to  April. 


1.  Nisan 

2.  Ijjar  ..."  the  month  of  beauty,"  ,,  ,,  May. 

3.  Siwan     .     .  "  the  bright  month,"  ,  „  June. 

4.  Tamuz ,  „  July. 

5.  Ab      ..."  the  fruit  month,"  ,  „  Aug. 

6.  Elul   .     .     .    '  the  wine  month,"  ,  „  Sept. 

7.  Tisri  .     .     .    '  month  of  the  floods,"  ,  „  Oct. 

8.  Marcheswan    '  rainy  month,"  ,  „  Nov. 

9.  Kislew    .     .    '  cold  month,"  ,  ,,  Dec. 

10.  Tebet      .     .    '  cold  month,"  ,  „  Jan. 

11.  Shebet ,  „  Feb. 

12.  Adar  ..."  the  returning  sun,"  ,  ,,  Mar. 

13.  Adar  II.  (introduced  from  time  to  time  to  correct  the  errors  of  the 

lunar  year). 

The  variations  of  the  date  of  the  new  moon  sometimes  made  Nisan 
equivalent  to  parts  of  our  March  and  April,  and  so  on,  throughout. 

b  Originally  there  were  only  seven  days,  but  the  Rabbis  added  a  day, 
BS  they  did  also  in  the  case  of  other  feasts,  to  guard  against  a  possibla 
mistake  in  reckoning  the  new  moons. 


NOTES.  551 

•  Passover,  DD3,  "  a  passing  over,  sparing,  deliverance,"  from  nD3 
"  to  pass  over,  to  spare." 

d  TireC/m,  here  means  "  intellect,  understanding."  The  verse  refers  to 
the  fact  that  He  had  grown  vigorously  in  mind  and  body.  St.  Luke  uses 
the  phrase,  "  His  parents,"  in  verses  41  and  43.  ol  yovels  afcov. 

6  It  was  for  being  supposed  to  have  taken  Trophimus,  an  Ephesian, 
past  the  balustrade  into  this,  that  Paul  was  attacked  by  the  mob  —Acts 
xxi.  29. 

f  His  words  are — "The  high  priests  found  the  number  of  sacrifices  (at 
the  Passover  in  question)  was  256,500.  Not  fewer  than  ten  nor  more 
than  twenty  persons  belong  to  every  service,  for  it  is  not  allowed  that 
any  one  should  feast  by  himself.  Now,  allowing  only  ten  for  each  sacri- 
fice, this  amounts  to  2,565,000  persons,  that  were  pure  and  clean."  He 
adds,  that  those  of  both  sexes,  who,  for  the  time,  were  ceremonially 
unclean  from  sickness,  etc.,  and  the  foreigners,  were  not  counted  in  this 
vast  aggregate. 

8  "  The  inhabitants  of  Jerusalem  did  not  let  out  their  houses  at  a 
price  to  those  that  came  to  the  feasts,  but  granted  them  their  use  gratis." 
— Glosa  on  Talmud,  quoted  by  Lightfoot,  Chorograph.  Cent.,  p.  47. 

h  One  passage  in  the  Talmud  says,  that  gardens  of  roses  were  allowed 
in  the  city. — Lightfoot,  p.  48. 

1  EUOTOS,  a  covered  colonnade  in  gymnasia  or  schools  of  exercise,  where 
athletes  exercised  in  winter.  It  served  also  for  a  promenade.  So  called 
from  its  polished  floor.  In  Koman  villas  a  terrace  with  a  colonnade  was 
also  called  a  xystum. 

k  Fragments  of  description  of  Jerusalem  by  Aristeas  in  B.C.  250,  in 
Appendix  to  Havercamp's  Jusephus. 

1  See  the  opinions  of  various  authorities  given  by  Arnold,  Art.  Zion, 
in  Herzog,  vol.  xviii.  pp.  G47  ff.  See  also  Kiepeit's  New  Map  of  Jeru~ 
salem,  Berlin,  1875. 


CHAPTEB  XV. 
•  Heb.  IWSQJIatzoth. 

b  A  clever  authoress  gives  the  following  description  of  the  mode  of 
keeping  the  Passover  at  Jerusalem  at  the  present  day : — "  We  were  very 
anxious  to  see  the  Passover  k"pt  in  Jerusalem,  and  by  the  kindness  of 
Mrs.  Finn,  we  received  an  invitation  to  the  house  of  one  of  the  most 
respectable  Jews  for  that  evening — the  night  of  our  Good  Friday.  We 
went  there  between  eight  and  nine  o'clock,  and  found  the  whole  family 
— including  four  generations — assembled  in  the  principal  room,  which 
was  well  lighted  with  lamps  and  several  wax  candles ;  these  they  were 
obliged  to  ask  the  Mooslim  kawasscs,  who  came  with  us,  to  replenish, 
when  they  burnt  out  later  in  the  evening,  as  the  Jews  cannot  kindle  a 
light  or  do  any  kind  of  work  during  the  feast.  We  were  placed  upon 
the  divans  at  one  side  of  the  room,  the  women  of  the  family,  with  the 
servant  and  children,  remaining  together  at  the  bottom  of  the  room, 
only  one  of  the  women,  the  venerable  mother  of  the  master  of  the  house. 


552  NOTES. 

being  seated  with  the  men  and  boys,  who  were  all  together  in  one  corner, 
with  a  small  table  before  them,  covered  with  silk  and  velvet  cloths, 
richly  embroidered  with  gold,  some  of  which  were  heirlooms  of  antiquity. 
A  little  boy,  one  of  the  youngest  members  of  the  family,  then  aslted, 
'  What  mean  ye  by  this  service?'  (in  accordance  with  Exod.  xii.  26) ;  upon 
which  all  the  males  stood  up,  rocking  themselves  without  ceasing  a 
moment,  and  recited  very  rapidly,  in  Hebrew,  the  story  of  the  deliverance 
of  Israel  from  Egypt.  Then  a  boy  repeated  a  very  long  legendary  tale 
in  Spanish,  with  a  rapidity  which  was  perfectly  astonishing.  All  had 
Looks  before  them,  and  continued  rocking  their  bodies  to  and  fro,  while 
only  one  was  speaking.  This  is  an  illustration  of  the  text,  '  All  my 
bones  shall  praise  Thee.'  After  a  long  time  the  men  sat  do^n,  when  a  long 
white  cloth  was  placed  upon  their  knees,  and  the  old  mother  brought  in 
a  metal  ewer  and  basin,  and  poured  water  upon  the  hands  of  each,  which 
were  wiped  in  the  cloth  while  they  continued  reading  out  aloud.  Then 
the  master  laid  a  white  cloth  over  one  shoulder  and  removing  the  cover- 
ings from  the  table,  he  took  one  of  the  large  cakes  of  Passover  bread,  till 
then  concealed,  and  breaking  it  in  half,  tied  it  into  the  end  of  the  cloth 
and  slung  it  over  the  shoulder  of  the  youngest  boy,  who  kept  it  for  ten 
minutes,  and  then  passed  it  on  to  the  next,  and  so  on — all  continuing  to 
recite  from  the  books  without  stopping  ;  after  this  the  mother  brought 
another  basin,  and  the  master  took  up  a  glass  vessel  containing  a  mix- 
ture of  bitter  herbs  and  vinegar,  and  some  other  ingredients,  and,  separ- 
ating ten  portions  from  it  with  his  finger,  threw  them  into  the  basin — 
these  represented  the  ten  plagues  of  Egypt.  There  were  plates  of  lettuce 
and  other  herbs,  and  the  bones  of  the  roasted  lamb,  in  dishes  on  the 
table,  besides  the  unleavened  bread,  and  four  cups  of  wine ;  three  of 
these  at  certain  parts  of  the  ceremony  were  passed  round,  and  partaken 
of  by  each  individual,  including  the  women  and  baby ;  one  cup  of  wine 
remained  untouched,  which  was  said  to  be  for  the  Prophet  Elijah  ;  and 
we  were  told  that  in  most  families,  towards  the  end  of  the  supper,  the 
door  of  the  room  is  opened,  and  all  stand  up,  while  the  Prophet  is 
believed  to  enter  and  partake  of  the  wine.  Among  rich  Jews,  this  cup 
is  frequently  of  gold,  with  jewels.  Some  other  dishes  were  laid  on 
another  table,  containing  nuts  and  dried  fruits,  of  which  they  afterwards 
partook ;  except  in  this,  the  females  entered  into  no  part  of  the  cere- 
mony. All  were  dressed  in  their  best  and  gayest  clothes,  with  jewels 
and  flowers  in  their  hair.  Before  the  conclusion  they  wished  each  other 
the  usual  wish,  that  at  the  coming  of  the  next  Passover,  they  might  all 
be  in  Jerusalem,  and  the  usual  prayer  was  offered,  that  by  that  time  the 
Messiah  might  come  to  redeem  Israel." — Egyptian  Sepulchres  and  Syrian 
Shrines,  by  Emily  A.  Beaufort. 

c  The  description  of  the  Passover  is  taken  from  Lightfoot,  Dillmann 
in  the  Bibel  Lexicon,  Ginsburg  in  Kitto's  Cyclo.,  Schiirer,  Josephus, 
the  Talmud,  Herzog,  etc.,  etc. 

d  There  were  twenty-four  courses  of  these  representatives,  as  of  the 
Priests  and  Levites,  so  that  men  from  each  course  were  required  to  be  in 
attendance  at  the  Temple  for  a  week  twice  a  year. 

8  This  description  of  the  Temple  and  of  Jerusalem  is  taken  from 
Josephus,  Caspari,  Hausrath,  Delitzsch,  Cohen,  Jost,  Yaihinger,  Keim, 
Bunsen,  and  others. 


NOTES.  553 

8  Avefr/row.    Luke  ii.  44. 

h  Lightfoot  (Hor.  Heb.,  vol.  iii.  pp.  46,  47)  gives  illustrations  of  this. 

1  Some  suppose  Hillel  to  have  been  present,  but  he  appears  to  have 
been  a  man  in  Herod's  early  youth  eighty  years  before. — Ewald,  vol.  v. 
p.  407.  Jost,  vol.  i.  pp.  328,  265.  Schiirer,  pp.  36,  454.  He  is  said  to 
have  died  A.  D.  10  or  11,  aged  120.  But  Derenbourg  thinks  that  he  and 
Shammai  died  about  the  same  time  as  Herod,  A.D.  2  or  4.  There  is, 
indeed,  no  certainty  in  these  matters. 

k  Meyer  translates  &>  rots  roD  Harp6s  /JLOV — "  in  my  Father's  housa." 
So  also  Kuinoel.  De  Wette  prefers  this,  but  thinks  it  does  not  ex- 
clude the  sense  "  my  Father's  affairs."  Oosterzee,  prefers  "  affairs." 
Tischendorf  translates  the  clause  —  "Knew  ye  not  that  I  must  be  in 
my  Father's  house  ?  " 

1  See  a  fine  sermon  of  Schleiermaeher,  on  this  subject. — Prcdigten, 
vol.  iv.  p.  313. 

m  See  an  admirable  sermon  by  Schleiermaeher  on  this  verse. — Pre- 
digten,  vol.  iv.  p.  206. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 
•  They  were  of  the  horns  of  a  ram  or  he  goat. 

b  Even  he  stayed  only  a  moment  in  the  small,  dark,  damp  chamber. 
Jost,  vol.  i.  p.  164. 

0  Even  the  grape  and  olive  harvests  were  over. 

d  All  Jews,  everywhere,  do  so  still,  even  in  London. 

e  The  Jewish  name  is  Khanuca  —  HSJn  —  "  Dedication." 


f  Matt.  iv.  7,  10.  Luke  iv.  4,  8,  12.  Matt.  is.  13;  xv.  4.  Mark  vii.  10. 
Matt.  xxii.  36,  38  ;  xviii.  16  ;  xi.  10  ;  xxiv.  15.  Mark  xiii.  14.  Matt. 
xxvi.  54.  Luke  vii.  27.  Matt.  xi.  10.  Luke  xxii.  37.  Matt.  x.  35  ;  xii. 
5  ;  xiii.  14,  15  ;  xv.  8,  9  ;  xxi.  16,  42  ;  xxvi.  31.  John  vi.  45  ;  xiii.  18  ; 
xv.  25.  Matt.  xii.  40  ;  xix.  4,  5.  Mark  x.  6.  Matt.  xxii.  32.  Mark  xii. 
26.  Luke  xx.  41.  Matt,  xxvii.  46.  Mark  xv.  34  ;  ix.  49.  John  x.  34. 
See  Canon  Westcott's  Introduction  to  the  Gospels,  p.  380. 

8  Jesus  must  have  used  the  Hebrew  text  in  disputing  with  the  Rabbis, 
and  Joseph  and  Mary,  doubtless,  understood,  read,  and  taught  Christ 
the  Hebrew  ;  but  could  hardly  have  known  the  Greek  translation  of  the 
Seventy.  It  was,  moreover,  even  then  little  esteemed  among  the  Jews. 
Paul  shows  the  dislike  of  the  Jews  to  Greek.  Acts  xxi.  40. 

h  Comp.  Matt.  vi.  23,  "  The  light  that  is  in  thee  ;  "  vi.  26,  "Are  ye  not 
much  better  than  they?"  xii.  12,  "How  much  is  a  man  better  than  a 
sheep  ?  "  ix.  4  ;  xii.  25.  Luke  xiv.  7  ;  xxi.  1. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

•  Buxtorf  explains  the  title  Scribe  (Sopher),  thus — "  Elias  "  (a  Rabbi) 
writes: — "  The  wise  are  meant  by  the  name  Sopherim  (Scribes i,  who  are 
called,  more  exactly,  Pkabbis,  masters,  and  doctors,  or  Teachers  of  the 


554  NOTES. 

Law."— Lex.  Heb.  Tal,  etc.,  under  the  word  1BD.  In  the  New  Testa- 
ment, the  Scribes  are  sometimes  called  "  lawyers  "  (PO/XIKOI),  Matt.  xxii. 
35;  Luke  vii.  30;  x.  25  ;  or  "Teachers  of  the  Law"  (j>ofj.o8i8daKa\oi), 
Luke  v.  17  ;  Acts  v.  34  ;  1  Tim.  i.  7.  In  the  Mishna  the  name  "  Scribe  " 
is  only  used  of  the  FOUNDERS  of  the  Oral  Law,  that  is,  of  the  Scribea 
(D'HSfD),  from  the  time  of  Ezra  to  that  of  the  Maccabees.  Instead  of 
Scribe,  the  title  of  "  the  Learned"  (D^P^D),  the  same  word  as  Hakim— 
•which  is  still  that  of  the  East  for  a  learned  man — is  used.  Buxtorf  gives 
an  extract  from  the  Mishna,  which  may  be  added  to  what  has  been 
elsewhere  said  of  the  corruption  of  the  Pharisees  in  the  days  of  Christ: 
"  The  weak  good  man,  the  clever  knave,  the  religious  woman,  and  the 
mesh-like  rules  of  the  Pharisees,  bring  old  age  on  the  world  and  destroy 
it."— Page  799a. 

b  Que  chacun  se  persuade  que  ceux  qui  vivent  sous  I'ob6issance 
"  dpivent  se  laisser  conduire  et  diriger,  par  la  divine  providence,  qui  se 
sert  de  1'entremise  de  leurs  superieurs,  comme  s'ils  etaient  des  cadavres 
qui  se  laissent  remucr  en  tout  sens  et  manier  comme  on  veut :  ou  comme 
le  baton  que  tieiit  un  vieillard,  et  qui  lui  sert  a  quelque  fin  qu'il-v*euille 
1'employer,  et  de  quelque  cot§  qu'il  veuille  le  tourner.  On  obeit,  quant  a 
1'execution,  lorsqu'on  fait  ce  qui  est  ordonne ;  quaut  a  la  volonte,  lorsque 
celui  qui  obeit  u'a  pas  d'autre  volonte  que  celle  de  celui  qni  lui  com- 
mande ;  quant  &  1'esprit,  lorsqu'il  pense  comme  lui,  et  qu'il  croit  que  ce 
qu'on  lui  commande  est  comrnande  a  propos,"  etc. — Constitutions  des 
Jgsuites  en  France.  (Edition  prepared  by  themselves  in  1762.)  Thus  it 
is  demanded  of  the  Jesuit  that  he  be  towards  his  superiors  like  a  corpse, 
which  can  be  moved  in  any  way  desired  ;  or  like  a  staff  in  the  hands  of 
an  old  man,  which  turns  any  way  he  wishes,  and  serves  any  end  he  may 
fancy.  He  is  even  to  think  as  his  superior  commands,  and  to  believe 
that  all  he  orders  is  right !  This  reminds  one  of  the  horrible  extinction 
of  manhood  in  the  "  assassins,"  as  told  by  Von  Hammer  (History  of  the 
Assassins,  p.  135),  where  members  of  the  order  threw  themselves  over 
precipices,  or  stabbed  themselves,  at  the  command  of  their  "  prior,"  to 
show  visitors  how  obedient  they  were  ! 

0  The  taking  of  Jerusalem  by  Pompey,  B.C.  63,  was  connected  with  the 
overthrow  of  the  Syro-Greek  kingdom,  which,  till  then,  had  at  intervals 
been  "paramount  in  Judea. 

d  On  this  part  of  the  subject  see  Jost,  vol.  i.  pp.  199,  205. 

e  Laws  of  Manu,  quoted  in  Baring-Gould's  Heathenism  and  Mosaism, 
p.  204. 

f  This  method  of  interpretation  is  called  Gematria  (the  science  of 
figures). 

«  Thus— 

J  (IT)  1  (E)  1  (0)  ]  (N).    p  (K)  D  (S)  1  (E). 
50  +   200  +    6    +  50  +     100    +    60  +  200  =  666. 

Neron  Kesar  (Nero  the  Emperor)  was  apparently  the  name  by  which 
the  Christians  of  Asia  spoke  of  the  monster.  Thus  the  coins  of  Asia 
bore  the  legend  — NEPfl'N  KAISAP— the  form  of  the  mystic  number. 
See  Kenan  L'Antechrist,  p.  416.  Schiirer,  L.  B.,  p.  449.  Gfrorer,  vol. 
i.  p.  245.  Hausrath,  Zeitgesch.,  vol.  i.  p.  99.  There  are  inscriptions  at 
Palmyra  in  which  Nero's  name  and  dignity  are  written  exactly  as  in  the 


NOTES.  555 

cipher  in  the  Apocalypse. — De  Vogue's  Syrie  Centrale,  etc.,  1868,  pp.  17, 
26. 

h  Gratz  has  a  learned  and  ingenious  attempt  to  show  that  Jesus  was 
indebted  to  the  Pharisees  for  Christianity. — Gratz,  Geschichte  der  Jiuten, 
vol.  iii.  chap.  11,  p.  216.  Geiger  tries  to  support  the  same  view,  but  with 
equal  want  of  success. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

•  Josephus  speaks  of  the  lavish  expenditure  at  these  feasts,  which 
reduced  many  to  poverty. — Bell.  Jud.,  ii.  1.  1. 

b  Herod  had  -ten  wives  : — 

1.  Doris.     Son,  Antipater,  beheaded  by  his  father  (B.C.  4  ?). 

2.  Mariamne,  grand-daughter  of  Hyrcanus.     Sons,  Alexander  and 

Aristobulus,  put  to  death  by  Herod  B.C.  7.  Daughters,  Sa- 
lampsis  and  Kypros.  Salampsis  married  Phasaelus,  her  first 
cousin,  and  had  three  sons  and  two  daughters. 

8.  Mariamne,  daughter  of  the  High  Priest,  Simon  (B.C.  24).     Son, 
Herod,  first  husband  of  Herodias. 

4.  Malthace,  the  Samaritan.    Sons,  Archelaus  and  Antipas.    Daugh- 

ter, Olympias. 

5.  Cleopatra,  of  Jerusalem.     Sons,  Herod  and  Philip. 

6.  Pallas.     Son,  Phasael. 

7.  Phadra.     Daughter,  Eoxana. 

8.  Elpis.     Daughter,  Salome. 

9  and  10.     A  brother's  daughter,   and  a  sister's  daughter.     No 
children. 

Thus  Herod  had  nine  sons  and  five  daughters.  Yet  the  family,  except 
a  very  few  obscure  descendants,  died  out  within  100  years.  Jos.,  Ant., 
xviii.  5.  3. 

Intermarriages  were,  doubtless,  in  part,  the  cause. 

1.  Salampsis,  daughter  of  2,  married  her  cousin  Phasael,  son  of  her 

uncle  Phasael. 

2.  Aristobulus,  son  of  2,  married  Berenice,  daughter  of  Salome,  sister 

of  bis  father  Herod. 
8.  Herod  Philip,  son  of  3,  married  Herodias,  daughter  of  Aristobulu3 

and  Berenice. 

4.  Antipas,  son  of  4,  married  the  same  Herodias. 
Philip,  son  of  5,  married  Salome,  daughter  of  this  Herodias. 

In  the  next  generation — 

1,  Herod,  son  of  2,  married  Mariamne,  grand-daughter  of  Joseph, 

Herod's  brother. 

2.  Agrippa,  son  of  2,  married  Kypros,  grand-daughter  of  Phasael, 

Herod's  brother  (see  2). 

In  the  third  generation — 

Aristobulus,   son  of  1,   married   Salome,   daughter  of  Herodiaa 

(see  5). 
Agrippa  (2)  is  "  Herod  the  King'r — Acts  xii.  1. 


556  NOTES. 

He  bad  children,  who  lived  to  maturity,  and  are  named  in  the 
New  Testament. 

Agrippa  (King  Agrippa). — Acts  xxv.  13. 

Berenice,  married  Herod,  King  of  Chalcis  ;  then  lived  in  the 

worst  sense  with  her  brother  "  King  Agrippa,"  Acts  xxv. 

13,  23,  and  was  finally  mistress  to  the  Emperor  Vespasian 

and  his  son  Titus. 
Drusilla,  married  to  Felix,  after  he  had  seduced  her.     She 

had  a  son  by  Felix,  who,  with  his  mother,  perished  in  the 

eruption  of  Vesuvius,  A.D.  79. 

*  His  character,  a  type  of  that  of  Eoman  governors  as  a  rule,  is  given 
pithily  by  Velleius,  Pat.,  ii.  117 :    "  Syriam  divitem  pauper    ingressus 
pauperem  reliquit,"  which  may  be  translated :  "  He  had  nothing  when 
he  came  to  rich  Syria ;  Syria  had  nothing  when  he  left  it  rich." 

d  Crassus  fifty  years  before  (B.C.  54)  had  plundered  them  of  £1,250,000. 

0  "  A  Tropaikon,  or  Koman  Victoriatus,  so  called  from  the  image  of 
the  Goddess  of  Victory  on  it— of  the  value  of  half  a  denarius,  the 
'  penny '  of  the  New  Testament.  Matt.  xx.  2,  4,  7  ;  ix.  10,  13."  The 
denarius  may  be  taken  as  having  been  equal  to  about  8|d. — Diet,  of 
Antiq.,  Art.  Denarius. 

*  The  Eoman  procurators  were  lieutenant  governors  of  divisions   of 
Eoman  provinces,  under  the  governors-general  of  each  province.     They 
were  generally  Bomai  kuights,  and  were  especially  charged  with  the 
collection  of  the  revenue   of  their  governments,   and  with  any  legal 
matters  connected  with  it.      Occasionally,  in  smaller  provinces,  or  in 
districts  belonging  to   a  larger  province,   they   took   the  place  of  the 
governor-general,  and  in  that  case  had,  in  part,  the  command  of  the 
troops,  and  were  the  judges  even  in  criminal  matters,  but  always  in 
subordination  to  the  governor-general  of  the  province.     This  was  the 
position  of  the  procurators  in  Judea  and  Samaria  after  the  incorporation 
of  these  as  one  district  with  the  province  of  Syria,  on  the  banishment  of 
Archelaus. — Winer,  E.  W.  B.,  Art.  Procuratoren. 

8  The  system  of  the  Eoman  exchequer,  by  which  not  only  the  indirect 
taxation,  but  the  revenue  from  the  imperial  domains,  was  raised  by 
middlemen,  secured  the  most  excessive  advantages  to  Eoman  capitalists, 
at  the  expense  of  the  tax-payers.  The  direct  imposts  consisted  either  in 
fixed  sums  of  money  to  be  raised  from  the  community — which  precluded 
the  intervention  of  the  capitalists,  or,  as  in  Sicily  and  Sardinia,  in  a 
tithe  of  the  produce  of  the  soil,  the  collection  of  which,  in  each  separate 
district,  was  farmed  out,  most  frequently  by  the  rich  provincials,  and 
often  by  the  communities  themselves,  to  keep  away  the  dreaded  middle- 
men. When  the  province  of  Asia  came  into  Eoman  hands,  the  Senate 
had  decreed  that  the  former  plan,  in  the  main,  should  be  introduced, 
but  Caius  Gracchus  (B.C.  123)  got  this  rejected  by  a  popular  vote,  and 
net  only  loaded  the  province,  which,  till  then,  had  had  scarcely  any 
taxation,  with  the  most  excessive  indirect  and  direct  imposts,  especially 
the  tithe  of  the  soil,  but  caused  these  burdens  to  be  fanned  for  the  whole 
of  it,  and  that  in  Borne  ;  a  plan  which  not  only  shut  out  all  participation 
in  the  profits  by  the  provincials,  but  called  into  existence  a  colossal  asso- 
ciation of  capitalists,  to  purchase  the  tithes,  the  house  tax,  and  the 
customs. 


NOTES.  557 

In  addition  to  these  imperial  burdens,  the  local  charges  on  the  com- 
munity (in  the  provinces)  must  have  been  heavy.  The  costs  of  govern- 
ment, the  maintenance  of  the  public  buildings,  and  all  civil  expenses 
generally,  were  borne  by  the  municipal  budgets,  the  Bomans  only  under- 
taking to  pay  military  expenses.  But  even  of  these  a  good  part  was 
thrown  on  the  communities.  They  had  to  build  and  maintain  the 
military  roads  outside  Italy,  and  the  fleets  in  all  other  seas  but  Italian. 
They  had  even  to  pay  the  expenses  of  the  army,  in  great  measure,  for 
the  cost  of  the  levies  made  in  each  province  was  raised  from  the  province 
itself,  and  it  was  even  required  to  pay  its  troops  when  they  were  seut  off 
to  other  provinces. 

Besides  all  this,  the  great  chapter  of  wrongs  is  not  to  be  forgotten,  by 
which  Eoman  officials  and  farmers  of  the  taxes  increased  the  burdens  of 
the  provinces  in  endless  ways.  Every  gift  accepted  by  a  governor  was, 
in  etfect,  an  extortion,  and  even  the  right  to  sell  might  be  claimed  by 
him.  His  official  position,  moreover,  offered  him  abundant  opportunity 
for  doing  injustice  if  he  wished.  The  quartering  of  troops  ;  free  quarters 
for  officials,  and  for  a  swarm  of  adjutants  of  senatorial  or  knightly  rank, 
of  scribes,  servants  of  the  courts  of  law,  heralds,  physicians,  and  priests  ; 
the  right  of  state  messengers  to  free  conveyance ;  the  accepting  and  the 
transport  of  all  natural  productions  due  as  taxes,  and,  above  all,  forced 
sales  and  requisitions,  gave  all  officials  the  opportunity  of  carrying  back 
princely  fortunes  from  the  provinces,  and  the  plunder  became  even  more 
and  more  general,  as  it  grew  clearer  that  the  State  would  not  interfere 
with  it,  and  that  the  tribunals  were  only  dangerous  to  honourable  men. 
— Mommserfs  tidmische  Geschichte,  vol.  iii.  pp.  113,  392. 

h  Tacitus  (Annal.,  iv.  6)  says  this  was  the  case  in  the  year  17.  Jesua 
would  then  be  at  least  twenty-one  years  of  age. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

•  It  is  often  said,  that  the  Zealots  were  the  same  party  as  ultimately 
became  known  in  the  last  days  of  Judaism  by  the  name  of  "  Sicarii  "  or 
"  dagger-men,"  and  were  deservedly  infamous.  But  Pressel,  in  the  Art. 
Zelotes,  in  Herzog,  shows  that  the  Sicarii  were  mere  hireling  ruffians, 
who  had  already  been  in  the  pay  of  Gessius  Florus,  the  Koman  pro- 
curator. 

b  Quirinius  was  the  imperial  Legate  in  Syria,  and  the  governor-general 
cf  the  province  from  A.D.  6-11.  It  is  worth  adding  the  following,  from 
Cicero,  to  what  has  been  said  elsewhere,  of  the  rapacity  and  lawlessness 
cf  the  highest  Eoman  functionaries  in  the  East. 

"  Gabinius  (Proconsul  or  Governor-General  of  Syria,  B.C.  57-55)  ex- 
torted, daily,  an  incalculable  weight  of  gold  from  the  well-stocked  and 
rich  treasures  of  Syria,  and  made  war  on  the  peaceful,  that  he  might 
cast  their  ancient  and  hitherto  untouched  riches  into  the  bottomless 
gulf  of  his  own  lusts." — Pro  Cestio,  c.  43. 

"  In  Syria  his  one  employment  was  to  make  corrupt  agreements  with 
tyrants,  interested  decisions,  robberies,  pillagings,  and  massacres." — D< 
Provinciis  Consularibua,  c.  4. 

For  notice  of  Gabinius,  see  page  276. 


558  NOTES. 

CHAPTER  XX. 

*  A  reed,  an  anchor,  a  ship,  or  a  representation  of  the  rock  from  which 
the  hot  spring  flowed,  were  the  varying  symbols  of  the  city  on  its  coins. 

b  The  estimates  of  the  size  of  Galilee  vary.  Keim  puts  it  at  2,000 
square  miles,  which  is  preposterously  high.  Mr.  Phillott  calculates  it  at 
930  square  miles.  I  have  followed  Menke's  map.  The  boundary  line 
of  the  province,  which  is  minutely  stated  by  Josephus,  has  not  as  yet 
been  traced,  owing  to  the  disappearance  of  some  of  the  towns  named  by 
him. 

The  nearest  way  from  Galilee  to  Jerusalem  by  Samaria,  was  three 
days'  journey.  —  Jon.  Vita,  p.  52.  Scythopolis,  at  the  south  end  of 
Galilee,  was  600  stadia  (seventy-five  miles)  from  Jerusalem.  Tiberias 
aud  Nazareth  were  each  fifteen  miles  from  Scythopolis.  Capernaum 
was  between  five  and  eight  miles  from  Tiberias.  Tiberias  was  about 
ninety  miles  from  Jerusalem. 


CHAPTER  XXI. 

7J  (Isa.  viii.  23  Heb.),  from  ^-13,  "to  turn  in  a  circle."  Lit. 
— "  The  circle,  or  region  of  the  nations."  In  Isaiah — Galilee  of  the 
nations  (i.e.  heathen). 

b  "  City  of  the  Scythians,"  apparently  thus  called  from  the  settlement 
in  the  ancient  Bethshean  of  some  of  the  Scythians,  who  invaded  Pales- 
tine on  their  way  to  Egypt,  shortly  before  the  taking  of  Jerusalem  by 
Nebuchadnezzar. — Eawlinson's  Herodotus,  vol.  i.  p.  246. 

0  Sepphoris  kept  up  a  busy  intercourse  with  Ptolemais,  and  in  the  last 
war  sided,  from  the  first,  with  the  Romans,  against  the  Jews. — Jos. 
Vita,  65. 

d  The  narrow  spirit  of  the  Rabbis  is  well  shown  in  their  way  of  speak- 
ing of  Perea.  "  The  Land  of  Israel,"  they  say,  "  is  holier  than  all  lands, 
because  the  holy  sheaves,  the  first-fruits  and  the  shewbread  are  taken 
from  it.  Canaan  is  holier  than  the  land  on  the  other  side  of  the  Jordan, 
for  Canaan  is  chosen  as  the  dwelling  of  the  Shechina,  but  Perea  is  not 
BO." — Uemidbar,  r.  7,  p  188,  quoted  by  Sepp,  Leben  Jesu,  vol.  ii.  p.  19. 
Perea  means  the  land  on  the  other  side,  ij  -repaid  (x^P1))  —Sans.  Para*, 
"  tho  farther  bank  "  (of  a  river). 


CHAPTER   XXII. 

•  Josephus  informs  us  that  Pompey  used  battering  rams  in  his  siege 
of  the  Temple. 

b  Pompey  insisted  on  entering  the  Holy  of  Holies  with  his  officers. — 
Bell.  Jud.,  i.  7.  6.     Ant.,  xiv.  4.  4.     Tacit.  Hist.,  v.  9.     Livii  Epit.,  c.  ii. 

c  Slaves  were  regularly  branded.     Cicero  uses  the  word  Sti(jmatias  of 
the  mark  of  the  owner  branded  on  a  slave. — Cic.  OJ?'.,  ii.  7,  25. 


NOTES.  559 

*  Potnpey  was  murdered  ignominiously  by  an  Egyptian  centurion,  who 
stabbed  him  in  the  back  as  he  was  landing.     His  head  was  then  cut  off, 
and  his  naked  body  left  unburied  on  the  sand.    His  freedman,  Philip, 
alone  remained  by  it,  and  gathered  enough  drift  wood  on  the  shore  to 
make  a  funeral  pyre  and  buru  it,  according  to  the  Roman  custom.— 
Plutarch,  Pompey,  iv.  150. 

e  Eeferences  to  the  Messiah,  supposed  to  belong  to  the  Maccabaean 
times,  are  found  by  Hilgenfeld  in  Ps.  Ixxxiv.  9  ;  Ixxxix.  39  ;  but  the  date 
of  these  Psalms  is  too  much  disputed  to  argue  from  any  expressions  they 
contain. 

*  Psalm  cv.  15,  is  in  the  Hebrew,  Touch  not  my  Messiahs  (Christs, 
or  Anoiuted  ones)  W^PI!  •lyiPTpX — so  1  Chron.  xvi.  22. 

The  Jewish  kings,  also,  are  constantly  spoken  of  as  God's  "  Messiahs." 
The  name  is,  "  the  anointed  of  Jehovah ;  "  or,  in  the  Greek  version, 
"  The  Christ  of  the  Lord."  6  xftia"r^  Kvplou — 1  Sam.  ii.  10,  35  ;  xii. 
3,  5 ;  xvi.  6  ;•  xxiv.  7,  11 ;  xxvi.  9,  11,  23.  2  Sam.  i.  14,  16  ;  xix-  22 ; 
xxiii.  1.  Ps.  xviii.  51 ;  xx.  7  ;  xxviii.  8.  In  Isaiah  xlv.  1,  the  name  is 
used  of  Cyrus,  King  of  Persia. 

B  They  based  its  application  to  him  on  passages  like  Ps.  ii.  2 ;  Darr. 
x.  26.  Buxtorf  («.  v.  nit^D)  gives  a  list  of  seventy-one  passages  of  the 
Old  Testament,  which  are  made  to  allude  to  the  Messiah  by  the  Jewish 
Commentators.  I  copy  a  few  as  a  specimen  of  Eabbinical  interpretation. 
Gen.  xxxv.  21 — "  And  spread  his  tent  beyond  the  tower  of  Edar," 
(Migdal-Eder,  the  tower  of  the  Shepherds,  that  is,  Bethlehem,  see  p. 
116).  "  This  is  the  place,"  says  the  Targum  of  Jonathan,  a  contem- 
porary of  Christ,  "  from  which  the  King  Hessias  shall  be  revealed  in  the 
end  of  days."  Gen.  iii.  15  and  xlix.  10,  are  also  applied  to  the  Messiah. 
On  Exod.  xii.  42,  the  Jerus.  Targum  says,  "  Moses  came  out  of  Egypt ; 
the  Messiah  will  come  out  of  KOME." — The  Eabbis,  in  fact,  believed  that 
there  would  be  two  Messiahs,  for  only  thus  could  they  explain  the  oppo- 
site allusions  of  suffering  and  triumph  as  marking  the  Messiah,  which 
occur  in  the  Old  Testament.  One  Messiah  was  to  be  the  son  of  Joseph, 
or  Ephraim,  and  was  to  fight  for  Israel,  and  ultimately  to  die.  To  him 
they  referred  all  the  passages  in  which  the  humiliation  of  the  Messiah  is 
spoken  of.  The  other  was  to  be  the  son  of  David,  who  would  reign  for 
ever.  Buxtorf  quotes  many  passages  showing  this. 

h  The  approximate  age  of  the  principal  Apocryphal  Books  may  be  set 
down  as  follows : — 

Wisdom  of  Sirach.     Alexandrian,  about  B.C.  132.     Fritzsche. 

Baruch.    About  B.C.  150.     Ginsburg. 

Wisdom    of    Solomon.       Of  Alexandrian   origin,   B.C.   145-116. 

Fritzsche. 
Judith.     Hilgenfeld,   B.C.   147-145.      Ewald,   B.C.   130.    Movers, 

B.C.  105. 
Esther,  Supplement  to  Judith.      Traditions  dating  back  to  the 

Captivity.     Ginsburg. 

The  Book  of  Enoch.    About  B.C.  110.     Hilgenfeld,  Dillmann. 
The  Book  of  Jubilees.     From  B.C.  110  to  B.C.  64,  and  partly  even 

during  the  reign  of  Herod.     Kostlin. 

The  Jewish  Sibylline  Books.     About  B.C.  140.     Hilgenfeld. 
First  Book  of  Esdras.     At  least,  B.C.  100.     Ginsburg. 


560  NOTES. 

Tobit.    End  of  Persian  Period,  about  B.C.  350.     Ewald,  Fritzsche. 
Translated  into  Greek  about  B.C.  100.  ,,  ,, 

1  Maccabees.    About  B.C.  90.     Fritzsche. 

The  Psalms  of  Solomon.    About  B.C.  40.     Hilgenfeld. 

2nd  Esdras.    B.C.  50. — Ginsburg.     B.C.  28-25. — Hilgenfeld. 

The  Song  of  the  Three  Holy  Children.  The  History  of  Susanna, 
Bel  and  the  Dragon,  and  the  Prayer  of  Manasses  are  of  un- 
certain age,  but  date  B.C. 

The  Assumption  of  Moses.    About  A.D.  40.     Hilgenfeld. 

2  Maccabees.     Before  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  in  A.D.  70. 

Fritzsche. 

% 

1  The  chapters  from  which  some  of  these  quotations  are  taken,  may 
be  later  than  earlier  portions  of  the  book,  but  this  would  not  affect  the 
generation  of  Christ's  day. 

k  The  friends  of  the  Asmonean  princes.  The  "  pious  "  or  "  Zealots  " 
supported  the  Maccabees  while  they  fought  for  religion,  b.ut  when  they 
set  up  an  earthly  monarchy,  with  themselves  at  its  head,  instead  of  the 
theocracy,  they  turned  against  them. 

1  The  usurpation  of  the  title  of  king  by  Aristobulus  I.  and  the  follow- 
ing Maccabasan  kings. — Lanijt-n,  Das  Judentlium  in  Palaestina,  p.  08. 
Hilgenfeld,  Messias  Judtsorum,  p.  31. 

m  The  warlike  kings,  Jannaeus,  Alexander,  and  Aristobulus  II. 
n  Antipater,  the  Edomite,  father  of  Herod. 

0  Aristobulus  II.  was  poisoned,  by  Pompey's  orders,  B.C.  48;  and  his 
son,  Alexander,  was  put  to  death  the  same  year. — Bell.  Jud.,  i.  9.  1,  2. 
Ant.,  xiv.  7.  4. 

P  Pompey,  B.C.  66,  after  him  Gabinius,  B.C.  57,  and  after  him,  Crassus, 
B.C.  52. 

1  Pompey  sent  off  great  numbers  of  Jews  as  captives  (slaves)  to  the 
western  parts  of  the  empire,  including  Home. 

1  King  Aristobulus,  his  son  Antigonus,  his  two  daughters,  and  his 
son-in-law  Absalom,  adorned  the  triumph  of  Pompey,  B.C.  01.  Ant., 
xiv.  4.  5.  Aristobulus  and  Antigonus  were  again  taken  prisoners  by 
Gabinius,  B.C.  56,  and  again  sent  to  Eome.  Bell.  Jud.,  i.  7.  6.  Ant., 
xiv.  6.  1. 

*  Part  of  the  army  of  Hyrcanus  was  incorporated  with  the  Eoman 
army.     Gabinius  took  3,000  Jews  for  soldiers. — Bell.  Jud.,  i.  8.  3.    Ant., 
xiv.  5.  2.     Cassius,  when  he  took  Tarichaea,  on  the  Sea  of  Galilee,  sold 
30,000  Jews  as  slaves.— Bell.  Jud.,  i.  8.  9.    Ant.,  xiv.  7.  3. 

*  xpivrbs  Kvpios.     See  Luke  ii.  11.     Comp.  Isaiah  xiv.  1 ;  TU>  x/3«rr<£  /x<w 
Ki5/)<£> — to  my  Christ,  Cyrus.     Christ  being  lit.  "  anointed  one." 

Comp.  also,  4  Esdras  vii.  28  ;  6  vlospov  6  Xjoioris,  "  My  son,  the  Christ." 
xii.  32. 

n  I  have  given  the  Greek  of  these  Psalms  as  literally  as  possible,  with- 
out sacrificing  the  sense. 

*  Dillmann  and  Frankel  believe  the  Book  of  Jubilees  to  have  been 
written  in  the  century  before  Christ.     Ewald  thinks  it  was  written  about 
the  time  of  the  birth  of  Christ. 


NOTES.  561 

*  Given  in  the  Talmud,  from  the  report  of  Abba  Saiil  Ben  Batuit,  who 
was  in  Jerusalem  in  the  time  of  Agrippa  I.,  or  shortly  after,  and  heard 
iv  from  the  lips  of  Abba  Joseph,  a  citizen  of  Jerusalem.  Agrippa  reigned 
A..D.  37-44,  that  is,  almost  immediately  after  the  crucifixion. — Geiyer, 
Urschrift,  p.  118. 

8  Sons  of  Eli,  is  a  name  given  to  the  priests  on  account  of  their 
wickedness. — 1  Sam.  ii.  22  ff. 

aa  The  worthless  son  of  Eli. 

bb  Three  hundred  is  a  Eabbinical  expression  for  an  indefinite  number. 
It  is  not,  however,  said  for  what  time  this  supply  was  intended. 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 

•  The  question,  whether  the  Virgin  Mary  had  other  children  than 
Jesus,  has  been  the  subject  of  much  controversy.  As  early  as  the  second 
century,  it  was  suggested,  from  a  desire  to  maintain  the  dignity  of 
Christ's  birth  and  the  perpetual  virginity  of  Mary,  that  the  "  brethren 
and  sisters  "  mentioned  in  the  Gospels  were  either  the  children  of  Joseph 
from  an  earlier  marriage,  or  the  family  of  Mary's  elder  sister,  and  thus, 
only  cousins  of  our  Lord.  Hegesippus  (about  160),  Clement  of  Alex- 
andria (200),  Jerome  and  Augustine  (400),  advocated  the  opinion  that 
they  were  cousins,  while  Origen  (230)  and  many  after  him,  in  both  the 
East  and  West,  maintained  the  view  that  they  were  Joseph's  children  by 
an  earlier  marriage. 

The  idea  that  they  were  half-brothers  of  Jesus  is  thought  to  be  justified 
by  their  hostility  to  Him,  but  this  is  a  very  weak  argument.  In  support 
of  the  opinion  that  they  were  cousins,  it  is  urged  that  the  same  names 
occur  in  other  connections.  Thus  there  are  a  James  and  a  Joses,  sons 
of  another  Mary,  the  supposed  sister  of  the  Virgin,  and  of  her  husband 
Clopas  or  Alphseus,  the  reputed  brother  of  Joseph.  Further,  this  James, 
the  son  of  Alphseus,  it  is  said,  appears  in  the  number  of  the  Apostles, 
and  with  him  a  Jude.  It  is  held  that  Joseph,  after  the  early  death  of 
his  brother  Clopas,  took  the  widow  and  the  children  into  his  own  house, 
and  thus  the  latter  came  to  be  so  identified  with  Joseph's  household 
that,  though  cousins,  they  were  always  regarded  as  brothers. 

In  answer  to  this,  it  is  replied,  that  the  second  Mary  is  indeed  said  to 
have  been  the  mother  of  a  James  and  Joses,  but  never  of  a  Simon  or 
Jude.  Moreover,  it  is  held  that  the  true  reading  of  John  xix.  25  should 
be,  "  There  stood  by  the  cross  of  Jesus,  His  mother,  and  His  mother's 
sister  ;— Maria,  the  wife  of  Clopas,  and  Mary  Magdalene."  This  is  the 
reading  of  Tischendorf,  Davidson,  Keim,  Hausrath,  and  others,  and  it 
makes  four  women,  not  three,  present  at  the  crucifixion.  The  relation 
of  Clopas  to  Joseph,  moreover,  rests  on  the  doubtful  testimony  of  Hege- 
sippus, in  the  second  century.  Further,  there  is  no  allusion  whatever  in 
the  Gospels  to  a  former  marriage  of  Joseph,  and  no  hint  of  the  child- 
lessness of  Mary  after  the  birth  of  Jesus.  They  rather  assume  that  she 
had  a  family,  siuce  Jesus  is  twice  spoken  of  as  her  "  first-born  "  (Luke  ii. 
7  ;  Matt.  i.  28).  Then,  in  the  history  of  Jesus  Himself,  He  is  represented 
without  any  limitation,  as  the  brother  of  those  mentioned.  The  names  of 
His  brothers,  and  the  fact  of  His  having  sisters,  are  given  by  His  fellow- 
37 


562  NOTES. 

townsmen  of  Nazareth,  without  a  hint  at  their  being  only  cousins,  or 
half-blood  to  Him.  In  other  places  where  "  brethren  "  are  mentioned, 
at  times  in  connection  with  Mary  herself  (Matt.  xii.  46),  the  current  use 
of  the  word  precludes  the  idea  of  any  other  than  the  full  xelationship. 
The  substitution  of  cousins  for  brothers  throughout,  is,  indeed,  wholly 
arbitrary  and  contrary  to  the  usage  of  the  language. 

b  There  is,  however,  a  difference  in  the  original.  Mary,  the  mother  of 
our  Lord,  is  called  Mo/)tA/*— (Mariam) ;  her  sister,  Mapia- (Maria).  Bee 
Schmidii  Concord. 

0  The  name  is,  correctly,  not  Cleophas,  but  Clopas  (K\<2iras).     See 
John  xix.  25.     Alphasus,  or  Alpheus('AX^atos),  and  Clopas  are  different 

ways  of  pronouncing  in  Greek  the  Hebrew  name  ""S/H  (Chal'phai). 
Matthew  and  Mark  give  it  without  the  aspirate  'AX^aios,  as  the  Sept. 
writes  'Ayyalos,  for  *|H  (Haggai),  Hag.  i.,  while  John  exchanges  the  PI  for 
the  Greek  K  as  0cur^c  (Phasek)  is  used  in  the  Sept.  (2  Chron.  xxx.  1)  for 
nDS  (Pesach).  This  is  Robinson's  view,  but  Mangold  (Bibel  Lexicon, 
Art.  Judas]  denies  the  identity  of  the  two  persons,  maintaining  that  the 
Hebrew  name,  at  the  most,  could  only  be  Clilopasin  Greek,  yet  Hausrath 
supports  Robinson. — Bibel  Lex.,  Art.  Alphceus. 

d  This  is  Keim's  view.  Hausrath,  Delitzsch,  and  Schenkel,  think 
James  the  Just  was  the  son  of  Clophas-Alphaeus. 

8  The  child  was  the  son  of  Virgil's  patron,  C.  Asinius  Pollio,  and  was 
the  youthful  companion  of  Herod's  ill-fated  sons,  Alexander  and  Aristo- 
bulus. 

f  It  was  said  to  have  bellows  of  elephant  hide,  and  pipes  producing  a 
hundred  tones. 

s  The  word  righteous  receives  an  illustration  of  its  meaning  among 
the  Jews,  from  the  name  by  which  the  Zealots  of  the  Law  were  known, 
from  the  time  of  John  Hyrcanus.  pH¥  (Tsaddouk)  or  ""pHV  (Tsad- 
douki) — Sadducees — was  the  name  given  to  the  party  who  prided  them- 
selves on  strict  legality.  It  came  from  p^V  (Tsaddik),  "just,  righteous," 
applied  both  to  God  and  men. — Isa.  xlv.  21 ;  Prov.  xxix.  7.  Yet, 
besides  legal  exactness,  it,  in  other  cases,  implied  moral  worth. 

h  In  Luke  i.  15,  it  is  said  that  John  will  drink^  neither  wine  nor  strong 
drink  (olvov  /cat  alKtpa.).  2t/ce/>a  (sikera),  Heb.  ~O°5?>.  Sikera  Hebraeo  itr- 
mone  omnis  potio,  qua  inebriare  potest,  sive  ilia,  quae  frumento  con- 
ticitur  sive  pomorum  succo,  aut  cum  favi  decoquuntur  in  dulcem  et 
barbaram  potionem,  aut  palmarum  fructus  exprimuntur  in  liquorem, 
coctisque  frugibus  aqua  pinguior  coloratur. — Hieron.  Ep.  ad  Nepotian., 
vol.  i.  p.  266,  ed.  Ver.  (Sikera  in  Hebrew  is  every  kind  of  drink  which 
can  intoxicate,  whether  that  which  is  made  from  grain,  or  from  the  juice 
of  fruit,  or  from  honey  prepared  as  a  sweet  and  rude  beverage,  or 
from  the  juice  pressed  from  the  fruit  of  the  palm,  and  thickened  and 
coloured  by  fruit  syrup.)  It  thus  included  all  fermented  liquors,  whether 
prepared  from  grain,  fruit,  dates,  honey,  or  the  like.  Pliny  says,  that 
Palestine  was  especially  noted  for  palm  wine. — N.  H.,  xiv.  19. 

1  Authorities  for  this  description  of  the  Nazarite  vow : — Dillmann,  Art. 
Nasiraer,  Bibel  Lexicon.     Oehler,  Art.  Nasiraer,  Herzog's  Heal  Kncy. 
Ewald,  Alterthiimer,  pp.  113-118.     Derenbourg,  Histoirc  de  la  Palestine, 


NOTES.  563 

passim.     Jost,  Judenthum,  passim.    Arts.  Nasiraer,  Wein,  etc.,  in  Winer's 
Heal  Worterbuch. 

k  Lipsius  (Art.  Essaer,  Bibel  Lexicon)  gives  as  the  origin  of  the  name, 
the  Aram,  hasa  and  hasan,  "  to  be  pious,"  and  thinks  it  meant  "  the 
pious";  also  the  apparently  related  name  Hasidim,  the  pious— of  the 
Maccabsean  time.  Derenbourg  thinks  an  attempt  at  settling  the  point, 
hopeless. 

1  There  was  a  gate  of  the  Essenes  at  Jerusalem. 

10  Philo  quod  omn.  pr.  lib.,  876. — Bell.  Jud.,  vi.  8.  9;  ii.  8.  6. 

n  The  Tigris,  P^H  means,  "  the  swift  stream."  The  Zend,  Teger, 
Pehlv,  Tegera,  from  which  our  Tigris  has  come,  itself,  means  "  The 
Swift."  Tigris,  in  Median,  means  "  an  arrow." 


CHAPTEE  XXIV. 

•  In  the  Talmud  a  certain  Nathan  Dezu  Zilha  is  mentioned,  who  wore 
a  dress  of  camels'  hair  as  a  penitent,  that  the  suffering  it  caused  might 
be  accepted  for  his  pardon. — B.  Shabbath,  f.  56.  2. 

The  sackcloth  of  Jewish  mourners  and  penitents,  and  the  bair-cloth 
shirt  of  later  ages,  had  the  same  idea  of  penitential  self -infliction.  "  The 
hair  of  the  camel,  especially  the  coarser  woollen  tufts,  about  the  hump 
and  back,  is  in  some  places  torn  off,  but  more  generally,  as  I  have  ob- 
served, closely  shorn  once  a  year,  and  used  for  weaving  into  a  close  thick 
fabric  by  the  Arab  women.  It  is  of  this  material  that  the  '  black  tents 
of  Kedar'  are  generally  constructed,  as  it  is  much  thicker  and  stouter 
than  woollen  stuff.  It  is  very  harsh  and  rough  to  the  touch,  and  thus 
his  dress  was  in  accordance  with  the  austerity  of  the  rest  of  the  Baptist's 
mode  of  life." — Tristram's  Nat.  Hist,  of  the  Bible,  p.  66. 

b  It  is  a  touching  illustration  of  the  vitality  of  popular  beliefs  that  the 
remnant  of  the  Samaritans  surviving  at  Nablus — the  last  of  the  race — 
still  cling  to  the  fond  Messianic  dreams  of  the  days  of  Christ.  They 
call  the  Messiah  2Hn  (ta6b),  "  He  who  restores  the  penitent;"  that  is, 
who  leads  men  back  to  God.  He  will  appear  in  the  6,000th  year  after  the 
creation  of  the  world,  which  is  close  at  hand.  Hence,  He  is  already  on 
earth,  but  without  knowing  His  dignity.  In  the  year  1853,  when  the 
whole  community  numbered  only  122  souls,  they  expected  a  great  poli- 
tical revolution,  and,  in  consequence  of  this,  the  kings  of  the  earth  were, 
in  1863,  to  cause  the  wisest  of  all  nations  to  assemble  at  an  appointed 
place,  to  search  out  the  true  faith,  by  mutual  consultation.  One  would 
be  sent  thither  from  the  Israelites — that  is,  from  the  Samaritans,  also, 
and  this  one  would  be  the  Messiah.  He  would  gain  the  victory  in  this 
friisndly  discussion,  lead  the  assembly  to  Mount  Gerizim,  where  they 
would  find,  under  the  twelve  stones  *  on  the  hill-top,  the  ten  command- 
ments, or  the  whole  Law,  and  under  the  stone  of  Bethel, f  which  is  also, 
as  they  think,  on  Gerizim,  the  sacred  vessels  of  the  Temple,  and  the  pot 

*  The  twelve  stones  taken  by  Joshua  from  the  Jordan. — Joshm,  iv.  3. 

t  The  stone  which  Jacob  used  for  a  pillow.  Another  legena  says,  that  the  stone 
IB  that  in  the  Coronation  Chair,  in  Westminster  Abbey. 


564  NOTES. 

of  manna,  so  long  hidden.  All  would  then  believe  in  the  Law,  and  in 
the  Messiah  as  their  king,  and  acknowledge  Him  as  ruler  of  the  whole 
earth.  He  will  convert  all  men  and  make  them  equal,  and  will  live  110 
years  on  earth,  but  will  then  die  and  be  buried  on  Gerizim,  for  his  se- 
pulchre can  be  nowhere  but  on  the  top  of  this  pure,  holy  hill,  which  is 
fifteen  cubits  higher  than  Ebal,  the  next  highest  mountain  on  eaith. 
Oerizim  •vvas  the  Ararat  of  Genesis,  which  was  not  overflowed  by  the 
flood,  and,  therefore,  has  never  been  defiled  by  a  dead  body.  After  this, 
the  earth  will  last  some  hundreds  of  years  longer,  till  the  seventh  thou- 
sand year  be  complete,  and  then  will  come  the  last  judgment. — Peter- 
maim,  Art.  Samaria,  in  Herzog,  vol.  xiii.  p.  373. 


CHAPTER  XXV. 


*  nn*5  ")53—  Kikkar-hayardan  —  i)  ire/ixup0*  TOV  'lopSau'ov  (Matt.  iii. 
6)  is  properly  the  valley,  on  both  sides  of  the  Jordan,  from  Tiberias  to 
the  Dead  Sea.  The  tract  near  Jericho  is  so  large  in  proportion  to  all  the 
rest,  that  it  often  takes  the  name.  The  expression  points,  however,  to 
John's  ministry  being  earned  on  on  both  sides  of  the  river. 

b  Lord  Nugent's  description  of  the  Jordan  is  striking.  "  The  whole 
expanse  of  the  great  flat  (the  Jordan  plain  beside  Jericho),  uncultivated 
and  dreary  as  it  is,  is  everywhere  broken  into  patches  of  green  and  flow- 
ering shrubs  —  the  tamarisk,  dwarf  oak,  myrtle,  oleander,  wild  bramble- 
rose,  etc.  At  the  end  of  some  seven  miles  from  the  site  of  Jericho  are 
the  thickets  of  Jordan,  such  as  line  it,  I  believe,  along  the  whole  of  its 
course  hither  from  the  Sea  of  Galilee.  Jackals  and  gazelles  are  the  only 
wild  animals  now  inhabiting  these  coverts,  save  a  few  wolves,  which  are 
rarely  seen  but  when  forced  out  upon  the  plain  by  the  swelling  of  the 
waters  from  the  mountain  torrents,  after  the  autumnal  rains.  The 
stream,  when  we  saw  it,  at  the  beginning  of  March,  ran  strong,  and  at 
only  a  few  feet  below  the  level  of  its  steep  banks  ;  the  water,  of  a  deep 
yellow  hue  (from  the  limestone),  but  not  unpleasant  to  the  taste.  Its 
general  breadth  is  of  between  fifty  and  sixty  yards  ;  perhaps  a  little 
wider  :  and  in  most  parts  it  is  too  deep,  within  a  few  feet  out  (when  thus 
high),  to  allow  any  one  but  swimmers  to  trust  themselves  out  of  arm's 
reach  of  the  brink,  and  of  its  drooping  branches  and  tall  reeds.  The 
pilgrims  who  come  thither  in  crowds  at  Easter  bathe  in  this  way.  Some 
of  us  tried  to  make  way  against  the  current,  but  were  carried  several 
yards  down  before  reaching  even  the  full  strength  of  it.  The  windings 
of  the  river  are  of  great  beauty."  —  Vol.  ii.  p.  100. 

John's  Baptism  must  have  begun  in  summer,  or  at  least  not  in  the 
winter  months  or  in  the  early  spring.  The  waters  are  then  so  cold,  as 
they  flow  from  the  snows  of  Lebanon,  that  even  Aiabs  will  not  batho. 
See  authorities  quoted  by  Sepp,  Das  Heilige  Land,  vol.  i.  p.  778,  etc. 
Nor  would  it  have  been  fitting,  then,  as  Sepp  remarks,  to  have  spoken  of 
giving  ^way  an  extra  coat,  though  the  self-denial  of  doing  so  in  winter 
would,  of  course,  be  so  much  the  greater.  Even  at  Easter,  no  one  but  a 
foreigner  thinks  of  bathing,  and  pilgrims  are  carried  away  every  year  by 
the  rush  of  the  yellow  waters.  The  air  and  soil  are,  however,  much 
warmer  than  the  river,  as  may  be  judged  from  the  fact  that  intertropical 
plants  like  indigo,  cotton,  and  the  sugar  cane,  flourish  in  the  Ghor. 


NOTES.  565 

c  Haircloth  (pi?,  sak)  was  the  garment  of  ascetics  and  prophets. 
Isaiah  wore  it  (xx.  2),  and  Zechariah  speaks  of  it  as  the  usual  dress  of 
prophets  (xiii.  4). 

d  Merapoew,  "  to  perceive  afterwards,"  "  to  have  another  view." 
Hence,  to  change  one's  mind,  or  purpose.  —  Xen.  Cyr.  i.  1.  3. 

6  This  is  clear  from  the  presence  of  publicans  and  soldiers,  and  from 
the  characteristics  of  all  such  great  excitements. 

f  The  Semicha,  or  laying  on  of  hands,  was  introduced  by  the  Rabbis, 
about  B.C.  80. 

«  "John  the  Baptist,"  Irving's  Works,  vol.  ii.  pp.  21,  41.  Irving's 
Lectures  on  the  Baptist  are,  perhaps,  unequalled  in  the  language  as 
specimens  of  pulpit  eloquence. 

h  The  threshing-floors  were  arranged  all  round  the  town.  The  most 
common  mode  of  threshing  is  with  a  heavy  wooden  slab,  into  the  under 
side  of  which  pieces  of  stone  are  often  introduced,  to  serve  as  teeth.  The 
slab  is  drawn  round  and  round  the  threshing-floor,  by  oxen  or  horses,  over 
the  grain  and  straw,  the  driver  standing  on  it  to  press  it  down,  till  the 
grain  is  shelled  out.  and  the  very  straw  cut  into  chaff.  The  farmer  then 
comes  with  a  broad  shovel,  and  throws  up  the  whole  into  the  air,  against 
the  wind,  so  that  the  chaff  is  carried  away,  while  the  grain  ultimately 
remains,  clean,  behind.  —  Land  and  Book,  p.  538.  Furrer's  Wanderungen, 
p.  249. 

1  Two  words  for  repentance  are  used  by  John—  Mera^o^»,  as  above, 
"  to  perceive  afterwards,"  to  have  an  after  view  —  hence,  "  to  change  one's 
mind;"  and  Mera/tteXo/iai,  "to  change  or  transfer  one's  care;"  hence, 
"  to  change  one's  mind  or  purpose." 


(A.don).  The  word  "  Messenger,"  ^JivD  (Malach),  one  sent  — 
an  angel  or  a  prophet  —  is  the  same  in  both  places  in  the  verses.  It  is 
used  in  chap.  ii.  7  of  a  priest,  as  the  messenger  and  teacher  sent  by  God, 
and  in  Isaiah  xlii.  19  of  Israel,  as  the  Messenger  of  God  to  the  nations, 
and  their  teacher. 

1  See  Matt.  xxvi.  23  ;  Mark  vii.  4  ;  Heb.  ix.  10.  The  mode  of  John's 
baptism  has  been  and  still  is  much  discussed,  but  the  practice  of  the 
Eastern  Church,  and  the  very  meaning  of  the  word,  leave  no  sufficient 
grounds  for  questioning  that  the  original  form  of  baptism  was  complete 
immersion  in  the  deep  baptismal  waters.  The  Western  Church,  doubt- 
less in  deference  to  the  requirements  of  colder  climates,  the  change  of 
manners,  and  the  convenience  of  custom,  has  changed  the  mode  to 
sprinkling.  In  a  spiritual  system  like  Christianity,  the  essence  of  the 
symbol  has  seemed  more  important  than  the  outward  form,  where  that 
appeared  only  to  have  sprung  from  local  circumstances.  —  Stanley's 
Eastern  Church,  p.  34. 

m  Dean  Stanley  makes  a  curious  remark  in  his  Memorials  of  Canter- 
bury —  I  quote  from  memory  —  as  to  the  change  in  English  manners 
in  the  last  five  centuries.  After  a  fire  which  destroyed  the  choir  (1174), 
the  people  thronged  the  cathedral,  and  beat  their  bodies  against  the 
pil!ars  with  loud  weeping  and  wailing.  The  self-control  of  the  present 
day  is  thus  only  an  attainment  of  later  civilization.  At  a  certain  stage, 
all  nations,  like  children,  appear  to  have  no  idea  of  concealing  theii 


566  NOTES. 

emotions,  whether  painful  or  the  reverse.  The  word  t%ono\oyov/ji.tvoi. 
used  by  the  Evangelists,  with  the  4ic  intensive,  seems  to  point  to  this 
characteristic. 

n  Matthew  only  uses  the  expression,   "  Kingdom  of  Heaven,"  from 
Dan.  vii.  13,  14.     The  other  Gospels  speak  of  the  Kingdom  of  God. 


CHAPTEE  XXVI. 

•  Caspar!  quotes  a  passage  from  the  Talmud  to  show  that  John  must 
always  have  baptized  in  the  upper  parts  of  the  Jordan,  as  the  lower  parts 
were  "  unclean  "  from  their  waters  being  "  mixed." — Geog.  Einleitung, 
p.  96. 

b  The  most  ancient  MSS.  read  Bethany  instead  of  Bethabara,  but  no 
site  of  that  name  is  now  known  on  the  Jordan.  Bethabara  was  intro- 
duced into  the  text  by  Origen.  The  spot  supposed  to  be  the  scene  of 
John's  second  ministrations  suits  the  circumstances,  and  thus  has  pro- 
bability in  its  favour,  since  there  are,  perhaps,  no  other  parts  on  the 
Jordan  which  do  so. 

0  Philip,  Peter,  and  Andrew  had  come  from  Bethsaida,  on  the  Lake  of 
Galilee,  and  Nathanael  from  Cana  of  Galilee. — John  xxii.  1 ;  i.  44. 

d  Mnon,  near  Salim,  is  said  in  the  Onomasticon  to  be  eight  miles 
south  of  Scythopolis,  but  the  site  has  not  been  identified.  A  Salim  was, 
however,  found  by  Robinson  close  to  Nablus,  on  its  east  side. 

8  The  name  "  Word  of  God,"  on  which  St.  John  dwells  in  his  first 
chapter,  was  one  by  which  the  Messiah  was  widely  known  in  the  days  of 
the  Baptist.  Thus,  Jonathan  Ben  Uzziel,  a  contemporary  of  Christ,  in 
his  Targum,  interprets  Num.  xxiii.  21,  "  The  Lord  his  God  is  with  him, 
and  the  shout  of  a  king  is  among  them  ": — "  The  Word  of  Jehovah  is 
their  help,  and  the  trumpets  of  the  King  Messiah  are  heard  among 
them."  In  Gen.  xxvi.  3,  his  paraphrase  of  the  words  "  I  will  be  with 
thee  and  will  bless  thee,"  is  "My  Word  will  be  thy  help."  In  Gen. 
xxxix.  2,  the  words  "  God  was  with  Joseph,"  are  paraphrased  "  My  Word 
will  be  thy  help."  In  Exod.  iii.  8,  it  is  "  the  Word  of  God,  who  is  to  go 
down  to  save  Israel,"  and  so,  constantly.  It  was  the  Word  which  pro- 
tected Noah  in  the  ark.  It  was  the  Word  of  God  who  revealed  Himself 
to  Jacob  at  Eethel ;  who  shone  in  the  pillar  of  cloud  and  fire,  and  who, 
in  Isaiah  lix.  16  and  17,  is  sent  by  God  to  bring  salvation  to  all.  The 
Targum  of  Onkelos,  a  scholar  of  Gamaliel,  abounds  in  such  interpreta- 
tions, and  even  in  the  Book  of  Enoch,  dating  long  before  Christ,  "  the 
Word"  is  frequently  used  of  the  expected  Messiah,  e.g.  chaps,  xiv.  21  ; 
xv.  1;  xci.  1,  etc.,  etc.  See  Langen,  Jiitienthum,  pp.  248-281.  Nork, 
Rablrinische  Quellen,  passim.  Lepsius,  in  Bibel  Lex.,  vol.  i.  pp.  85-99. 
Gfrorer,  vol.  i.  pp.  309  ff.  Schurer,  pp.  659  ff. 

f  Paraphrase  of  John  i.  31  in  Ewald's  Geschichte,  vol.  v.  p.  230.  I 
have  adopted  Ewald's  fine  reflections  in  the  preceding  paragraph. 

8  Hitzig  gives  this  as  the  meaning  of  Machaerus.  Sepp  calls  it  the 
"  Black  Tower." 

h  This  description  of  Machaerus  is  taken  from  Josephus,  Bi  II.  Jud., 
vii.  6 ;  i.  3.  Seetzen,  quoted  by  Hitter,  Geog.  of  Palestine,  vol.  iii.  p.  1 5 


NOTES.  567 

c.  v.  (Eng.  Trans.)     Tristram,  Land  of  Moab,  pp.  253-265.      Keim,  Je»u 
von  Nazara,  vol.  i.  pp.  578-581.     Hausrath,  vol.  i.  pp.  329,  330. 

1  Her  father,  Aristobulus,  was  put  to   death  by  his  father,  Herod, 

B.C.  7. 

h  The  sacredness  of  an  oath  to  Eastern  monarchs  is  strikingly  shown 
in  the  same  story.  The  innocent  cause  of  the  tragedy  had  pleased 
Xerxes,  and  he  had  promised,  with  an  oath,  to  give  her  whatever  she 
asked.  Forthwith  she  foolishly  asked  a  splendid  cloak  he  was  wearing, 
which  had  been  woven  for  him  by  his  wife.  Partly  from  liking  for  the 
cloak,  but  more  for  terror  of  his  wife,  he  would  not  consent  to  this,  but, 
to  honour  his  oath,  he  gave  her  a  city,  and  a  vast  sum  in  gold,  and  a 
military  force  which  she  alone  should  command.  Amestris,  thinking 
she  had  been  led  by  her  mother  to  ask  the  cloak,  determined  that  that 
unfortunate  lady  should  be  destroyed,  and  succeeded,  as  we  have  seen, 
in  her  purpose. — Herod. ,  ix.  108-112. 

1  Marcus  Licinius  Crassus,  the  Triumvir  and  Consul.  Born  about 
B.C.  115,  was  slain  by  the  Parthians,  after  his  defeat  by  them,  B.C.  53. 

m  Hausrath  thinks  she  was  married  after  the  death  of  John.  Perhaps 
so.  No  one  can  speak  except  conjecturally  on  matters  respecting  which 
we  have  so  few  data. 


CHAPTER  XXVII. 

s  Milton  rightly  says,  "  the  pinnacle."     The  article  is  used  by  both 
Matthew  and  Luke,  but  it  is  omitted  in  our  English  version. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII. 

•  Martyred  bet  veen   A.D.  161-168. — Semisch,  in   Herzog,  Art.  Justin 
Mdrtyrer,  dfiSrjs,  <i5o£os,   &TI/JLOS. — Just.  Dial.   c.  Tryph.,  xiv.  36,  85,  88. 

b  TTJV  6(f>iv  alffxpos. — Strom.,  ii.  440.     Pad.,  Li.  1,  3. 

c  Nee  human®  honestatis  corpus  fuit,  nedum  ccelestis  claritatis. — De 
car.  Chr.  Ne  asp.;ctu  quidern  houestus. — Adv.  Jud.,  14. 

d  Born  about  A.D.  186,  died  about  A  D.  254. 

•  ri  ffu/j.a  pixpbv  KOU.  SuiretSes  Kal  ayevts  ^v. —  Orig.  c.  Gels.,  vi.  75. 

1  ixdvs.  i  =  ir)<rovi,  Jesus.  x  =  X.PiffT°*>  Christos.  6v  =  Qfou  vict,  Son  o 
God.  s  =  ffw/if>,  the  Saviour. 

s  The  word  used  is  5i;rXotr  (diplois).  It  was  the  large-sized  pallium  or 
blanket  which  was  worn  by  the  poor  and  by  philosophers,  over  the  tunic, 
or  close- fitting  inner  garment,  but  sometimes  alone.  It  was  thrown 
over  the  left  shoitlder,  and  fastened  over  the  right  one  by  a  buckle,  and 
thus  hung  down  in  easy  folds  over  the  person,  leaving  the  right  arm 
bare  from  the  shoulder,  the  left  one  being  used  by  pushing  it  from  nndfT 
the  pallium,  as  with  our  long  cloaks.  This  was  not  a  Jewish  dres.s,  and 
of  itself  condemns  the  statue  as  certainly  not  one  of  Christ,  or,  at  least, 
as  simply  a  work  of  imaginative  art. 


568  NOTES. 

h  It  was  said  to  be  especially  powerful  in  cases  of  consumption. 
Julian,  or  according  to  others,  Maximin,  is  said  to  have  destroyed  it. — 
Hofmann's  Leben  Jesu,  p.  293., 

1  The  spithame  (0-7rt0a/ii))  was  the  distance  from  the  tip  of  the  thumb 
to  that  of  the  little  finger,  when  the  two  were  stretched  apart  to  the 
utmost.  It  was  thus  equal  to  about  nine  inches.  This  w»uld  make 
Christ  only  five  feet  three  inches  high.  But  it  is  likely  that  the  measure 
was  used  loosely  in  a  larger  sense,  in  the  days  of  Nicephorus,  for  the 
idea  sought  to  be  conveyed  is  that  of  unusual  tallness. 

k  Nicephorus  lived  at  Constantinople,  perhaps  as  a  monk.  He  closed 
the  list  of  the  Greek  Church  Historians.  The  dates  of  his  birth  and 
death  are  equally  unknown,  but  he  was  alive  about  A.D.  1320  or  1330. 
Legends  and  fables  are  largely  intermixed  with  his  facts. 

1  "  Various  readings  "  add — "  not  less  than  15J  palms."  The  Roman 
palmus  was  three  inches  (the  breadth  of  the  four  fingers),  which  would 
make  Christ  a  dwarf.  The  later  Roman  writers,  however,  had  a  palmus 
of  nine  inches,  and,  by  this,  Christ's  stature  would  be  11  feet  7£  inches. 
This  is  enough  to  show  the  worthlessness  of  this  addition. 

m  "  Of  the  colour  of  a  hardly  ripe  filbert,  and  smooth  as  far  as  the 
ears,  but  curly  below  them,  and  waving,  and  a  very  little  darker,  with  a 
rich  brightness." —  Far.  Read. 

n  The  stole  (<rro\7),  used  for  the  Latin  stola),  was  properly  a  female 
dress,  worn  over  the  tunic.  It  came  as  low  as  the  ankles,  while  the 
tunic  did  not  reach  much  below  the  knees.  It  was  restricted  to  Roman 
matrons,  and  was  not  allowed  to  be  worn  by  divorced  women.  In 
Christ's  day,  the  word  was  used  of  male  robes  of  more  than  ordinary 
beauty  and  length.  Thus,  the  angel  in  the  sepulchre  was  robed  in  this 
way. — Mark  xvi.  5.  It  was  the  robe  which  the  father  ordered  to  be  put 
on  the  returned  prodigal. — Luke  xv.  22,  and  in  Rev.  vi.  and  vii.  it  is 
five  times  used  of  the  white  robes  of  the  redeemed  in  heaven. 

0  It  is  a  great  mistake  to  think  of  Jesus  with  the  head  uncovered 
As  the  priests  in  the  Temple,  and  worshippers  at  prayer,  had  their  heads 
covered,  so  no  one  went  with  the  head  bare  in  common  life.     Indeed, 
apart  from  religious  reverence,  the  fierce  sun  of  Palestine  makes  ex- 
posure of  the  head  impossible.     The  keffiyeh  of  the  modern  Bedouin 
is  apparently  the  representative  of  the  old  Hebrew  head-covering  most 
in  use.     Strangely  enough,  the  French  word  coiffe  seems  to  be  derived 
from  it. 

P  The  majesty  of  Christ's  appearance  on  the  occasion  of  His  arrest, 
overawed  those  coming  to  take  Hun  (John  xviii.  6)  ;  but  it  ia  not  pro- 
bable that  there  was  anything  striking  in  His  usual  appearance.  If 
there  had  been,  it  seems  as  if  His  disciples  would  have  recognised  Him 
by  it.  John  xxi.  4.  Luke  xxiv.  13.  Mark  xvi.  12.  The  legendary 
narratives  of  the  portraits  of  onr  Lord  are  given  more  or  less  fully  in 
Hofmann,  pp.  67,  292.  Hase,  §  34.  Winer,  vol.  i.  p.  576. 

1  Christ's  dress  has  been  thought  by  some  to  have  marked  Him  as  a 
Rabbi,  for  His  seamless  robe  illustrates  Abarbanel's  remark  that  the 
robe  of  a  Rabbi  of  Palestine  had  no  seam  in  it.     Ursinus  says,  that 
the  dress  of  a  Rabbi  was  a  tunic,  without  sleeves,  which  reached  to  the 
knees,  and  had  no  other  openings  than  for  the  head  and  the  arms.— 
Nork,  p.  cxcii. 


NOTES.  569 

f  I  confess  I  have  no  sympathy  with  the  critics  who  would  seek  to  in- 
validate the  fourth  Gospel.  To  me  it  carries  its  evidence  in  itself,  for  of 
it,  as  of  Him  of  whom  it  tells  us,  we  may  confidently  say,  "  Never  man 
spake  like  this.  "  An  air  as  from  Paradise  breathes  through  its  verses, 
and  He  who  walks  before  us  in  its  holy  light  is  instinctively  felt  to  be 
Divine.  If,  however,  any  reader  should  wish  to  perplex  himself  by  seeing 
the  foolish  wisdom  of  critics  refuted,  he  may  turn  to  Professor  West- 
cott's  Introduction  to  the  Study  of  the  Gospels,  pp.  235  ff.  ;  Lange,  Das 
Evan.  JoJiannes,  Einleitung  ;  or  to  Professor  Lightfoot's  Articles  on 
"  Supernatural  Eeligion  "  in  the  Contemporary  Review  for  1875  and 
December  1874.  A  list  of  the  literature  on  both  sides  is  given  by  Meyer, 
Kommeiitar,  Johannes,  p.  33.  For  my  part,  I  am  quite  willing  to  accept 
the  leadership  of  such  men  as  De  Wette,  Bruckner,  Luthardt,  Bleek, 
Hase,  Ewald,  and  Meyer.  "  The  recognition  of  this  Gospel  as  the  com- 
position of  St.  John,"  says  De  Wette,  "  remains  ever  more  triumphant  in 
the  Church,  after  the  last  and  fiercest  attacks."  —  Handbuch  zum  Neuen 
Test.,  Johannes.  Einleitung,  p.  xl.  "  In  fact,"  adds  Bruckner,  at  the  same 
place,  "the  latest  and  keenest  criticism  has  served  conclusively  to  estab- 
lish and  confirm  the  Apostolic  origin  of  this  Gospel,  more  and  more." 
"  We  may  conclude  from  the  experience  of  the  past,"  says  Meyer,  "  that 
this  Gospel  will  aways  emerge  from  all  the  storms  of  criticism  radiant 
and  victorious  in  its  calm  inner  majesty,  as  the  last  star  of  evangelical 
history  and  teaching,  shining  with  the  purest  and  highest  light  within 
the  limits  of  the  Apostolic  age  ;  the  spiritual  creation  of  that  disciple 
who  was  most  intimate  with  his  master.  Nor  will  it  ever  set."  —  Kom- 
mentar,  Johannes,  p.  30. 

8  The  words  "  is  preferred  before  me  "  are  wanting  in  the  best  MSS. 
They  are,  indeed,  repeated  in  the  next  verse. 

*  The  aorist  used  implies  that  this  was  the  continued  burden  of  John's 
ministry. 

n  av^ip  (aner),a  more  honourable  word  than  avOpanros  (anthropos). 

1  tfifivev,  "continued  abiding  on  Him."  The  aorist  is  used  instead  of 
the  participle  of  the  former  clause,  to  express  the  importance  of  the  fact 
stated,  and  its  continuance.  See  Winer,  Graminatik,  p.  533. 


y  There  is  no  ground  for  Dr.  Farrar's  speculation  as  to  irda-yuos  (kosmos), 
"  the  world."  meaning  "the  people  of  Israel."  The  word  atpeiv  ("to 
take  away  ")  is  used  in  the  Septuagint.  —  1  Sam.  xv.  25  :  "  Now,  there- 
fore, I  pray  thee,  pardon  my  sin."  Lev.  x.  17  :  "  God  hath  given  it  to 
you  to  bear  the  iniquity  of  the  congregation,  to  make  atonement  for  them 
before  Jehovah.  "  Ex.  xxxiv.  7:  "  Forgiving  iniquity  and  transgression 
and  sin."  Isaiah  vi.  7  :  "  Thine  iniquity  is  taken  away."  6  aXptav—  pre- 
sent participle  —  He  who  even  now  is  taking  away,  etc. 

The  genitive  in  "  Lamb  of  God  "  —  6  &/JLVOS  TOV  6eov  —  is  that  of  property. 
It  is  hence  equivalent  to  "  The  Lamb  appointed  by  God  "  for  sacrifice.  — 
Meyer,  Komntentur,  inloc. 

*  Even  so  keen  a  critic  as  Meyer  (Kommentar,  in  loc.)  feels  that  this  is 
the  true  explanation. 

"  Ipse  tibi  culpam  attrahis,  quia  nem.  habes,  c.  quo  d.  lege  div.  collo 
quaris.  —  kchottg.  (quoted  by  Keim,  vol.  ii.  p.  204). 


570  NOTES. 

bb  He  calls  Himself,  5t5d<rKaXoj— (didaskalos),  teacher. — Matt.  x.  24  ; 

xxvi.  18. 

„  „  Kaflij-yirrTjs — (Kathegetes)    leader,    guide,  in  the 

sense  of  teacher,  master,  equiva- 
lent to  Kabbi.— Matt.xxiii.  8, 10. 

„  „          ypa/j.fJ.a.Tfvs — Matt.  xiii.  52.     "  Scribe,"  equivalent 

to  "  one  instructed, ' '  a  scholar — a 
learned  teacher  of  religion  It 
is  used  of  those  who  elsewhere 
are  called  "  lawyers." 

He  is  called  di5d<TKa\os — By  a  Scribe. — Matt.  viii.  19.    By  the  Phari- 
sees, ix.  11. 

By  Scribes  and  Pharisees. — Matt.  xii.  38. 
By  the  collectors  of  tribute.     ,,      xvii.  24. 
By  the  Sadducees.  „      xxii.  24. 

„        M  (tappi—  (Babbi).      By    Judas.— Matt.    xxvi.    25,    49. 

Mark  xiv.  45. 

By  Peter. — Mark  ix.  5 ;  xi.  21. 
By  John  and  Andrew. — John  i.  39. 
By  Nathanael.— John  i.  50. 
By  Nicodemus,  a  "ruler  of  the  Jews." — John 

iii.  2. 

By  the  disciples. — John  iv.  31 ;  ix.  2  ;  xi.  8. 
By  the  people. — John  vi.  25. 
M        „          fraftpovl — (Babboni)  and  ftafifiovvl  (Kabbouni).    By  Mary 

Magdalene. — John  xx.  16. 
By  Blind  Bartimseus. — Mark  x.  51. 
Didaskalos  is  the  Greek  equivalent  of  Eabbi,  and  is  used  exclusively, 

as  such,  by  St.  Luke. 

Rabbi  was  a  title  of  respect  implying  dignity  or  age. 
The  Eabbis  were  very  fond  of  being  called  "Father." — Matt,  xxiii.  9. 
The  gradation  of  title  is  given  thus  : — "  Major  est  Eabbi  quam  Eab, 
et  major  est  Rabban   quam   Eabbi,  et  major  est  qui  nomine  suo 
Tocatur  quam  Rabban."    Eabboni  or  Rabbouni  is  simply  this  word 
•with  the  affix  for  "  my."     "  Eabbi  is  greater  than  Eab,  and  Eabban 
than  Eabbi,  but  it  is  still  greater  than  Eabban  to  be  called  by  one's 
own  name." 
In  ordinary  cases,  however,  to  call  a  teacher  by  his  own  name  was  not 

respectful.     He  must  be  called  Rabbi. — Nork,  p.  cxcii. 
For  the  various  uses  of  the  title,  see  Godwyn's  Aaron  and  Moses,  p. 

30. 

00  Ewalfl  (Geschichte,  vol.  v.  p.  322)  supposes  it  was  the  tenth  hour  by 
Roman  reckoning — that  is,  from  midnight — when  they  entered  Christ's 
abode.  Meyer  thinks  it  was  the  tenth  hour  by  Jewish  reckoning— that 
is,  from  six  a.m. 

The  instance  in  John  xix.  14,  where  the  sixth  hour  must  have  been  in 
the  morning  (compare  chap,  xviii.  28),  shows  that  in  each  case,  in  John's 
Gospel,  the  conuection  must  decide  whether  Eoman  or  Jewish  reckon- 
ing is  used.  Here,  the  long  day  suits  much  better  than  four  p.m.— the 
tenth  hour  of  Jewish  reckoning. 

M  The  confusion  and  transitionary  character  of  the  times  is  well 
shown  in  the  names  of  the  two  brothers — Andrew,  a  Greek  name ;  Simon, 
an  old  Hebrew  one,  slightly  changed  from  Simeon. 


NOTES.  571 

Dr.  Newman  has  a  beautiful  sermon  on  Andrew  calling  Simon.— 
Parochial  and  Plain  Sermons,  vol.  ii.  p.  1. 

Schleiennacher,  also,  has  admirable  sermons  on  the  whole  incident. — 
Predigten,  vol.  i.  p.  376  ;  vol.  iii.  p.  161. 

86  Lange  has  a  fanciful  play  on  the  name  of  Simon's  father — Jonas, 
"  a  dove," — and  the  name  given  to  Simon  himself.  "  Now  the  shy  dove 
of  the  rock  ;  in  future,  thou  shalt  be  the  protecting  rock  of  the  dove." 
But  this  is  mere  idle  fancy. — Life  of  Christ,  voL  ii.  p.  286. 

ff  It  is  the  fig-tree,  verses  48,  50 ;  doubtless  the  one  which  stood  before 
or  near  his  house,  as  others  did  before  other  houses.  Vines  and  fig-trees 
were  very  commonly  planted  at  the  doors  of  country  dwellings,  so  that 
the  inmates  might  be  able  to  sit  under  them.  Micah  iv.  4.  (Note  by 
Ewald,  vol.  v.  p.  326.) 

8s  Two  titles  of  the  Messiah.  On  the  phrase,  "  Son  of  God,"  see 
Langen's  Judenthum,  pp.  281,  296. 

***  dirdpri — "Hereafter,"  is  wanting  in  the  Sinaitic  and  Vatican  MSS., 
and  in  various  ancient  versions.  It  has  been  omitted  by  Lachmann 
and  Tischendorf.  Meyer  retains  it,  with  the  remark  that  it  was  omitted 
from  the  different  MSS.,  etc.,  because  it  seemed  to  clash  with  the  follow- 
ing  words,  which  were  understood  of  actual  angelic  appearances. — Kom- 
mentar,  in  loc.  Lange  (Kommentar,  in  loc.)  adopts  Meyer's  remark  as  his 
own. 

"  Hereafter  "  meant,  when  our  English  Bible  was  translated,  "  from 
the  present  time,"  as  in  the  words  "  that  we  may  hereafter  lead  a  godly, 
righteous,  and  sober  life  " — that  is,  from  this  time  forward. 

The  title  "  Son  of  Man,"  applied  to  the  Messiah,  occurs  in  Daniel  vii. 
13,  and  had  become  familiar  in  Christ's  day,  through  its  use  in  the 
Apocalyptic  literature  of  the  Jews.  Thus,  the  Book  of  Enoch  (chap. 
Ixii.  6)  uses  it  in  a  passage  where  it  speaks  of  the  mighty  of  the  earth 
falling  down  before  the  Messiah  when  He  comes  to  judge  the  world.  Till 
then,  I  may  say,  it  is  taught  that  He  will  be  hidden  from  all  but  the 
"  Elect."  The  name  occurs  also,  chap.  xlvi.  1 ;  Ixix.  29.  But  before  this 
special  application  of  it,  the  Old  Testament  writers  had  often  introduced 
it,  e.g.  Ps.  viii.  5  ;  xi.  4 ;  xxxiii.  13  ;  xxxvi.  8  ;  xc.  3,  etc.  In  Ezekiel, 
Jehovah,  throughout,  addresses  the  prophet  as  "  The  Son  of  Man  "  (ii. 
1 ;  iii.  1,  4,  10,  17  ;  iv.  1,  etc.) — as  if  to  mark  the  contrast  between  the 
greatness  of  the  speaker  and  the  low  estate  of  him  whom  He  addresses. 

Jesus  applies  the  title  to  Himself  about  eighty  times,  but  it  is  not  ap- 
plied to  Him  by  any  of  the  New  Testament  writers,  except  in  passages 
which  refer  to  His  heavenly  exaltation  (Acts  vii.  56.  Rev.  i.  13-20 ;  xiv. 
14).  Why  He  should  have  used  it  so  especially  admits  of  various  rev- 
erent conjectures.  Was  it  to  awaken  in  mankind  at  large,  wherever  His 
name  should  spread,  the  instinctive  feeling  of  His  sympathy  for  all  the 
race,  and  common  relation  to  all  its  members?  Was  it  to  express  the 
completeness  of  His  humiliation,  that,  though  Son  of  God,  He  had 
stooped  to  be,  in  the  fullest  sense,  the  Son  of  Man  ?  Or  was  it  to  keep 
ever  before  mankind  the  fact  that  He  came,  not  as  a  Scribe,  or  Priest,  or 
Pharisee,  or  Sadducee,  or  Esssean,  or  Nazarite,  or  Jew,  or  as  anything 
apart  from  humanity  at  large,  or  as  a  representative  of  a  school  or  class, 
but  simply  as  a  man — the  Man  Christ  Jesus — the  elder  brother  of  the 
race  ?  Was  it  to  keep  before  all  ages  the  fact,  that  as  a  man,  feeling 
and  acting  for  all  men— the  perfect  flower  and  blossom  of  Humanity,  its 


572  NOTES. 

ideal  Son — He  stripped  religion,  for  the  first  time,  from  the  bands  and 
fetters  of  nationality,  and  theocratic  isolation ;  restored  it  to  its  Divine 
spirituality  ;  made  it  a  gift  for  universal  man,  and  embodied  its  loftiest 
conceptions  in  His  own  life,  so  that  He  stands  before  us  as  the  author 
and  finisher  of  the  one  faith  possible  for  all  ages  and  races ;  the  arche- 
type of  the  race  when  it  shall  have  risen  to  its  highest ;  the  guide, 
through  all  generations,  into  the  not  yet  fully  realized  kingdom  of  God  ? 

11  Hilgenfeld  (Ep.  and  Briefe  Johan,  p.  271)  thinks  Nathanael  the 
game  as  Matthew,  but  without  apparent  ground.  Matthew  may  possibly 
mean  "  The  gift  of  God,"  which  is  also  the  meaning  of  Nathanael 
iVflJTO  (Mattathiah) ;  7S3H?  (Nathanael).  But  Matthew  seems  more 
properly  the  Greek  form  of  Amittai,  ""PPX  (The  truthfiu*  one),  the  Greek 
form  of  Mattathiah  being  Matthias,  as  in  Acts  i.  23.  Spath  tries  to 
show  that  Nathanael  was  John,  but  this  is  still  more  hopeless. 

**  Talmai,  (telem,  "a  furrow,")  "rich  in  land."  Like  Aretas,  "a 
plougher." 


CHAPTEE  XXIX. 

»  Dr.  Ziller  (Pal  Fund  Rep..  1870-71)  decides  strongly  in  favour  of  a 
village  called  Kefr  Kenna,  five  miles  north-west  of  Nazareth,  as  the  Cana 
of  St.  John,  and  Dr.  Farrar  agrees  with  him,  but  Sepp  (Jerusalem  u.  d. 
Heilige  Land,  vol.  ii.  pp.  106,  108)  traces  the  history  of  the  error  which 
has  led  to  this  transference  of  the  site,  which  was  adopted  only  in  the 
sixteenth  century,  for  the  convenience  of  monks  and  pilgrims.  He,  and 
Dr.  Eobiusou,  agree  on  Cana  of  Galilee,  as  it  seems  to  be  still  called, 
twelve  miles  north  of  Nazareth,  being  the  true  site,  and  this  view  is 
supported  by  Winer,  Raumer,  Bitter,  Meyer,  Porter,  Van  de  Velde,  and 
others. 

b  One  tradition  makes  Alphseus,  and  Mary,  the  supposed  sister  of  the 
Virgin,  residents  in  Cana,  and  the  marriage  to  have  been  that  of  one  of 
their  sons.  According  to  Greswell,  it  was  the  marriage  of  Alpbseus  and 
Mary  themselves.  The  Mohammedans  say  that  John  the  Apostle  was 
the  bridegroom. 

c  The  common  idea  that  Joseph  must  have  been  already  dead,  from 
not  being  named  as  at  the  marriage,  seems  to  be  brought  in  question  by 
John  vi.  42. 

d  This  explains  how  the  deception  of  substituting  Leah  for  Eaehel 
could  be  played  upon  Jacob. — Gen.  xxix.  25. 

•  Lightfoot  thinks  the  governor  of  the  feast  (apxiTpucXivos,  Architri- 
klinos)  was  one  "  in  place  of  a  chaplain,  to  give  thanks  and  pronounce 
blessings  in  such  kinds  of  feasts  as  these."     Among  the  Jews  benedic- 
tions preceded  and  followed  every  act  of  a  feast.     Lightfoot,  Hora:  Heb., 
vol.  iii.  p.  255.     Rabbis  were  wont  to  attend  such  festivities,  to  pronounce 
these  blessings,  and  also  to  secure  that  the  conversation  turned  reverently 
towards  the  Law. 

*  The  mctrctcs — the  measure  named,  held  about  eight  paMons.     In  otir 
version  it  is  translated  firkin — a  measure  equal  to  eight  gallons.     This 
would  make  each  hold  from  sixteen  to  twenty-four  gallons,  and  thus  the 


NOTES.  573 

six  would  hold  ninety-six  or  144  gallons,  or  nearly  equal  to  from  two  to 
three  hogsheads.  Professor  Westcott,  however,  thinks  the  exact  words 
exclude  the  idea  of  all  the  water  being  made  wine  (Characteristics  of 
Gospel  Miracles,  p.  14,  note).  Others  think  the  Greek  metretes  used  here 
for  the  It oman  amphora  of  about  five  gallons. 

8  That  Christ  thus  sanctioned  the  use  of  wine  in  a  country  where  the 
population  were  proverbially  temperate,  leaves  the  question  open  of  the 
propriety  of  Christian  men  using  their  liberty  in  this  direction  in  a 
country  like  ours,  where  drinking  is  a  national  cursef  and  where  even 
the  moderate  use  of  what  intoxicates  only  too  often  causes  "  a  brother 
to  offend,"  "  for  whom  Christ  died."  If  He  died  for  such  a  weak  one, 
Chrjstians  may  well  afford  to  give  up  wine,  etc.,  for  him. 

h  Keim  (vol.  i.  pp.  394  ff. ;  vol.  iii.  pp.  479  ff.)  very  exhaustively  dis- 
cusses the  chronological  question,  but  Schiirer  (Neutestament  Zeit  Gesch.) 
shows  the  fallacy  of  his  calculations  very  conclusively.  As  a  statement 
of  opinions  on  chronological  points,  however,  Keim  is  of  great  value. 
In  Andrew's  Life,  of  our  Lord,  also,  abundant  details  on  the  dates  of 
Christ's  birth,  etc.,  are  given,  pp.  1-46. 

1  See  passages  from  the  Targums,  quoted  by  Oehler  in  Art.  Messias, 
Herzog,  vol.  ix.  p.  440.  Also,  Keim,  vol.  i.  p.  590.  But  the  Targums 
quoted  are  not  the  older  ones,  and  represent  the  ideas  of  a  much  later 
age  than  that  of  Christ. 

k  I  assume  that  Capernaum  was  identical  with  Tel  Hum.  The  grounds 
on  which  that  site  is  accepted  are  given  at  length  by  Fiirrer,  Art.  Cuprr- 
nanm,  in  Bibel  Lexicon  The  authorities  for  the  description  of  Capernaum 
and  the  Lake  of  Galilee  generally,  in  the  text,  are  Furrer,  as  above ; 
also,  his  Wanderunge.ii,  pp.  321-325  ;  Keim,  vol.  i.  pp.  596  ff. ;  Hausratli, 
vol.  i.  pp.  343  ff.  ;  Recovery  of  Palestine,  pp.  343  ff. ;  Euetschi,  Art. 
Gennezareth  (in  Herzog) ;  Lightfoot,  etc.  Keim  decides  in  favour  of 
Khan  Minyeh.  Hausrath,  Wiuer,  Ewald,  Eitter,  Furrer,  Yaihinger  (in 
Herzog),  with  many  others,  in  favour  of  Tel  Hum. 

1  Fee  the  words  of  Jesus,  Matt.  xii.  23,  as  given  in  the  Vatican  and 
Sinaitic  versions.  "  And  thou,  Capernaum,  sbalt  thou  be  exalted  to 
heaven  ?  Thou  shalt  be  thrust  down  to  Hades." 

m  JTh|3  (chinneroth),  "  lyres."  JTl.p  (chinnereth),  "a  lyre."  Deut. 
iii.  17.  1  Kings  xv.  20.  Josh.  xi.  2 ;  xiii.  27.  Num.  xxxiv.  11. 

n  Josephus  says,  elsewhere,  that  the  town  had  40.000  inhabitants. — 
Bell.  Jud,  ii.  21.  4. 

0  Josephus  says,  all  the  ships  on  the  lake  were  230  in  number,  and 
into  each  he  put  four  men.  They  must  have  been  mere  boats. — Bell. 
Jnd.,  ii.  21.  8.  Dr.  Farrar  says  they  were  4,000  in  number,  but  he  does 
not  give  his  authority. 

P  The  name  Gennesareth  is  derived  from  the  Hebrew  name  of  the 
lake,  in  the  Old  Testament.  The  Sea  of  Chinnereth  rnj3  D*,  of  which 
it  is  a  corruption.  The  Kabbis,  with  their  usual  faucifulness.  explain 
Gemiesar  as  "The  gardens  of  Princes" — (D"Hp  \3I) — ganne  sarim,  and 
thus  make  it  equivalent  to  the  word  Paradise,  which  was  the  Persian 
name  for  the  pleasure  parks  of  kings.  Capernaum  means — "  the  village 
of  Nabum"— D-inj  1S3— (Kephar  NahumJ. 


574  NOTES. 

CHAPTER  XXX. 

•  The  whole  question  of  the  sequence  of  events  at  this  period  is  diffi- 
cult.   If  the  stay  at  Capernaum  was  only  for  a  week  or  two  before  the 
Passover,  Jesus  must  have  been  baptized  about  two  months  before,  that 
is,  at  the  end  of  January,  when  it  is  hard  to  conceive  baptisms  taking 
place  in  water  so  cold  as  that  of  the  Jordan,  supplied  from  the  icy 
heights  of  Lebanon.    But  if  He  had  been  baptized  in  the  autumn  of  the 
year  before,  He  must  have  remained  at  Cana  for  some  months,  or  have 
returned  to  Nazareth,  and  have  made  the  one  or  other  the  centre  of  a 
preliminary  activity,  before  his  final  removal  to  Capernaum.     In  the 
conflict  of  theories,  I  have  followed  Ewald's  idea  as  the  simplest. 

b  Similar  shops  were  to  be  found  also,  at  least  during  the  feast,  on  the 
Mount  of  Olives. —  Wieseler,  Beit.,  vol.  v.  p.  209.  It  was  a  matter  of 
pride  with  the  Jews,  that  there  should  be  a  great  display  of  lambs,  etc., 
without  which  the  "house  was  desolate." — Keim  (quoting  the  Talmud), 
vol.  iii.  p.  97. 

The  Talmud  relates  a  story  of  one,  Baba  Ben  Buta,  which  illustrates 
this  feeling.  Coming  into  the  Court  of  the  Temple  one  day,  he  found  it 
quite  empty  of  beasts.  "Let  their  houses,"  said  he,  "be  laid  waste, 
who  have  laid  waste  the  House  of  our  God."  Forthwith,  he  sent  for 
three  thousand  of  the  sheep  of  Kedar,  and  having  examined  them,  to  see 
that  they  were  without  spot,  brought  them  into  the  Mountain  of  the 
House — that  is,  into  the  Court  of  the  Gentiles. —  Lightfo«t,  vol.  i.  p.  274. 
There  was  an  officer  who  had  the  supervision  of  the  traffic  in  doves,  the 
prefectus  turturum. — Leyrer,  in  Herzog,  vol.  xv.  p.  428. 

*  The  Jews  had  a  sad  reputation  in  this  way  even  in  the  days  of  the 
prophets.     See  Hosea  xii.  7.     Amos  viii.  5,  etc.     Even  at  this  day  the 
Jewish  money-changers  in  Jerusalem  often  charge  15  per  cent,  a  month 
for  interest  on  borrowed  money. 

d  "Igneum  quidam  et  sidereum  radiabat  ex  oculis  ejus,  et  divinitatis 
majestas  lucebat  in  facie." 

6  I  have  assumed  that  these  reforms  were  subsequent  to  our  Lord's 
public  reproof  of  the  neglect  of  their  duty  by  the  priests.  Keim  supposes 
them  in  force  before,  but  how  could  they  be  in  force  if  so  much  neglected 
even  at  the  Passover  season  ? 

Thirty  years  later,  under  Agrippa  H.  (60-66)  things  had  become  worse 
than  ever.  False  prophets  misled  the  people  ;  robbers  preyed  on  them, 
and  murderers  plied  their  trade,  in  the  very  Temple,  while  rival  high 
priests  and  their  followers  fought  in  the  streets. — Jos.  Ant.,  xx.  8.  5,  8  ; 
ix.  2.  4. 

f  The  Canaanites  or  Phenicians,  were  famous  in  early  antiquity  as 
nv2Tcliants  and  traders,  and  hence  a  "  Canaanite  " — the  word  used  in  the 
text,  is  employed  for  a  trader  generally.  Leyrer  (Htrzog,  vol.  v.  p.  509, 
Handel)  and  Ewald  (Gescli.,  vol.  v.  p.  336)  think  the  verse  implies  the 
existence  of  the  abuse  in  the  days  of  Zechariah. 

8  The  studiously  enigmatical  mode  of  speech  used  by  the  Eabbis  may 
be  neen  very  fully  in  Duke's  Eabbinische  Blumenlete. 

h  The  striking  comparison  of  the  body  to  a  temple,  or  a  tent,  occurs 
first  in  the  lament  of  Hezekiah,  in  Isaiah  xxxviii.  12.  "  My  life  is  struck, 
and  rolled  up  like  a  wandering  shepherd's  tent,  to  vanish  away  from 
where  it  has  been."  So,  also,  2  Cor.  v.  1  ff. 


NOTES.  575 

1  Conqueror  of  the  people,  Victor  Populi.  The  name  was  also  Jewish 
— JlDHpJ — Nakdemon.  The  Talmud  speaks  of  a  Nicodemus,  son  of 
Gerion,  famous  for  his  wealth,  his  munificence,  and  his  prayers.  It 
relates  that  once,  when  vast  crowds  had  gathered  hi  Jerusalem,  at  the 
time  of  the  feast,  there  was  a  great  scarcity  of  water.  Nicodemus,  seeing 
this,  asked  a  rich  man  to  hand  over  to  him,  for  the  time  of  the  feast, 
twelve  springs  that  were  on  some  land  belonging  to  him,  that  water 
might  be  secured  for  the  poor  pilgrims.  In  return,  he  promised  to  pay 
twelve  talents  of  silver  if  they  were  not  returned  to  him  full  of  water  by 
a  certain  day.  It  had  not,  however,  rained  when  that  day  came. 
Nicodemus  was  in  great  trouble  and  betook  himself  to  prayer,  and  forth- 
with the  clouds  gathered,  and  such  abundance  fell  that  the  twelve  springs 
were,  presently,  overflowing.  The  rich  man,  however,  only  laughed  and 
pointed  to  the  sun,  which,  he  said,  had  already  gone  down — so  that  the 
bond  had  been  forfeited  !  On  this  Nicodemus  prayed  again,  and  the  sun 
burst  through  the  clouds,  and  the  Shylock  was  cheated  of  his  expected 
gain !  This  legend  shows  that  this  Nicodemus  was  a  priest  in  the 
Temple,  and  had  the  charge  of  providing  the  water  supply  for  the 
pilgrims,  when  they  came  to  Jerusalem. 

The  proper  name  of  Nicodemus,  it  is  added,  was  Bonai,  and  it  lends  a 
probability  that  he  may  have  been  the  Nicodemus  of  St.  John's  Gospel, 
to  learn  that  this  Bonai  was  accused  of  being  a  follower  of  Jesus.  When 
Titus  besieged  the  city,  he  was  one  of  the  richest  men  in  it,  but  he  is 
said  to  have  fallen  into  such  poverty,  that  his  daughter,  long  after,  was 
found  picking  up  what  she  could,  in  the  streets  and  gutters,  to  eat.  The 
passages  in  the  Talmud  containing  these  details  are  quoted  by  Nork. — 
Rabbinische  Quellen,pp.  163-4.  Christian  traditions  say  that  Nicodemua 
was  a  relation  of  Gamaliel,  and  was  baptized  with  him  and  his  son 
Abiba,  by  the  Apostles,  Peter  and  John.  It  is  added,  that  he  was  driven 
from  his  office  and  from  Jerusalem  in  consequence  of  his  apostasy,  and 
that  Gamaliel  gave  him  shelter  in  his  country  house,  where  he  lived  till 
his  death. — Hofmann,  p.  352.  Winer,  vol.  ii.  p.  152.  To  account  for 
the  tradition  of  his  surviving  the  fall  of  Jerusalem,  it  is  supposed  that 
he  may  not  have  alluded  to  himself  in  John  iii.  4,  and  that  he  may  thus 
have  been  a  young  man  when  he  came  to  Jesus. 

k  The  Rabbis  say  that  the  devil  Sammael,  cries  before  God,  "  Lord  of 
the  world,  Thou  hast  given  me  power  over  all  nations  of  the  world, 
except  Israel." — Nork,  p.  22. 

1  The  phrase  "  Kingdom  of  God,"  is  used  by  John  only  in  verses  3  and 
5  of  this  chapter,  a  fact  in  itself  a  striking  evidence  that  the  conversa- 
tion is  given  just  as  it  took  place.  John,  indeed,  was  most  probably 
present. 

m  There  is  a  striking  passage  in  Xenophon's  Memorabilia,  in  which 
Socrates  says  to  his  disciple  Euthymius,  "  No  one  can  see  the  wind,  but 
its  effects  are  apparent,  and,  when  it  comes,  we  feel  it.  In  the  same 
way  the  soul  of  man,  if  in  some  respects  human,  has  something  in  it  of 
the  Divine.  For  it  is  clear  that  it  reigns  with  kingly  authority  in  us, 
yet  we  do  not  see  it.  We  should  reflect  on  this,  and  not  set  light  by 
what  may  not  be  seen,  but  since  our  soul  shows  its  majesty  by  its  effects, 
we  should  honour  the  Divine  that  is  thus  within  us." — Xenophon, 
Memorabilia,  iv.  3.  14. 

n  The  two  words  used  of  doing  evil  and  doing  good  are  striking.     The 


576  NOTES. 

former  is  irpcurtruv,  "pursuing  as  one's  end  naturally,  easily;  habitual 
action,  as  one's  occupation."  The  latter  woiwv  simply,  "doing,"  "per- 
formance with  difficulty  and  effort. "  Webster  and  Wilkinson,  and  Meyer. 
Alford  includes,  as  implied,  that  the  evil  may  be  pursued  and  delighted 
in,  but  bears  no  permanent  results :  the  good  is  something  done,  which 
abides.  See  Eom.  i.  31 ;  ii.  3  ;  vii.  15  ;  xiii.  4.  John  v.  29. 

0  The  Rabbis  say  that  the  text,  "  God  saw  the  light  that  it  was  good," 
refers  to  the  Messiah,  whose  works  "the  ever- blessed  God  praised 
already,  before  the  beginning  of  the  world.  At  that  time,  Satan  said  to 
God  :  '  Lord  of  the  world  !  what  is  that  light  which  I  see  shining  forth 
from  behind  the  throne  of  Thy  glory  ?  '  God  answered :  '  He  who  will 
one  day  break  thy  power.'  Then  Satan  replied,  '  Lord,  show  Him  to 
nie.'  And  when  Satan  saw  Him,  he  fell  down  in  despair,  on  his  face, 
and  cried  out,  '  Verily  this  is  the  Messias,  who  will  hurl  into  hell  myself 
and  the  nations  who  serve  me.'" — Jalkut  Simeoni  (Nork,  p.  23).  This  is 
only  one  of  many  passages  of  the  same  character. 


CHAPTER   XXXI. 

•  Sepp  (vol.  iii.  p.  99)  strangely  makes  the  northern  boundary  only 
four  hours  (ten  miles)  from  Jerusalem.    Akrabbim  is  twenty-five  miles 
from  the  capital,  in  a  direct  line,  on  Kiepert's  map  of  1875. 

b  Milman  thinks  it  was  in  Perea ;  Lauge,  Neander,  Reynolds,  Robin- 
son, and  some  others  fancy  it  was  in  Samaria,  though  it  is  hard  to 
believe  that  so  strict  a  Jew  as  John  would  carry  a  Jewish  movement 
into  the  polluted  territory  of  the  Samaritans.  Sepp  supposes  it  to  have 
been  at  Beit  Ainim,  north  of  Hebron ;  Lichtenstein  places  it  a  little 
west  of  Hebron,  at  a  spot  also  called  ^Enon.  Barclay  thinks  it  was  only 
six  miles  north-east  of  Jerusalem.  Jerome  (Onomast.,  Art.  Sulim)  speaks 
of  a  Salumias,  which  he  seems  to  identify  with  Salem,  as  lying  in  the 
valley  of  the  Jordan,  eight  miles  south  of  Scythopolis,  and  speaks  of 
/Enon  as  near  it.  But  who  will  decide  where  there  is  so  much  disagree- 
ment of  authorities  ? 

Buxtorf  (Lex.,  p.  1601)  thinks  ^Enon  the  Chald  pi.  of  |W  (Ain),  a 
fountain.  De  Wette  thinks  it  is  derived  from  }1*  (yon)  and  fjy  (Ain), 
"  the  dove's  fountain." 

0  The  Vatican,  Alexandrian,  and  Sinaitic  MSS.  read  "  A  Jew,"  and 
it  is  adopted  by  Lachmann,  Tischendorf,  Alford,  Wordsworth,  and 
Ellicott. 

d  From  T^Troy,  "  a  place,  a  tract  of  country,"  and  &px<>>,  "  to  rule." 
«  Akrabbim  is  the  pi.  of  l^W  (Akrab),  "  a  scorpion."     The  heights  oi 
Akrabbim   are,  thus,  "  The  Scorpion  Hills."      The  name  occurs,  else- 
where, at  the  south  of  the  Dead  Sea. 

*  Mount  Ebal  is  3,029  above  the  sea ;  Gerizim,  2,898  feet.     The  con- 
trast between  Ebal  and  Gerizim  is  less  real  than  is  often  supposed.     The 
dip  of  the  strata  sinks  to  the  north  across  the  valley,  and  this  causes  a 
want  of  springs  on  the  south  side  of  Ebal,  but  its  north  side  is  almost 
as  rich  in  them  as  the  northern  slope  of  Gerizim. — Pal.  Fund  Report, 
1873,  p.  66. 


NOTES.  577 

«  Tliis  picture  of  the  neighbourhood  of  Shechem  was  taken  from  its 
appearance  in  April,  but  even  in  December,  in  fine  weather,  in  sheltered 
parts  like  this,  it  is  still  largely  applicable. 

h  It  is  rightly  called  a  well  (Beer  "1X2),  not  a  spring— (}*£  Ain).  It  ia 
a  cistern,  not  a  fountain.  A  very  interesting  account  is  given  by  Lieu- 
tenant Anderson  of  his  descent  to  the  bottom  ot  the  well,  hi  the  Recovery 
of  Jerusalem,  p.  465. 

1  Shechem  (D?!£>),  means  a  ridge  or  shoulder  :  in  reference  to  its  being 
the  watershed  of  the  district. 

.'  k  Ewald  thinks  it  was  six  in  the  evening,  but  it  would  be  dark  at  that 
hour,  in  December.  There  seems  no  reason  for  introducing  the  Eomau 
reckoning  of  the  day  here. —  See  Geschichte,  vol.  v.  p.  348. 

1  The  question,  whether  Shechem  was  the  Sychar  of  which  the  Samaritan 
woman  was  a  citizen,  has  been  warmly  disputed.  It  seems  hardly  pro- 
bable that  she  would  have  come  a  mile  and  a  half  for  water  when  so 
many  fountains  were  to  be  passed  on  the  way.  There  is  still  a  village 
called  Askar  011  the  north  of  the  well,  just  outside  the  valley,  at  the  foot 
of  Mount  Ebal,  and  facing  the  open  plain.  Between  this  name  and 
Sychar  there  seems  a  close  resemblance.  On  the  other  hand,  between 
Sychem,  the  Greek  name  for  Shechem,  and  Sychar,  there  is  almost  as 
little  difference,  for  changes  of  letters  are  common  in  other  cases. 
Sychar,  (Zvxdp)  seems  to  have  been  at  first  a  name  given  in  contempt, 
for  it  is  constantly  used  against  Shechem,  as  a  taunt,  by  the  Rabbis.  It 
was,  perhaps,  derived  from  the  Hebrew  ~Q^  (Shacher),  "  falsehood,"  in 
reference  to  the  alleged  idolatry  of  the  Shechemites,  or  from  "Tf3K> 
(Shichor),  "a  drunkard,"  in  allusion  to  "the  drunkards  of  Ephraim." — 
Isaiah  xxviii.  1,  7.  The  name  Samaria  is  from  JtlDK';  (Sh5meron),  "  a 
watch  height,"  in  allusion  to  the  position  of  the  city  on  a  hill.  Shechem 
was  re-named  Neapolis,  "  the  new  town,"  by  Vespasian.  It  had  been 
destroyed  in  the  last  Jewish  war  so  completely,  that  the  new  name  has 
clung  ever  since  to  the  town  built  on  its  site.  The  identity  of  Sychar 
with  Shechem  is  supported  by  Furrer,  Hilgenfeld,  Hengsteuberg, 
Olshausen,  Liicke,  and  others.  Hug,  Luthardt,  Ewald,  Meyer,  Delitzsch, 
and  Caspari,  however,  think  Askar  the  ancient  Sychar.  Keim  is  un- 
decided. 

m  A  gloss  on  the  Megillat  Ta'anith  brings  the  feeling  between  the  two 
races  vividly  before  us.  The  tradition  is  a  mere  legend,  but  it  was 
believed  in  Christ's  day.  "  Mourning  is  forbidden  on  the  21st  Kislow 
(Oct. — Nov.).  It  was  the  day  when  the  Cuthites  demanded  authority 
from  Alexander  the  Macedonian,  to  destroy  the  house  of  our  (rod. 
'  Grant  us,'  said  they,  '  five  hours  of  laud  on  the  top  'of  Mount  Moriah.' 
The  king  gave  it  them.  Informed  of  this,  Simeon  the  Just  put  on  his 
high  priestly  robes,  nnd  set  out,  accompanied  by  the  nobles  of  Jerusalem, 
by  a  thousand  counsellors  robed  in  white,  and  by  the  young  priests,  who 
carry  the  holy  instruments  (of  music).  They  marched,  preceded  by 
flambeaux,  all  night,  two  by  two.  '  Who  are  these  ?  '  asked  Alexander, 
as  he  saw  them  from  a  distance.  '  These  are  the  Jews,'  said  the  traitors, 
'  who  have  slighted  your  authority.'  They  reached  the  outposts,  at 
Antipatris,  as  the  sun  rose.  •  Who  are  you"1  asked  the  officers.  'In- 
habitants of  Jerusalem,'  was  the  answer ;  'we  are  come  to  crave  admis- 


578  NOTES. 

sion  to  the  presence  of  the  king.'  Alexander,  seeing  the  figure  of  Simeon 
the  Just,  at  ouce  came  down  from  his  chariot  and  prostrated  himself 
before  him.  '  How  is  it,'  asked  his  courtiers,  '  that  a  great  king  like 
thee  prostratest  thyself  before  a  Jew  ?  '  '  Because,'  said  he,  '  that  tigure 
has  always  appeared  to  me  before  I  undertook  a  war  in  which  I  tri- 
umphed.' Then,  addressing  the  Jews,  he  asked  why  they  came.  'These 
people,  the  traitors,  deceive  thee,' answered  Simeon.  'They  have  asked 
for  the  spot  on  which  we  pray  for  thee,  and  for  thy  long  reign.'  '  What 
people  are  they  ? '  '  They  are  the  Cuthites,'  said  Simeon.  '  Their  fate  is 
in  your  hands,'  replied  Alexander.  The  Jews  forthwith  cut  holes 
through  the  heels  of  the  Cuthites,  and  made  ropes  of  their  hair  and  tied 
these  through  their  heels,  and  dragged  them  by  them  over  the  rough 
thorns  and  thistles,  till  they  got  to  Mount  Gerizim.  There  they  ploughed 
over  the  site  of  the  Temple  of  their  enemies  (after  destroying  it),  and 
sowed  tares  on  it,  as  the  Cuthites  wished  to  have  done  with  the  Temple 
of  our  God.  This  day  was  then  appointed  for  a  feast." — Quoted  in 
Derenbourg,  Histoire  de  la  Palestine,  p.  42. 

n  The  Romans  acted  on  this  deadly  hatred  between  the  two  races, 
in  their  choice  of  Cssarea  as  the  capital  of  the  procuratorship.  Had 
Jerusalem  or  Samaria  been  chosen,  it  would  have  raised  the  bitterest 
jealousy.  Caesarea  was,  moreover,  on  the  sea,  and  thus  easy  of  access 
from  Koine,  and  the  high  road  from  Syria  ran  tlmmgh  it.  The  President 
of  Syria  had  always  four  legions  (24,000  men)  under  his  command. 
Samaria  and  Idumea  formed  part  of  the  Roman  procuratorship,  along 
with  Judea,  but  each  was  left  with  its  own  local  laws,  as  the  French 
have  been  in  Canada,  the  Channel  Islands,  and  the  Mauritius. 

0  The  bitter  feud  through  generation  after  generation  between  the 
two  races,  blazed  fiercely  even  among  the  descendants  of  the  Jews  and 
Samaritans  carried  off  by  Ptolemy  to  Egypt.  The  superior  holiness  of 
Jerusalem  or  Gerizim  was  fought  out  in  bloody  riots,  time  after  time,  in 
the  streets  of  Alexandria. 

P  The  word  is  ntp"'btp  (kesitah),  Gen.  xxxiii.  19,  which  the  Greek 
translates  by  dfj.v6s  (amnos),  "a  lamb,"  and  the  Vulgate  by  agnus — which 
means,  of  course,  the  same.  But  both  Gesenius  and  Fiirst  reject  the 
idea  of  barter  as  prevalent  in  the  patriarchal  age,  and  understand  by  the 
word  money  weighed  out,  from  t32'(3  (kasat),  "to  weigh."  Gesenius  adds: 
"  Most  of  the  ancient  interpreters,  understand  by  it  a  lamb  a  sense 
which  has  no  support,  either  from  etymology  or  in  the  kindred  dialects, 
and  has  none  from  the  usage  of  the  patriarchs,  since  in  then:  age  mer- 
chandise was  no  longer  usually  exchanged,  but  actual  sales  were  common 
for  money,  either  by  tale  or  weight.  Gen.  xxiii.  16 ;  xlvii.  16  A  coin 
of  Cyprus,  bearing  the  figure  of  a  lamb,  has  nothing  to  do  with  the 
money  in  question." 

o  Davidson  translates  this  clause.  "For  the  Father  also  seeks  them 
who  worship  Him  to  be  such.'1  For  the  sense  given  in  the  text,  see 
Liicke,  Luthardt,  Lauge,  and  Meyer,  in  loc.  Winer  (Grammatik,  p.  395) 
has  the  remark,  "  '  In  spirit  and  truth,'  is  not  to  be  translated  '  spiritually 
and  truly  ;  '  the  preposition  tv  (in)  indicates  the  sphere  in  which  the 
'  worship  '  moves." 

r  Eisenmenger  (vol.  ii.  p.  723)  gives  passages  from  the  Rabbis  respect- 
ing the  Messiah  who  was  to  be  called  "  The  Son  of  Joseph  "  —  that  is,  of 


NOTES.  579 

Epbraim.  He  was  to  be  the  head  of  the  Ten  Tribes.  "The  Holy  Ever- 
Blessed  God  will  clothe  Him  with  a  robe  whose  brightness  will  shine 
from  one  end  of  the  world  to  the  other,  and  Israel  will  walk  in  its  light 
and  say,  '  Blessed  is  the  hour  in  which  thou  wast  created,  and  the  body 
that  bore  thee.'"  He  will  reveal  Himself  first  in  Galilee ;  then  gather 
the  Jews :  then  go  to  Jerusalem,*  and  fight  against  the  followers  of 
Jesus,  by  whom  He  will  be  regarded  as  Antichrist.  He  will  perish  in 
this  contest  aud  be  lamented  by  all  Jews.  He  is  not  a  king  but  next 
after  the  king  Messiah,  the  Son  of  David,  t  who  will  come  in  the  clouds, 
re-establish  the  kingdom  of  David,  rebuild  the  Temple,  and  gather  the 
Jews.  He  will  be  David  Himself,  or  of  the  seed  of  David,  and  will  come 
after  the  death  of  the  Messiah  the  son  of  Joseph.  He  will  fight  against 
the  Heathen  and  Christians:  overcome  all  nations,  crushing  them  utterly, 
and  dividing  all  the  treasures  of  the  world  among  the  Jews.  J  The 
resurrection  of  the  dead  will  inaugurate  His  reign  over  a  universal  Jewish 
kingdom  of  which  Jerusalem  will  be  the  capital.  It  is  needless  to  point 
out  that  these  ideas  must  in  part  be  later  than  Christianity,  but  the  part 
referring  to  the  Messiah,  Son  of  Joseph  or  Ephraim,  may  reflect  some 
of  the  notions  of  the  Samaritans.  As  a  characteristic  illustration  of  the 
puerility  of  some  of  the  conceptions  of  the  Eabbis,  I  may  add  that  the 
Messiah,  the  Son  of  David,  is  to  come  riding  on  the  same  ass  on  which 
Abraham  and  Moses  rode ! — (Gen.  xxii.  3.  Exod.  iv.  20.  Zech.  ix.  9).  In- 
deed, Elijah,  who  is  to  appear  before  Him,  is  to  do  the  same. — Eisenmenger, 
vol.  ii.  p.  697.  Nork  (p.  10)  gives  an  extract  from  a  Samaritan  source  that 
is  worth  quoting — '•  Be  thankful  that  a  great  prophet  is  coming,  whom  God 
pointed  out  to  Moses  in  the  words  '  A  prophet  like  unto  thee  will  I  raise 
from  thy  brethren '  (Deut.  xviii.  15).  This  is  the  prophet  who  was  pro- 
mised to  our  forefather  Abraham,  where  it  is  said,  '  A  smoking  furnace, 
and  a  burning  lamp '  (Gen.  xv.  17).  It  is  He  to  whom  the  gathering  of 
the  people  will  be  (Gen.  xlix.  10),  and  of  Him  also  it  is  said  'He  shall 
smite  the  head  of  the  children  of  Seth,  but  Israel  shall  have  the  victory.' 
Our  Eabbis  maintain  respecting  Him  that  the  nations,  at  his  appearing, 
will  believe  in  Him  and  in  the  Holy  Scripture  (The  Pentateuch),  and  in 
Mount  Gerizim.  The  doctrines  of  Moses,  the  Son  of  Amram,  will 
prevail,  and  the  royal  prophet  who  brings  this  about  will  be  called  the 
Messias.  But  He  will  die  and  will  be  buried  in  the  grave  of  Joseph,  the 
son  of  the  Faithful  one  (sic).  He  will  bring  the  Tabernacle  to  light 
again,  aud  it  will  be  erected  on  Mount  Gerizim."  See  also,  Petermann, 
Art.  Samaria,  Herzog,  vol.  viii.  p.  373,  and  Milrnan,  History  of  Chris- 
tianity, p.  84. 

8  Goldsmiths,  wool-carders,  makers  of  hand  mills,  spice-dealers, 
weavers,  hairdressers,  cloth-makers,  blood-letters,  and  bath-heaters  could 
be  neither  kings  nor  high  priests,  because  their  trades  were  more  or  less 
disreputable  from  the  familiarity  they  were  supposed  to  entail  between 
the  sexes. — Delitzsch,  p.  41. 


CHAPTER   XXXII. 

•  Sebastos  (<re;3a<TT5y)  is  the  Greek  equivalent  of  the  Latin  Augustus, 
"  the  awful,"    "  the   august."      The   feminine  (Sebaste)  only  could  be 
used  of  a  city. 

•  Eisenmenger,  vol.  ii.  pp.  740,  710.  t  Eisenmtnijer,  vol.  ii.  pp.  763,  773,  774. 

t  Eisenmenger,  vol.  ii.  pp.  772,  8»9. 


580  NOTES. 

b  A  stadium  was  606J  English  feet.  A  furlong  is  660  feet.  The  wall 
was  thus  over  18  furlongs,  or  more  than  2J  miles,  in  length. 

e  It  is  cnrious  to  see  how  hnman  nature  has  been  always  the  same. 
I  have  already  quoted  Professor  Wilson's  experience  on  the  subject  of 
familiarity  destroying  respect,  biit  the  ancients  had  as  keen  a  sense  of 
this  truth  as  he.  Aristides  used  to  say  that  no  philosopher  is  esteemeJ 
in  his  own  tqwn,  and  Seueca  (de  Benef.,  iii.  2)  re-echoes  the  complaint. 
"  Vile  habetur,"  says  he,  "  quod  domi  est  " — which  is  equivalent  to  out 
"  Familiarity  breeds  contempt."  Jesus,  indeed,  felt  this  so  keenly  that 
He  speaks  of  one's  enemies  being  "  those  of  his  own  household." 

d  Schleiermacher  notes  that  the  wonders  wrought  in  Jerusalem  are 
only  stated  generally,  with  no  specific  detail,  and  that  nothing  wbatever 
is  said  of  the  "  many  mighty  works"  wrought  in  Bethsaida  and  Chorazin. 
We  have  thus  only  an  imperfect  idea,  at  best,  of  the  measureless  activity 
of  Christ's  beneficence. — Ltbert  Jesu,  p.  194. 

6  The  word  used  in  the  Acts,  is  <nW/>o<£os  (suntrophos) — lit.  "  brought 
up  with  another,  or  nursed  with  another,"  "living  together,"  "bound 
to  another  by  being  educated  and  living  together."  Manaen  was  evidently 
a  Jew,  from  his  name.  It  was  very  common  in  antiquity,  for  persons  of 
rank  to  associate  other  children  with  their  own,  to  excite  them  to  greater 
emulation  in  tueir  studies,  and  to  be  their  companions.  It  was  also 
common  to  have  a  child  fed  from  the  same  breast  as  another  whose 
mother  was  taken  as  nurse.  Perhaps  Manaen  may  have  stood  in  both 
relations  to  Antipas,  for  it  must  have  been  he  to  whom  St.  Luke  refers. 
He  probably  shared  in  the  early  education  of  Antipas  and  Archelaus. 
Nothing  is  known  of  him  beyond  the  allusion  in  the  Acts,  which  certainly 
seems  to  imply  companionship  in  boybood  with  Antipas. 

f  Sepp  (vol.  iii.  p.  177)  conjectures  that  th<i  "  nobleman  "  may  have 
been  the  imperial  steward  of  Salome's  domains,  wbich  had  been  left 
by  will  to  the  Empress  Livia.  But  the  word  used,  /3curi\t/c6j  (basilikos), 
means  any  one  in  high  position  about  a  king  or  royal  person,  either  in 
the  army,  or  at  court,  or  in  the  civil  service. 

6  It  marks  the  minute  exactness  of  the  narration  that  Jesus  is  asked 
to  "come  down"  from  Cana  to  Capernaum,  the  one  place  being  1,350 
feet  lower  than  the  other. 

h  DT3H,  (Hakkim),  "a  wise  man" — orig.  title  of  the  Magi. — Eccles.  ix. 
17.  Gen.  xli.  8.  Jer.  1.  35.  Esther  i.  13.  KST1  (Bophai),  "a  healer," 
properly  of  wounds.  This  was  the  usual  word  for  a  physician.  See 
Jer.  viii.  22.  2  Chr,  n.  xvi.  12.  Gen.  1.  2. 

1  The  troops  who  formed  the  summer  garrison  of  Samaria  were 
marched  to  Jerusalem  for  the  months  of  the  feasts  to  be  ready  to  sup- 
press tumults,  just  as  Turkish  soldiers  are  massed  at  Jerusalem,  now,  at 
Easter,  for  the  same  purpose. — Ewald,  vol.  v.  p.  53. 

k  This  passage  is  quoted  freely,  as  if  from  memory,  by  the  Evangelist. 
The  words  in  the  Septuagint  are  : — "  The  country  of  Zebulon  ;  the  land 
of  Napbtali ;  towards  the  sea  (of  Galilee)  ;  and  the  populations  dwelling 
by  the  shore  of  the  sea  ;  and  beyond  the  Jordan  ;  Galilee  of  the  Heathen ; 
the  parts  of  Judea-  ye  people  walking  in  darkness  beheld  a  great  light. 
Ye  who  dwell  in  the  region  and  shadow  of  death,  to  you  a  light  shalJ 
shine." 


NOTES.  581 

The  Hebrew  is — "  The  land  of  Zebulon  and  the  land  of  Naphtali ;  the 
way  of  the  sea,  or.  towards  the  sea  (of  Galilee) ;  beyond  Jordan  ;  Galilee 
of  the  Heathen.  The  people  walking  in  darkness  saw  a  great  light :  on 
those  who  were  dwelling  in  the  land  of  the  shadow  of  death  a  light  has 
shone." 

1  At  that  time  the  whole  earth  will  tremble,  as  of  old,  from  one  end  of 
heaven  to  the  other,  because  the  Messiah  is  about  to  be  revealed  in 
Galilee. — Sohar,  Exod.,  f.  Hi.  3.  It  is  appointed  that  the  Messiah  shall 
be  revealed  in  Galilee. — Sohar,  f.  88. 

m  The  word  describing  it  is  irepLiraruv— journeying  round  (the  bending 
Bhore). 

n  The  fish  was  a  very  frequent  symbol  of  early  Christian  art.  Like 
the  dove  or  the  lamb,  it  is  used  in  more  than  one  sense,  especially  for 
Christians,  after  Matt.  xiii.  47-49.  Luke  v.  4-10,  for  members  of  the 
Church.  The  Greek  word  IXOTS  (ichthus,  a  fish),  was  very  early  used 
as  a  Christian  anagram,  its  different  letters  forming  the  initials  of  a 
confession  of  Christianity,  thus,  'IijaoOs  Xpwrds  0ecw  Tibs  Zwr^p,  "Jesus 
Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  the  Saviour."  It  was  hence  used  as  a  symbol 
among  Christians,  of  Jesus  Christ  Himself.  Thus,  "  Tanquam  IxOvSs, 
fiiius  aquosa  petit." — Jerome  ad  Hononum,  Ep.  43.  "  Nos  pisciculi 
secnndum  lj(6iiv  nostrum  in  aqua  nascimur." — Tertullian  de  Baptisnio, 
e.  1. 

0  "  To  follow  "  a  Rabbi  was  the  common  expression  for  becoming  his 
scholar.  Thus,  in  the  Talmud  (Erubin,  f.  30.1).  "When  I  fallowed 
B. Jochauaa." 


THE 


LIFE    AND    WORDS 


OP 


CHE  I  ST. 


BY 

CUNNINGHAM    GEIKIE,    D.  D. 

"THE  LIFE  WAS  THE  LIGHT  OF  MEN." — JOHN  i.  4. 

REVISED   EDITION. 

VOL.   II. 


NEW    YORK: 
D.    APPLETON    AND    COMPANY. 

1897. 


CONTENTS. 


XXXIII.  CAPERNAUM 1-16 

XXXIV.  LIGHT  AND  DARKNESS  .        .        .        .  17-37 
XXXV.  THE    CHOICE    OP    THE    TWELVE,   AND 

THE  SERMON  ON  THE  MOUNT          .  38-54 
XXXVI.  THE     SERMON   ON    THE    MOUNT    (con- 
tinued)        .....  55-68 
XXXVII.  THE    SERMON    ON   THE   MOUNT    (con- 
cluded)           69-85 

XXXVIII.  OPEN  CONFLICT 86-102 

XXXIX.  GALILEE 103-114 

XL.  DARKENING  SHADOWS — LIFE  IN  GALILEE  115-128 

XLI.  THE  BURSTING  OF  THE  STORM      .         .  129-143 

XLII.  AFTER  THE  STORM       ....  144-159 

XLIII.  DARK  AND  BRIGHT       ....  160-178 

XLIV.  THE  TURN  OF  THE  DAT      .        .        .  179-200 

XLV.  THE  COASTS  OF  THE  HEATHEN     .         .  201-217 

XLVT.  IN  FLIGHT  ONCE  MORE          .        .         .  218-233 

XLVII.  THE  TRANSFIGURATION.        .        .        .  234-247 

XL VIII.  BEFORE  THE  FEAST     ....  248-261 

XLIX.  AT  THE  FEAST  OF  TABERNACLES  .         .  262-278 

L.  AFTER  THE  FEAST 279-290 

LI.  THE  LAST  MONTH  OF  THE  YEAR  .  291-305 


VI 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  PAGES 

LII.  A  WANDERING  LIFE    ....  306-323 

LIII.  IN  PEREA    ......  324-344 

LIV.  IN  PEREA  (continued)          .        .         .  345-369 

LV.  PALM  SUNDAY      .....  370-391 

LVI.  JERUSALEM  .....        .  392-407 

LVH.  THE  INTERVAL    .....  408-427 

LVJLJLL  FAREWELL  TO  FRIENDS         .        .         .  428-449 

LIX.  THE  FAREWELL  .....  450-470 

LX.  THE  ARREST       ....     .---,.•  471-485 

LXI.  THE  JEWISH  TRIAL      .        .        .      .;.  486-499 

XLII.  BEFORE  PILATE  .....  500-522 

XLIII.  JUDAS  —  THE  CRUCIFIXION    .        .        .  523-546 
LXIV.  THE    RESURRECTION    AND    THE    FORTY 

DAYS    •               .v       ....  547-572 

NOTES  TO  VOLUME  II.         ...  573-624 

INDEX  OF  SUBJECTS      .        .        .  625-644 

INDEX  OF  TEXTS.        ,        ,      .,...  645-655 


THE  LIFE  OF  CHEIST. 


CHAPTER  XXXIII. 
CAPEKNAUM. 

THE  final  "  call "  addressed  to  Peter  and  his  brother,  and 
to  James  and  John,  at  the  Lake  of  Galilee,  apparently 
insignificant  as  an  event,  proved  to  have  been,  in  reality,  one 
of  the  turning  points  in  the  history  of  the  world.  The 
"  call  "  of  Abraham  had  given  the  world,  as  an  everlasting 
inheritance,  the  grand  truth  of  a  Living  Personal  God ;  that 
of  Moses  had  created  a  nation,  in  which  the  active  government 
of  human  affairs  by  one  God  was  to  be  illustrated,  and  His 
will  made  known  directly  to  mankind  :  but  that  of  the  poor 
Galilasan  fishermen  was  the  foundation  of  a  Society,  for  which 
all  that  had  preceded  it  was  only  the  preparation  ;  a  Society 
in  which  all  that  was  merely  outward  and  temporary  in  the 
relations  of  God  to  man,  should  be  laid  aside,  and  all  that 
was  imperfect  and  material  replaced  by  the  perfect,  spiritual, 
and  abiding.  The  true  theocracy,  towards  which  mankind 
had  been  slowly  advancing,  through  ages,  had  received  its 
first  overt  establishment,  when  Peter  heard,  on  his  knees, 
the  summons  of  Jesus  to  follow  Him,  and  had,  with  the 
others,  at  once  from  the  heart,  obeyed.  Henceforth,  it  only 
remained  to  extend  the  kingdom  thus  founded,  by  winning 
the  consciences  of  men  to  the  same  devotion,  by  the  announce- 
ment of  the  Fatherhood  of  God,  and  the  need  of  seeking  His 
favour  by  repentance  and  faith  in  His  Divine  Son  ;  leading 
to  a  holy  life,  of  which  that  of  Jesus,  as  the  Saviour-Messiah, 
was  the  realized  ideal. 

From  the  shores  of  the  lake,  Christ  went  to  the  house  of 
Peter,  accepting  his  invitation  to  share  his  hospitality 

The  little  town  itself,  with  its  two  or  three  thousand  in- 


2  THE   LIFE    OF   CHRIST. 

habitants,  was  surrounded  by  a  wall,  and  lay  partly  aloner 
the  shore  ;  some  of  the  houses  close  to  the  water ;  others 
with  a  garden  between  it  and  them.  The  black  lava  or 
basalt,  of  which  all  were  built,  was  universally  whitewashed, 
so  that  the  town  was  seen  to  fine  effect,  from  a  distance, 
through  the  green  of  its  numerous  trees  and  gardens.  Peter's 
household  consisted  of  his  wife  and  her  mother — doubtless  a 
widow — whom  his  kindly  nature  had  brought  to  this  second 
home,  Andrew  his  brother,  and  now,  of  Jesus,  his  guest. 
James  and  John,  probably,  still  lived  with  their  father  in 
Capernaum,  and  the  whole  four  followed  their  calling  in 
the  intervals  of  attending  their  new  Master.* 

It  appears  to  have  been  on  a  Friday  that  Jesus  summoned 
Peter  and  his  companions.1  The  day  passed,  doubtless,  in 
further  work  for  the  Kingdom.  As  the  sun  set,  the  beginning 
of  the  Sabbath  was  announced  by  three  blasts  of  a  trumpet, 
from  the  roof  of  the  spacious  synagogue  of  the  town,  which 
the  devout  commandant  of  the  garrison,  though  not  a  Jew, 
had  built  for  the  people.  The  first  blast  warned  the  peasants, 
in  the  far-stretching  vineyards  and  gardens,  to  cease  their 
toil ;  the  second  was  the  signal  for  the  townsfolk  to  close 
their  business  for  the  week ;  and  the  third,  for  all  to  kindle 
the  holy  Sabbath  light,  which  was  to  burn  till  the  sacred 
day  was  past.3  It  was  the  early  spring,  and  the  days  were 
still  short,  for  even  in  summer  it  is  hardly  morning  twilight, 
in  Palestine,  at  four,  and  the  light  is  gone  by  eight.5  Jesus 
did  not,  however,  go  that  night  to  Peter's  house,  but  spent 
the  hours  in  solitary  devotion.1*  We  can  fancy,  from  what 
is  elsewhere  told  us,  that  the  day  closed  while  He  still  spoke 
to  a  listening  crowd,  under  some  palm-tree  or  by  the  way- 
side. As  the  moon  rose  beyond  the  hills,  on  the  other  side 
of  the  lake,  He  would  dismiss  His  hearers,  with  words  of 
comfort  and  a  greeting  of  peace,  and  then  turn  to  the  silent 
hills  behind,  to  be  alone  with  His  Heavenly  Father.  On 
their  lonely  heights,  the  noise  of  men  lay  far  beneath  Him, 
and  He  could  find  rest  after  the  toils  of  the  day.  A  wide 
panorama  of  land  and  water  stretched  away  on  all  sides  in 
thii  white  moonlight.  He  was  Himself  its  centre,  and  gazed 
on  it  with  inexpressible  sympathy  and  emotion.  We  can 
imagine  Him,  spreading  out  His  arms,  as  if  to  take  it  all  to 
His  heart,  and  then  prostrating  Himself,  as  it  were  with  it, 

1  Ewald,  Geschichte,  vol.  v.  p.  365 
1  Talmud  ;  quoted  by  Sepp,  vol.  ii.  p.  253.  3  Tag,  in  Winer, 


A   DAY   IN    THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST.  O 

before  God,  to  intercede  for  it  with  the  Eternal ;  His  brow 
touching  the  earth  in  lowly  abasement,  while  He  pleaded  for 
man  as  His  friend  and  brother,  in  words  of  infinite  love  and 
tenderness.  "  Rising,  erelong,  in  strong  emotion,  it  would 
seem  as  if  He  held  up  the  world  in  His  lifted  hands,  to  offer 
it  to  His  Father.  He  spoke,  was  silent,  then  spoke  again. 
His  prayer  was  holy  inter-communion  with  God.  At  first 
low  and  almost  in  a  whisper,  His  voice  gradually  became 
loud  and  joyous,  till  it  echoed  back  from  the  rocks  around 
Him.  Thus  the  night  passed,  till  morning  broke  and  found 
Him,  once  more  in  silent  devotion,  prostrate  as  if  overcome  ; 
but  the  dawn  of  day  was  the  signal  for  His  rising,  and 
passing  down  again  to  the  abodes  of  men."  1 

The  morning  service  in  the  synagogue  began  at  nine,  and 
as  the  news  of  the  great  Rabbi  being  in  the  neighbourhood 
had  spread,  every  one  strove  to  attend,  in  hopes  of  seeing 
Him.  Women  came  to  it  by  back  streets,  as  was  required 
of  them  ;  the  men,  with  slow  Sabbath  steps,  gathered  in 
great  numbers.  The  elders  had  taken  their  seats,  and  the 
Reader  had  recited  the  Eighteen  Prayers — the  congregation 
answering  with  their  Amen — for  though  the  prayers  might 
be  abridged  on  other  days,  they  could  not  be  shortened  on 
the  Sabbath.2  Next  came  the  first  lesson  for  the  day,  the 
people  rising  and  turning  reverently  towards  the  Shrine,  and 
chanting  the  words  after  the  Reader.  Another  lesson  then 
followed,  and  the  Reader,  at  its  close,  called  on  Jesus,  as  a 
Rabbi  present  in  the  congregation,  to  speak  from  the  passage 
to  the  people. 

His  words  must  have  sounded  strangely  new  and  attractive, 
for,  apart  from  their  vividness  and  force,  they  spoke  of 
matters  of  the  most  vital  interest,  which  the  Rabbis  left 
wholly  untouched.  He  had  founded  the  Kingdom  of  God, 
and  now  sought  to  build  it  up  by  realizing  its  conditions  in 
the  souls  of  men,  who  should  each,  forthwith,  be  living  centres 
of  influence  on  others.  But  a  course  so  retired  and  unknown 
fco  the  world  at  large,  as  that  which  He  followed,  of  speaking 
to  modest  assemblies  in  local  synagogues,  makes  it  easy  to 
ruderstand  how  His  life  might  be  overlooked  by  the  public 
writers  of  the  age.  Yet,  in  the  little  world  in  which  He 
moved,  the  noiseless  agency  by  which  He  carried  on  His 
work  created  an  intense  impression.  He  gave  old  truths 

1  Ein  Tcifj  in  Capernaum,  p.  138. 

2  Talmud,  in  Sepp,  vol.  ii.  p.  253. 


4  THE   LIFE    OF   CHEIST. 

an  -unwonted  freshness  of  presentation,  and  added  nmch 
that  sounded  entirely  new,  on  His  own  authority,  instead  of 
confining  Himself,  like  the  Rabbis,  to  lifeless  repetitions  of 
traditional  commonplaces,  delivered  with  a  dread  of  the 
least  deviation  or  originality.  They  claimed  no  power  to 
say  a  word  of  their  own ;  He  spoke  with  a  startling  inde- 
pendence. Their  synagogue  sermons,  as  we  see  in  the  Book 
of  Jubilees,  were  a  tiresome  iteration  of  the  minutest  Rab- 
binical rules,  with  a  serious  importance  which  regarded  them 
as  the  basis  of  all  moral  order.  The  kind  and  quality  of 
wood  for  the  altar  ;  the  infinite  details  of  the  law  of  tithes  ; 
the  moral  deadliness  of  the  use  of  blood ;  or  the  indispens- 
ableness  of  circumcision  on  the  eighth  day,  were  urged 
with  passionate  zeal  as  momentous  and  fundamental  truths. 
The  morality  and  religion  of  the  age  had  sunk  thus  low,  and 
hence,  the  fervid  words  of  Jesus,  stirring  the  depths  of  the 
heart,  created  profound  excitement  in  Capernaum.  Men 
were  amazed  at  the  phenomenon  of  novelty,  in  a  religious 
sphere  so  unchangeably  conservative  as  that  of  the  syna- 
gogue. "  New  teaching,"  said  one  to  the  other,  "  and  with 
authority — not  like  other  Rabbis.  They  only  repeat  the  old  : 
this  man  takes  on  Him  to  speak  without  reference  to  the 
past."  But  if  they  were  astonished  at  His  teaching,1  they 
were  still  more  so  at  the  power  which  He  revealed  in  con- 
nection with  it.  Among  those  who  had  gone  to  the  syna- 
gogue that  morning  was  an  unhappy  man,  the  victim  of  a 
calamity  incident  apparently  to  the  age  of  Christ  and  the 
Apostles  only."  He  was  "  possessed  by  a  spirit  of  an  unclean 
demon."  2  Our  utter  ignorance  of  the  spiritual  world  leaves 
the  significance  of  such  words  a  mystery,  though  the  popular 
idea  of  the  time  is  handed  down  by  the  Rabbis.  An  unclean 
demon,  in  the  language  of  Christ's  day,  was  an  evil  spirit 
that  drove  the  person  possessed,  to  haunt  burial-places  and 
other  spots  most  unclean  in  the  eyes  of  Jews.  There  were 
men  who  affected  the  black  art,  pretending,  like  the  witch 
of  Endor,  to  raise  the  dead,  and,  for  that  end,  lodging  in 
tombs,  and  macerating  themselves  with  fasting,  to  secure 
the  fuller  aid  and  inspiration  of  such  evil  spirits ;  and  others 
into  whom  the  demons  entered,  driving  them  involuntarily 
to  these  dismal  habitations.3  Both  classes  were  regarded  as 
under  the  power  of  this  order  of  beings,  but  it  is  not  told  us 

1  Mark  i.  22.    Luke  iv.  32.  "  Luke  iv.  33. 

3  Lightfoot,  vol.  iii.  p.  141. 


PETER'S  WIFE'S  MOTHER.  5 

fco  which  of  the  two  the  person  present  in  the  synagogue 
belonged. 

The  service  had  gone  on  apparently  without  interruption 
till  Jesus  began  to  speak.  Then,  however,  a  paroxysm  seized 
the  unhappy  man.  Rising  in  the  midst  of  the  congregation, 
a  wild  howl  of  demoniacal  frenzy  burst  from  him,  that  must 
have  frozen  the  blood  of  all  with  horror.  "  Ha  !  "  yelled  the 
demon.  "  What  have  we  to  do  with  Thee,  Jesus,  the  Na- 
zarene  ?  Thou  comest  to  destroy  us  ! d  I  know  Thee,  who 
Thou  art ;  the  Holy  One  of  God  !  "  Among  the  crowd  Jesus 
alone  remained  calm.  He  would  not  have  acknowledgment 
of  His  Messiahship  from  such  a  source.  "  Hold  thy  peace," 
said  He,  indignantly,  "and  come  out  of  him."  The  spirit 
felt  its  Master,  and  that  it  must  obey,  but,  demon  to  the  last, 
threw  the  man  down  in  the  midst  of  the  congregation,  tear- 
ing him  as  it  did  so,  and  then,  with  a  wild  howl,  fled  out  of 
him.  Nothing  could  have  happened  better  fitted  to  impress 
the  audience  favourably  towards  Jesus.  "  This  new  teach- 
ing," said  they  amongst  themselves,  "  is  with  authority.  It 
carries  its  warrant  with  it."* 

So  startling  an  incident  had  broken  up  the  service  for  the 
time,  and  Jesus  retired,  with  His  four  disciples,  and  the  rest 
of  the  congregation.  But  His  day's  work  of  mercy  had  only 
begun.  Arriving  at  His  modest  home,  he  found  the  mother 
of  Peter's  wife  struck  down  with  a  violent  attack  of  the  local 
fever  for  which  Capernaum  had  so  bad  a  notoriety.  The 
quantity  of  marshy  land  in  the  neighbourhood,  especially  at 
the  entrance  of  the  Jordan  into  the  lake,  has  made  fever 
of  a  very  malignant  type  at  times  the  characteristic  of  the 
locality,1  so  that  the  physicians  would  not  allow  Josephus, 
when  hurt  by  his  horse  sinking  in  the  neighbouring  marsh, 
to  sleep  even  a  single  night  in  Capernaum,  but  hurried  him 
on  to  Tarichaea.2  It  was  not  to  be  thought  that  He  who  had 
just  sent  joy  and  healing  into  the  heart  of  a  stranger,  would 
withhold  His  aid  when  a  friend  required  it.  The  anxious 
relatives  forthwith  besought  His  help,  but  the  gentlest  hint 
would  have  sufficed.  It  mattered  not  that  it  was  fever  :  Ho 
was  forthwith  in  the  chamber,  bending  over  the  sick  woman, 
and  rebuking  the  disease  as  if  it  had  been  an  evil  personality, 
He  took  her  by  the  hand,  doubtless  with  a  look  and  words 
which  made  her  His  for  ever,  and  gently  raising  her,  she 
found  the  fever  gone  and  health  and  strength  returned,  so 

1  Land  and  Book,  p.  356.  8  Vita,  72. 


6  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

that  she  could  prepare  the  midday  meal  for  her  household 
and  their  wondrous  guest. 

The  strict  laws  of  the  Jewish  Sabbath  gave  a  few  hours  of 
rest  to  all,  but  the  blast  of  the  trumpet  which  announced  its 
close  was  the  signal  for  a  renewal  of  the  popular  excitement, 
now  increased  by  the  rumour  of  a  second  miracle.1  With 
the  setting  of  the  sun  it  was  once  more  lawful  to  move 
beyond  the  two  thousand  paces  of  a  Sabbath-day's  journey, 
and  to  carry  whatever  burdens  one  pleased.  Forthwith, 
began  to  gather  from  every  street,  and  from  the  thickly  sown 
towns  and  villages  round,  the  strangest  assemblage.  The 
child  led  its  blind  father  as  near  the  enclosure  of  Simon's 
house  as  the  throng  permitted :  the  father  came  carrying 
the  sick  child  ;  men  bore  the  helpless  in  swinging  hammocks  ; 
"  all  that  had  any  sick,  with  whatever  disease,"  brought  them 
to  the  Great  Healer.  The  whole  town  was  in  motion,  and 
crowded  before  the  house.  What  the  sick  of  even  a  small 
town  implied  may  be  imagined.  Fevers,  convulsions,  asthma, 
wasting  consumption,  swollen  dropsy,  shaking  palsy,  the 
deaf,  the  dumb,  the  brain-affected,  and,  besides  all,  "  many 
that  were  possessed  with  devils,"  that  last,  worst  symptom 
of  the  despairing  misery  and  dark  confusion  of  the  times. 

Would  He  leave  them  as  they  were  ?  They  had  taken  it 
for  granted  that  He  would  pity  them,  for  was  He  not  a  Prophet 
of  God,  and  was  it  not  natural  that,  like  Elijah  or  Elisha,  the 
greatest  of  the  prophets,  the  power  of  God  might  be  present 
to  heal  thqge  who  were  brought  to  Him  ?  Already,  more- 
over, His  characteristics  had  won  the  confidence  of  the  simple 
crowd.  There  must  have  been  a  mysterious  sympathy  and 
goodness  in  His  looks,  and  words,  and  even  in  His  bearing, 
that  seemed  to  beckon  the  wretched  to  Him  as  their  friend, 
and  that  conquered  all  uncorrupted  hearts.  It  had  drawn 
His  disciples  from  the  interests  of  gain,  to  follow  Him  in  His 
poverty ;  it  melted  into  tears  the  woman  that  was  a  sinner  ; 
it  softened  the  hard  nature  of  publicans  ;  and  drew  hundreds 
of  weary  and  heavy-laden  to  Him  for  rest.  Those  who  could, 
gathered  wherever  they  might  hope  to  find  Him,  and  as  it 
svas  this  evening,  those  who  could  not  move,  had  themselves 
carried  into  His  presence.  As  many  as  could,  strove  to  touch, 
if  it  were  possible,  even  His  clothes ;  others  confessed  their 
sins  aloud,  and  owned  that  their  illness  was  the  punishment 
from  God.  One  would  not  venture  to  ask  Him  to  come  to 

1  Matt.  viii.  15.     Mark  i.  32.      Luke  iv.  40. 


JOT   TO   THE   WRETCHED  !  7 

his  liouse  ;  another  brought  Him  in  that  He  might  be,  as  it 
were,  constrained  to  help.  The  blind  cried  out  to  Him  from 
the  roadside,  and  the  woman  of  Canaan  followed  Him  in 
spite  of  His  hard  words.  When  He  came  near,  even  those 
possessed  felt  His  Divine  greatness.  Trembling  in  every 
limb,  they  would  fain  have  fled,  but  felt  rooted  to  the  spot, 
the  evil  spirits  owning,  in  wild  shrieks,  the  presence  of  One 
whose  goodness  was  torment,  and  before  whose  will  they 
must  yield  up  their  prey. 

The  sight  of  so  much  misery  crowding  for  relief  touched 
Jesus  at  once  and,  He  soon  appeared  at  the  open  door, 
before  the  excited  crowd.  With  a  command,  "  Hold  thy 
peace,  and  come  out  of  Him,"  a  poor  demoniac  was  presently 
in  his  right  mind.  The  helpless  lame  stood  up  at  the  words 
"  I  say  unto  thee,  Arise."  The  paralytic  left  his  couch,  at 
the  sound  of  "  Take  up  thy  bed  and  walk."  To  some,  He 
had  a  word  of  comfort  that  dispelled  alarm  and  drove  off 
its  secret  cause.  "  Be  it  to  thee  according  to  thy  faith." 
"  Woman,  thou  art  loosed  from  thine  infirmity."  "Be  of 
good  cheer,  my  son,  thy  sins  are  forgiven  thee,"  was  enough 
to  turn  sorrow  and  pain  into  joy  and  health.  Erelong  He 
had  spoken  to  all  some  word  of  mercy.  The  blind  left  with 
their  sight  restored ;  the  possessed  thanked  God  for  their 
restoration ;  the  fever-stricken  felt  the  glow  of  returning 
vigour  ;  the  dumb  shouted  His  praises  ;  and  thus  the  strange 
crowd  went  off  one  by  one,  leaving  the  house  once  more  in 
the  silence  of  the  night.  No  wonder  the  Evangelist  saw 
in  such  an  evening  a  fulfilment  of  the  words  of  the  prophet, 
"  Himself  took  our  infirmities  and  bore  our  diseases."  1 

It  was  not,  however,  by  popular  excitement  and  mere  out- 
ward healing  that  the  kingdom  of  God  was  to  be  spread,  but 
by  the  still  and  gentle  influence  of  the  Truth,  working  con- 
viction in  individual  souls.  The  noisy  crowd  ;  the  thronging 
numbers  of  diseased  and  suffering  ;  the  curiosity  that  ran 
after  excitement,  and  the  yearning  for  help  which  looked 
only  to  outward  healing,  troubled  and  almost  alarmed  Him. 
He  had  come  to  found  a  Spiritual  Society,  of  men  changed 
in  heart  towards  God,  and  filled  with  faith  in  Himself  as  its 
Head;  and  the  merely  external  and  mostly  selfish  notions  of 
the  multitude  could  not  escape  His  keen  eyes.  His  Divine 
love  and  pity  sighed  over  the  bodily  and  mental  distress 
around.  But,  as  a  rule,  the  sufferers  thought  only  of  their 

1  From  the  Hebrew,  not  the  Greek,  of  Isaiah  liii.  4. 
39 


8  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

outward  misery,  in  melancholy  ignorance  of  its  secret  source 
in  their  own  sin  and  guilt  before  God,  and  felt  no  wants 
besides,  when  their  bodily  troubles  were  removed. 

In  one  aspect,  indeed,  these  miraculous  cures  furthered  the 
great  purpose  of  Jesus.  They  might  prove  no  doctrine ;  for 
mere  power  could  not  establish  moral  and  spiritual  truth. 
Miracles  might  possibly  be  wrought  by  other  influences  than 
Divine,  and  they  left  religious  teaching  to  stand  on  its  own 
merits,  for  they  appealed  only  to  the  senses  ;  not,  like  truth, 
to  the  soul.  The  display  of  overwhelming  power  might 
almost  seem,  indeed,  to  endanger,  rather  than  promote,  the 
higher  aim  of  Jesus ;  to  win  those  whom  He  addressed.  It- 
awes  and  repels  men  to  find  themselves  in  the  presence  of 
forces  which  they  can  neither  resist  nor  understand.  Igno- 
rant minds  tremble  before  powers  which  may  be  used  to 
destroy  them,  and  seek  to  win  their  favour  by  the  flattery 
of  worship ;  surrounding  even  human  despotism  with  awful 
attributes,  before  which  they  cower  in  terror. 

Jesus,  however,  could  appeal  to  His  miraculous  powers  as 
evidences  of  His  Divine  mission,  and  often  did  so.  Their 
value  lay  in  the  grandeur  they  added  to  His  character.  Even 
in  the  wilderness,  He  had  refused  to  exert  them,  under  any 
circumstances,  either  for  His  natural  wants,  or  for  His  per- 
sonal ends,  and  He  adhered  to  this  amazing  self-restraint 
through  His  whole  career.  It  was  seen  from  the  first,  that 
His  awful  powers  were  uniformly  beneficent ;  that  He  came, 
not  to  destroy  men's  lives,  but  to  save  them ;  that  He  used 
omnipotence  to  bless,  but  never  to  hurt.  His  words,  His 
bearing,  and  His  looks  of  Divine  love  and  tenderness,  doubt- 
less predisposed  men  to  expect  this,  and  His  uniform  course 
soon  confirmed  it.  They  saw  that  nothing  could  disturb  His 
absolute  patience,  or  rouse  Him  to  vindictiveness.  They 
heard  Him  endure  meekly  the  most  contemptuous  sneers,  the 
bitterest  criticism,  and  the  most  rancorous  hostility.  No 
one  denied  His  miraculous  powers,  though  some  affected  to 
call  thorn  demoniac,  in  direct  contradiction  to  their  habitual 
exercise  for  the  holiest  ends.  But  they  were  so  invariably 
devoted  to  the  good  of  others,  and  so  entirely  held  in 
restraint,  as  regarded  personal  ends,  that  men  gradually  came 
to  treat  Him  with  the  reckless  boldness  of  hatred,  notwith- 
standing such  awful  endowment. 

Round  one  so  transcendently  meek,  self-interest  found  no 
motive  for  gathering.  He  who  with  such  possibilities  would 
do  nothing  for  Himself,  could  not  be  expected  to  do  more 


THE   SELF-RESTRAINT  OP   CHRIST.  9 

for  the  personal  ends  of  others.  Hypocrisy  had  nothing  to 
gain  by  seeking  His  favour.  Only  sincerity  found  Him 
attractive.  Bat,  on  the  other  hand,  with  the  uncorrnpted 
and  worthy,  this  characteristic  gave  Him  unlimited  moral 
elevation.  No  more  sublime  spectacle  can  be  conceived 
than  boundless  power,  kept  in  perfect  control,  for  ends 
wholly  unselfish  and  noble.  Condescension  wins  admiration 
when  it  is  only  from  man  to  man ;  when  it  showed  itself 
in  veiled  Omnipotence,  ever  ready  to  bless  others,  but  never 
used  on  its  own  behalf,  it  became  a  Divine  ideal.  Men  saw 
Him  clothed  with  power  over  disease,  and  even  over  death  ; 
able  to  cast  forth  spirits,  or  to  still  the  sea ;  and  yet  accessible, 
full  of  sympathy ;  the  lofty  patriot,  the  tender  friend,  the 
patient  counsellor ;  shedding  tears,  at  times,  from  a  full 
heart,  and  ever  ready  with  a  wise  and  gentle  word  for  all ; 
so  unaffected  and  gentle  that  children  drew  round  Him 
with  a  natural  instinct,  and  even  worldly  hardness  and  vice 
were  softened  before  Him  ;  and  this  contrast  of  superhuman 
power,  and  perfect  humility,  made  them  feel  that  He  was 
indeed  the  Head  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  amongst  men.  The 
secret  of  His  amazing  success,  as  the  founder  of  a  new 
religious  constitution  for  mankind,  lay  in  the  recognition 
of  this  perfect  sacrifice  of  One  so  immeasureably  great, 
culminating  in  "  the  death  of  the  cross." l  It  was  the 
perfect  realization,  in  Himself,  of  the  life  He  urged  on  others. 
It  implied  the  ideal  fulfilment  of  all  human  duties,  and  no 
less  so,  of  all  Divine,  for  the  heavenly  love  which  alone 
could  dictate  and  sustain  such  a  career,  was,  in  itself,  the 
most  perfect  transcript  of  the  nature  of  God.  A  life  in 
which  every  step  showed  kingly  grace  and  divinely  bound- 
less love,  condescending  to  the  lowliest  self-denial  for  the 
good  of  man,  proclaimed  Him  the  rightful  Head  of  the 
New  Kingdom  of  God. 

The  night  which  followed  this  busy  and  eventful  Sabbath 
brought  no  repose  to  His  body  or  mind.  The  excitement 
around  agitated  and  disturbed  Him.  It  was  His  first 
triumphant  success ;  for,  in  the  south,  He  had  met  with 
little  sympathy,  though  He  had  attracted  crowds.  But 
curiosity  was  not  progress,  and  excitement  was  not  lonver- 
gion.  Lowliness  and  concealment,  not  noisy  throngs,  were 
the  true  conditions  of  His  work,  and  of  its  firmest  establish- 
ment and  lasting  glory.  Mere  popularity  was,  moreover, 

1  Ecce  Homo,  pp.  44  ff. 


10  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

a  renewed  temptation ;  for,  as  a  man,  He  was  susceptible  of 
the  same  seductions  as  His  brethren.  He  might  be  drawn 
aside  to  think  of  Himself,  and  to  His  holy  soul  the  faintest 
approach  to  this  was  a  surrender  to  evil.  Rising  from  His 
couch,  therefore,  while  the  deep  darkness  which  precedes 
the  dawn  still  rested  on  hill  and  valley,  He  left  the  house  so 
quietly  that  no  one  heard  Him,  and  went,  once  more,  to  the 
solitudes  of  the  hills  behind  the  town.  Passing  through 
groves  of  palms,  and  orchards  of  fig  and  olive  trees,  inter- 
mixed with  vineyards  and  grassy  meadows,  with  their 
tinkling  brooks,  so  delightful  in  the  East,  and  their  unseen 
glory  of  lilies  and  varied  flowers,  He  soon  reached  the 
heights,  amongst  Avhich,  at  no  great  distance  from  the  town, 
were  lonely  ravines  where  He  could  enjoy  perfect  seclusion. 
In  the  stillness  of  nature  He  was  alone  with  His  Father, 
and  far  from  the  temptations  which  troubled  the  pure 
simplicity  of  His  soul,  and  His  lowly  meekness  before  God 
and  man.  We  now  see  the  glory  of  the  path  He  chose ; 
but  while  He  lived,  even  His  disciples  would  have  planned 
a  very  different  course.  Why  not  take  advantage  of  the 
excitement  of  the  people  to  rouse  the  whole  nation,  as 
John  had  done  r*  Was  not  His  miraculous  power  a  means 
of  endless  benefit  to  men,  and  should  it  not,  therefore,  be 
made  the  great  feature  of  His  work  ?  Vanity  would  have 
suggested  plausible  grounds  for  using  His  gifts  in  a  way, 
that,  in  reality,  was  not  in  harmony  with  the  great  end 
of  His  mission.  But  His  soul  remained  unsullied,  like  the 
stainless  light.  He  came  to  do  the  will  of  His  Father,  and 
nothing  could  make  Him  for  a  moment  think  of  Himself. 
In  lonely  communion  with  His  own  soul,  and  earnest  prayer, 
the  rising  breath  of  temptation  passed  once  more  away.1 

Peter  and  Andrew,  discovering  his  absence,  when  they 
awoke,  were  at  a  loss  what  to  think.  More  sick  persons  were 
gathering,  and  the  crowds  of  yesterday  promised  to  be  larger 
to-day.  Hasting  to  the  hills,  to  which  they  rightly  sup- 
posed He  had  retired,  and  having  at  last  found  Him,  they 
fancied  He  would  at  once  return  with  them,  on  hearing  that 
the  whole  people  were  seeking  Him.  But  He  had  a  wider 
sphere  than  Capernaum,  and  higher  duties  than  mere  bodily 
healing.  "  I  have  not  come  to  heal  the  sick,"  said  He,  "  but 
to  announce  and  spread  the  Kingdom  of  God.  All  I  do  is 
subordinate  to  this.  Let  us,  therefore,  go  to  the  neigh- 
bouring towns,  for  I  must  preach  the  Kingdom  of  God  to 
other  cities,  as  well  as  to  Capernaum.''1  Nor  would  He  be 


MISSIONARY  JOURNEYS.  11 

persuaded  to  return  for  a  time,  though  some  of  the  people 
had  already  found  out  His  retreat,  and  joined  with  the 
disciples  in  begging  Him  to  do  so. 

The  circuit  now  begun  was  the  first  of  a  series,  in  which 
Jesus  visited  every  part  of  Galilee,1  preaching  and  teaching 
in  the  synagogue  of  each  town  that  had  one,  and  often, 
doubtless,  in  the  open  air.  It  was  the  bright  and  sunny 
time  of  the  year,  when  the  harvest  was  quickly  ripening.h 
The  heat  was  ah'eady  oppressive  at  noon,  but  the  mornings 
and  evenings  permitted  more  easy  travelling.  It  was  a  season 
of  intense  labour  for  the  Saviour,  of  which  the  day's  work 
in  Capernaum  was  only  a  sample.  The  bounds  of  Galilee 
embraced  the  many  villages  and  towns  of  the  Plain  of 
Esdraelon,  and  the  whole  of  the  hilly  country  north  of  it, 
almost  to  Lebanon.  Day  by  day  brought  its  march  fi'om 
one  village  or  town  to  others,  over  the  thirsty  limestone 
uplands,  where  the  wanderer  thankfully  received  the  cup 
of  cold  water,  as  a  gift  to  be  recompensed  in  the  Kingdom  of 
God,  or  through  glowing  vineyards,  or  among  the  corn- 
fields whitening  to  the  harvest,  or  falling  under  the  sickle 
of  the  reaper.  "Every  day,"  said  Jesus  to  His  disciples, 
"  has  its  own  troubles ; "  for  weariness ;  possibly,  at  times, 
hunger ;  the  dependence  on  hospitality  for  shelter ;  the  pres- 
sure of  crowds  ;  the  stolid  indifference  of  too  many  ;  the  idle 
curiosity  of  more ;  the  ever-present  misery  of  disease  in  all  its 
forms ;  and,  it  niay  be,  even  thus  early,  the  opposition  of 
some,  must  have  borne  heavily  on  a  nature  like  His.  The 
news  of  His  miracles  had  spread  like  running  fire  through 
the  whole  country,  and  attracted  crowds  from  all  parts. 
Beyond  Palestine,  on  the  north,  they  had  become  the  com- 
mon talk  of  Syria ;  on  the  east,  they  had  stirred  the 
population  of  the  wide  district  of  the  Ten  Cities, 2  and  of 
Perea;  and,  on  the  south,  His  name  was  on  all  lips  in 
Jerusalem  and  Judea.  Erelong,  it  seemed  as  if  the  scenes 
of  John's  preaching  were  returning ;  for  numbers  gathered 
to  Him  from  all  these  parts,  and  followed  Him,  day  by  day, 
in  His  movements  through  the  land.  His  progress  was, 
indeed,  worthy  of  such  an  attendance,  for  no  king  ever 
celebrated  such  a  triumph.  Conquerors  returning  from 
victory  over  kingdoms  and  empires  had  led  columns  of 
trembling  captives  in  their  train.  Bat,  at  every  resting- 
place,  a  sad  crowd  of  sufferers  from  all  diseases  and  painful 

1  Matt.  iv.  23.     Mark  i.  39.  *  The  Decapolis. 


12  THE   LIFE    OF   CHRIST. 

affections,  and  of  demoniacs,  lunatics,  and  paralytics,  was 
gathered  in  the  path  of  Jesus,  and  He  healed  them  by  a 
word  or  a  touch.  Escorted  into  each  town  by  those  whom 
He  had  thus  restored — the  lately  sick  and  dying  whom 
He  had  instantaneously  cured — it  is  no  wonder  that  the 
whole  land  rang  with  the  story.  The  enemies  over  whom 
He  triumphed  were  pain,  and  sickness,  and  death,  and  the 
rejoicings  that  greeted  Him  were  shouts  of  gratitude  and 
blessing  as  the  Prince  of  Life. 

Only  one  incident  of  this  wondrous  journey  is  recorded  at 
any  length.1  In  one  of  the  cities  He  visited,  He  was  sud- 
denly met  by  a  man  "full  of  leprosy;"  a  disease  at  all  times 
terrible,  but  aggravated,  in  the  opinion  of  that  day,  by  the 
belief  that  it  was  a  direct  "  stroke  of  God,"  as  a  punishment 
for  special  sins.2  It  began  with  little  specks  on  the  eyelids, 
and  on  the  palms  of  the  hand,  and  gradually  spread  over 
different  parts  of  the  body,  bleaching  the  hair  white  wher- 
ever it  showed  itself,  crusting  the  affected  parts  with  shining 
scales,  and  causing  swellings  and  sores.  From  the  skin  it 
slowly  ate  its  way  through  the  tissues,  to  the  bones  and 
joints  and  even  to  the  marrow,3  rotting  the  whole  body 
piecemeal.  The  lungs,  the  organs  of  speech  and  hearing, 
and  the  eyes  were  attacked  in  turn,  till,  at  last,  consump- 
tion or  dropsy  brought  welcome  death.  Dread  of  infection 
kept  men  aloof  from  the  sufferer,  and  the  Law  proscribed 
him,  as,  above  all  men,  unclean.  The  disease  was  heredi- 
tary to  the  fourth  generation.  No  one  thus  afflicted  could 
remain  in  a  walled  town,  though  he  might  live  in  a  village.4 
There  were  different  varieties  of  leprosy,  but  all  were 
dreaded  as  the  saddest  calamity  of  life.  The  leper  was 
required  to  rend  his  outer  garment,  to  go  bareheaded,  and 
to  cover  his  mouth  so  as  to  hide  his  beard,  as  was  done  in 
lamentation  for  the  dead.  He  had,  further,  to  warn  passers 
by  away  from  him  by  the  cry  of  "  Unclean,  unclean  ;  "5  not 
without  the  thought  that  the  sound  would  call  forth  a  prayer 
for  the  sufferer,  and  less  from  the  fear  of  infection,  than  to 
prevent  contact  with  one  thus  visited  by  God,  and  unclean.' 
He  could  not  speak  to  any  one,  or  receive  or  return  a  saluta- 
tion. In  the  lapse  of  ages,  however,  these  rules  had  been  in 
eome  degree  relaxed.  A  leper  might  live  in  an  open  village, 

1  Matt.  viii.  2-4.     Mark  i.  40-45.     Luke  v.  12-16. 

8  Ewald's  Alt.,  p.  210.  8  Winer,  Art.  Amsatx. 

*  Durch  Krankheit  zur  Genesung.  5  Lev.  xiii.  45. 


THE   HEALING  OF  A  LEPER.  13 

with  any  one  willing  to  receive  him  and  to  become  unclean 
for  his  sake,  and  he  might  enter  the  synagogue,  if  he  had 
a  part  specially  partitioned  off  for  himself,1  and  was  the 
first  to  enter  the  building,  and  the  last  to  leave.  He  even  at 
times  ventured  to  enter  a  town,  though  forbidden  under  the 
penalty  of  forty  stripes.  But  it  was  a  living  death,  in  the 
slow  advance  of  which  a  man  became  daily  more  loathsome 
to  himself,  and  to  his  dearest  friends.  "  These  four  are 
counted  as  dead,"  says  the  Talmud,  "  the  blind,  the  leper,  the 
poor,  and  the  childless."  3 

The  news  of  the  wondrous  cures  wrought  on  so  many  had 
reached  the  unfortunate  man,  who  now  dared  the  Law,  to 
make  his  way  to  the  Healer.  Falling  at  His  feet  in  humble 
reverence,  he  delighted  the  spirit  of  Jesus  by,  perhaps,  the 
first  open  confession  of  a  simple  and  lowly  faith — "  Lord,  if 
Thou  wilt,  Thou  canst  make  me  clean."  To  kneel  before 
Him,  and  address  Him  by  such  a  title,  was,  indeed,  only 
what  he  would  have  done  to  any  one  greatly  above  him;k  but 
such  frank  belief  in  His  power,  and  implicit  submission  to  His 
will,  touched  the  tender  heart  of  Christ.  Moved  with  com- 
passion for  the  unfortunate,  there  was  no  delay — a  touch  of 
the  hand,  and  the  words,  "I  will :  be  thou  clean,"  and  he  rose, 
a  leper  no  longer.  To  have  touched  him,  was,  in  the  eyes  of 
a  Jew,  to  have  made  Himself  unclean,  but  He  had  come  to 
break  through  the  deadly  externalism  that  had  taken  the 
place  of  true  religion,  and  could  have  shown  no  more  strikingly 
how  He  looked  on  mere  Rabbinical  precepts  than  by  making 
a  touch  which,  till  then,  had  entailed  the  worst  uncleanness, 
the  means  of  cleansing.  Slight  though  it  seemed,  the  putting 
the  hand  on  a  leper  was  the  proclamation  that  Judaism  was 
abrogated  henceforth. 

The  popular  excitement  had  already  extended  widely,  and 
a  cure  like  this  was  certain  to  raise  it  still  higher.  With 
the  Baptist  in  prison  on  a  pretended  political  charge,  and 
the  people  full  of  political  dreams  in  connection  with  the 
expected  Messiah,  all  that  might  fan  the  flame  was  to  be 
dreaded.  Excitement,  moreover,  was  unfavourable  to  the 
great  work  of  Christ.  He  needed  a  thoughtful  calm  in  the 
mind,  for  lasting  effects.  The  kingdom  of  Grod  which  He 
proclaimed  was  no  mere  appeal  to  the  feelings,  but  sought 
the  understanding  and  heart.  Turning  to  the  newly  cured, 
therefore,  He  counselled  him  earnestly  not  to  tell  any  one 

1  A  Mechiza.  2  Lightfoot,  p.  518. 


14  THE   LIFE    OF   CHKIST. 

what  tad  happened,  threatening  him  with  His  anger,  if  he 
•should  disobey.1  "  Go  to  Jerusalem,"  said  He,  "  and  show 
yourself  to  the  priest,  and  make  the  offerings  for  your  cleans- 
ing, required  by  the  Law,  as  a  proof  to  your  neighbours,  to 
the  priests,  the  scribes,  and  the  people  at  large,  that  you  are 
really  clean." 

A  certificate  of  the  recovery  of  a  leper  could  only  be  given 
at  Jerusalem,  by  a  priest,  after  a  lengthened  examination 
and  tedious  rites,  and,  no  doubt,  these  were  duly  undergone 
and  performed.  To  describe  them  will  illustrate  the  "  bond- 
age "  of  the  ceremonial  law,  as  then  in  force.  With  his  heart 
full  of  the  first  joy  of  a  cure  so  amazing,  for  no  one  had 
ever  before  heard  of  the  recovery  of  a  man  "  full  of  leprosy," 
he  set  off  to  the  Temple  for  the  requisite  papers  to  authorize 
his  return,  once  more,  to  the  roll  of  Israel.  A  tent  had  to 
be  pitched  outside  the  city,  and  in  this  the  priest  examined 
the  leper,  cutting  off  all  his  hair  with  the  utmost  care,  for 
if  only  two  hairs  were  left,  the  ceremony  was  invalid.  Two 
sparrows  had  to  be  brought  at  this  first  stage  of  the 
cleansing  ;  the  one,  to  be  killed  over  a  small  earthen  pan  of 
water,  into  which  its  blood  must  drop ;  the  other,  after  being 
sprinkled  with  the  blood  of  its  mate, — a  cedar  twig,  to  which 
scarlet  wool  and  a  piece  of  hyssop  were  bound,  being  used  to 
do  so, — was  let  free  in  such  a  direction  that  it  should  fly  to 
the  open  country.  After  the  scrutiny  by  the  priest,  the 
leper  put  on  clean  clothes,  and  carried  away  to  a  running 
stream  those  he  had  worn,  to  wash  them  thoroughly,  and  to 
cleanse  himself  by  a  bath.  He  could  now  go  into  the  city,  but 
for  seven  days  more  could  not  enter  his  own  house.  On  the 
eighth  day  after,  he  once  more  submitted  to  the  scissors  of  the 
priest,  who  cut  off  whatever  hair  might  have  grown  in  the 
interval.  Then  followed  a  second  bath,  and  now  he  had 
only  carefully  to  avoid  any  defilement,  so  as  to  be  fit  to 
attend  in  the  Temple  next  morning,  and  complete  his  cleans- 
ing. The  first  step  in  this  final  purification  was  to  offer 
three  lambs,  two  males  and  a  female,  none  of  which  must  be 
under  a  year  old.  Standing  at  the  outer  edge  of  the  court 
of  the  men,  which  he  was  not  yet  worthy  to  enter,  the  leper 
waited  the  longed-for  rites.  These  began  by  the  priest 
taking  one  of  the  male  lambs  destined  to  be  slain  as  an 
atonement  for  the  leper,  and  leading  it  to  each  point  of  the 
compass  in  turn,  and  by  his  swinging  a  vessel  of  oil  on  all 


THE  CLEANSING  OF  LEPROSY.          15 

sides,  in  the  same  way,  as  if  to  offer  both  to  the  universally 
present  Grod.  He  then  led  the  lamb  to  the  leper,  who  laid 
his  hands  on  its  head,  and  gave  it  over  as  a  sacrifice  for  his 
guilt,  which  he  now  confessed.  It  was  forthwith  killed  at 
the  north  side  of  the  altar,  two  priests  catching  its  blood, 
the  one  in  a  vessel,  the  other  in  his  hand.  The  first  now 
sprinkled  the  altar  with  the  blood,  while  the  other  went  to 
the  leper  and  anointed  his  ears,  his  right  thumb,  and  his 
right  toe  with  it.  The  one  priest  then  poured  some  oil  of 
the  leper's  offering  into  the  left  hand  of  the  other,  who,  in 
his  turn,  dipped  his  finger  seven  times  into  the  oil  thus  held, 
and  sprinkled  it  as  often  towards  the  Holy  of  Holies.  Each 
part  of  the  leper  which  before  had  been  touched  with  the 
blood,  was  then  further  anointed  with  the  oil,  what  remained 
being  poured  or  wiped  off  on  his  head. 

The  leper  could  now  enter  the  men's  court,  and  did  so 
passing  through  it  to  that  of  the  priests.  The  female  lamb 
was  next  killed  as  a  sin-offering,  after  he  had  put  his  hands 
on  its  head,  part  of  its  blood  being  smeared  on  the  horns  of 
the  altar,  while  the  rest  was  poured  out  at  the  altar  base. 
The  other  male  lamb  was  then  slain  for  a  burnt  sacrifice  ;  the 
leper  once  more  laying  his  hands  on  its  head,  and  the  priest 
sprinkling  its  blood  on  the  altar.  The  fat,  and  all  that  was 
fit  for  an  offering,  was  now  laid  on  the  altar,  and  burned  as 
a  "sweet-smelling  savour"  to  God.  A  meat  offering  of  fine 
wheat  meal  and  oil  ended  the  whole  ;  a  portion  being  laid 
on  the  altar,  while  the  rest,  with  the  two  lambs,  of  which 
only  a  small  part  had  been  burned,  formed  the  dues  of  the 
priest.1  It  was  not  till  all  this  had  been  done  that  the  full 
ceremony  of  cleansing,  or  showing  himself  to  the  priest,  had 
been  carried  out,1  and  that  the  cheering  words,  "  Thou  art 
pure,"  restored  the  sufferer  once  more  to  the  rights  of  citizen- 
ship and  of  intercourse  with  his  fellows.  No  wonder  that 
even  a  man  like  St.  Peter,  so  tenderly  minded  to  his  ancestral 
religion,  should  speak  of  its  requirements  as  a  yoke  which 
"  neither  our  fathers  nor  we  are  able  to  bear."  2 

Of  the  after-history  of  the  leper  thus  cleansed  we  are  not 
informed.  It  appears,  however,  that  his  joy  at  being  healed 
was  too  great  to  be  repressed  even  by  Christ's  grave  impo- 
sition of  silence.  The  multitudes  around  Jesus  would  soon, 
of  themselves,  spread  news  of  the  miracle,  but  the  cured 
man  widened  and  heightened  the  excitement  by  telling 

1  Durch  Krankheit,  etc.,  passim.  s  Acts  xv.  10. 


16  THE   LIFE   OF   CHBIST. 

everywhere,  on  his  road  to  Jerusalem,  what  had  befallen  him. 
The  result  was  that  Jesus  could  no  longer  enter  a  town  or 
city,  so  great  was  the  commotion  His  presence  excited.  Nor 
was  it  of  any  avail  that  He  retired  to  the  open  country,  for 
even  when  He  betook  Himself  to  the  upland  solitudes,  great 
multitudes  continually  sought  Him  out,™  either  to  hear  His 
words,  or  to  be  healed  of  their  various  diseases. 

In  such  busy  and  exhausting  scenes  the  days  of  early 
autumn  passed.  But,  whatever  the  returning  toils  of  each 
morning,  the  Saviour  still  craved  and  secured  hours  of  lonely 
calm,  for  we  read  in  St.  Luke  that,  during  all  these  weeks, 
He  was  wont  to  withdraw,  doubtless  by  night,  into  lonely 
places  to  pray.1 

1  fy  vvoxupuv.    Imperfect  of  custom.     Winer,  p.  252. 


CHAPTER  XXXTV. 
LIGHT    AND    DAKKNESS. 

rpHE  cure  of  tlie  leper  seems  to  have  resulted  in  Jesns 
-*-  returning,  for  a  time,  to  Capernaum.  He  had  acted  with 
the  greatest  caution  duringHis  mission,  to  avoid  giving  offence, 
and  thus  raising  opposition  which  would  have  been  fatal,  at 
the  very  opening  of  His  ministry.  From  many  a  hill-top  on 
His  journey  ings,  He  and  His  disciples  had,  doubtless,  often 
looked  to  the  mountains  in  the  south-east,  amidst  which  John 
lay,  a  helpless  prisoner;  and  they  must  have  felt  that  tho 
prince  who  had  thus  cut  short  the  work  of  the  great  Reformer 
might  be  readily  moved  to  the  same  violence  towards  them- 
selves. Jesus  had,  therefore,  shunned  notoriety  ;  and  though 
He  never  hesitated  to  accept  homage,  where  it  was  sincere 
and  spontaneous,  He  had  never  demanded  it,  and  had  kept 
even  His  miraculous  powers  in  strict  subordination  to  the 
great  work  of  proclaiming  the  advent  of  the  kingdom  of 
God.  The  appeals  of  pain  and  misery  had,  indeed,  constrained 
Him  to  relieve  them,  but  He  had  accompanied  His  miracles 
by  a  strict  prohibition  of  their  being  made  more  publicly 
known  than  was  inevitable. 

In  spite  of  every  precaution,  however,  the  report  of  His 
wonderful  doings  spread  far  wide,  and  drew  ever  increasing 
attention.  Political  circles,  as  yet,  did  not  condescend  to 
notice  Him,  but  He  was  already  watched  by  the  sleepless 
eyes  of  the  ecclesiastical  authorities.  It  was  enough  that 
He  acted  independently  of  them.  Not  to  be  with  them  was, 
in  their  eyes,  to  be  against  them,  for  they  claimed,  as  the 
spiritual  leaders  of  the  nation,  the  sole  direction  of  its 
religious  teaching.  The  more  wonderful  His  works,  the 
greater  their  excitement,  and  the  keener  their  jealousy.  In 
any  case,  therefore,  the  words  which  accompanied  such  ex- 
traordinary manifestations,  would  have  been  watched  with 
the  closest  scrutiny,  for  any  chance  of  vindicating  their  care 
of  the  religious  interests  entrusted  to  them.  In  an  age  of 


18  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

such  rigid  literalism  and  unchanging  conservatism,  no  teacher 
•with  the  least  individuality  of  thought  or  expression  could 
hope  to  escape,  where  the  determination  to  condemn  was 
already  fixed.  Far  less  was  it  possible  for  one  like  Jesus — 
so  sincere  amidst  general  insincerity,  so  intense  and  real 
amidst  what  was  hollow  and  outward,  so  pure  and  elevated 
amidst  what  was  gross  and  worldly,  so  tenderly  human 
amidst  what  was  harsh  and  exclusive — to  avoid  giving  pre- 
text for  censure.  The  priests  and  Rabbis  through  the  whole 
land  felt  instinctively  that  their  influence  was  imperilled  by 
His  lightest  word.  They  already  were  coldly  suspicious. 
The  next  step  would  be  to  blame,  and  they  would  seek, 
before  long,  to  destroy  Him  ;  for  it  has,  in  all  ages,  been  the 
sad  characteristic  of  the  leaders  of  dominant  religious  parties, 
to  confound  the  gratification  of  the  worst  passions  with 
loyalty  to  their  office. 

Perhaps  Jesus  had  hoped  that  in  Capernaum,  at  least,  He 
would  find  an  interval  of  repose,  for  His  absence  might  have 
been  expected  to  have  allayed  the  excitement.  No  spot  in 
Palestine  seemed  less  likely  to  be  disturbed  by  the  hostility  of 
the  schools.  In  Jerusalem  men  looked  back  to  a  past  dating 
from  Melchisedek,  and  were  its  slaves ;  but  Capernaum  was 
so  new  that  its  name  does  not  occur  at  all  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. He  soon  found,  however,  that  the  dark  and  hateful 
genius  of  Rabbinism,  with  its  puerile  customs  and  formulas, 
and  its  fierce  bigotry,  was  abroad  through  the  whole  land. 

It  was  vain  to  expect  that  a  "  city  set  on  a  hill  "  could  be 
hidden.  He  had  scarcely  re-entered  the  town  before  it  ran 
from  mouth  to  mouth  that  He  had  returned  and  was  at 
home.1  Crowds  presently  gathered,  and  filled  not  only  the 
house,  but  the  space  before  it.  There  was  to  be  no  rest  for 
the  Son  of  Man  till  He  found  it  in  the  garden  grave  of  Joseph 
of  Arimathea.  The  applause,  the  gaping  wonder,  the  huge 
concourse  of  people,  were  only  a  grief  to  Him.  He  had 
broken  away  from  them  before,  and  sought  refuge  from  the 
temptations  they  tended  to  excite,  in  lonely  prayer  by  night, 
on  the  neighbouring  hills,  under  the  pure  and  silent  stars. 
They  had  followed  Him  on  His  journey  from  town  to  town, 
and  now  on  His  return  to  Capernaum,  the  clamour  of  voices, 
and  the  pressure  of  throngs,  beset  Him  more  than  ever. 
Had  anxiety  to  hear  the  truths  of  the  new  spiritual  kingdom 
caused  this  excitement  it  would  have  been  healthy,  but  it  had 

1  Matt.  ix.  2-9.     Mark  ii.  1-14.     Luke  v.  17-28. 


INFLUENCE   OF   THE   RABBIS.  19 

been  already  shown  only  too  clearly  that,  while  men  believed 
in  His  power  to  heal,  they  cared  little  for  His  higher  claims. 
Regret  for  loodily  illness,  or  ready  sympathy  with  the 
sufferers,  simply  as  under  physical  trouble,  were  evidently 
the  only  thought,  to  the  exclusion  of  any  sense  of  graver 
spiritual  disease  in  all  alike.  The  very  maladies  often  re- 
vealed moral  impurity  as  their  cause  ;  and  the  selfish  struggle 
for  His  favour,  and  the  too  frequent  ingratitude  of  the  cured, 
saddened  His  soul.  Of  the  multitudes  whom  He  had  healed, 
most  had  disappeared,  without  any  signs  of  having  heeded 
His  appeals  and  warnings.  Even  the  leper,  who  had  at  least 
promised  silence,  was  hardly  out  of  His  presence  before  he 
forgot  his  pledge.1  He  was  already  the  Man  of  Sorrows, 
but  Divine  compassion  still  urged  Him  to  heal. 

To  make  the  trial  greater,  it  was  evident  that  mischief  was 
brewing.  The  Rabbis  were  astir.  They  had  heard  of  the 
multitudes  attracted  from  the  other  side  of  the  Jordan  on  the 
east,  from  as  far  as  Jerusalem 3  and  even  Idumea  on  the 
south,  and  from  Phenicia  on  the  north,3  and  had  followed 
the  crowds,  and  gathered  in  Capernaum  from  every  town  of 
Galilee  and  Judea,  and  from  Jerusalem  itself,  to  hear  and 
see  the  new  wonder.  Sensitive  in  their  own  interest,  they 
came  with  no  friendly  motive,  but  cold  and  hostile,  to  criticize 
and,  if  possible,  to  condemn. 

Even  in  Galilee  the  influence  of  the  order  was  great.  It 
had  done  immense  service  to  the  nation  in  earlier  days,  in 
kindling  an  intense  feeling  of  nationality,  and  an  enthusiasm, 
for  their  faith,  at  first  healthy  and  beneficial,  though  now 
perverted.4  The  Rabbis  were  the  heads  of  the  nation  in  the 
widest  sense,  for  the  religion  of  the  people  was  also  their 
politics.  They  were  the  theologians,  the  jurists,  the  legisla- 
tors, the  politicians,  and,  indeed,  the  soul  of  Israel.5  The 
priests  had  sunk  to  a  subordinate  place  in  the  public  regard. 
The  veneration  which  the  people  felt  for  their  Law  was 
willingly  extended  to  its  teachers.  They  were  greeted 
reverently  in  the  street  and  in  the  market-place,  men  rising 
up  before  them  as  they  passed ;  the  title  of  Rabbi  was 
universally  accorded  them  ;  the  front  seats  of  the  synagogues 
were  set  apart  for  them,  and  they  took  the  place  of  honour 
at  all  family  rejoicings,  that  they  might  discourse  incident- 

1  Schenkel,  Charakterbild,  p.  76.  2  Matt.  iv.  22,  23. 

8  Mark  iii.  8.  *  Presnel,  in  H?rzog,  vol.  xii.  p.  472. 

6  Schiiftgelehrte,  in  Herzog,  vol.  xiii.  p.  737. 


20  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

ally  to  the  company  on  the  Law.  Wise  in  their  generation, 
they  fostered  this  homage  by  external  aids.  Their  long 
robes,  their  broad  phylacteries  or  prayer  fillets,  on  their  fore- 
head and  arm,  and  their  conspicuous  Tallithin,  with  the  sacred 
tassels  dangling  from  each  corner,  were  part  of  themselves, 
without  which  they  were  never  seen.  The  people  gloried  in 
them  as  the  crown  of  Israel,  and  its  distinguishing  honour 
above  all  other  nations.*  "  Learn  where  is  wisdom,"  says 
Baruch,  "where  is  strength,  where  is  understanding.  It  has 
not  been  heard  of  in  Canaan,  nor  seen  in  Teman.  The 
Hagarenes  seek  wisdom,  and  the  traders  of  Meran  and 
Teman,  and  the  poets  and  philosophers,  but  they  have  not 
found  out  the  way  of  wisdom  or  discovered  her  path.  God 
has  found  out  the  whole  way  of  wisdom  and  hath  given  it  to 
His  servant  Jacob,  and  to  Israel,  His  beloved."  l  Jerusalem 
was,  naturally,  while  the  Temple  worship  continued,  the 
head-quarters  of  the  wisdom  of  the  Rabbis,  but  they  were 
found  in  all  the  synagogue  towns  both  of  Judea  and  Galilee. 
They  formed  the  members  of  the  local  ecclesiastical  and 
criminal  courts,  over  the  country,  and  at  Jerusa]em  virtually 
controlled  the  authorities,  and  thus  framed  the  religious  and 
general  law  for  the  nation  at  large,  so  far  as  allowed  by  the 
Romans.  Their  activity  never  rested.  Whether  as  guests 
from  the  Holy  City,  or  as  residents,  they  pervaded  the  land, 
visiting  every  school  and  synagogue,  to  extend  their  influence 
by  teaching  and  exhortations.  A  Rabbi,  indeed,  could  move 
from  place  to  place  with  little  trouble,  for,  in  most  cases,  he 
lived  by  trade  or  handicraft,  and  could  thus  unite  business 
and  religion  in  his  missionary  journeys.  Their  ceaseless  cir- 
cuits are  painted  in  the  Targum  on  Deborah's  song.  It 
makes  the  prophetess  say — "  I  am  sent  to  praise  the  Scribes 
of  Israel,  who  ceased  not,  in  the  evil  times,  to  expound  the 
Law.  It  was  beautiful  to  see  how  they  sat  in  the  svnagogue.* 
and  taught  the  people  the  words  of  the  Law  ;  how  they 
uttered  the  blessings  and  confessed  the  truth  before  God. 
They  neglected  their  own  affairs,  and  rode  on  asses  round  the 
whole  land,  and  sat  for  judgment."  The  paraphrase  is  an 
anachronism  when  applied  to  the  age  of  the  Judges,  but  it 
vividly  illustrates  Rabbinical  zeal  in  the  days  of  Christ.2 

Soon  after  His  return  to  Capernaum,  an  incident  occurred 
which  led  to  the  first  open  difference  between  Jesus  and  this 
all-powerful  order.  The  crowds  had  gathered  in  such  nuni» 

1  Baruch  iii.  14,  22  ff.  «  Hausrath,  vol.  i.  pp.  79,  80. 


THE   PAKALYTIC   MAN.  21 

bers  at  Peter's  house,  that  not  only  the  house  itself,  but  the 
space  before  it  was  once  more  full.  Among  the  audience 
were  Scribes  from  all  parts,  to  see  if  they  should  unite  with 
the  new  movement  and  turn  it  to  their  own  purposes,  or  take 
measures  against  it.  If  we  may  judge  from  the  ruins  on  the 
site  of  the  town,  the  house  was  only  a  single  very  low  storoy 
high,  with  a  flat  roof,  reached  by  a  stairway  from  the  yard  or 
court,1  and  Jesus  may  have  stood  near  the  door  in  such 
a  position  as  to  be  able  to  address  the  crowd  outside,  as  well 
as  those  in  the  chamber.15  Possibly,  however,  there  were  two 
storeys  in  this  particular  house,  as  there  must  have  been 
in  some  in  the  town,  and  in  that  case  the  upper  one  would 
probably  be  a  large  room — the  "  upper  "  and  best  chamber — 
such  as  was  often  used  elsewhere  by  Rabbis,  for  reading  and 
expounding  the  Law  to  their  disciples,2  and  Jesus  may  have 
stood  near  the  open  window,  so  as  to  be  heard  both  outside 
and  within.3 

From  some  favourable  spot  He  was  addressing  the  thickly 
crowded  audience  respecting  the  kingdom  of  God,  so  long 
prophesied,  and  now  at  last  in  their  midst,  when  four  men 
approached  bearing  a  sick  person,  on  a  hammock  slung 
between  them.  It  proved  to  be  a  man  entirely  paralyzed. 
Unable  to  make  their  way  through  the  throng,  the  bearers 
went  round  the  house  to  see  what  should  be  done.  They 
had  perhaps  come  from  a  distance,  and  were  thus  too  late  to 
get  at  once  near  the  great  Healer.  The  outside  stairs  to  the 
roof,  however,  offered  them  a  solution  of  their  difficulty. 
The  sick  man  was  bent  on  getting  to  the  feet  of  Jesus,  and 
willingly  let  them  take  him  to  the  house-top,  which  they 
were  able  to  do  by  fastening  cords  to  the  hammock,  and 
pulling  it  up,  after  they  themselves  had  got  up  to  it  by  the 
narrow  and  ladder-like  steps. 

Their  trembling  burden  once  safely  on  the  roof,  the  rest 
was  easy.  Eastern  houses  are,  in  .many  ways,  very  different 
from  ours,  but  in  none  more  strikingly  than  in  the  lightness 
of  the  roof.  Rafters  are  laid  on  the  top  of  the  side  walls, 
about  three  feet  apart,  and  on  these  short  sticks  are  put,  till 
the  whole  space  is  covered.  Over  these,  again,  a  thick  coating 
of  brushwood,  or  of  some  common  bush,  is  spread.  A  coat  of 


1  Matt.  xxiv.  17.     Land  and  Book,  p.  358. 

3  Lightfoot,  vol.  ii.  p.  400.     Delitzsch,  Kin  Tag  in  Capernaum,  p.  36. 

8  Ewald,  Geachichte,  vol.  v.  p.  375. 


22  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

mortar  comes  next,  burying  and  levelling  all  beneath  it,  and 
on  this  again  is  spread  marl  or  earth,  which  is  rolled  flat 
and  hard.1  Many  roofs,  indeed,  are  much  slighter — earth 
closely  rolled  or  beaten  down,  perhaps  mixed  with  ashes, 
lime,  and  chopped  straw,  being  all  the  owners  can  aft'ord — and 
thus,  even  at  this  day,  it  is  common  to  see  grass  growing  on 
the  house-top  after  the  rains,  and  repairs  of  cracks  made  by 
the  sun's  rays  are  often  needed  in  the  hot  season,  to  prevent 
heavy  leakage.2  It  is  thus  easy  to  break  up  a  roof  when 
necessary,  and  it  is  often  done.  The  earth  is  merely  scraped 
back  from  a  part,  and  the  thorns  and  short  sticks  removed, 
till  an  opening  of  the  required  size  is  made.3 

Through  some  such  simple  roofing  the  four  bearers  now 
opened  a  space  large  enough  to  let  down  the  sick  man  into 
the  chamber  where  Jesus  stood.0  Cords  tied  to  the  couch 
made  the  rest  easy,  and  the  paralytic  was  presently  at  the 
feet  of  .lesus.  He  lay  there,  the  living  dead,  but  his  outward 
troubles  were  not  his  greatest.  Looking  on  his  calamity 
as  a  punishment  from  God  for  past  sins — perhaps  feeling 
that  it  had  been  brought  upon  him  by  a  vicious  life — he  was 
even  more  sorely  stricken  in  spirit  than,  in  body.  No  one, 
he  felt,  could  help  him  but  He  to  reach  whom  had  been 
his  deepest  wish.  To  be  healed  within,  was  even  more  with 
him  than  to  be  restored  to  outward  health.  He  had  nothing 
to  say ;  perhaps  he  could  not  speak,  for  palsy  often  hinders 
articulation.  But  his  eyes  told  his  whole  story,  and  He 
before  whom  he  had  thus  strangely  come,  read  it  at  a  glance. 
He  was  still  a  young  man,  which  in  itself  awakened  sympathy  ; 
but  he  had,  besides,  in  his  anxiety  to  get  near,  by  whatever 
means,  and  the  humility  which  sought  cleansing  from  guilt 
more  than  restoration  to  health,  shown  a  recognition  of 
Christ's  higher  dignity  as  the  dispenser  of  spiritual  blessings. 
With  an  endearing  word  used  by  teachers  to  disciples,  or  by 
superiors  in  age  or  rank,  Jesus  flashed  the  light  of  hope 
on  his  troubled  spirit.  "  My  child,"  said  He,  "  thy  sins  are 
forgiven  thee." 

It  was  a  wondrous  utterance,  and  must  have  sounded  still 

1   Land  and  Book,  p.  359. 

!  Arts.  Haii-ier  and  Dach,  in  Bibel  Lex.,  by  Roskoff  and  Grundt, 
I/a  8H. 

3  Land  and  Bonk,  p.  H59.  There  is  an  opening  on  many  roofs,  by  which, 
in  the  summer  months,  the  family  come  up  to  the  flat  airy  space  thus 
provided.  This  opening  is  closed  in  the  cold  and  rainy  soasous.  Tha 
covering  of  it  may  have  been  lifted  off. 


"THY  SINS  ABE  FORGIVEN  THEE."  23 

Tnore  strangely,  when  thus  first  heard,  than  to  us,  who  have 
been  familiar  with  it  from  childhood.  No  one  had  ever 
heard  Him  admit,  even  by  a  passing  word,  His  own  sinful- 
ness  ;  He  showed  no  humility  before  God  as  a  sinner  ;  never 
sought  pardon  at  His  hands.  Yet  no  Rabbi  approached 
Him  in  opposition  to  all  that  was  wrong,  for  He  went  even 
beyond  the  act  to  the  sinful  desire.  The  standard  He 
demanded  was  no  less  than  the  awful  perfection  of  God. 
But  those  around  heard  Him  now  rise  above  any  mere  tacit 
assumption  of  this  sinless  purity  by  His  setting  Himself  in 
open  contrast  to  sinners,  in  the  claim  not  only  to  announce 
the  forgiveness  of  sins  by  God,  but,  Himself,  to  dispense  it. 
He  pardons  the  sins  of  the  repentant  creature  before  Him,  on 
His  own  authority,  as  a  King,  which  it  would  be  contradictory 
to  have  done  had  He  Himself  been  conscious  of  having  sin 
and  guilt  of  His  own.  It  was  clear  that  He  could  have 
ventured  on  no  such  assumption  of  the  prerogative  of  God, 
had  He  not  felt  in  Himself  an  absolute  harmony  of  spiritual 
nature  with  Him,  so  that  He  only  uttered  what  He  knew  was 
the  Divine  will.1  It  was  at  once  a  proclamation  of  His  own 
sinlessness,  and  of  His  kingly  dignity  as  the  Messiah,  in 
whose  hands  had  been  placed  the  rule  over  the  new  theo- 
cracy. 

The  Rabbis  felt,  in  a  moment,  all  that  such  words  implied. 
Their  only  idea  of  a  religious  teacher  was  that  he  should 
never  venture  a  word  on  his  own  authority,  but  slavishly 
follow  other  earlier  Rabbis.  They  had  all  the  conservatism 
of  lawyers.  One  Beth-din  could  not  put  aside  the  decision 
of  another,  unless  it  was  superior  in  wisdom  and  numbers,2 
and  how  little  Likely  it  was  that,  even  in  such  a  case,  any 
decision  should  be  superseded,  may  be  judged  from  the  fact 
that  for  any  one  to  dispute  with  a  Rabbi  or  murmur  against 
him,  or  to  hesitate  in  accepting  and  obeying  his  every  word, 
was  no  less  a  crime  than  to  do  the  same  towards  God  Himself.3 
Even  the  people  had  caught  the  spirit  of  changeless  con- 
servatism from  their  teachers,  for,  when  John  Hyrcanus,  witli 
a  kindly  view  to  relieve  them  from  an  almost  intolerable 
burden,  ventured  to  prohibit  some  trifling  Rabbinical  rules 
of  the  Pharisees,  his  well-meant  liberality,  instead  of  gaining 
him  favour,  excited  hatred  against  him  as  an  intruder  and 
innovator.4  The  type  of  a  strict  Rabbi  found  its  ideal  in 

1  Ullmann,  Sundlosigkfit  pp.  65,  66.  2  Derenlourg,  p.  124. 

'  Eisenmenger,  vol.  i.  pp.  331,  332.  4  Derenbourg,  p.  121. 

41 


24  THE   LITE    OF   CHEIST. 

Sclmmmai,  the  rival  of  Hillel,  and  founder  of  the  school 
which  was  most  bitter  against  Jesus.  Tt  was  not  enough 
that  he  sought  to  make  even  young  children  fast  through  the 
whole  Day  of  Atonement :  during  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles  he 
had  the  roof  taken  from  the  room  in  which  lay  his  daughter- 
in-law  and  her  new-born  son,  to  have  a  tent  raised  over  them, 
that  the  baby  might  be  able  to  keep  the  feast.1 

The  lofty  words  of  Jesus  at  once  caught  the  ears  of  the 
lawyers,  on  the  watch.  They  sounded  new,  and  to  be  new 
was  to  be  dangerous.  Nothing  in  Judaism  had  been  left 
unfixed :  every  religious  act,  and  indeed,  every  act  whatever, 
must  follow  minutely  prescribed  rules.  The  Law  knew 
no  such  form  as  an  official  forgiving  of  sins,  or  absolution. 
The  leper  might  be  pronounced  clean  by  the  priest,  and  a 
transgressor  might  present  a  sin-offering  at  the  Temple,  and 
transfer  his  guilt  to  it,  by  laying  his  hands  on  its  head  and 
owning  his  fault  before  God, — and  the  blood  sprinkled  by  the 
priest  on  the  horns  of  the  altar,  and  towards  the  Holy 
of  Holies,  was  an  atonement  that  "  covered  "  his  sins  from 
the  eyes  of  Jehovah,  and  pledged  his  forgiveness.  But  that 
forgiveness  was  the  direct  act  of  God  ;  no  human  lips  dared 
pronounce  it.  It  was  a  special  prerogative  of  the  Almighty,2 
and  even  should  mortal  man  venture  to  declare  it,  he  could 
only  do  so  in  the  name  of  Jehovah,  and  by  His  immediate 
authorisation.  But  Jesus  had  spoken  in  His  own  name. 
He  had  not  hinted  at  being  empowered  by  God  to  act  for 
Him.  The  Scribes  were  greatly  excited  ;  whispers,  ominous 
head- shakings,  dark  looks,  and  pious  gesticulations  of  alarm, 
showed  that  they  were  ill  at  ease.  "  He  should  have  sent 
him  to  the  priest  to  present  his  sin-offering,  and  have  it  ac- 
cepted ;  it  is  blasphemy  to  speak  of  forgiving  sins ;  He  is 
intruding  on  the  Divine  rights."  The  blasphemer  was  to  be 
put  to  death  by  stoning,  his  body  hung  on  a  tree,  and  then 
buried  with  shame.3  "  Who  can  forgive  sins  but  One 
God?" 

It  was  the  turning  point  in  the  life  of  Jesus ;  for  the 
accusation  of  blasphemy,  now  muttered  in  the  hearts  of  the 
Rabbis  present,  was  the  beginning  of  the  process  which 
ended,  after  a  time,  on  Calvary ;  and  He  knew  it.  The 
genius  of  Babbinism  was  in  direct  antagonism  to  that  of 

1  Derenbourfj,  p.  190. 

*  Exod.  xxxiv.  7.     Ps.  xxxii.  2,  5.     Jer.  xxxi.  34  ;  xxxiii.  8. 

*  Lev.  xxiv.  16.     Ant.,  iv.  8.  6. 


CONTRAST  BETWEEN   CHRIST   AND   THE   RABBIS.      25 

His  "  new  teaching."  Christ  required  a  change  of  heart,  the 
Rabbis,  instruction ;  He  looked  at  the  motive  of  an  act,  they 
at  its  strict  accordance  to  legal  forms ;  He  contented  Himself 
with  implanting  a  principle  of  pure  and  loving  obedience  in 
the  breast,  which  should  make  men  a  law  to  themselves, 
they  taught  that  every  detail  of  religious  observance,  from 
the  cradle  to  the  grave — to  the  very  smallest — should  be 
prescribed,  and  rigidly  followed  in  every  formal  particular. 
He  promised  the  Divine  Spirit  to  aid  His  followers  to  a 
perfect  obedience ;  the  Rabbis  enforced  obedience  by  the 
terrors  of  the  Church  courts,  which  they  controlled.1  Rest- 
ing thus  on  wholly  different  conceptions — the  Rabbi,  self- 
satisfied  in  the  observance  of  external  rites  and  require- 
ments ;  Jesus  repudiating  merit,  and  basing  His  kingdom 
on  the  willing  service  of  humble  and  grateful  love — the  only 
question  was,  how  long,  in  an  intolerant  theocracy,  active 
hostility  might  be  averted.  The  lowly,  wandering  Galilsean 
teacher,  who  despised  long  robes  and  phylacteries,  and  asso- 
ciated with  the  rude  and  ignorant,  from  whom  the  Rabbis 
shrank  as  accursed  for  not  knowing  the  Rabbinical  law ; 
who  had  no  licence  as  teacher  from  any  Beth-din ;  who  had 
attended  no  Beth-ha-Midrash,  or  Rabbis'  School  of  the  Law, 
and  was  thus  a  mere  untrained  layman,  usurping  clerical 
functions,  was  instinctively  suspected  and  hated,  though  they 
could  not  affect  to  despise  Him.  The  kingdom  of  God  which 
He  preached  was,  moreover,  something  new  and  irregular. 
In  the  words  of  Baruch,2  they  expected  that  all  who  kept  the 
Law  in  their  sense,  would,  in  return,  have  eternal  life  as  a 
right,  as,  indeed,  one  of  their  proverbs  plainly  put  it — "  He 
who  buys  the  words  of  the  Law,  buys  everlasting  life." 3 
Esteeming  themselves  blamelessly  righteous,4  they  not  only 
despised  others,  but  claimed  Heaven,  as  the  special  favourites 
of  God.  It  must,  therefore,  have  been  galling  in  the  extreme, 
to  hear  Jesus  demand  humility  and  repentance  and  faith  in 
Himself,  as  the  universal  conditions  of  entrance  into  the  new 
kingdom  of  God ;  to  be  confounded  with  the  crowd,  on  whom 
it-sy  looked  as  Brahmins  on  Sudras;  and  to  be  stripped  of 
their  boasting,  and  even  of  their  hopes  of  future  political 
glory,  by  the  proclamation  of  a  new  and  purely  spiritual 
theocracy,  in  the  place  of  the  national  restoration  of  which 

1  Pressel,  Rabbinismus,  in  Herzofj,  vol.  xii.  p.  473. 

*  Baruch  iv.  2.  3  P.  A  both. 

*  Phil,  iii   6.     Luke  xviii.  9.     Matt,  xxiii.  28. 


26  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

they  dreamed,  with  themselves  at  its  head.1  Only  a  spark 
was  wanting  to  set  their  hostility  ablaze,  and  this  had  now 
been  supplied. 

For  the  i  ime  they  were  helpless  in  the  presence  of  so  much 
enthusiasm  for  Jesus,  but  this  only  increased  their  bitter- 
ness, on  thoir  finding  that  He  had  kept  His  eyes  on  them, 
and  knew  their  thoughts.  They  were  now  still  more  con- 
fused by  His  openly  asking  them,  "  Why  they  were  thinking 
evil  in  their  hearts  ?  "  He  had  long  felt  that  He  could  not 
hope  to  make  any  healthy  impression  on  a  class  who  affected 
to  regard  Him  as  half  beside  Himself  on  religious  matters,2 
and  as  one  who  had  set  Himself  up  as  a  Rabbi,  and  excited 
the  people  against  their  teachers.  He  knew  that  they  put 
the  worst  construction  on  all  He  said,  and  were  laying  up 
matter  for  future  open  attack.  But  no  passing  thought  of 
fear  disturbed  Him.  He  had  come  to  witness  to  the  truth, 
and  at  once  accepted  the  challenge  which  their  hostile  looks 
and  bearing  implied.  Without  waiting  to  be  assailed,  He 
suddenly  asked  them,  "Which  is  easier?  To  say  to  this 
paralytic,  Thy  sins  are  forgiven,  or  to  say,  Rise,  and  take  up 
thy  bed  and  go  ?  "  There  might  be  deception  about  the 
forgiveness,  for  no  one  could  tell  if  the  absolution  were  of 
any  avail,  but  there  could  be  none  respecting  the  cure  of  a 
helpless  living  corpse.  Turning  to  the  bed  without  waiting 
an  answer,  He  continued  —  in  irresistible  self-vindication  — 
"  That  ye  may  know  that  the  Son  of  Man  has  authority  on 
the  earth  to  forgive  sins,  —  Rise,  poor  man,  take  up  the  mat  on 
which  you  have  been  lying,  and  go  home."  It  was  enough  ; 
sensibility  and  power  of  motion  returned  to  the  helpless 
limbs  ;  muscles  and  nerves  lost  their  torpor  ;  strength  poured 
once  more  through  the  veins.  Slowly,  scarce  realizing 
what  it  meant,  he  rose,  little  by  little,  his  eyes  fixed  on  his 
Deliverer,  till,  at  last,  he  stood  erect  before  Him,  to  sink  at 
His  knees  again  in  grateful  adoration.  But  he  could  not  be 
allowed  to  stay.  Stepping  back,  without  saying  a  word, 
Jesus,  by  a  look,  motioned  him  to  retire,  and  lifting  the 
mat,d  he  did  so,  his  eyes  still  fixed  on  his  Helper,  as  he  made 
his  way  backward  through  the  awe-stricken  crowd. 

The  effect  was  electric.  The  Scribes  were,  for  the  time, 
discomfited.  Amazement  and  fear  mingled  with  religknis 
ft  we.  "  We  never  saw  it  thus,"  cried  some,  while  others, 


e,  in  Herznfj,  vol.  xiii.  p.  740. 
8  Mark  iii.  21.     Acts  xxvi.'  24.     2  Cor.  v.  13. 


THE   PUBLICANS.  27 

with  true  Eastern  demonstrativeness,  broke  out  into  praise 
of  God  who  had  given  such  power  to  men.  Meanwhile, 
Jesus  glided  out  of  the  apartment,  sad  at  heart,  for  the 
shadow  of  the  cross  had  fallen  on  His  soul. 

A  number  of  disciples  must,  by  this  time,  have  been  gained 
in  different  parts,  but  the  inner  circle  gathered  by  Jesus 
as  His  personal  followers,  was  as  yet  limited  to  the  few  whom 
He  had  first  "  called."  Another  was,  now,  however,  to  be 
added  to  their  number.  Capernaum,  as  a  busy  trading  town, 
on  the  marches  between  the  dominions  of  Philip  and  those  of 
Antipas,  and,  from  its  being  on  the  high  road  between 
Damascus  and  Ptolemais,1  had  a  strong  staff  of  custom- 
house officers,  or  publicans,"  to  use  the  common  name.  The 
traffic  landed  at  Capernaum  from  across  the  lake,  or  shipped 
from  it,  had  to  pay  dues,  and  so  had  all  that  entered  or  left 
the  town  in  other  directions.  There  were  tolls  on  the  high- 
ways and  on  the  bridges,  and  at  each  place  the  humbler 
grades  of  publicans  were  required,  while  a  few  of  a  higher 
rank  had  charge  of  the  aggregate  receipts  of  the  minor 
offices  of  the  district.  These  officials  were  often  freedmen,  or 
even  slaves  of  the  larger  farmers  of  the  local  imposts  ;  some- 
times natives  of  the  part,  and  even  poor  Roman  citizens. 
The  whole  class,  however,  had  a  bad  name  for  greed  and 
exaction.2  So  loud,  indeed,  and  serious,  did  the  remon- 
strances of  the  whole  Roman  world  become,  at  the  tyranny 
and  plunderings  thus  suffered,  that,  a  generation  later,  Nero 
proposed  to  the  Senate  to  do  away  with  taxes  altogether, 
though  the  idea  resulted  otily  in  an  official  admission  that 
the  "  greed  of  the  publicans  must  be  repressed,  lest  they 
should  at  last,  by  new  vexations,  render  the  public  burdens 
intolerable."3  The  underlings,  especially,  sought  to  enrich 
themselves  by  grinding  the  people ;  and  the  checks  they 
caused  to  commerce,  the  trouble  they  gave  by  reckless  ex- 
amination of  goods  and  by  tedious  delays,  by  false  entries 
and  illegal  duties,  made  them  intensely  hated.  "  Bears  and 
lions,"  said  a  proverb,  "  might  be  the  fiercest  wild  beasts  in 
the  forests,  but  publicans  and  informers  were  the  worst  in 
the  cities."4  The  Jews,  who  bore  the  Roman  yoke  with 
more  impatience  than  any  other  nation,  and  shunned  all 
contact  with  foreigners,  excommunicated  every  Israelite  who 

1  Acre. 

8  Liv.,  xxv.  3:  xlv.  18.     Cic.  ad  Quint.,  i.  1,  11.     Verr.,  i.  10;  iii.  10. 

1  Tac.  Ann.,  xiii.  50.  *  Stob.  Serm.,  ii.  34. 


28  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

became  a  publican,  and  declared  him  incompetent  to  bear 
witness  in  their  courts,  and  the  disgrace  extended  to  his 
whole  family.  Nobody  was  allowed  to  take  aim?  from  one, 
or  to  ask  him  to  change  money  for  them.  They  were  even 
classed  with  highway  robbers  and  murderers,1  or  with 
harlots,  heathen,  and  sinners.  No  strict  Jew  would  eat,  or 
even  hold  intercourse  with  them.3 

"W  ith  a  supreme  indifference  to  the  prejudices  of  the  day, 
Jesus  resolved  to  receive  one  of  this  proscribed  order  into 
the  chosen  group  of  His  followers.  With  a  wide  and  generous 
charity,  He  refused  to  condemn  a  whole  class.  That  they 
were  outcasts  from  society  was  a  special  reason  why  He,  the 
Son  of  Man,  should  seek  to  win  them  to  a  better  life.  He 
refused  to  admit  anything  wrong  in  paying  tribute  to  Caesar,3 
and  hence  saw  no  sin  in  its  collection.  There  was  no  neces- 
sity for  a  publican  not  being  just  and  faithful,  alike  to  the 
people  and  to  the  State,  and  He  had  seen  for  Himself  that 
there  were  some  against  whom  nothing  could  be  justly 
urged.1  It  was,  moreover,  a  fundamental  principle  with  Him, 
that  the  worst  of  men,  if  they  sincerely  repented,  and  turned 
to  God,  should  be  gladly  received,  as  prodigal  sons  who 
sought  to  regain  the  favour  of  their  Father  in  heaven.  He 
had  come  to  seek  and  to  save  that  which  was  lost,  and  He 
sought  to  proclaim  to  mankind  that  He  despaired  of  none, 
by  recognising,  in  the  most  hopeless,  the  possibility  of  good. 
Looking  abroad  on  the  world  with  a  Divine  love  and  com- 
passion that  knew  no  distinction  of  race  or  calling,  He 
designed  to  show,  at  its  very  birth,  that  the  Kingdom  He 
came  to  establish  was  open  to  all  humanity,  and  that  the 
only  condition  of  citizenship  was  spiritual  fitness. 

Among  the  staff  of  publicans  employed  in  collecting 
duties  at  Capernaum,  was  one  Avhom  his  name,  Levi,  marked 
as  belonging  to  the  old  priestly  tribe,  though,  perhaps,  born 
in  Galilee,  and  now  sunk  to  so  questionable  a  position.  He 
had  another  name,  Matthew,  however,  by  which  he  is  better 
known  as  one  of  the  Apostles,  and  the  author  of  the  first 
Gospel.  His  business  was  to  examine  the  goods  passing 
either  way  on  the  great  high  road  between  the  territories  of 
the  two  neighbouring  tetrarchs,  to  enter  them  on  the  official 
record,  to  receive  the  duties  and  credit  them  in  his  books,  in 
order,  finally,  to  pay  over  the  gross  proceeds,  at  given  times, 

1  M.  Nedar,  iii.  4.  *  Art.  Zollnsr,  in  Herzog,  vol.  xviii.  p.  152. 

8  Matt.  xxii.  21. 


TEE   CALL   OF   MATTHEW.  29 

to  the  local  tax-fanner.  He  seems  to  Lave  been  in  comfort- 
able circumstances,  and  it  is,  perhaps,  due  to  his  clerkly 
habits  as  a  publican,  that  we  owe  to  him  the  earliest  of  the 
Gospels.  He  was  the  son  of  one  Alpheus,  the  name  of  the 
father  of  James  the  Less.  They  may,  however,  have  been 
different  persons,  as  the  name  was  a  very  common  one ; 1  and 
we  know  that  there  were  two  Judes,  two  Simons,  and  two 
called  James,  in  the  little  band  round  Jesus. 

Doubtless  Levi,  or  Matthew,  had  shown  an  interest  in  the 
new  Teacher,  and  had  been  among  the  crowds  that  thronged 
Him.  The  quick  eye  of  Jesus  had  read  his  heart,  and  seen 
his  sincerity.  Though  a  publican,  he  was  a  Jew,  and  showed 
repentance  and  hopeful  trust,  which  made  him  a  true  son  of 
Abraham.  The  booth  in  which,  in  Oriental  fashion,  he  sat 
at  his  duties,  was  at  the  harbour  of  the  town,  on  the  way 
to  the  shore  where  Jesus  was  in  the  habit  of  addressing  the 
throngs  who  now  always  followed  Him,  and  it  needed  only 
a  look  and  a  word  of  the  Master,  to  make  him  throw  up 
his  office,  and  cast  in  his  lot  with  Him.  At  the  command 
of  Jesus  he  "  left  all,  rose  up,  and  followed  Him  ; "  not,  of 
course,  on  the  moment,  for  he  would  have  to  take  formal 
steps  to  release  himself,  and  would  require  to  settle  his 
accounts  with  his  superior,  before  he  was  free.  Henceforth, 
however,  he  attended  Him  who  soon  had  not  where  to  lay. 
His  head.  It  was  a  critical  time  for  Jesus,  and  His  admis- 
sion of  a  publican  as  a  disciple  could  not  fail  to  irritate  His 
enemies  still  more.  But  He  had  no  hesitation  in  His  course 
Sent  to  the  lost,  He  gladly  welcomed,  to  His  closest  intimacy, 
one  of  their  number  in  whom  He  saw  the  germs  of  true 
spiritual  life,  in  calm  disregard  of  the  prejudices  of  the 
time,  and  the  false  religious  narrowness  of  His  fellow- 
countrymen,  and  their  ecclesiastical  leaders.  He  desired,  in 
the  choice  of  a  publican  as  apostle,  to  embody  visibly  His 
love  for  sinners,  and  show  the  quickening  virtue  of  the 
kingdom  of  God,  even  in  the  most  unlikely. 

An  act  so  entirely  new  and  revolutionary,  in  the  best 
sense,  was  too  momentous  in  the  eyes  of  Matthew  to  pass 
unnoticed.  It  was  the  opening  of  a  new  day  for  the  mul- 
titudes whom  the  narrow  self-righteousness  of  the  Rabbis 
had  branded  as  under  the  curse  of  God,  and  had  condemned 
as  hopeless  before  Him.  The  new  "  call  "  of  Jesus  was  in 
vivid  contrast  to  that  of  Abraham  and  Moses,  for  Abraham 

1  Lightfoot,  Acts  i.  13. 


30  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

had  been  separated  even  from  his  tribe,  and  Moses  summoned 
only  the  Jews  to  found  the  theocracy  he  proposed  to  estab- 
lish. The  "  call "  which  Matthew  had  obeyed  was  as  infinitely 
comprehensive  as  the  earlier  ones  had  been  rigidly  exclusive. 
It  showed  that  all  would  be  admitted  to  the  Society  Jesus 
was  setting  up,  whatever  their  social  position ;  if  they  had 
spiritual  fitness  for  membership.  Caste  was  utterly  dis- 
allowed ;  before  the  great  Teacher,  all  men,  as  such,  were 
recognised  as  equally  sons  of  the  Heavenly  Father.  Accus- 
tomed from  infancy  to  take  this  for  granted,  we  cannot 
realize  the  magnitude  of  the  gift  this  new  principle  inaugu- 
rated, or  its  astounding  novelty.  A  Brahmin,  who  should 
proclaim  it  in  India,  and  illustrate  the  social  enfranchisement 
he  taught,  by  raising  a  despised  Pariah  to  his  intimate  inter- 
course and  friendship,  would  be  the  only  counterpart  we  can 
imagine  at  this  day. 

It  was  natural,  therefore,  that  Matthew  should  celebrate 
an  event  so  unique  as  his  call,  by  a  "  great  feast l  in  his 
house,"  in  honour  of  Jesus  ;  and  no  less  so  that  he  should 
invite  a  large  number  of  his  class,  to  rejoice  with  him  at  the 
new  era  opened  to  them,  or  that  He  should  extend  the  invi- 
tation to  his  friends  of  the  proscribed  classes  generally.  A 
number  of  persons  in  bad  odour  with  their  more  correct  fel- 
low-citizens were,  hence,  brought  together  by  him,  along  with 
the  publicans  of  the  locality,  to  do  Jesus  honour ;  persons 
branded  by  public  opinion  as  "  sinners,"  a  name  given  indis- 
criminately to  usurers,  gamblers,  thieves,  publicans,  shepherds, 
and  sellers  of  fruit  grown  in  the  sabbath  years.2  It  might 
have  seemed  doubtful  whether  Jesus  would  sit  down  with 
such  a  company,  for,  even  with  us,  it  would  be  a  bold  step 
for  any  public  teacher  to  join  a  gathering  of  persons  in  bad 
repute.  The  admission  of  Matthew  to  the  discipleship  must 
have  seemed  to  many  a  great  mistake.  Nothing  could  more 
certainly  damage  the  prospects  of  Jesus  with  the  influential 
classes,  or  create  a  wider  or  deeper  prejudice  and  distrust. 
But  nothing  weighed  for  a  moment  with  Him  against  truth 
aid  right.  His  soul  was  filled  with  a  grand  enthusiasm  for 
humanity,  and  no  false  or  narrow  exclusiveness  of  the  day 
could  be  allowed  to  stand  in  its  way.  He  accepted  the  invi- 
tation with  the  readiest  cheerfulness,  and  spent  the  evening 
in  the  pleasures  of  friendly  social  intercourse  with  the 
strange  assembly. 

1  Luke  v.  29-39.     Mark  ii.  15-22.     Matt.  ix.  10-17.        2  Sank.,  xxv.  2. 


PUBLICANS  AND   SINNERS.  31 

The  Rabbis  had  hardly  as  yet  made  up  their  minds  how 
to  act  respecting  Him.  They  had  attended  John's  preaching, 
though  they  did  not  submit  to  His  baptism,  which  would 
have  been  to  admit  his  sweeping  charges  against  their  order, 
as  a  brood  of  serpents.  But  Jesus  had  not  as  yet  attacked 
them.  He  would  fain  have  won  them,  as  well  as  the  people, 
to  the  kingdom  of  God.  He  had  preached  this  kingdom, 
and  the  need  of  righteousness  ;  had  honoured  Moses  and  the 
prophets  ;  had  pressed,  as  His  great  precepts,  the  love  of 
God  and  our  neighbour  ;  and  in  all  these  matters  the  Phari- 
sees could  support  Him.  He  had  enforced  moderation  on  His 
disciples,  and  had  sought  intercourse  with  the  Rabbis,  rather 
than  shunned  it.  His  reply  to  their  earlier  opposition  was 
gentle,  though  unanswerable.  No  doubt  He  knew  from  the 
first  that  they  would  reject  His  overtures,  but  it  was  none 
the  less  right  to  seek  to  woo  them  to  friendship,  that  they 
might  enter  His  kingdom  if  they  would.1  Had  they  joined 
Him,  their  influence  would  have  aided  His  work ;  if  they 
refused,  He  had  done  His  part.  He  did,  indeed,  win  some. 
Here  and  there  a  Rabbi  humbled  himself  to  follow  Him, 
though  He  did  not  belong  to  the  schools,  and  was  the  deadly 
opponent  of  their  cherished  traditions.  Others  hesitated ; 
but  some  even  of  the  leading  Pharisees,  as  at  Capernaum, 
invited  Him  to  their  houses  and  tables,  listened  to  His 
teaching,  reasoned  modestly  with  Him,  and  treated  Him, 
every  way,  with  respect.  He  was  looked  upon  by  them  as 
a  friend  of  the  nation,  and  the  title  of  Rabbi  was  willingly 
given  Him.2 

But  it  became  clearer,  each  day,  that  there  could  be  no 
alliance  between  views  so  opposed  as  His  and  theirs.  Where 
action  was  needed  He  would  not  for  a  moment  conceal  His 
difference  from  them,  and  Matthew's  feast  was  an  occasion 
on  which  a  great  principle  demanded  decisive  expression. 

To  the  Rabbis,  and  the  Pharisees  at  large,  nothing  could 
be  more  unbecoming  and  irregular  than  the  presence  of  Jesus 
at  such  a  gathering.  To  be  Levitically  "  clean,"  was  the 
supreme  necessity  of  their  religious  lives.  They  regarded 
themselves  as  true  friends  of  their  race,  and  they  were,  in 
fact,  the  leaders  of  the  nation.  But  they  looked  at  men  not 
»imply  as  such,  but  through  the  cold  superficial  medium  of 
an  artificial  theology,  which  dried  up  their  sympathy.  Their 

1  Matt.  ix.  6,  12 ;  xii.  3. 

a  Matt.  viii.  19  ;  xvii.  10 ;  xix.  16.     Mark  xii.  28. 


'6'2  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

philanthropy  was  narrowed  to  the  limits  of  Levitical  purity, ' 
Publicans  and  sinners,  and  the  mass  of  the  lower  classes, 
were,  to  a  Pharisee,  hopelessly  lost,  because  of  their  "  unclean- 
ness,"  and  he  shrank  from  all  contact  with  them.  He  might 
wish  to  save,  but  he  dared  not  touch,  or  come  near  them,  and 
so  left  them  to  their  misery  and  sin.  No  Pharisee  would 
receive  a  person  as  a  guest  if  he  suspected  that  he  was  a 
"  sinner."  l  He  would  not  let  one  of  the  "  Am-ha-aretziu  " — 
the  common  people — touch  him.3  It  was  unlawful  to  come 
into  their  company,  even  with  the  holy  design  of  inducing 
them  to  read  the  Law,3  and  it  was  defilement  to  take  food 
from  them,  or,  indeed,  from  any  stranger,  or  even  to  touch  a 
knife  belonging  to  them.4  The  thousands  "unclean"  from 
mere  ignorance,  or  from  their  callings,  or  from  carelessness, 
were  an  "  abomination,"  "  vermin,"  "  unclean  beasts,"  and 
"  twice  accursed."  5  And  as  to  touch  the  clothes  of  one  of 
the  "  common  people,"  defiled  every  Pharisee  alike,  while  the 
touch  of  those  of  a  Pharisee  of  a  lower  grade  of  Levitical 
purity  defiled  one  of  a  higher.  Like  the  Essenes,  one 
Pharisee  avoided  the  contact  of  another  less  strict,  and, 
therefore,  of  a  lower  rank  of  holiness.6 

It  must,  therefore,  have  been  as  if  a  Brahmin  had  outraged 
every  idea  of  Hindoo  religion  and  morals,  by  sitting  down  at 
a  meal  with  Sudras,  when  the  Rabbis  at  Capernaum  saw 
and  heard  of  Jesus  reclining  at  table  among  a  promiscuous 
gathering  of  publicans  and  sinners.7 

They  had  not  yet,  however,  come  to  open  controversy  with 
Him,  and  contented  themselves  with  contemptuous  taunts 
about  Him  to  the  disciples,  who,  as  Jews,  must  have  at  least 
formerly  shared  the  sovereign  contempt  felt  for  such  hated 
social  outcasts.  Even  to  hold  a  religious  service  with  them 
would  have  been  a  breach  of  the  Law,  but  to  join  them  on 
a  footing  of  friendly  intercourse  !  "  Founder  of  a  new  holy 
kingdom  of  God,  and  recline  at  table  with  publicans  and 
sinners!"8  How  keenly  such  words  must  have  wounded 
men  like  Peter,  and  the  small  knot  of  disciples  who  followed 
Jesus,  may  be  imagined.  They  had  been  taught  in  the  school 

1  Sohar,  Gen.,  i.  50. 

*  Schdttgen,  vol.  xciii.  p.  275.    Luke  vii.  39.    Isaiah  Ixv.  5. 

*  Mechilta,  f.  37.  2.  *  Sepp,  vol.  ii.  p.  293. 

*  Gratz,  p.  76.     Jost,  vol.  i.  p.  205.  6  Jost,  vol.  i.  p.  205. 

7  Keim,  vol.  ii.  p.  295.  Godwyn's  Aaron  and  Moses,  p.  41.  Sepp, 
Lebcn,  etc.,  vol.  ii.  p.  293.  Nork,  pp.  59,  112.  Lighifoot,  vol.  ii.  p.  401. 
Euxtorf,  pp.  1 1 46. 


THE   FEIEND   OF   SINNERS.  33 

of  the  Baptist,  an  earnest  Jew,  who  had  enforced  ultra- 
Pharisaic  Judaism.  The  early  scruples  of  Peter  survived 
even  to  apostolic  times.1  James  was  a  ISTazarite  till  his  death, 
if  we  can  trust  tradition,11  and  even  Matthew,  the  priestly 
publican,  for  his  name  Levi  shows  him  to  have  been  of  priestly 
race,  is  said  to  have  eaten,  through  life,  only  fruit,  vegetables, 
and  bread,  but  no  flesh.3  In  their  perplexity  and  distress 
they  appealed  to  Jesus. 

It  was  well  they  did  so,  for  their  distress  procured  for  all 
ages  an  answer  of  Divine  sweetness  and  grandeur.  "  To 
whom  should  I  go  but  to  such  as  these  ?  The  whole  have  no 
need  of  a  physician,  but  they  that  are  sick.1  Turn  to  the 
prophets  whom  you  revere,  and  think  what  the  words  of 
Hosea  mean,3  '  I  desire  mercy k  and  not  sacrifice  ' — acts 
rather  than  offerings — practical  godliness,  not  legal  forms — 
Divine  sympathy  with  the  lost,  rather  than  only  the  empty 
show  of  outward  worship — for  I  have  not  come  to  call  the 
righteous,  but  to  call  sinners  to  repentance.  I  expect  nothing 
from  men  who  think  they  are  righteous,  and  despise  others.4 
They  feel  no  need  of  Me.  My  help  is  needed  for  just  such 
'  sinners  '  as  they  would  have  me  leave  to  perish," 

Jesus  had  not,  of  course,  the  bodily  sick  in  His  thoughts. 
He  spoke  of  the  mass  of  the  people  of  the  middle  and  lower 
ranks,  too  sadly  marked  by  religious  shortcomings  and  un- 
worthiness.  The  guests  at  Matthew's  table  were,  doubtless, 
more  or  less  open  to  accusations  of  covetousness,  impurity, 
indifference  to  morality  and  religion,  and  doubtful  worth  as 
citizens.  John  would  have  kept  himself  aloof  from  them, 
unless  they  came,  as  penitents,  for  baptism.  He  had  lived  in 
wildernesses,  apart  from  men,  shrinking  from  the  turmoil 
of  the  great  world.  He  had  even  forbidden  lawful  enjoy- 
ments and  pleasures.  He  had  sought  to  build  up  the 
Kingdom  of  Heaven  on  the  lonely  banks  of  the  Jordan,  far 
from  men,  by  sternly  commanding  the  broken  hearts  that 
sought  peace  and  consolation  from  him,  to  live  lives  of  Jewish 
austerity  and  repentance.  Jesus  required  a  change  of  heart 
no  less  than  he,  but  He  did  not  lead  men  out  of  the  world  to 
secure  it,  or  burden  life  with  the  anxiety  and  disquiet  of 
efforts  after  outward  purity. 

He  came  trustfully  to  them  into  their  little  world,  bringing 

1  Gal.  ii.  11.     Acts  x.  9.  2  Clement,  Pcedag.,  ii.  1. 

8  Hosea  vi.  6.      Matt.  ix.  11-14.      Mark  ii.  16-18.       Luke  v.  30-33. 

4  Luke  xviii.  9.     For  parallels  in  heathen  writers,  Sepjt,  vol.  ii  p.  294. 


34  THE   LITE   OF   CHRIST. 

with  Him  a  heart  full  of  Divine  benevolence  and  tender 
gentleness.  In  His  ejes  they  were  "  sick,"  and  He  treated 
them  like  a  true  physician,  entering  into  all  their  interests, 
sympathizing  with  their  cares  and  sorrows,  realizing  their 
special  wants,  and  bearing  Himself  as  a  friend  among  friends. 
They  were  men,  and,  as  such,  capable  of  sorrow  for  sin,  and 
efforts  towards  a  nobler  life,  They  had  hearts  to  recognise 
goodness,  and  might  thus  be  won  to  faith  in  Himself,  as  the 
ideal  of  the  highest  spiritual  life.  Nothing  can  mark  the 
grandeur  of  His  enthusiasm  for  humanity,  more  than  that 
He  thus  proposed  to  lay  the  foundation  of  His  kingdom  in  a 
class  on  which  the  priests  and  theologians,  and  the  higher 
ranks  of  the  day,  looked  down  with  haughty  contempt  and 
moral  aversion.  It  shows  how  deeply  He  looked  into  things, 
that  He  recognised  the  greater  openness  for  the  Truth  of 
castes  thus  discredited ;  their  more  frank  and  decisive 
bearing  towards  the  startling  innovations  of  His  teaching ; 
their  deeper  longing  for  peace  of  conscience  and  reconciliation 
to  God.  It  was  the  sense  of  this  that  had  led  to  the  choice 
of  His  first  disciples  from  the  ranks  of  the  people  ;  and  it  was 
this,  in  part,  that  led  to  that  of  Matthew.  In  his  case,  how- 
ever, there  was,  also,  the  proclamation  of  His  indifference 
to  outward  distinctions,  or  rules,  afterwards  formulated  by 
Peter — who  had  never  forgotten  the  lesson — into  the  memor- 
able words,  "  Of  a  truth  I  perceive  that  God  is  no  respecter 
of  persons,  but,  in  every  nation,  he  that  feareth  Him,  and 
worketh  righteousness,  is  accepted  of  Him."  l  A.  truth  evi- 
dent enough  to-day,  but  carrying  with  it,  when  inaugurated 
by  Jesus,  an  entire  revolution  in  the  religious  history  of  man- 
kind. 

The  Divine  charity  that  ran  so  counter  to  the  narrow  pride 
of  the  Rabbis  was  no  less  startling  to  the  disciples  of  John, 
but  there  were  other  difficulties  to  both.  No  open  breach 
had  yet  taken  place,  and.  a  friendly  conference  might  explain 
much.  Jesus  had  silently  left  the  harsh  discipline  of  fasting 
behind,  and  had  prescribed  no  formal  rules  for  prayer,1  such 
as  were  common  to  the  Rabbis  and  their  disciples,  and  to 
those  of  the  Baptist ;  and  now  a  deputation  came  to  ask  Him 
f  >r  an  explanation."1  The  Law  of  Moses  had  appointed  only 
one  fast  in  the  year,  on  the  Day  of  Atonement,  but  the  Rab- 
bis had  added  many,  both  public  and  private.  They  enjoined 
one  for  the  Destruction  of  Jerusalem  by  the  Chaldeans,  and 

»  Actsx.  35. 


RABBINICAL  FASTS.  35 

others  for  various  incidents  connected  with  the  siege,  or  the 
troubles  of  the  first  period  after  the  Captivity.  There  waa 
another  to  lament  the  day  on  which  the  translation  of  the 
Scriptures  into  Greek  had  been  finished,  and  every  public 
calamity  or  emergency  was  signalized  by  a  fast  specially 
enjoined  by  the  authorities.  It  was  rather  to  private  fasts, 
however,  that  allusion  was  made.  Strict  Pharisees,  aiming 
at  the  highest  degree  of  merit,  fasted  voluntarily  every 
Monday  and  Thursday,  to  commemorate,  respectively,  the 
going  up  of  Moses  to  the  Mount  on  the  fifth  day,  to  receive 
the  renewed  tables  of  the  Commandments,  and  his  descent  on 
the  second.  They  often  added  other  fasts,1  to  have  lucky 
dreams,  and  to  obtain  their  interpretation ;  for,  like  the 
Essenes,  the  Pharisees  looked  on  fasts  as  a  preparation  for 
receiving  revelations.  They  fasted  also  to  avert  evil,  or  to 
procure  some  good.  Mortification  and  self-infliction  had 
become  a  formal  religious  merit,  in  the  mercenary  theology 
of  the  day,  and  was  paraded  before  the  world  by  some,  to 
heighten  their  reputation  for  holiness.2  The  idea  had,  at 
first,  risen  from  a  fancied  opposition  between  the  body  and 
the  soul ;  as  if  the  latter  could  only  be  duly  raised  by 
depressing  the  former.  But  asceticism  was  contrary  to  the 
genius  of  the  new  kingdom  of  God,  which  laid  no  stress  on 
meat,  or  drink,  or  abstinence  from  them,  but  on  "  righteous- 
ness, peace,  and  joy,  in  the  Holy  Ghost."  3 

Even  prayer  had  been  reduced  to  a  mechanical  system, 
as  part  of  "  the  hedge  of  the  Law,"  invented  by  the  Rabbis. 
No  one  could  lay  greater  stress  on  it  than  Jesus,  when  offered 
as  the  utterance  of  contrite  humility ;  but,  as  a  part  of  a 
system  of  merit  like  the  Rabbinical  theology  of  the  day,  He 
held  it  lightly.  No  precepts  could  be  more  worthy  than 
many  found,  even  yet,  in  the  Rabbis,  respecting  the  true 
worth  of  prayer ;  ™  but,  in  practice,  these  higher  teachings 
had  fallen  into  wide  disuse.  It  had  come  to  be  tedious  for 
length,  and  abounded  in  repetitions.4  Minute  rules  for  correct 
prayer  were  taught,  with  fixed  hours,  and  prescribed  forms, 
and  superstitious  power  was  assigned  to  the  mere  words 
The  householder  was  to  repeat  the  Sch'ma  in  his  house 
oiorning  and  evening,  to  drive  away  evil  spirits.  To  say  it 
when  in  bed  was  like  grasping  a  two-edged  sword,  to  slay  the 

1  Sepp,  vol.  ii.  p.  310.    Winer,  Fasten.     Nork,  p.  59.   Lightfoot,  vol.  ii. 
170. 

»  Matt.  vi.  16.  3  Rom.  xiv.  17. 

*  Gfrorer,  vol.  ii.  p.  1-15.     I\fatt.  vi.  7. 


36  THE   LIFE   OF   CHBIST. 

assaulting  demons.1  The  mere  form  of  prayer,  if  recited 
rightly  and  often,  was  counted  as  merit  laid  up  in  heaven. 
To  say  the  Sch'ma  often  was,  in  fact,  in  the  phrase  of  the 
Rabbis,  "  to  make  the  kingdom  of  heaven  one's  own."  2 

It  could  not  be  doubtful  how  Jesus  would  bear  Himself 
to  views  so  opposed  to  inner  and  spiritual  religion.  Silently 
omitting  any  reference  to  the  objection  respecting  prayer, 
He  addressed  Himself  to  the  question  of  fasting.  "  His 
]<resence  with  His  disciples  was  like  that  of  a  bridegroom 
with  his  companions,  during  the  marriage  rejoicings.3  Could 
He  ask  them  to  fast  while  He  was  with  them  ?  It  would  be 
time  for  them  to  do  so  when  He  was  taken  away  from  them. 
They  would  fast  then  ! "  Seizing  the  opportunity,  and 
addressing  the  disciples  of  John  especially,  He  went  even 
further.  "  John  had  sought  to  do  what  was  worse  than 
hopeless — to  renew  the  old  theocracy  by  merely  external 
reform  ;  to  patch  up  the  old  and  torn  robe  of  Judaism,  and 
make  it  serve  a  new  age.  It  was  as  vain  as  a  man's  sewing  a 
piece  of  raw  unteazled  cloth  on  the  rent  of  an  old  garment ; 
the  patch  could  only  tear  off  so  much  more  and  make  the 
rent  worse,  while  the  patch  itself  would  be  a  mere  shred. 
Or,  it  was  like  putting  new  wine  into  old  skins,  which  must 
burst  when  the  wine  fermented.0  New  teaching,  like  His, 
must  be  put  into  new  bottles  ;  the  forms  and  rites  that  had 
served  till  now  were  of  no  more  use ;  a  new  dispensation 
had  come,  which  these  forms  would  only  cumber.4  New 
forms  were  needed  for  the  new  religious  life  He  came  to  in- 
troduce." 

Words  so  fatal  to  cherished  prejudices  must  have  struck 
deep,  but  the  hearts  He  had  unavoidably  wounded  were  not 
left  without  tender  soothing.  "  It  was  no  wonder  that  John 
had  clung  to  the  faith  of  his  fathers,  even  in  its  outward 
accidents.  He  had  drunk  of  the  old  wine,  and  would  not 
change  it  for  new ;  contented  to  know  that  '  the  old  was 
good.'  "  Henceforth,  however,  the  position  of  Jesus  to  the 
worn-out  forms  of  the  past  was  unmistakable.  He  had  chosen 
His  path,  and  would  lead  mankind  from  the  bondage  of  the 
lufter  to  the  freedom  of  the  spirit,  and  the  worshippers  of 

1  Berachoth  Bab.,  4  b.     Berachoth  Jerus.,  4  a. 

2  Gfrorer,  vol.  ii.  p.  143. 

*  Winer,  Ehe,  vol.  i.  p.  60.  Lightfoot,  vol.  ii.  p.  171.  Matt.  ix.  15-17. 
Mark  ii.  19-22.  Luke  v.  34-39. 

4  Bib.  Lex.,  vol.  iii.  p.  274.  Schsnkcl,  p.  42.  Reynolds'  John  tht 
Baptist,  p.  413.  Hau^rath,  vol.  i.  p.  373. 


SELF-SACEIFICE   DEMANDED.  37 

the  letter  arrayed  themselves  against  Him.  As  became  the 
Founder  of  the  first  purely  spiritual  religion  the  world  had 
seen,  He  henceforth  silently  ignored  the  ceremonial  law, 
avoiding  open  condemnation,  but  bearing  Himself  towards 
it  throughout  as  He  did  in  the  matter  of  circumcision,  which 
He  never  enforced  on  His  disciples,  or  demanded  from  be- 
lieving heathen,  and  never  commended,  though  He  never,  in 
words,  condemned  it.  The  whole  ritual  system,  of  which  it 
was  the  most  prominent  feature,  was  treated  as  merely  in- 
different.1 

It  was  indescribably  touching  to  see,  at  the  very  threshold 
of  our  Lord's  public  life,  that  even  when  He  uses  so  joyous 
an  image  of  Himself  as  that  of  a  bridegroom,  He  dashes  in 
the  picture  with  shadow.  He  had  begun  His  course  by  the 
Temptation ;  but,  thenceforward,  to  the  close  His  path  lay 
through  struggle,  suffering,  and  self-sacrifice,  to  a  far  other 
glory  than  that  which  was  expected  in  the  Messiah.  He  would, 
indeed,  have  known  His  nation  and  their  Roman  masters — • 
the  dominant  Pharisees,  and  the  priesthood — badly,  not  to 
have  foreseen,  from  the  first,  that  He  would  have  to  pass 
through  the  fiercest  conflict,  only  to  reach  a  tragic  end. 
Thoughts  of  self-denial,  self-sacrifice,  even  to  the  surrender 
of  life ;  of  losing  life  that  He  might  gain  it ;  of  the  corn 
dying  that  it  might  bring  forth  fruit,  run  like  a  dark  thread 
through  all  His  discourses,  to  the  very  end.  He  sends  His 
Apostles  forth  like  sheep  amongst  wolves  ;  foretells  their 
suffering  the  bitterest  persecution ;  and  consoles  them  only 
with  the  one  thought  that  it  should  content  the  disciple  to 
be  on  the  same  footing  with  Himself.2  In  the  Sermon  on 
the  Mount,  He  predicts  that  all  who  believe  on  Him  will 
suffer  hatred  and  evil  treatment.3  He  recognises  those  alone 
as  His  true  followers  who,  denying  themselves,  take  up  His 
cross  and  bear  it.4  He  has  nothing  to  promise  His  disciples 
but  that  they  should  be  servants,  submitting  patiently  to  the 
extremest  wrong,  and  has  no  higher  vision  even  for  Himself.5 
He  may  rejoice,  as  the  bridegroom,  with  His  friends,  for  a 
time,  but  will  soon  be  taken  away  from  them.6  A  kingdom 
founded  on  such  a  basis  of  deliberate  self-denial  and  self- 
sacrifice,  is  unique  in  the  history  of  the  world. 

1  Schenkel,  p.  86.  2  Matt.  x.  16-25.  3  Matt.  v.  10-12. 

«  Mark  viii.  34,  35.     Matt.  x.  38,  39. 

*  Matt.  ix.  15.  •  Ullmann,  p.  112. 


CHAPTER  XXXV. 

THE  CHOICE  OF  THE  TWELVE,  AND  THE  SEEMON  ON  THE 

MOUNT. 

THTOW  long  Jesus  remained  at  Capernaum  is  not  told  us, 
-*--*-  but  we  may  readily  believe  that  He  was  glad  to  leave 
it,  with  its  gathering  opposition,  as  soon  as  possible.  Though 
it  was  His  centre  of  action,  the  Kingdom  needed  to  be 
proclaimed  over  the  whole  land.  Preaching  was  the  special 
agency  on  which  He  relied,  far  more  than  on  any  displays 
of  supernatural  power.  It  was  by  it  He  designed  to  work 
the  stupendous  spiritual  miracle  of  the  new  birth  of  Israel 
and  of  Humanity.  As  the  Founder  of  a  religion  which 
had  no  code  of  laws  and  repudiated  force,  addressing  itself 
solely  to  the  free  convictions  of  men, — the  living  word  and 
its  illustration  in  His  own  life,  were  alone  open  to  Him  as 
means  for  its  diffusion.  The  hearts  and  souls  of  men  must 
be  won  to  the  highest  truth,  by  persuading  the  conscience, 
and  thus  influencing  the  will.  In  these  earlier  months  He 
took  advantage  of  the  facilities  of  the  synagogue  service, 
to  gain  the  ear  of  the  people,  but  His  preaching  was  very 
different  from  the  stereotyped  lifelessness  of  the  Rabbis, 
and  excited  universal  astonishment  by  its  originality,  power, 
and  resistless  enthusiasm.1  At  a  later  time,  when  His 
"  new  doctrine  "  had  roused  the  opposition  of  the  authorities, 
the  use  of  the  synagogues  was  no  longer  granted  Him." 
But,  even  from  the  first,  He  did  not  confine  Himself  to 
fixed  times  or  places.  He  addressed  the  people  on  the 
shores  of  the  lake,  on  the  lonely  slopes  and  valleys  of  the 
lulls,  in  the  streets  and  market-places  of  towns  and  vil- 
lages, at  the  crossing  points  of  the  public  roads,  and  even 
in  houses;3  any  place,  indeed,  that  offered  an  audience,  was 

1  Mark  i.  22.     Lnke  iv.  16. 

2  Mark  iii.  22.    Matt.  xi.  24.    Luke  xi.  15.    Mark  vi.  1.    Luke  iv.  29. 

»  Mark  ii.  13.    Matt.  v.  1.    Luke  xiii.  26.    Matt.  xvi.  1 ;  xxii.  9.    Mark 
ii.  1. 


THE   CHARACTER   OF   CHRIST.  39 

alike  to  Him.  The  burden  and  spirit  of  His  preaching  may- 
be gathered  from  the  Gospels  throughout.  He  proclaimed 
Himself  the  Good ,  Shepherd  seeking  to  bring  back  the  lost 
sheep  to  the  heavenly  fold ;  to  quicken  and  turn  towards 
God  the  weak,  sinful,  human  will,  and  to  breathe  into  the 
soul  aspirations  after  a  higher  spiritual  life,  from  the  fulness 
of  His  own  perfect  example.1 

To  win  all,  He  moved  as  a  man  among  men,  a  friend 
among  friends,  a  helper  amongst  all  who  needed  help ; 
declining  every  outward  honour  or  flattery,  or  even  the 
appearance  of  either.  3  While  advancing  the  most  amazing 
pretensions  as  His  kingly  prerogative,  He  was,  personally, 
so  meek  and  lowly  that  He  could  make  this  gentle  humility 
a  ground  for  the  trust  and  unembarrassed  approach  of  all 
who  were  troubled.  Content  with  obscurity,  and  leaving 
to  others  the  struggle  for  distinction  or  place,  He  chose  a 
life  so  humble  that  the  poorest  had  no  awe  of  His  dignity, 
but  gathered  round  Him  as  their  special  friend.  His  tastes 
were  in  keeping  with  this  simplicity,  for  He  delighted  in 
the  society  of  the  lowly,  and  children  clustered  in  His  steps 
with  the  natural  instinct  that  detects  one  who  loves  them. 
He  was  never  engrossed  by  His  own  affairs,  but  ever  ready 
to  give  Himself  up  to  those  of  others — to  counsel  them  in 
difficulties,  to  sympathize  with  them  in  their  sorrows  or  joys, 
and  to  relieve  their  sickness  or  wants.  3  It  is  His  grand  pecu- 
liarity, that  there  is  a  total  oblivion  of  self  in  His  whole  life. 
The  enthusiasm  of  a  Divine  love,  in  the  pure  light  of  which 
no  selfish  thought  could  live,  filled  His  whole  soul.  He 
showed  abiding  sympathy  for  human  weakness, 4  and  to 
cheer  the  outcast  and  hopeless,  He  announced  that  He  came 
to  seek  such  as  to  others  seemed  lost.  In  His  joy  over  a 
sinner  won  back  to  righteousness  He  hears  even  the  angels 
of  God  rejoicing. 

There  had  never  appeared  in  any  age  such  a  man,  su^h  a 
friend,  or  such  a  helper.  He  seemed  the  contrast  of  a  king 
or  prince,  and  yet  all  His  words  were  kingly,  all  His  acts 
a  succession  of  the  kingliest  deeds,  decisions,  and  commands, 
and  His  whole  public  life,  the  silent  and  yet  truest  founda- 
tion of  an  everlasting  kingdom.  He  must,  indeed,  have 
seemed  anything  rather  than  the  founder  of  a  new  society, 
or  of  a  new  empire,  and  it  must  have  startled  men  when 

1  Bibel  Lex.,  vol.  ii.  p.  396.  *  Mark  x.  17. 

9  Ecce  Homo,  p.  178.  *  Mark  xiv.  38. 

41 


40  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

they  found  tliat  He  had,  by  His  works  and  life,  established 
in  the  midst  of  the  old  theocracy  the  framework  of  the  most 
imperishable  and  the  widest-reaching  empire  this  earth  has 
ever  seen ;  an  empire  before  which  all  former  religious 
systems  were  to  fade  away.  But  though  His  absolute  self- 
control  was  never  intermitted,  there  were  times  when  tho 
claims  of  the  truth,  or  the  service  of  His  kingdom,  brought 
out  the  full  grandeur  of  His  power  and  kingly  greatness. 
It  was  thus  when  He  had  to  meet  and  confute  prejudice  and 
error,  or  to  heal  the  sick  and  diseased.  At  times  we  shall 
see  Him  forced  to  blame  and  condemn,  but  this  was  only  a 
passing  shadow  on  the  clear  heaven  of  His  unvarying  grace 
and  love.  It  is  impossible  to  realize  such  an  appearance, 
but  we  can  imagine  it  in  some  measure.  The  stainless 
truth  and  uprightness  which  filled  His  whole  nature;  the 
exhaustless  love  and  pity  which  were  the  very  breath  of 
His  spirit ;  the  radiant  joy  of  the  bridegroom  wedding 
redeemed  humanity ;  the  calm  light  as  of  other  worlds  in 
His  every  look,  may  well  account  for  the  deathless  love 
and  devotion  He  inspired  in  those  whom  He  suffered  to 
follow  Him.  l 

The  widening  success  of  His  work  had  already  required 
an  addition  to  the  small  circle  of  His  immediate  attendants. 
But  a  single  accession,  like  that  of  Matthew,  was,  erelong, 
not  enough.  It  soon  became  necessary  to  select  a  larger 
number  who  should  be  constantly  in  His  company,  and 
receive  His  instructions,  that  they  might,  in  due  time,  go 
forth  to  proclaim  the  Kingdom  over  a  wider  area  than  He 
could  Himself  reach.  Its  laws,  its  morality,  its  relations  to 
the  Old  Dispensation,  must  be  taught  them,  and  they  must 
catch  His  enthusiasm  by  such  a  lengthened  intercourse  in 
the  familiarity  of  private  life,  as  would  kindle  2  in  their  souls 
the  ideal  He  presented.  That  they  should  follow  Him  at  all 
would  be  left  to  themselves,  but  the  choice  would  be  made 
by  Himself,  3  of  such  as,  on  various  grounds,  He  saw  fittest. 
They  were  to  be  apostles,  4  or  missionaries,  and  would  have, 
for  their  high  commission,  the  organization  of  the  new  king- 
dom of  God,  first  in  Israel,  and  then  through  the  world. 

To  accept  such  an  invitation  implied  no  little  enthusiasm. 
No  earthly  reward  was  held  out,  but,  on  the  contrary,  the 

1  Ewald,  Geschichte,  vol.  v.  pp.  306,  307. 

*  EwiiJd,  vol.  v.  p.  40i. 

»  Mark  iii.  13.  «  Luke  vi.  13. 


CITIZENSHIP  OF   THE   NEW   KINGDOM.  41 

sacrifice  of  all  personal  claims  was  demanded.  They  were 
to  abandon  their  former  calling,  whatever  it  might  be,  with 
all  its  present  or  prospective  advantages,  to  give  up  all 
family  ties,  to  bear  the  worst  indignities  and  ill-treatment, 
and  yet  repress  even  just  resentment.  They  were  to  hold 
their  lives  at  His  service,  and  willingly  yield  them,  if  it  re- 
quired the  sacrifice.1  A  measure  of  self -restriction  is  implied 
{is  the  basis  of  any  state,  fqr  no  society  could  flourish  where 
its  interests,  as  a  whole,  are  not  spontaneously  considered 
before  those  of  the  individual  citizen.  But  the  self-abnegation 
required  by  Jesus  in  those  admitted  to  the  Kingdom  He  was 
now  founding,  was  without  a  parallel,  for  while  earthly 
.states  return  an  equivalent,  in  many  ways,  for  the  self- 
surrender  they  impose,  He  proclaimed  from  the  first  that 
those  who  became  His  followers  must  do  so  "hoping  for 
nothing  again  "  to  compensate  for  any  self-sacrifice,  even  the 
greatest.  In  the  case  of  the  "Apostles,"  the  self -surrender 
was  not  merely  contingent,  but  present  and  final,  for  He 
held  before  them  no  prospect  through  life  but  privation  and 
persecution,  and  even  possible  martyrdom.  In  the  next 
world,  indeed,  He  promised  rewards,  but  He  precluded  mere 
mercenary  hopes  even  of  these,  by  making  them  conditional 
on  unfeigned  sincerity  in  the  obedience  to  His  laws  and  love 
of  His  person.  The  mere  hypocrite — or  actor — could  have 
no  object  in  joining  Him,  and  was  indignantly  denounced. 
The  truest  honesty  in  word  and  deed  were  alone  accepted, 
and  the  want  of  it,  in  any  degree,  was  the  one  fatal  moral 
defect.2 

It  is  not  surprising,  therefore,  that  all  who  offered  them- 
selves as  His  followers  were  not  accepted.  Where  He  saw 
unfitness,  he  repelled  advances.  To  a  Rabbi  who  came 
saluting  Him  as  "  Teacher,"  and  professing  his  willingness 
to  follow  Him  as  His  disciple,  He  returned  the  discouraging 
answer,  that  the  foxes  had  holes,  and  the  birds  of  the  air 
nests,  but  the  Son  of  Man — the  Messiah* — had  not  where  to 
lay  His  head.3  It  might  have  seemed  of  moment  to  secure 
the  support  of  a  Rabbi,  but  Jesus  had  seen  the  worldly  bent 
of  his  thoughts,  and  thus  turned  him  aside,  by  blasting 
any  hopes  of  advantage  or  honour  in  joining  Him.  Even 
indecision  or  hesitation,  whatever  the  ground,  was  fatal  to 
admittance  to  His  favour.  The  request  of  a  disciple  to  go 
first  and  bury  his  father,  before  finally  following  Him,  was 

1  Eece  Homo,  p.  120.  *  Ecce  Homo,  p.  122.          »  Matt.  viii.  19. 


42  THE   LIFE   OF   CHBIST. 

only  met  by  the  command  to  follow  Him  at  once,  and  leave 
the  spiritually  dead  to  bury  the  corporeally  dead :  to  put  off 
decision,  even  for  so  worthy  a  cause  as  desire  to  perform 
the  last  offices  to  a  father,  was  dangerous  !  "  Go,  thou,  and 
preach  the  kingdom  of  God." 1  The  devotion  due  to  it, 
unreservedly,  could  not  be  shared,  even  by  the  claims  of 
affection  and  earthly  duties.  A  request  to  be  allowed  to  bid 
his  household  farewell,  before  finally  leaving  them,  was  met 
by  a  similar  answer — "  No  man  having  put  his  hand  to  the 
plough,  and  looking  back,  is  fit  for  the  kingdom  of  God."3 
The  indispensable  condition  of  admittance  into  the  select 
band  who  followed  and  lived  with  Him,  was  an  engrossing 
enthusiasm  for  Himself  and  His  work,  which  permitted 
concern  for  no  second  interest  whatever.3 

He  had  determined  to  surround  Himself  with  a  small  body 
of  such  trustworthy  followers,  limiting  the  number,  by  an 
association  natural  to  His  race,  to  twelve.  They  were  to 
form  the  closest,  inmost  circle  of  His  disciples,  and  to  be, 
in  fact,  His  friends  and  companions.  He  would  give  them 
His  fullest  confidence :  open  His  mind  to  them  more  fully 
than  to  others  :  and,  by  living  among  them,  inspire  them 
with  His  own  fervour,  and  mould  them  to  His  own  likeness. 
They  would  see  how  His  soul  never  unbent  from  its  grand 
enthusiasm :  how  He  never  wearied  in  His  transcendent 
devotion  of  body  and  spirit  to  His  work.  In  seeing  and 
hearing  Him,  they  would  gain  experience :  in  the  opposition 
and  trials  they  met  in  His  company,  their  fidelity  would  be 
put  to  the  test,  and,  in  the  end,  they  would  be  qualified  for 
the  special  work  for  which  they  had  been  chosen — to  be  sent 
forth  to  preach,  and  to  repeat  the  miraculous  works  of  their 
Master,  as  evidence  of  His  Divine  authority.4 

It  is  not  stated  definitely  where  the  selection  of  the 
Apostles  was  made.  His  preaching  had  already  gained  a 
"  great  multitude  "  5  of  disciples,  who  followed  Him  in  His 
journey  from  town  to  town,  along  with  a  vast  crowd  draAvn 
after  Him  by  various  motives.  The  movement  was  rapidly 
assuming  an  importance  like  that  of  John ;  it  was  extend- 
ing over  the  nation.  Withdrawing  Himself  from  the  throng, 
by  night,  as  was  His  frequent  custom,  He  retired  once 
more  into  the  hills  to  pray,  and  continued  in  devotion  till 

1  Lnke  ix.  60.  s  Luke  ix.  62. 

8  Eu-ald,  vol.  v.  p.  391.  4  Mark  iii.  14. 

8  Luke  vi.  17.     So  the  Sinaitic  and  the  Vatican  MSS. 


CHOICE   OF   THE   TWELVE.        ;  43 

morning.1  Brought  Tip  among  hills,  He  was  ever  fond  of 
their  solitude,  their  pure  air  and  open  sky,  which  seemed  to 
bring  Him  nearer  His  Father.  It  was  somewhere,  apparently, 
in  tho  hilly  background  of  the  Sea  of  Galilee,  for  though 
spoken  of  as  "  the  mountain,"  there  are  no  means  of  deciding 
the  precise  locality.  When  the  day  broke,  instead  of  seeking 
rest,  He  revealed  the  subject  of  His  night-long  communion 
with  His  Heavenly  Father,  by  proceeding  to  select  His 
future  Apostles.  The  crowd  of  His  disciples  had  returned, 
with  the  new  day,  from  the  neighbouring  towns  and  villages 
where  they  had  spent  the  night,  when  Jesus,  coming  down 
from  His  solitary  devotions,  gathered  them  once  more  round 
Him,  and  "  calling  to  Him  whom  He  Himself  would," 
"  appointed  twelve,  that  they  might  be  with  Him,  and  that 
He  should  send  them  forth  to  preach — to  heal  sicknesses, 
and  to  cast  out  devils."  2 

His  choice  was  necessarily  made  from  a  comparatively 
small  number,  for  the  majority  must  have  lately  joined  Him, 
and  must  thus  have  been,  as  yet,  little  known.3  So  far  as 
possible  He  made  His  selection  from  those  who  had  been 
longest  with  Him,  and  whom  He  had,  in  some  measure, 
proved ;  but  they  were  as  a  whole,  simple,  unlearned,  plastic 
men  of  the  people ;  for  Jesus  had  already  seen  that  the 
spiritual  regeneration  of  Israel  must  rise  from  the  humbler 
classes.4  He  knew  that  the  educated  men  of  the  nation,  the 
Rabbis  and  priests,  were  perverted  and  prejudiced,  and  He 
could  not  look  to  the  officials  or  authorities  of  any  grade,  or 
to  the  prevailing  religious  schools.  The  commonalty  were 
sounder,  freer  from  the  errors  of  the  age, — more  open  to  the 
eternal  truths  He  came  to  announce,  and  more  ready  to 
accept  the  spiritual  kingdom  He  came  to  found.5  Yet,  it 
may  be,  that  had  the  choice  been  wider,  some  one  might  have 
been  available  from  the  trained  intellects  of  the  nation,  with 
results  it  would  be  vain  to  conjecture.  Had  Paul  been  one 
of  the  twelve  now  chosen  by  Christ,  how  much  might  have 
been  changed  in  the  record  of  the  Gospels  by  the  genius,  the 
Rabbinical  training,  the  breadth  of  mind,  and  the  grand 
loving  enthusiasm  which  almost  founded  Western  Christi- 
anity ?  Christ  laid  no  stress  on  their  former  social  position 
or  religious  party,  for  they  included,  on  the  one  side,  a  pub- 
lican, who  was  also  a  Levite,  and  on  the  other,  one  who  had 

»  Luke  vi.  12.         2  Mark  iii.  13,  14.  8  Schciikcl,  p.  76. 

*  Matt.  xi.  25.     Winer,  Aposttl.  5  Ease,  p.  149. 


44  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

belonged  to  the  ultra-puritan  zealots,  the  fanatical  party  of 
Judas  the  Galilasan.  Nor  did  He  require  them  to  be  unmar- 
ried, for  Peter,  we  know,  had  a  wife,  and  if  we  may  trust 
the  tradition  of  the  Armenian  Church,  the  only  Apostles 
who  were  single  were  the  sons  of  Zebedee,b  and  Thomas.1 
The  Capernaum  circle  yielded  Him  no  fewer  than  seven  of 
the  twelve, — Peter,  and  his  brother  Andrew,  who  lived  with 
him  j  two  sons  from  the  house  of  Zebedee, — James  and  John  ; 
two  sons  of  Alpha3us,c — James  the  Little  and  Jude,  who  is 
commonly  distinguished  as  Lebbaeus,  "  the  stout-hearted,"  or 
Thaddgeus,  "  the  brave."  2  The  publican  Matthew  was  also 
from  Capernaum,  and  was  the  third  from  the  household  of 
Alphseus,  if  the  name  refer  to  the  father  of  James  the  Little 
and  Jude ;  and  Philip  belonged  to  the  village  of  Bethsaida 
in  its  immediate  neighbourhood,  making  in  all,  eight  of 
the  twelve,  virtually  from  the  same  favoured  place.  Of 
the  remaining  four,  Nathanael,  the  son  of  Talmai,  the  Bar- 
tholomew of  our  version,  was  from  Cana,  on  the  north  side 
of  the  plain  of  El  Battauf,  on  which  Jesus  had  so  often 
looked  down  from  the  Nazareth  hill-top.  Thomas — ready  to 
die,  but  slow  to  believe :  manly  and  full  of  grave  tenderness, 
— whose  Hebrew  name3  was  sometimes  turned  into  the 
Greek  equivalent  Didymus,  "  the  twin," — was  the  same 
person,  one  tradition  says,  as  Judas,  the  brother  of  Jesus ;  as 
if  Mary  had  had  a  double  birth,  after  bearing  her  eldest  son.4 
If  so,  one  of  the  household  amongst  whom  Our  Saviour  had 
grown  up,  one  son  of  His  mother,  redeemed  the  general  cold- 
ness of  the  rest.  The  name  of  Simon  the  Zealot,  another 
Galilaean,  and  that  of  the  only  Apostle  from  Judea, — Judas, 
the  traitor,  of  the  village  of  Kerioth,5  in  the  south  of  Judah 
— close  the  list. 

Such  was  the  band  which  Jesus  now  gathered  round  Him, 
At  least  four — James  and  John,  and  James  the  Little  and 
Jude — seem  to  have  been  His  relations  or  connections,  to 
whom,  if  we  accept  the  tradition  I  have  quoted,  we  must 
add  Thomas.d  One,  at  least,  was  of  priestly  race, — the 
degenerate  Levite,  Matthew,  who  had  sunk  to  an  office  held 
so  utterly  infamous  as  a  publican's.  He  and  the  sons  of 
Zebedee  seem  to  have  been  in  a  fair  position,  but  Peter — whom 

1  Ewald,  vol.  v.  p.  395.        2  John  xiv.  22.    Hausrath,  vol.  i.  p.  386. 

*  D^ri  (taam),  "a  twin";  KDNn  (toma),  Mdv/j.os,  Didymus,  "a  twin." 

*  Thilo  ad  Acta,  Thorn.,  94. 

6  W)P  K"&?  (Ish  Kcrioth),  the  man  of  Kcrioth. 


SIMON   PETER.  45 

we  see,  in  the  forty  days  after  the  Resurrection,  once  more 
busy  as  a  fisherman,  in  his  boat  on  the  Lake  of  Galilee ;  naked, 
perhaps  literally,  as  the  fishermen  there  still  often  are,8  that; 
he  might  the  better,  like  them,  drag  the  net  after  him 
through  the  water,  as  he  swam  with  it ;  or  casting  his  fisher's 
coat  round  him,  and  leaping  into  the  lake  to  swim  ashore 
to  Jesus,1 — is,  it  may  be,  a  fair  illustration  of  the  social 
position  of  most  of  his  brethren  in  the  Apostolate. 

In  the  lists  given  in  the  Gospels,  Peter,  the  host  of  His 
Lord  at  Capernaum,  always  holds  the  first  place,  but  there 
are  variations  in  the  order  assigned  to  others.  A  true  Gali- 
laean,  Peter  was  energetic  and  fiery,  rather  than  self-con- 
tained and  reflective.  Warm-hearted  and  impulsive,  he  had 
at  once  the  strength  and  weakness  of  such  a  temperament. 
He  is  always  the  first  to  speak  for  his  brethren ;  he  craves 
earnestly  one  moment  what  he  as  earnestly  refused  the  instant 
before ;  he  is  the  first  to  draw  the  sword  for  Jesus,  but  also 
the  first  to  deny  Him.  John  recognises  his  risen  Master  first 
at  the  Lake  of  Galilee,  but  Peter  throws  himself  forthwith 
into  the  lake,  and  is  the  first  to  reach  Jesus'  feet ;  his 
thoughts  flash  at  once  into  acts,  and  he  has  to  be  rebuked 
for  too  ready  counsel.  Though  for  a  moment  he  denies 
Christ,  a  look  melts  him,  and  tradition  only  fills  up  what  we 
feel  a  true  picture,  when  it  tells  us  that  he  rose  each  night, 
through  life,  to  pray  for  forgiveness  at  the  hour  at  which  he 
had  sinned  so  weakly ;  or  when  it  speaks  of  him,  as  at  last 
crucified  with  his  head  downwards,  thinking  himself  un- 
worthy of  a  nearer  approach  to  the  death  of  his  Lord. 

In  Peter,  Jesus  had  an  apostle  who  gave  up  his  whole 
being  to  his  Master.  No  one  was  more  receptive  of  lofty 
impressions,  and  with  this  moral  sensibility,  there  was  a 
ready,  quick,  happy  insight,  which  divined  the  significance 
of  Christ's  words  with  swift  intelligence.  Yet,  with  this 
delicacy  of  forecast,  and  true  conception  of  the  inner  and 
the  expressed  thoughts  of  Jesus  ;  with  his  quick  eye  for  the 
signs  of  the  times,  and  his  zeal  to  act  on  their  indications, 
he  was  deficient  in  sharp  logical  power  of  thought  and  in 
tenacious  strength  of  will.  In  this  combination  of  strength 
and  weakness,  he  was  the  most  perfect  type  of  the  Galilgean 
in  the  Apostolate,  and  became  a  special  friend  of  Christ,  who 
found  in  him  the  most  enthusiastic  of  His  followers ;  the 
reflection,  in  some  respects,  of  His  own  nature,  and  a  heart 

1  John  xxi.  7. 


48  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

than  which,  none  beat  truer,  though  in  the  most  decisive 
moments  he  proved  no  firm  support,  but  a  bending  reed,  weak 
from  momentary  trust  in  himself  rather  than  on  his  Lord.1 

James  and  John,  the  sons  of  Zebedee,  were  men  of  a 
different  mould.  They  supplied  what  was  wanting  in  Peter. 
Ready  to  accept  the  new  ideas,  and  reproducing  them  for 
themselves,  with  mingled  enthusiasm  and  freshness  of  con- 
ception, they  had  the  same  intense  devotion  to  their  Master 
as  Peter,  with  something,  at  times,  of  the  same  artless  and 
unconscious  self-prominence.  Their  energy  of  will,  and 
quick  naming  up  at  any  opposition,  were  marked  features 
of  both,  and  obtained  for  them,  from  Jesus,  the  name  of 
"  the  Sons  of  Thunder."  In  their  zeal  for  His  honour  they 
would  have  called  down  judgment  from  heaven  against  an 
inhospitable  village,  and  wished  to  silence  an  unknown 
worker,  who  spoke  in  His  name,  though  he  did  not  belong 
to  the  Twelve.  In  James,  the  Apostles  had  their  first  martyr, 
but  John  lived  to  be  the  last  survivor  of  them  all.  Hot  zeal, 
based  on  intense  devotion,  was,  however,  only  a  passing 
characteristic,  at  least  of  John.  He,  of  all  the  Twelve, 
drank  deepest  into  his  Master's  Spirit,  and  realized  it  most. 
Self-contained,  meditative,  tender,  he  thought  less  of  Christ's 
acts,  than  of  the  words  which  were  the  revelations  of  His 
inner  Being.  His  whole  spiritual  nature  gave  itself  up  to 
loving  contemplation  of  the  wondrous  life  passing  before 
him.  We  owe  to  him,  in  his  Gospel,  an  image  of  the  higher 
nature  of  our  Lord,  such  as  only  one  to  whom  He  was  all  in 
all  could  have  painted.  If  perfect  love  beget  love  in  return, 
it  was  inevitable  that  John  should  win  the  supreme  place  in 
Christ's  affection.  If  the  disciple  leaned  on  the  Master's 
bosom,  it  was  because  he  had  shown  the  love  that  at  last 
brought  him,  alone,  of  the  Twelve,  to  the  foot  of  the  Cross.2 

Of  Andrew,  the  brother  of  Peter,  we  know  very  little. 
We  have  to  trust  wholly  to  tradition  for  his  history,  after 
Christ's  death.  He  is  said,  by  one  legend,  to  have  gone 
among  the  Scythians,  and,  on  this  ground,  the  Russians  have 
made  him  their  national  saint.  Another  assigns  Greece,  and 
afterwards  Asia  Minor  and  Thrace,  as  the  scene  of  his  work, 
and  speaks  of  him  as  put  to  death  in  Achaia,  on  a  cross  of 
the  form  since  known  by  his  name.  The  incidental  notices 

1  Keim,  vol.  ii.  p.  315.  Reynolds'  John  the  Baptist,  p.  31.  Schenlsel, 
p.  76. 

a  Reynolds,  p.  31.  Scheiikel,  p.  95.  Eenan,  L' Antcchrist,  p.  318. 
Nork,  p.  117.  Hase,  p.  142.  Ewald,  vol.  v.  p.  239. 


SIMON   THE   ZEALOT.  47 

of  the  others,  in  the  Gospels,  are  very  slight,  and  need  not 
be  anticipated.  Philip  is  said,  in  the  ecclesiastical  legends, 
to  have  been  a  chariot  driver ;  Bartholomew,  a  shepherd  or 
gardener.  Bnt  no  name  is  more  striking  in  the  list  than 
that  of  Simon  the  Zealot,1  for  to  none  of  the  Twelve  conld 
the  contrast  be  so  vivid  between  their  former  and  their  new 
position.  What  revolution  of  thought  and  heart  could  be 
greater  than  that  which  had  thus  changed  into  a  follower  of 
Jesus,  one  of  the  fierce  war  party  of  the  day,  who  looked 
on  the  presence  of  Rome  in  the  Holy  Land  as  treason 
against  the  Majesty  of  Jehovah — a  party  who  were  fanatical 
in  their  Jewish  strictness  and  exclusiveness  ?  Like  many 
others  of  the  Twelve,  he  is  little  more  than  a  name.  Indeed, 
even  in  the  second  century,  the  vaguest  traditions  were  all 
that  survived  of  any  but  two  or  three  of  them.  They  were 
men  of  no  high  commanding  powers,  to  make  their  names 
rise  on  all  men's  tongues,  but  they,  doubtless,  in  every  case 
but  that  of  the  betrayer,  did  their  work  faithfully,  and 
effected  results  of  permanent  value  in  the  spread  of  the 
Kingdom.  Still  more,  they  displayed  before  the  world,  for 
the  first  time,  the  then  amazing  spectacle  and  teaching  of  a 
Christian  life.  That  we  know  so  little  of  men  who  were  such 
signal  benefactors  of  the  race,  is  only  what  we  have  to  ponder 
in  the  cases  of  those  to  whom  the  world  has  owed  most.1 
It  is  the  law,  in  the  moral  as  in  the  physical  world,  that  one 
sows  and  another  reaps,  and  the  seed  which  bears  the  golden 
ears  has  long  died  away  unremembered,  before  the  gathering 
of  the  autumn  sheaves. 

It  is  touching  to  think  of  Jesus  surrounded  by  the  little 
band  He  had  thus  chosen — simple,  true-hearted  men,  indeed, 
but  needing  so  much  to  fit  them  for  their  amazing  honour 
and  momentous  duties.  No  wonder  they  were  timid  and 
reverent  before  Him  ;  2  no  wonder  that  He  was  so  sorely  tried 
with  their  dull  apprehension  and  weak  human  shortcomings, 
as  to  speak  sternly  or  sadly  to  them  at  times  ;  once  indeed, 
with  the  words,  "  0  unbelieving  generation,  how  long  shall 
I  be  with  you,  how  long  shall  I  suffer  you  ?  " g  He  calls 
them  "of  little  understanding,"  "hardened,"  "fearful," 
"worldly,"  and  "of  little  faith."3  But  amidst  all,  they 

1  Newman's  Parochial  Sermons,  vol.  ii.  p.  5. 

2  Matt.  xvi.  7,     John  xiii.  22 ;  vi.  18. 

3  Mark  iv.  13,  40 ;  vi.  52  ;  viii.  17,  18,  21,  33  ;  ix.  6,  19,  32,  34;  x.  24, 
62,  35  ;  xiv.  40. 


48  THE   LIFE    OF   CHRIST. 

u  continued  with  Him  in  His  trials  " l  till  the  end,  and  He 
forgot  their  failings  in  the  tender  thought,  that  if  their 
flesh  was  weak,  their  spirit  was  willing.  They  were  His 
"  brethren,"  -  His  "  servants,"  His  "  fellow- workers,"  His 
"little  children,"  His  "little  ones,"  and,  even,  as  the  end 
approached,  "  His  friends."  He  might,  at  times,  have  to 
reprove  them,  but  His  bearing  towards  them,  day  by  day, 
was  a  loving  condescension  to  their  weakness,  and  a  patient 
effort  to  draw  them  to  Himself,  as  far  as  possible.  There  is 
no  trace  of  such  formal  instruction  as  the  Rabbis  gave  their 
followers;  they  had  rather  to  listen  to  His  words  to  the 
people,  and  ask  Him  in  private  for  explanation,  where  needed.3 
He  rather  trained  and  developed  their  spiritual  character, 
than  indoctrinated  them  in  systematic  theology.4  Above  all, 
He  lived  before  them,  and  was  Himself  their  great  lesson. 
Nor  can  there  be  a  more  striking  illustration  of  the  com- 
pleteness with  which  they  forgot  their  own  being  in  the 
presence  of  their  Master,  than  the  silence  of  the  writers  of 
the  Gospels  respecting  themselves  in  their  records  of  Jesus. 
He,  alone,  filled  their  eye,  their  thoughts,  their  hearts. 
They  had  been  like  children  before  Him,  while  He  was  with 
them,  and  in  the  hallowed  reverence  of  their  remembered 
intercourse,  His  image  filled  the  whole  retrospect,  to  the 
utter  subordination  of  all  things  else.  The  months  they  had 
bpciit  in  His  company  under  the  palm-trees,  or  on  the  hills, 
or  by  the  sea ;  when  they  breathed  the  same  air  with  Him, 
heard  His  voice,  saw  His  life,  and  wondered  at  His  mighty 
acts — raised  them,  in  their  own  belief,  above  the  prophets 
and  the  kings,  who  had  longed  for  such  a  vision  of  the 
Messiah,  but  had  not  had  it  vouchsafed  them.5 

Of  the  preaching  of  Jesus,  the  Gospels  preserve  numerous 
fragments,  but  no  lengthened  abstract  of  any  single  discourse, 
except  that  of  the  "  Sermon  on  the  Mount."  It  seems  to 
have  been  delivered  immediately  after  the  choice  of  the 
Twelve,  to  the  disciples  at  large  and  the  multitude  who 
thronged  to  hear  the  new  Rabbi.  Descending  from  the 
higher  point  to  which  He  had  called  up  His  Apostles,  He 
came  towards  the  crowd,  which  waited  for  Him  at  a  level 
place  below.6  There  were  numbers  from  every  part — from 

1  Luke  xxii.  28. 

*  Matt.  xxv.  40.    John  xviii.  36.     Matt.  x.  10.    John  xiii.  33.    Matt. 
iviii.  6.     John  xv.  14,  15. 

»  .Mark  vii.  17.  «  Mark  x.  35. 

*  Luke  x.  24.  •  Luke  vi.  17. 


SCENE   OF   THE    SEEMON   ON   THE   MOUNT.  49 

Judea  and  Jerusalem  in  the  south,  and  even  from  the  sea-coast 
of  Tyre  and  Sidon ;  some  to  hear  Him,  others  to  be  cured  of 
their  diseases,  and  many  to  be  delivered  from  unclean  spirits. 
The  commotion  and  excitement  were  great  at  His  appearance, 
for  it  had  been  found  that  to  touch  Him  was  to  be  cured,  and 
hence,  all  sought,  either  by  their  own  efforts  or  with  the  help 
of  friends,  to  get  near  enough  to  Him  to  do  so.  After  a  time, 
however,  the  tumult  was  stayed,  all  having  been  healed,  and 
He  proceeded,  before  they  broke  up,  to  care  for  their 
spiritual,  as  He  had  already  for  their  physical,  wants. 

Tradition  has  chosen  the  hill  known  as  the  "  Horns  of 
Hattin,"  1  two  horn-like  heights,  rising  sixty  feet  above  the 
plain  between  them — two  hours  west  of  Tiberias,  at  the 
mouth  of  the  gorge  which  opens,  past  Magdala,  into  the  wild 
cliffs  of  Arbela,  famous  in  the  history  of  the  Zealots  as  their 
hiding-place,  and  no  less  so  for  Herod's  battles  in  mid-air 
at  the  mouths  of  their  caves,  by  means  of  great  cages  filled 
with  soldiers  let  down  the  precipices.  It  is  greatly  in  favour 
of  this  site,  to  find  such  a  writer  as  Dean  Stanley  saying,  that 
the  situation  so  strikingly  coincides  with  the  intimations  of 
the  Grospel  narrative,  as  almost  to  force  the  inference,  that, 
in  this  instance,  the  eye  of  those  who  selected  the  spot  was 
rightly  guided.2  h  The  plain  on  which  the  hill  stands  is 
easily  accessible  from  the  lake,  and  it  is  only  a  few  minutes' 
walk  from  it  to  the  summit,  before  reaching  which,  a  broad 
"  level  place  "  has  to  be  crossed — exactly  suited  for  the 
gathering  of  a  multitude  together.  It  was  to  this,  apparently, 
that  Jesus  came  down,  from  one  of  the  higher  horns,  to 
address  the  people.  Seated  on  some  slightly  elevated  rock — 
for  the  teacher  always  sat  while  he  taught 3 — the  people  and 
the  disciples  sitting  at  His  feet,  on  the  grass  ;  the  cloudless 
Syrian  sky  over  them ;  the  blue  lake,  with  its  moving  life, 
on  the  one  hand,  and  in  the  far  north,  the  grand  form  of 
Hermon,  glittering  in  the  upper  air; — He  began  what  is  to 
us  the  Magna  Charta  4  of  our  faith,  and  to  the  hearers  must 
have  been  the  formal  inauguration  of  the  new  Kingdom  of 
God. 

The  choice  of  the  twelve  Apostles  and  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount  mark  a  turning  point  in  the  public  life  of  Jesus.  A 

1  Paulas  supposes  a  hill  near  Safed,  the  scene,  Die  drei  ersten  Evang, 
vol.  i.  p.  572. 

3  Sinai  and  Palestine,  p.  360. 

8  Maimonides ;  quoted  by  Nork,  p.  cxciii. 

4  Tholuck,  Beryprediyt,  in  loc. 


50  THE   LIFE    OF   CHEIST. 

crisis  in  the  development  of  His  work  had  arrived.  He  had, 
till  now,  taken  no  steps  towards  a  formal  and  open  separation 
from  Judaism,  bnt  had  contented  Himself  with  gathering 
converts,  whom  He  left  to  follow  the  new  life  He  taught, 
withoat  any  organization  as  a  distinct  communion.  The 
symptoms  of  an  approaching  rupture  with  the  priests  and 
Rabbis  had,  however,  forced  on  Him  more  decisive  action. 
He  had  met  the  murmurs  at  the  healing  of  the  paralytic,  by 
a  triumphant  vindication  of  the  language  which  had  given 
offence.  The  choice  of  a  publican  as  a  disciple,  immediately 
after,  had  been  a  further  expression  of  the  fundamental 
opposition  between  His  ideas  and  those  of  the  schools  and  the 
Temple,  and  His  justification  of  the  disuse  by  His  disciples 
of  the  outward  rites  and  forms  which  were  vital  in  the  eyes 
of  the  orthodoxy  of  the  day,  had  been  another  step  in  the 
same  divergent  path.  He  had  openly  sanctioned  the  omission 
of  fasts,  and  of  mechanical  rules  for  prayer,1  which  were 
sacred  with  the  Rabbis.  He  had  even  set  the  old  and  new 
order  of  things  in  contrast,  and  had  thus  assumed  independent 
authority  as  a  religious  teacher ;  the  sum  of  all  offence  in  a 
rigid  theocracy. 

The  choice  of  the  Twelve,  and  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount, 
were  the  final  and  distinct  proclamation  of  His  new  position. 
The  Apostles  musl;  have  seemed,  to  a  Jew,  the  twelve 
patriarchs  of  a  new  spiritual  Israel,  to  be  substituted  for  the 
old ;  the  heads  of  new  tribes,  to  be  gathered  by  their  teaching, 
as  the  future  people  of  God.  The  old  skins  had  been  proved 
unfit  for  the  new  wine ;  henceforth,  new  skins  must  be 
provided ;  new  forms  for  a  new  faith.  The  society  thus 
organized  needed  a  promulgation  of  the  laws  under  which  it 
was  to  live,  and  this  it  received  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount. 

The  audience  addressed  consisted  of  the  newly  chosen 
Twelve;  the  unknown  crowd  who  heard  Him  with  favour, 
and  were,  hence,  spoken  of  as  His  disciples ; l  and  the  promis- 
cuous multitude,  drawn  to  Him,  for  the  time,  by  various 
motives.  Jesus  had  no  outer  and  inner  circle,  for  public  and 
secret  doctrines,  like  the  Rabbis ;  for,  though  He  explained 
to  the  Twelve,  in  private,  any  points  in  His  discourses  they 
had  not  understood,  the  discourses  themselves  were  delivered 
to  all  who  came  to  hear  them.  This  Sermon,  which  is  the 
fullest  statement  we  have  of  the  nature  of  His  kingdom,  and 
of  the  condition  and  duties  of  its  citizenship,  was  spoken 

*  Grotitif,  on  Matt.  xii.  49. 


CHAEACTERISTICS   OF  THE   NEW  KINGDOM.  51 

ander  the   open  sky,  to    all  who   happened    to   form    His 
audience.  \ 

In  this  great  declaration  of  the  principles  and  laws  of  the 
Christian  republic — a  republic  in  the  relations  of  its  citizens 
to  each  other,  a  kingdom,  in  their  relations  to  Jesus — the 
omissions  are  no  less  striking  than  the  demands.  There  is  no 
reference  to  the  priests  or  Rabbis — till  then  the  undisputed 
authorities  in  religion — nor  is  the  rite  of  circumcision  even 
mentioned,  though,  as  a  mere  theocratic  form,  it  made  the 
Jew  a  member  of  the  Old  Covenant,  apart  from  moral  re- 
quirements. It  is  not  condemned,  but  it  is  ignored.  Till 
now,  a  vital  condition  of  entrance  into  the  kingdom  of  God, 
it  is  so  no  longer.  Nor  are  any  other  outward  forms  more  in 
favour.  The  New  Kingdom  is  to  be  founded  only  on  right- 
eousness and  love,  and  contrasts  with  the  old  by  its  spiritual 
freedom,  untrammelled  by  outward  rules.  It  opposes  to  the 
nationality  and  limitation  of  the  old  theocracy,  a  universal 
invitation,  with  no  restriction  except  that  of  character  and 
conduct.  Citizenship  is  offered  to  all  who  sincerely  believe 
in  Jesus  as  the  Messiah,  and  honestly  repent  before  God. 
Even  the  few  opening  sentences  mark  the  revolution  in  reli- 
gious conceptions  which  the  new  faith  involves.  Temporal 
evil,  which,  under  the  former  dispensation  had  been  the 
mark  of  Divine  displeasure,  became,  in  the  teaching  of  Christ, 
the  mark  of  fellowship  and  pledge  of  heavenly  reward.  The 
opinion  of  the  day  regarded  poverty,  hunger,  trouble,  and 
persecution  as  punishments  for  sin :  He  enumerates  them  as 
blessings.  Throughout  the  whole  Sermon,  no  political  or 
theocratic  ideas  find  place,  but  only  spiritual.  For  the  first 
time  in  the  history  of  religion,  a  communion  is  founded  with- 
out a  priesthood,  or  offerings,  or  a  Temple,  or  ceremonial 
services  ;  without  symbolical  worship  or  a  visible  sanctuary. 
There  is  an  utter  absence  of  everything  external  or  sensuous: 
the  grand  spiritual  truths  of  absolute  religious  freedom,  love, 
and  righteousness,  alone  are  heard.  Nor  is  the  kingdom, 
thus  set  up,  in  itself  visible  or  corporate,  in  any  ordinary 
sense ;  it  is  manifested  only  by  the  witness  of  the  Spirit  in 
the  heart,  and  by  the  power  going  forth  from  it  in  the  life.1 
In  the  fine  words  of  Herder,2  Christianity  was  founded  in 
direct  opposition  to  the  stupid  dependence  on  customs,  for- 
mulas, and  empty  usages.  It  humbled  the  Jewish,  and  even 

1  Schenkel,  Getne.inde,  Bibel  Lex.,  vol.  ii.  p.  376. 
*  Geist  des  Christenthums,  p.  95. 


52  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

the  Roman  national  pride :  the  moribund  Levitical  worship 
and  idolatry,  however  fanatically  defended,  were  wounded  to 
death. 

Nothing  can  be  more  certain  than  that  Jesus  had  never 
studied  under  the  Sopherim,  or  scribes.  His  contemporaries, 
the  Rabbis  of  Jerusalem,  leave  no  doubt  of  this,  for  they 
frankly  avowed  their  wonder  at  His  knowledge  of  their 
theology  and  power  of  Scriptural  exposition,  though  He  had 
never  learned  theological  science  in  their  schools.1  The 
same  minute  acquaintance  with  the  opinions  and  teachings 
of  the  day  is  seen  through  the  whole  of  the  Hill  Sermon. 
Apart  from  His  mysterious  divinity,  He  was  a  man  like  our- 
selves, "  growing  in  wisdom  "  with  His  years,  and,  therefore, 
indebted  in  a  measure,  at  least,  to  the  influences  and  means 
around  Him,  for  His  human  knowledge  and  opinions.  It 
speaks  volumes  for  His  early  training  by  His  mother  and 
Joseph,  that  He  should  have  known  the  Scriptures  as  He 
did,  for  it  is  in  childhood  that  the  memory  gets  the  bent 
wbich  marks  its  strength  in  manhood.  The  synagogue 
school,  and  constantly  recurring  services,  must,  however, 
have  been  the  great  seminary  of  the  wondrous  Boy.  Pas- 
sages of  the  Law  had  been  His  only  school-book,  and, 
no  doubt,  the  village  teacher,  steeped  in  reflected  Rabbinism, 
had  often  flattered  his  harmless  vanity  by  a  display,  before 
his  young  charge,  of  his  knowledge  of  the  traditions  and 
glosses,  which  won  so  much  honour  to  the  scribes.  The 
Sabbath  and  week-day  homilies  of  the  synagogue  had  made 
Him  a  constant  listener  to  local  or  travelling  Rabbis,  till,  in 
the  thirty  years  of  His  Nazareth  life,  His  mind  and  memory 
must  have  been  saturated  with  their  modes  of  thought  and 
the  opinions  of  all  the  different  schools.  Theology,  more- 
over, was  the  staple  of  village  conversation  in  Nazareth, 
as  elsewhere,  for  the  religion  of  a  Jew  was  also  his  politics, 
and  the  justification  of  his  haughty  national  pride.  Doubt- 
less, also,  in  Joseph's  cottage  there  was  a  manuscript  of  the 
Law ;  and  a  soul  filled  with  devotion  to  His  Heavenly  Father, 
like  that  of  Jesus,  would  find  some  of  the  Prophets,  either 
there  or  among  His  family  friends.  Rabbis  from  Jerusalem, 
or  resident  in  Galilee,  must  often  have  come  in  His  way 
during  the  thirty  private  years,  and  how  much  would  such  a 
mind  and  heart  learn  of  their  "  wisdom,"  even  in  casual 
intercourse  ?  His  clearness  of  intellect,  His  transparent 

1  John  vii.  15.     Matt.  xiii.  54. 


THE   DISCOUESES   OF   CHEIST.  53 

innocence  of  soul,  His  freedom  of  spirit,  and  transcendent 
loftiness  of  morals,  were  all  His  own,  but  they  must  have 
used,  for  their  high  ends,  the  facilities  around  Him.  The 
very  neighbourhood  of  a  heathen  population  may  have  had 
its  influence  in  breaking  down  the  hereditary  narrowness 
of  His  race,  and  who  can  tell  what  ardours  may  have  been 
kindled  by  the  wondrous  view  from  the  hill-top  of  Nazareth  ? 
Free  from  all  thought  of  Himself ;  filled  with  a  Divine  enthu- 
siasm for  His  Father  above,  and  for  humanity  ;  these  moun- 
tains, that  azure  sky,  the  sweeping  table-land  beyond  the 
Jordan,  the  wide  glory  of  heaven  and  earth,  veiling,  above,  the 
eternal  kingdoms,  and,  at  His  feet,  revealing  the  enchanting 
homes  of  wide  populations  differing  in  blood  and  in  faith, 
but  all  alike  His  brethren,  may  have  coloured  not  a  few  of 
the  sacred  utterances  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount. 

This  unique  example  of  our  Saviour's  teaching  displays  in 
one  view  nearly  all  the  characteristics  presented  by  the  more 
detached  illustrations  preserved  in  the  Gospels.  Never  sys- 
tematic, the  discourses  of  Jesus  were  rather  pointed  utter- 
ances of  special  truths  demanded  by  the  occasion.  In  perfect 
inner  harmony  with  each  other,  these  sententious  teachings 
at  times  appear  to  conflict,  for  they  are  often  designed  to 
present  opposite  sides  of  the  same  truth,  as  required  by  the 
distinct  point  to  be  met.1  The  external  and  sensuous  in  all 
His  teachings,  however,  was  always  made  the  vehicle  of  an 
inner  and  heavenly  lesson.  He  necessarily  followed  the  mode 
to  which  His  hearers  were  used,  and  taught  them  as  their  own 
Rabbis  were  wont,  that  He  might  engage  attention.  At 
times  He  puts  direct  questions  ;  at  others  He  is  rhetorical  or 
polemic,  or  speaks  in  proverbs,  or  in  more  lengthened  dis- 
course. He  often  uses  parables,  and  sometimes  even  symbol- 
ical actions ;  ~  is  always  spontaneous  and  ready  ; 3  and  even, 
at  times,  points  His  words  by  friendly  or  cutting  irony.4 
Bat  while  thus  in  many  ways  adopting  the  style  of  the 
Rabbis,  His  teaching  was  very  different  even  in  outward 
characteristics.  They  spoke  with  a  slavish  adherence  to  tra- 
ditional antecedents,  overlaying  every  address  with  citations, 
in  their  fear  of  saying  a  word  of  their  own ;  but  the  teaching 
of  Christ  was  the  free  expression  of  His  own  thoughts  and 

1  John  v.  31 ;  viii.  14.    Luke  ix.  50;  xi.  23.    Matt,  ix.  17  ;  xiii.  52. 

3  John  xiii.  4. 

8  Matt.  iv.  19 ;  viii.  22  ;  xii.  49.    Luke  viii.  21 ;  xi.  27. 

4  Luke  vii.  47.     Mark  vii.  9.     Luke  xiii.  33. 


54  THE   LIFE    OF   CHRIST. 

feelings,  and  this,  with  the  weight  of  the  teaching  itself,  gave 
Him  power  over  the  hearts  of  His  audience.1  With  a  minute 
and  exact  knowledge  of  the  theology  of  the  schools,  He 
shows,  by  repeated  use  of  Rabbinical  proofs  and  arguments, 
that  He  was  familiar,  also,  with  the  current  modes  of  contro- 
versy. His  fervour,  His  originality,  and  the  grandeur  of  the 
truths  He  proclaimed,  were  enough  in  themselves  to  com- 
mend His  words,  but  He  constantly  supports  them  by  the 
supreme  authority  of  the  Scriptures,  which  were  familiar  to 
Him  as  His  mother-speech.  Simple,  as  a  rule,  in  all  He 
says,  He  yet  often  opens  glimpses  into  the  infinite  heights, 
where  no  human  thought  can  follow  Him.  The  spirit  of 
His  preaching  is  as  transcendent  as  its  matter.  Tenderness 
and  yearning  love  prevail,  but  there  is  not  wanting,  when 
needed,  the  sternness  of  the  righteous  judge.  Throughout 
the  whole  of  His  ministry,  and  notably  in  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount,  He  bears  Himself  with  a  kingly  grandeur,  dispensing 
the  rewards  and  punishments  of  the  world  to  come ;  opening 
the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  to  those  only  who  fulfil  His  require- 
ments, and  resting  the  future  prospects  of  men  on  the  re- 
ception they  give  His  words,  Even  to  read  His  utterances 
forces  from  all  the  confession  of  those  who  heard  Him,  that 
"  Never  man  spake  like  this." 

1  Matt,  vii.  28.     Mark  i.  22.    John  vii.  46. 


CHAPTER  XXXVI. 
THE  SERMON  ON  THE  MOUNT  (CONTINUED). 

rpHE  opening  verses  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  mark 
-•-  the  contrast  between  the  New  Kingdom  of  God  and 
the  Old.  There  is  no  mention  of  forms,  for  the  whole  life 
of  Jesus  was  one  unbroken  service  of  God.1  The  Temple 
service,  and  the  burdensome  laws  of  sacrifices,  are  passed 
over,  for  the  Sermon  was  delivered  in  Galilee,  far  from  the 
splendour  of  the  one,  or  the  vexatious  minuteness  and  ma- 
terialism of  the  other.  The  great  question  of  clean  and 
unclean — which  divided  the  nation  within  itself,  made  life  a 
slavery  to  rules,  and  isolated  the  Jew  from  all  brotherhood 
with  humanity  at  large — is  left  to  sink  into  indifference  before 
the  grand  spiritual  truths  enunciated.  The  Law  came  with 
threats,  prohibitions,  and  commands  ;  the  "  Sermon  "  opens 
with  benedictions,  and  moves  in  an  atmosphere  of  promises 
and  enticements.2  Its  first  sentences  are  a  succession  of 
lofty  congratulations  of  those  whose  spirit  and  bearing  al- 
ready proclaim  them  fit  for  the  new  society. 

The  virtues  thus  praised  are  not  the  active  only,  but  the 
passive ;  not  those  only  of  doing,  but  of  bearing.  "  Blessed 
are  the  poor  in  spirit,  for  theirs  is  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  ; 
blessed  the  meek,  for  they  will  inherit  the  earth ;  blessed 
they  that  mourn,  for  they  will  be  comforted ;  blessed  they 
that  hunger  and  thirst  after  righteousness,  for  they  will  be 
satisfied  ;  blessed  the  merciful,  for  they  will  find  mercy ; 
blessed  the  peace-makers,  for  they  will  be  called  sons  of  God; 
blessed  they  that  have  been  persecuted  for  righteousness 
sake,  for  theirs  is  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven.  Blessed  are  ye, 
when  they  shall  reproach  and  persecute  you,  and  shall  say 
all  manner  of  evil  against  you  falsely,  for  My  sake.  Rejoice 
and  exult,  for  your  reward  is  great  in  heaven ;  for  so  did 
they  persecute  the  prophets  that  were  before  you."  3 

1  Bibel  Lex.,  vol.  ii.  pp.  525. 

3  Luther,  quoted  by  Meyer.     Matt,  in  Inc. 

8  Matt.  v.  3-12.     I  give  the  version  of  Tischendorf. 

42 


56  THE   LIFE    OF   CHEIST. 

The  mission  of  Christ  was  said  by  Himself,  in  a  quotation 
from  Isaiah,  to  be  to  preach  to  the  poor,  and  hence  it  is 
with  no  surprise  that  we  find  St.  Luke  substitute  simply 
"  the  poor  "  for  the  "  poor  in  spirit,"  for  both  are  right.  The 
first  disciples  were  won  almost  exclusively  from  among  the 
lowly.  "  The  contented  poor,"  Jesus  would  here  say,  "  who 
bear  their  burden  meekly,  since  it  comes  from  God — those,  that 
is,  who  are  '  poor  in  spirit,' — have,  in  their  very  meekness, 
the  sign  and  proof  that,  though  poor  in  outward  things,  they 
are  rich  in  higher,  for  they  will,  so  much  the  more  surely, 
be,  hereafter,  the  opposite  of  what  they  are  now.  They  are 
ike  poor  who  have  nothing  and  yet  have  all.  They  have 
none  of  this  world's  possessions,  and  have  not  yet  received 
the  blessing  in  the  world  to  come.  But  the  very  longing 
for  the  future,  and  hope  of  it,  are  virtually  a  present  pos- 
session. Their  devout  poverty  is  their  wealth,  for  it  secures 
treasures  hereafter. 1  The  '  Kingdom  of  Heaven '  is  theirs 
already."  This  principle  runs  through  all  the  beatitudes. 
As  Christ's  disciples,  the  future  will  be  the  contrast  to  the 
present ,  riches  for  poverty ;  joy  for  mourning ;  plenty  for 
hunger ;  a  heavenly  crown  for  earthly  suffering  for  the 
Master's  sake.  The  contrast  of  sin  and  pardon ;  the  lowly 
sense  of  needed  salvation,  which  already  has  in  itself  the 
assurance  that  salvation  is  granted,  are  implied  in  all  the 
states  of  heart  recounted.  Through  all,  there  is  the 
deepest  sense  of  the  sinfulness  and  troubles  of  the  present, 
and  springing  from  this,  the  loftiest  religious  aspirations, 
rising  far  above  the  earth,  to  eternal  realities.  They  thus 
disclose  the  inmost  and  central  principle  of  the  new  King- 
dom ;  the  willing  and  even  joyful  surrender  of  the  present, 
in  lowly  hope  of  the  future — and  that  from  no  lower  motive 
than  loving  obedience  and  fidelity  to  Christ.  Immediate 
self-interest  is  to  be  disregarded,  for  the  infinitely  higher 
prospects  of  the  future  world.  The  one  passion  of  the  heart 
is  to  be  for  greater  righteousness, — that  is,  for  an  ever  more 
complete  self -surrender  to  the  will  of  God,  and  active  ful- 
filment of  its  demands.  Towards  Himself,  Jesus  claims  the 
most  loyal  devotion,  even  to  the  endurance  of  "all  manner 
of  evil,"  for  His  sake.  To  seek  happiness  is  to  fail  to  obtain 
it,  but  self-surrender  to  God,  and  faith  in  Christ  as  the 
Messiah,  in  themselves  bring  it,  when  disinterested  and 
sincere. 

1  Baur's  Geschichte,  p.  27. 


THE   BENEDICTIONS.  57 

It  is  striking  to  note  the  anticipations  of  suffering  asso- 
ciated by  Jesus  with  true  discipleship.1  It  is  assumed 
as  the  inevitable  result.  He  holds  out  no  attractions  to 
insincerity  or  worldliness ;  but  at  the  very  outset,  fans  the 
chaif  from  the  wheat,  and  repels  all  but  the  earnest  and 
devoted. 

Four  benedictions  are  bestowed  on  the  passive  virtues, 
four  on  the  active.  To  bear  poverty  with  lowly  resignation 
to  God ;  to  mourn,  and  yet  trust  that  all  is  for  the  best ; 
to  reproduce  the  meekness  which  Jesus  Himself  displayed ; 
and  to  endure  trials  and  persecutions  loyally  for  His  sake, 
are  the  negative  graces  demanded  as  conditions  of  member- 
ship of  the  New  Kingdom.  But  active  virtues  are  no  less 
required :  the  hungering  and  thirsting  after  righteousness, 
which  finds  its  food  in  fresh,  joyful,  continuous  acts  of  good- 
ness ;  the  mercy  which  delights  to  bless  the  wretched ;  the 
purity  of  heart  which  strives  to  realize  in  the  soul  the 
image  of  God ;  and  the  gentleness  which  spreads  peace 
around  it.b 

The  key-note  of  all  the  utterances  of  Christ  reveals  itself 
in  these  few  sentences.  His  kingdom  is  at  once  present  and 
future:  present  by  the  undoubting  faith  in  His  assurances 
that  it  would  hereafter  assuredly  be  attained ;  future  in  the 
fact  that  the  realization  of  its  joys  was  reserved  for  the 
life  to  come.  Unlike  John,  He  proclaims  that  the  time  of 
expectation  is  over :  that  the  New  Kingdom  has  already 
come  as  a  living  power  in  the  soul,  diffusing  its  blessings, 
at  once  within  and  around  its  members.  It  is  established, 
in  its  rights  and  duties,  to  develop  and  advance,  henceforth, 
till  its  glory  cover  the  earth.  In  one  aspect,  it  is  incomplete 
till  its  full  realization  in  the  distant  future  ;  in  another  it  is 
already  perfect,  for  it  reigns  in  every  single  soul  which  has 
humbly  accepted  Jesus  as  its  King. 

After  this  introduction,  He  proceeds  to  enforce  on  His 
disciples  the  duties  of  their  new  relation  to  Him,  and  to 
cheer  them,  by  recalling  the  dignity  it  confers.  "  You  have 
indeed,  good  cause  to  rejoice,"  says  He,  "and  to  be  brave 
of  heart,  for  you  are  the  salt  of  the  earth ;  the  light  of  the 
world  ;  a  city  set  on  a  hill."  Mere  ostentation,  or  insincere 
parade  of  virtue,  were  abhorrent  to  Him,  and  formed  His 
great  charge  against  the  acted  religion  of  the  day.  But  the 
enthusiasm  of  true  goodness,  He  tells  them,  must  of  necessity 

1  See  Ullmann's  Siindlosigknt,  p.  112. 


58  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

be  seen  and  felt.  Life  is  shown  by  its  energy ;  where 
there  is  no  active  vital  power,  there  is  only  death.  He 
prescribes  no  lengthened  code  of  duties,  but  trusts  to  the 
ardour  and  devotion  of  loyalty  to  Himself,  as  a  perfect 
equivalent.  Drawn  to  Him  as  they  were  by  grateful  and 
lowly  affection,  "He  leaves  it  to  the  love  of  His  followers  to 
exceed  all  precise  directions,  and  outstrip  all  formal  require- 
ments, His  kingdom  is  as  strictly  under  law  as  any  other ; 
but,  for  the  endless  statutes  of  earthly  monarchies,  and 
the  equally  unnumbered  prescriptions  of  the  old  theocracy, 
He  substitutes  a  single  all-sufficing  law — the  law  of  love, 
which  makes  each  member  of  His  kingdom  a  law  to  himself. 
All  are  to  give  themselves  up  to  Him  as  unreservedly  as 
He  has  given  Himself  up  for  them. 

Intense  sincerity  is  thus  made  the  fundamental  demand, 
and  His  own  personal  example  their  standard  and  pattern. 
To  be  the  light  of  the  world,  they  must  needs  look  to  Him, 
for  He  had  especially  applied  that  name  to  Himself.  *  They 
had  the  immense  advantage  of  example,  so  much  more 
effective  than  precept.  The  New  Kingdom  was  only  the 
reflection  of  His  own  character,  and,  thus,  His  commands 
were  best  carried  out  by  imitating  His  life ;  for  He,  Himself, 
was  the  one  perfect  illustration  of  complete  fulfilment  of 
its  laws.  No  grudging  or  partial  devotion  would  suffice. 
They  must  heartily  conform  their  inmost  being  to  His 
image, 2  and  shed  round  them,  in  their  respective  spheres,  the 
spiritual  blessings  which  beamed  brightest  from  Himself. 
Thus  calmly,  and  as  His  natural  right  and  place,  He  consti- 
tutes Himself  the  grand  ideal  of  humanity,  and  men  feel 
that  there  is  no  rashness  or  incongruity  in  His  assumption 
of  the  stupendous  dignity. 

Failure,  however,  is  human,  and  hence  a  few  solemn  words 
of  warning  are  added.  "  Salt  keeps  and  makes  sound  what 
would  else  corrupt.  But  impure  salt  may  lose  its  saltness,  and 
once  lost  it  cannot  be  restored.  What  was  before  of  blessed 
use,  is  henceforth  worthless,  and  may  be  cast  out  upon  the 
road,  to  be  trodden  underfoot.  If  you,  the  salt  of  the  earth,* 
lose  your  spiritual  worth,  by  faint-heartedness,  or  sloth,  or 
dark  unfaithfulness,  your  needed  energy  and  efficiency  are 
irreparably  gone.  Who  will  take  your  place  ?  You  will  be 
no  longer  fit  for  the  work  I  have  assigned  you.  If  the  salt 
be  pure,  it  will  not  lose  its  power ;  it  is  the  earth  and  ini« 

1  John  viii.  12.  »  Ullmann,  p.  228. 


THE   LAW   IS   ETERNAL.  59 

purities  mixed  with  it,  that  make  it  worthless ;  and  so  you 
must  put  away  all  that  might  make  you  go  back,  if  you 
would  be  true  disciples.  Your  lasting  worth  depends  on  j  our 
devotion  to  Me  being  unqualified  and  absolute.1  You  are  to 
enlighten  men  as  the  sun  enlightens  the  world.  I  am  the 
Light  of  the  world  :  you  shine  by  My  light :  see  that,  in  turn, 
you  illumine  the  darkness  round  you.  A  light  is  to  shine, 
not  to  be  hidden.  Like  a  lamp  on  its  stand,  it  is  your  office 
to  shed  light,  and  drive  off  darkness.  The  beams  of  your 
good  works  must  shine  before  men,  that  they  may  honour 
God,  your  Father,  in  Heaven.  Like  a  city  set  on  a  hill,  you 
are  to  draw  on  you  all  eyes." 

Passing  from  general  principles  to  specific  details,  Jesus 
now  proceeded  to  show  the  relations  of  His  New  Kingdom  to 
the  old  theocracy.2  The  charge  of  hostility  to  the  Law  had 
been  brought  against  Him,  and  would  be  urged  against  His 
disciples.3  He  would  show  them  that  the  new  roots  itself 
in  the  old,  and  is  its  completion  and  glory,  not  its  destruc- 
tion. 

"  Think  not,"  said  He,  "  that  I  came  to  supersede  your 
ancient  Scriptures — the  Law  and  the  Prophets.  I  came  not 
to  destroy,  but  to  fulfil.  Worthless  forms,  worn  out  with 
age,  may  perish,  and  must ;  but  not  the  least  jot  or  tittle  of  the 
sacred  truths  they  for  a  time  have  clothed,  shall  pass,  while 
heaven  or  earth  endure.  The  forms  are  not  the  Law.  Bites 
and  ceremonies  are  only  helps,  for  simple  ages,  which  need 
material  symbols.  The  kingdom  of  God  has  now  outgrown 
them.  The  truth  must  henceforth  stand  alone,  appealing  to 
the  spirit  without  such  outward  aids.  Local  and  national, 
they  have  served  their  day,  but  the  New  Kingdom  of  God, 
which  is  for  all  times  and  races,  knows  only  a  worship  in 
spirit  and  in  truth.  So  far  am  I  from  slighting  or  destroy- 
ing the  truth  hidden  under  these  outward  forms,  that  he 
who  breaks  one  of  the  least  spiritual  demands  of  the  Law,  and 
teaches  men  to  copy  him  in  doing  so,  shall  be  called  least 
in  my  kingdom ;  while  he  who  obeys  and  teaches  them  as  a 
whole,  shall  be  called  great  in  it.  The  Law  is  for  ever  sacred. 
I  only  strip  it  of  its  outward  accidents,  to  reveal  the  better 
H<3  Divine  glory.  Spoken  by  God,  it  is  eternal.  I  come  to 
do  it  honour ;  to  confirm,  but  also  to  clear  it  from  human 
additions  and  corruptions." 

1  See  Luke  xiv.  33.     Matt.  v.  13-16. 
2  Matt.  v.  17-48.  3  Acts  vi.  11. 


60  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

Jesus,  in  thus  speaking,  had  a  very  different  conception  of 
the  Law  from  that  of  the  Rabbis.  To  Him  it  meant  the 
sacred  moral  commands  given  from  Sinai.  The  whole  ap- 
paratus of  ceremony  and  rite  at  first  connected  with  them, 
were  only  rude  external  accommodations  to  the  childhood  of 
religion,  to  aid  the  simple  and  gross  ideas  of  early  ages. 
Looking  beneath .  the  symbol  to  the  essential  truth,  it  was 
a  lofty,  religious,  moral,  and  social  legislation,  far  deeper, 
wiser,  holier,  and  more  complete  than  the  highest  human 
system.  He  knew  how  the  prophets  had  drawn  from  it  the 
pure  and  exalted  conceptions  they  had  enforced,  anticipating 
in  their  spirituality  His  own  teaching.  But  centuries  lay 
between  Him  and  the  prophets,  and  Judaism  had  sunk  to  a 
painful  idolatry  of  the  letter  and  outward  form  of  the  Law, 
to  the  neglect  of  its  spirit  and  substance.  The  Exile  had 
weakened  and  perverted  the  national  conscience,  and  a  burning 
zeal  for  rigid  external  observance  of  the  letter  had  followed 
the  just  belief  that  their  national  troubles  had  been  a  punish- 
ment for  previous  shortcomings. 

The  Pharisees,  who  gave  the  tone  to  the  people,  filled  up 
their  life  with  a  weary  round  of  offerings,  ceremonies,  and 
purifications ;  and,  not  content  with  the  prescriptions  of 
Moses,  had  added  a  tedious  system  of  meritorious  works — • 
fasts,  washings,  alms,  and  prayers.  The  Essenes,  and  still 
more,  John,  had  turned  back  from  this  barren,  mechanical 
piety,  to  the  purer  air  of  the  prophets,  and  had  taught  that 
righteousness,  love,  and  human  sympathy,  were  the  highest 
requirements  of  the  Law.  But  the  veil  was  still  on  their 
eyes  ;  their  reforms  were  partial.  The  Essenes  had  even 
more  washings  than  the  Pharisees ;  they  eschewed  marriage, 
property,  and  the  world,  and  the  Baptist  fasted,  and  imposed 
Pharisaic  rites.1  Jesus  pierced  to  the  heart  of  the  truth. 
Stripping  off  all  obsolete  wrappings  of  form  and  symbol,  and 
repudiating  all  human  additions,  He  proclaimed  the  Law  in 
its  Divine  ideal,  as  binding  for  ever,  in  its  least  part,d  on  all 
ages. 

His  supreme  loyalty  to  the  Law  could  not  fail,  in  a  spirit 
so  divinely  sincere,  to  involve  a  condemnation  of  its  corruption 
by  the  religious  teachers  of  the  day.  It  followed  presently  : 
"  Except  your  righteousness  exceed  that  of  the  scribes  and 
Pharisees,"  He  continued,  "  ye  will  not  enter  into  the 

1  Keim's  Christns,  p.  87.  Schleiermacher's  Predigten,  vol.  iv.  pp.  508, 
704.  Reynolds'  John  the  Baptist,  p.  499. 


PHAEISAIC   BIGHTEOUSNESS.  61 

kingdom  of  heaven.**  He  charges  them  not  only  with  break- 
ing the  commandments  themselves,  by  their  subtle  casuistry 
and  their  immoral  additions,  but  with  leading  men  at  large 
in  the  same  evil  path. 

The  fundamental  principle  of  the  Pharisaic  conception  of 
righteousness  which  Jesus  thus  strenuously  opposed,  was 
their  idea  that  strict  observance  of  the  traditions  and  com- 
mands of  their  schools  in  itself  satisfied  the  requirements 
of  God.  Fulfilment  of  what  was  written  in  the  Law  and  its 
Rabbinical  expositions,  was,  in  their  opinion,  only  a  question 
of  punctilious  outward  observance.  They  weakened  the 
conception  of  moral  evil  by  specious  sophistical  discrimin- 
ations.1 In  trifles,  the  most  exact  minuteness  was  required ; 
but  in  greater  matters  the  principles  of  morality  were  boldly 
undermined  or  surrendered.  The  tithing  of  mint,  dill  and 
cummin — mere  garden  herbs — was  vital,  but  grave  questions 
of  right  and  wrong  were  treated  with  indifference.  This 
moral  prudery  and  pedantry,  which  strained  the  wine  before 
drinking  it,  lest  a  fly  might  have  fallen  into  it  and  made  it 
unclean,  but  made  no  trouble  of  swallowing  a  camel,2  was 
the  hypocritical  righteousness  against  which  Jesus  directed 
His  bitterest  words.3  With  all  their  lip  veneration  for  the 
Law,  they  set  little  value  on  the  study  of  it,  but  much  on 
that  of  the  commentaries  of  the  Rabbis ;  now  embodied  in 
the  Mishna  and  Gemara.4  The  Rabbinical  tradition  go 
amplified  and  twisted  the  words  of  the  Law  as  to  make  it 
express,  in  many  cases,  the  opposite  of  its  natural  meaning.3 
Religion  had  become  almost  wholly  a  mechanical  service, 
without  reference  to  the  heart.  As  in  other  theocratic  com- 
munities, a  man  might  be  eminently  religious,  in  the  Phari- 
saic sense,  and  yet  utterly  depraved  and  immoral.  The 
teaching  of  the  prophets,*  which  demanded  internal  godliness, 
was  slighted,  and  the  study  of  their  writings  almost  entirely 
put  aside  for  that  of  the  legal  traditions  and  of  the  Law.' 
The  desire  to  define,  to  the  smallest  detail,  what  the  Law 
required,  had  led,  in  the  course  of  ages,  to  a  mass  of  con- 
flicting Rabbinical  opinions,  which  darkened  rather  than  ex- 
plained each  command.  The  "  hedge  "  round  the  Law  had 
proved  one  of  thorns,  for  Rabbis  and  people  alike.6  The 

1  Schenkel,  Bibel  Lex.,  vol.  ii.  p.  397. 

2  Matt,  xxiii.  24.  3  Matt,  xxiii.  13,  23. 
4  Quotation  from  Buba  Mezia,  in  Cohen,  p.  158. 

*  See  instances  in  Cohen,  p.  183. 

•  Pressel.  llabbinismus,  in  Herzog,  vol.  xii.  p.  473. 


62  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

question  was,  not  what  was  right  or  wrong,  but  what  the 
Law,  as  expounded  by  the  Rabbis,  demanded,  and  zeal  was 
stimulated  by  the  mercenary  expectation  of  an  equivalent 
reward,1  for  scrupulous  exactness  in  fulfilment. 

A  better  illustration  of  the  moral  worthlessness  of  the 
Pharisaic  ideas  of  righteousness  could  hardly,  perhaps,  be 
found,  than  in  the  fact  that,  with  all  their  ostentatious  rever- 
ence for  the  Scriptures,  he  who  touched  a  copy  of  them  was 
thereby  made  unclean.  "  According  to  you,"  said  the  Sad- 
ducees  of  their  rivals,  "  the  Scriptures  defile  the  hands,  while 
Homer  does  not."  The  skins  on  which  the  sacred  books  were 
written  might  have  been  those  of  an  unclean  beast,  or,  at 
least,  they  were  part  of  a  dead  body.  But  the  Pharisees  had 
their  retort  ready.  "  Why,"  asked  they,  "  are  the  bones  of 
an  ass  clean  and  those  of  the  high  priest,  John  Hyrcanus, 
unclean  ?  "  "  It  is  the  kind  of  bone  that  determines  the  un- 
cleanness,"  answered  the  Sadducees,  "  else  we  would  make 
spoons  of  the  bones  of  our  relatives  !  "  "  Just  so,"  retorted 
the  Pharisees,  "  it  is  the  value  we  attach  to  the  Scriptures 
which  has  made  us  decide  that  they  defile  the  hands,  while 
Homer  does  not."2  They  worshipped  the  letter,  but  miscon- 
ceived the  essence  of  Scripture  ;  treated  morality  as  a  trifle, 
and  trifles  as  the  only  religion.  Fired  in  their  early  days  by 
a  true  zeal  for  God,  they  had  now  degenerated,  as  a  body,  into 
mere  "  actors."  "  There  were  plenty  of  Pharisees,"  says 
even  Jost,  himself  a  Jew,  "  who  used  the  appearance  of  piety 
as  a  cloak  for  shameful  ends."  Nor  did  this  escape  the 
people,  especially  as  these  hypocrites  sought  to  attract  atten- 
tion by  exaggerated  displays — and  contemptuous  bynames 
were  presently  given  them.  The  name  of  Pharisee  came  to 
be  like  that  of  Jesuit  on  the  lips  of  friends  or  opponents. 
Even  Philo  does  not  mention  it,  and  it  soon  died  out  of  the 
mouth  of  the  people,  and  survived  only  as  a  term  of  the 
schools.3 

With  a  system  so  utterly  hollow,  and  yet  so  deeply  rooted 
in  popular  favour,  Jesus  could  hold  no  terms.  With  the 
better  side  of  Pharisaism  He  had  much  in  common,  but,  as 
it  showed  itself,  in  its  growing  corruption.  He  could  only 
condemn  it.  Zealots  for  words  and  forms  ;  lofty  in  abstract 
views  ;  the  mouthpiece  of  the  nation  at  large,  in  its  religious 

1  ScJtiirer,  p.  483. 

*  Der<'iibonr<j,  p.  133.     See  also  pp.  134, 135,  147,  148. 

*  Jost,  vol.  i.  p.  205. 


THE   MORALITY  OF   THE   NEW  KINGDOM.  63 

and  political  aspirations  ;  there  must,  nevertheless,  have  been 
little  real  soundness  in  a  body,  of  which  a  spirit  so  gentle  as 
that  of  Christ  could  speak  as  whited  sepulchres  and  a  genera- 
tion of  vipers. 

To  illustrate  His  meaning,  Jesus  proceeds  to  give  examples 
of  Pharisaic  abuse  of  the  Law,  holding  up  what  is  implied  in 
its  due  observance,  that  he  may  show  how  it  was  broken  by 
its  professed  zealous  defenders.  The  sublime  morality  of  the 
New  Kingdom,  with  its  lofty  spiritualization  of  the  Law,  is, 
He  implies,  the  true  conservatism — it  is  His  opponents  who 
are  undermining  it. 

The  Mosaic  prohibition  of  murder  had  been  limited  by  the 
Rabbis  to  literal  homicide,  and  they  had  added  to  the  brief 
words  of  the  Law,  that  the  criminal  was  in  danger  of  the 
judgment  of  God  in  some  cases,  and  of  the  Sanhedrim  in 
others.  But  this  did  not  satisfy  the  high  spirituality  of  the 
New  Kingdom.  It  included  in  the  brief  utterance  of  God, 
through  Moses,  a  condemnation  even  of  angry  words  or 
thoughts.  "  I  say  unto  you,  that  every  one  who  is  angry 
with  his  brother  will  be  liable  to  the  judgment  of  God  ;  and 
whosoever  shall  express  contempt  for  his  brother,  will  be 
liable  to  the  Sanhedrim ; s  and  whosoever  shall  say,  Thou 
worthless  one,  will  be  liable  to  hell  fire.  I  go  beyond  the 
scribes,  for  I  declare,  as  the  fulfiller  of  the  Law,  that  un- 
righteous anger  is  worthy  of  the  full  punishment  they  attach 
to  its  overt  result  in  homicide ;  nay,  more,  I  declare  the  ex- 
pression of  such  anger  in  bitter  words  as  incurring  the  danger 
of  hell.  Not  to  love  one's  '  brother ' l  is,  with  me,  the  essence 
of  the  crime  condemned  by  the  Law :  the  lesser  expressions 
of  anger  I  denounce  as  worthy  of  Divine  punishment  in 
this  world ;  in  the  worst  cases,  as  worthy  of  punishment  in 
the  world  to  come."  Anger  with  a  brother  entails  the  anger 
and  judgment  of  God :  public  reproach  merits  a  public 
penalty,  but  he  who  would  consign  another  to  hell  is  himself 
in  danger  of  being  sent  thither.h  He  does  not  suppose  His 
disciples  could  possibly  commit  the  crime  of  murder,  or  even 
break  into  open  violence,  but  He  ranks  the  passions  which 
lead  to  them  in  others  as  equal  in  guilt.  He  charges  the 
murder,  not  against  the  hand  that  strikes,  but  the  heart  that 
hates.1 

This  was  startling  enough,  but  the  application  made  of  it 
must  have  sounded  no  less  so.  "  Only  the  pure  in  heart  can 

I  John  i:i.  15.     Matt.  v.  20-26. 


64  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

see  God,  and  hence  it  is  vain  for  yon  to  seek  His  presence  by 
an  offering,  if  yon  have  in  any  way  thns  offended.  If  you 
have,  and  in  the  solemn  moment  of  appearing  before  God 
remember  it — evil  though  men  think  it  to  break  off  or  inter- 
rupt a  sacrifice — leave  your  offering  before  the  altar ;  seek 
him  whom  yon  have  wronged,  and  be  reconciled  to  him,  and 
then,  come  and  offer  your  gift.k  You  have  wronged  God, 
not  man  only.  Beware  lest,  if  you  do  not  make  peace  with 
Him,  by  instant  atonement  to  your  brother,  He  act  to  you  as 
a  creditor  does  with  a  debtor  he  meets  in  the  street — whom  he 
delivers  up  to  the  judge,  and  whom  the  judge  hands  over  'to 
the  officer  to  cast  into  prison.  I  tell  yon,  if  God  thus  let 
His  anger  kindle  upon  yon,  you  will  not  come  out  till  you 
have  paid  the  last  farthing  I"1 

The  Pharisaic  doctrine  of  marriage  offences  and  divorce 
was  next  unsparingly  condemned,  as  an  inadequate  expres- 
sion of  the  spirit  of  the  Law.  It  restricted  adultery  to  the 
crime  itself,  and  it  sanctioned  divorce  at  the  mere  whim 
of  the  hnsband.  Donbtless  individual  Rabbis  represented 
healthier  views  than  others,  but  they  did  not  affect  the  pre- 
vailing tone.  As  with  homicide,  so,  in  adultery,  the  morality 
of  the  New  Kingdom  traced  the  crime  home  to  the  heart, 
and  condemned  the  unclean  glance  as  a  virtual  commissioTi 
of  the  crime  itself.  The  thoughts  were  nothing,  in  the  loose 
morality  of  the  day  ;  but  Jesus  arraigns  the  secret  lusts  of  the 
breast,  with  an  earnestness  unknown  to  the  Rabbis.  Un- 
conditional self -mortification  is  to  be  carried  out,  when  guilty 
thoughts  imperil  the  soul.  "  If  your  right  eye,"  says  He, 
"  or  your  right  hand,  your  sight  or  your  touch,  lead  you  into 
temptation,  it  is  better  for  you  to  pluck  out  the  one,  and  cut  off 
the  other,  rather  than  be  led  astray,  and  not  only  lose  a  share 
in  My  kingdom,  but  be  cast  into  hell  hereafter."1  Not  that 
He  meant  this  in  a  hard  and  literal  sense.  With  Him  the 
sin  is  in  the  heart ;  but  the  senses  are  its  instruments,  and 
no  guard  can  be  too  strict,  no  self-restraint  too  great,  if 
spiritual  purity  be  endangered. 

The  Pharisaic  laws  of  divorce  were  shamefully  loose.  "  If 
any  one,"  said  the  Rabbis,  "  see  a  woman  handsomer  than  his 
wife,  he  may  dismiss  his  wife  and  marry  that  woman,"  and 
they  had  the  audacity  to  justify  this  by  a  text  of  Scripture.™ 
Even  the  strict  Schammai  held  that  if  a  wife  went  out  with- 
out being  shrouded  in  the  veil  which  Eastern  women  stiU 

1  //or.  Heb.t  vol.  ii.  p.  117.     Buxtorf,  col.  2126.     Matt.  v.  27-30. 


THE   USE   OF   OATHS.  65 

wear,  she  might  be  divorced,  and  hence  many  Rabbis  when 
they  went  out  locked  up  their  wives !  While  some  held 
that  divorce  should  be  lawful  only  for  adultery,  others,  like 
Josephus,  claimed  the  right  to  send  away  their  wives  if  they 
were  not  pleased  with  their  behaviour.1  The  school  of  Hillel 
even  maintained  that,  if  a  wife  cooked  her  husband's  food 
badly,  by  over-salting  or  over-roasting  it,  he  might  put  her 
away,  and  he  might  further  do  so  if  she  were  stricken  by 
any  grievous  bodily  affliction ! 2  The  facility  of  divorce 
among  the  Jews,  had,  indeed,  become  so  great  a  scandal,  even 
to  their  heathen  neighbours,  that  the  Rabbis  were  fain  to  boast 
of  it  as  a  privilege  granted  to  Israel,  but  not  to  other  nations ! 

The  woman  divorced  was  at  once  free  to  marry  ;  her  letter 
of  dismissal,  signed  by  witnesses,  expressly  granting  her  the 
liberty  to  do  so. 

Rising  high  above  all  this  festering  hypocrisy,  the  law  of 
the  New  Kingdom  sounded  out,  clear  and  decisive.  "  It  has 
been  said  by  Moses,"3  continued  Jesus,  "Whosoever  shall 
put  away  his  wife,  let  him  give  her  a  bill  of  divorce.  But  I 
say  unto  you,  That  whosoever  shall  put  away  his  wife,  except 
for  fornication,  causes  her  to  be  the  occasion  of  adultery4 
if  she  marry  agaia,  for  she  is  still  a  wife ;  and  whosoever 
marries  her,  when  thus  put  away,  commits  adultery." 

The  use  of  oaths  was  no  less  prevalent  in  Christ's  day  than 
it  still  is  in  the  East,  and  the  Rabbis  had  sanctioned  the 
practice  by  laying  down  minute  rules  for  its  regulation. 
The  law  of  Moses  had  absolutely  forbidden  perjury,0  but  the 
casuistry  of  the  Rabbis  had  so  darkened  the  whole  subject 
of  oaths,  that  they  had,  in  effect,  become  utterly  worthless. 
They  were  formally  classed  under  different  heads,  in  Rab- 
binical jurisprudence,  and  subtle  refinements  opened  facilities 
for  any  one  to  break  them  who  wished.  Their  number  was 
endless  ;  men  swore  by  heaven,  by  the  earth,  by  the  sun,  by 
the  prophets,  by  the  Temple,  by  Jerusalem,  by  the  altar,  by 
the  wood  used  for  it,  by  the  sacrifices,  by  the  Temple  vessels, 
by  their  own  heads.6 

By  joining  a  second  text,  from  a  different  part,  to  that 
which  prohibited  perjury,  the  scribes  had,  in  effect,  opened  the 

1  Vita,  76. 

3  Hor.  Heb.  vol.  ii.  p.  120-123.     Keim,  vol.  ii.  p.  253. 
8  Deut.  xxiv.  1.    Matt.  v.  31,  32.         *  Tischendorf's  corrected  text. 
6  Lev.  xix.  12. 

8  Examples  in  Hor.  Heb.,  vol.  ii.  pp.  127, 128.  Keim,  vol.  ii.  p.  235 
Wetstetn,  pp.  305,  420. 


66  THE   LITE    OF   CHEIST. 

door  to  every  abuse.  To  the  prohibition  of  Moses,  "  Thou 
shalt  not  swear  falsely,"  l  they  had  added  the  charge,  "  but 
shalt  perform  unto  the  Lord  thine  oaths,"  3  and  from  this  it 
was  argued  that  no  oath  was  binding,  either  personally  or 
towards  others,  which  had  no  vow  of  sacrifice  as  a  part  of  it, 
or  if  the  vow  had  been  punctually  fulfilled.3  Any  oath,  any 
deception  towards  God  or  man,  and  even  perjury  itself,  was 
thus  sanctioned,  if  it  were  only  consecrated  and  purified  by 
an  offering.  The  garrulous,  exaggerating,  crafty  Jew  needed 
to  be  checked,  rather  than  helped  in  his  untruthfulness ;  but 
the  guardians  of  the  purity  of  the  Law  had  invented  endless 
oaths,  with  nice  discriminations,  and  verbal  shades  and 
catches,  which  did  not  expressly  name  God,  or  the  Temple, 
or  the  altar,  and  these  the  people  might  use,  without  scruple ; 
mock  oaths,  harmless  to  themselves  and  of  no  binding  foice ! 

Against  such  equivocation  and  consecrated  hypocrisy  Jesus 
lifted  His  voice.  "  I  say  unto  you,  swear  not  at  all ;  neither 
by  heaven,  for  it  is  God's  throne  ;  neither  by  the  earth,  for 
it  is  His  footstool ;  nor  by  Jerusalem,  for  it  is  the  city  of  the 
Great  King.  You  would  tremble  to  swear  by  God  ;  but  when 
you  swear  by  anything  connected  with  His  works  or  His 
worship,  you  swear,  in  reality,  by  Himself.  Nor  shall  you 
swear  by  your  head,  for  you  cannot  make  a  hair  of  it  white 
or  black  ;  and,  thus,  your  oaths  by  it  are  idle  words.  But 
let  your  speech  be  simply,  yes,  and  no,  for  what  exceeds  these 
is  from,  the  '  evil  one.'  As  My  disciples,  your  word  is  enough  : 
speak  as  ever  in  the  presence  of  God."  u 

The  theory  of  life  under  the  New  Kingdom,  as  we  have 
seen,  was  the  very  opposite  of  that  held  by  the  schools  of  the 
day.  Prosperity,  with  them,  was  an  unbroken  enjoyment 
of  life  to  extreme  old  age,  abundance  of  worldly  comforts, 
continuous  success  in  all  undertakings,  and  triumphaTit 
victory  over  all  enemies.  All  this  was  expected  as  the  just 
reward  of  a  strict  obedience  to  Rabbinical  prescriptions, 
which  constituted  the  "righteousness  of  the  Law."  Jesus 
held  forth  the  very  opposite  of  all  this  as  the  blessedness 
to  be  sought  in  the  New  Kingdom.  Poverty,  sorrow,  and 
persecution,  were  to  be  the  natural  lot  of  His  followers ;  but 
their  transcendent  reward  hereafter,  and  the  love  which  in- 
spired such  devotion,  transfigured  these  to  gain  and  honour, 
and  demanded  the  highest  joy. 

To  make  the  contrast  more  vivid  between  the  Old  King- 

1  Lev.  xix.  12.     '  Deut.  xxiii.  21.     •  Schott.,  p.  26.     Matt,  xxiii.  16  ff. 


THE   DOCTEINE   OF   RETALIATION.  67 

dom  and  the  New,  lie  had  added  "  woes  "  in  connection  with 
all  that  the  former  had  praised  as  specially  blessed.  The 
rich,  who  have  their  reward  in  their  earthly  possessions ; 
the  prosperous,  who  care  for  nothing  except  this  world, 
would  suffer  hunger  hereafter;  those  who  seek  only  for 
present  joy,  would  one  day  mourn  and  weep  ;  those  whom 
men  praise,  would  find  the  praise  only  deceiving  flattery. 
Patience,  humility,  gentleness,  resignation,  and  love,  the 
virtues  and  rewards  of  the  soul,  were  to  characterize  the 
New  Israel ;  the  piety  of  form,  and  rewards  in  this  world, 
were  discountenanced.  The  New  Kingdom  was  to  win  hearts 
by  spiritual  attractions,  till  now  little  valued. 

As  a  practical  application  of  the  ideal  thus  sketched, 
He  required  His  followers  to  repudiate  the  Old  Testament 
doctrine  of  retaliation,  with  the  wide  elaborations  of  the 
Rabbis,  and  to  adopt,  in  its  place,  the  principle  of  over- 
coming evil  with  good.  Antiquity,  both  Jewish  and  heathen, 
cherished  the  idea  of  revenge  for  injuries.  To  requite  like 
with  like  was  assumed  as  both  just  and  righteous.  Ev<*n 
Socrates  had  no  higher  idea  of  virtue  than  to  surpass  friends 
in  showing  kindness,  and  enemies  in  inflicting  hurt.1  Plato.2 
indeed,  held  that  revenge  was  wrong,  and  that  no  one  should 
do  eyil  on  any  ground ;  that  it  was  worse  to  do  wrong  than 
to  suffer  it,  and  that  the  virtuous  man  would  not  injure  any 
one,  because  to  do  so  injured  himself.  But  Plato  had  only 
in  his  mind,  in  these  noble  sentiments,  the  relations  of  Greek 
citizens  to  each  other,  to  the  exclusion  of  slaves  and  of  all 
the  world  but  his  own  race;  and  the  motive  for  his  mag- 
nanimity was  not  love  for  the  individual  man,  or  for  ideal 
humanity,  but  only  political  justice  and  right.  Roman 
stoicism  rose  higher,  but  its  injunctions  of  kindness  to  enemies 
were  rather  the  expression  of  self-approving  virtue  than  of 
loving  moral  conviction.  Among  the  Jews,  retaliation  had 
the  sanction  of  Moses.  Eye  for  eye,  tooth  for  tooth,  hand 
for  hand,  foot  for  foot,  burning  for  burning,  wound  for 
wound,  stripe  for  stripe,  are  required  by  him.30  The  stern 
Sadducee  party  clung  to  the  letter  of  the  Law,  but  the  milder 
Pharisees  had  invented  a  scale  of  money  payments  instead. 
As  in  our  own  Middle  Ages,  a  tariff  of  fines  was  constructed 
for  each  personal  injury;  for  tearing  the  hair,  for  a  cuff  on 

1  Xen.  Mem.,  ii.  6.  35. 

3  Critias,  4G9.     Gori/ias,  4Gi>.     De  Ilepub.,  i.  334. 
3  Exod.  xxi.  24. 


68  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

the  car.  a  blow  on  the  back,  spitting  on  the  person,  taking 
away  an  under  garment,  uncovering  a  woman's  head,  and 
the  like.1  The  value  of  a  hand,  or  foot,  or  an  eye,  was  com- 
puted by  the  depreciation  it  would  have  made  in  the  value 
of  a  slave.  A  fclow  on  the  ear  was  variously  set  at  the  fine 
of  a  shilling  or  a  pound :  a  blow  on  the  one  cheek  at  two 
hundred  zuzees ;  on  both  cheeks,  at  double.  To  tear  out 
hair,  to  spit  on  the  person,  to  take  away  one's  coat,  or  to 
uncover  a  woman's  head,  was  compensated  by  a  payment  of 
four  hundred  zuzees .p 

This  rude  and  often  mercenary  softening  of  the  harshness 
of  the  old  Law  fell  wholly  below  the  requirements  of  the 
New  Kingdom.  Its  members  must  suffer  wrong  patiently, 
that  the  conscience  of  the  wrong-doer — become  its  own 
accuser — might  be  won  to  repentance  by  the  lesson  of  un- 
resisting meekness.  Christ's  own  Divine  charity  and  for- 
giveness were  to  be  repeated  by  His  followers.  Sin  was  to 
be  conquered  by  being  made  to  feel  the  power  of  goodness. 
The  present  was,  at  best,  only  a  discipline  for  the  future, 
and  the  patient  endurance  of  wrong,  with  Christ-like  love 
and  gentleness,  was  part  of  the  preparation  for  the  pure  joys 
of  the  Messianic  kingdom.  "  Ye  have  heard,"  said  He, 
"  that  it  was  said,  An  eye  for  an  eye,  and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth. 
But  I  say  unto  you,  that  ye  resist  not  the  evil  man ;  but 
whosoever  smites  thee  on  the  right  cheek,  turn  to  him  the 
other  also.q  And  to  him  who  desires  to  contend  with  thee 
and  take  thy  coat,  leave  him  thy  cloak  also.  And  whoso- 
ever shall  press  thee  one  mile,  go  with  him  two.  To  him 
that  asks  thee,  give,  and  from  him  that  desires  to  borrow  of 
thee,  turn  not  away." r  The  spirit  of  such  injunctions  is 
evident.  Hasty  retaliation  ;  readiness  to  stand  on  one's  rights 
in  all  cases ;  deliberate  revenge  rather  than  pity,  are  unworthy 
a  member  of  the  New  Kingdom.  It  is  for  him  to  teach  by 
bearing,  yielding,  and  giving,  and  not  by  words  only.  The 
virtues  he  commends  he  is  to  illustrate.  But  it  is  far  from 
the  teaching  of  Christ  that  law  is  to  cease,  or  that  the  evil- 
doer is  to  have  everything  at  his  mercy.  Only,  as  far  as 
possible,  the  principle  of  His  kingdom  is  to  be  the  purest, 
deepest,  self-sacrificing  love. 

1  Robertson's  Works,  vol.  iii.  p.  239  (State  of  Europe  in  Middle  Ages). 
Bastian,  Itechtsverhaltnisse,  etc.,  p.  210.  Hor.  Heb.,  vol.  ii.  p.  13U 
Scpp,  vol.  iv.  p.  224. 


CHAPTER  XXXVII. 
"  THE  SERMON  ON  THE  MOUNT  (CONCLUDED). 

TESUS  had  led  His  audience  step  by  step  to  higher  and 
*J  higher  conceptions,  and  now,  by  an  easy  transition, 
raised  them  to  the  highest  of  all.1 

The  character  of  any  religion  depends  on  its  idea  of  God. 
The  Jews  had  no  loftier  thought  of  Him  than  as  a  national 
deity,  the  Father  of  Israel  and  of  its  proselytes,  but  not  the 
God  of  the  world  at  large.  They  looked  on  Him  also  as  a 
jealous  God,  and  the  Pharisee  urged  himself  to  a  painful  zeal 
in  his  fulfilment  of  the  Law,  by  the  thought  that  the  sins  of 
the  father  were  visited  on  the  third  and  fourth  generation. 
If  he  agonized  to  carry  out  a  thousand  minute  prescriptions, 
if  the  Essene  secluded  himself  in  hurtful  loneliness,  if  the 
Sadducee  toiled  to  discharge  all  that  was  required  in  the 
service  of  the  Temple,  and  in  the  presentation  of  offerings,  if 
the  people  mourned  in  the  apprehension  that  God  had  for- 
saken them,  it  was  because  all  alike  looked  up  to  a  Being  who, 
as  they  believed,  required  what  they  could  scarcely  render. 
They  should  have  drawn  other  conceptions  from  their  ancient 
Scriptures,  but  they  did  not.  They  had  always  learned  much 
that  was  true  and  sublime  from  the  Law  and  the  Prophets 
— the  Majesty  of  God  and  the  dependence  of  the  creature — 
the  dignity  of  man  as  the  Divine  image,  and  the  kingly 
relation  of  Jehovah  to  Israel,  His  son,  His  first-born,  His 
bride,  His  spouse.  They  had  never  lost  the  conviction  that 
their  nation  could  not  perish,  because  the  honour  of  God 
was  pledged  to  defend  it,  and  they  even  looked  forward,  with 
a  frenzied  earnestness,  to  a  future  when  He  would  send  His 
Messiah,  and  raise  them  above  all  the  nations.  As  Jews, 
many  doubtless  drew  comfort  from  the  Divine  words,  that, 
like  as  a  father  pitieth  his  children,  so  the  Lord  pitieth  them 
that  fear  Him.  But  their  theology  had  sunk  to  a  mere  mer* 

1  Chrysostom;  quoted  in  Meyer,  Matthaus,  p.  157. 


70  THE   LIFE    OF   CHRIST. 

renary  relation  of  performance  and  reward.  The  idea  of  a 
strict  return  of  good  for  good,  or  evil  for  evil,  extended  to 
the  next  world  as  well  as  this,  and,  at  the  best,  God  was 
only  the  Father  of  Israel,  not  of  mankind.  Still,  above  all, 
the  Master,  looking  for  service  from  man  as  the  servant — 
the  fond  thought  of  His  fatherhood,  even  in  its  limited 
national  sense,  grew  more  and  more  common  as  Christ's  day 
drew  near.  The  Jew  was  being  educated  for  the  Divine 
announcement  of  the  whole  truth. 

The  heathen  world,  also,  had  long  been  unconsciously  pre- 
paring for  its  proclamation.  Greek  philosophy  had  spoken 
of  the  Father  of  gods  and  men.  Man  was  the  Divine  image 
and  of  Divine  origin — the  friend,  the  fellow-citizen,  the  emana- 
tion, the  son,  of  God.1  A  generation  later,  in  an  insincere  age, 
when  fine  words  were  used  as  mere  rhetorical  flourishes, 
springing  from  no  conviction  or  earnestness,  Seneca 2  was 
able  to  speak  almost  like  a  Christian.  "  The  gods,"  said  he, 
"  are  full  of  pity  and  friendliness — do  everything  for  our 
good,  and  for  our  benefit  have  created  all  kinds  of  blessings 
with  exhaustless  bounty,  and  prepared  everything  for  us 
beforehand.  What  they  have  they  make  over  to  us :  that  is 
how  they  use  things  ;  and  they  are  unwearied,  day  and  night, 
dispensing  their  benefits  as  the  protectors  of  the  human  race. 
We  are  loved  by  them  as  children  of  their  bosom,  and,  like 
loving  parents,  they  smile  at  the  faults  of  their  children,  and 
cease  not  to  bestow  kindness  on  kindness  to  us ;  give  us 
before  we  ask,  and  continue  to  do  so,  although  we  do  not 
thank  them,  and  even  though  we  cry  out  defiantly,  '  I  shall 
take  nothing  from  them ;  let  them  keep  what  they  have  for 
themselves  ! '  The  sun  rises  over  the  unjust,  and  the  seas 
spread  out  even  for  sea  robbers.  The  gods  are  easily  appeased, 
never  unforgiving;  how  unfortunate  were  we  if  they  were 
not  so !  "  3  Thus  also  "  The  way  of  man,  in  which  the  god- 
like walks,  goes  upwards  to  the  gods,  who  reach  out  the 
hand  to  us  without  pride  or  jealousy,  to  help  us  to  rise.  We 
need  no  temple,  nor  even  to  lift  up  our  hands  to  heaven : 
God  is  near  thee ;  the  Holy  Spirit,  the  Watcher  over  good 
or  evil,  who  ever,  ttnweariedly,  leads  us  to  God."4  Words 
like  these  sound  Christian,  though  we  know  that  they  were 
only  artificial  rhetoric,  composed  to  turn  aside  the  charge  of 

1  Authorities  in  Keim,  vol.  ii.  p.  58.  *  Kenan,  L'Antechrist,  p.  125. 
'  Seneca  d.  Ir.,  ii.  27  ;  d.  Benef.,  vi.  23  ;  ii.  29  ;  iv.  5.  Epis.,  Ixxiii.  95. 
4  Senec.  lifis.,  Ixiii. 


THE   BEOTHEEHOOD   OF   MANKIND.  71 

worshipping  stocks  and  stones.  Faith  in  the  divinity  often 
gives  way,  in  Seneca,  to  haughty  pride  in  humanity,  and 
that  pride,  in  turn,  sinks  before  the  dark  future.  The  fancy 
played  over  the  dark  abyss  with  empty  words  of  comfort, 
respecting  the  father-like  gods  and  god-like  man,  but  even 
prosperity  could  hardly  amuse  itself  with  them,  and  the 
hour  of  trial  repeated  them  with  hollow  laughter  and  self- 
murder.1  Yet  they  were  there  to  use  for  the  highest  good, 
had  men  chosen.  The  religious  education  of  the  world  had 
gradually,  through  long  ages,  become  ready  for  the  teachings 
of  Jesus.* 

When  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  was  delivered  every  sign 
of  the  wrath  of  God  with  the  nation  lay  on  it  like  a  burden, 
and  perplexed  the  masters  in  Israel.  Yet  it  was  then  that 
Jesus  revealed  God  as  the  Father  of  men,  who  had  loved 
them  from  the  beginning  of  the  world ;  appealing  for 
proof  even  to  the  lilies  of  the  field  and  the  birds  of  the 
air.3  For  the  first  time,  men  heard  that  their  whole  race 
were  sons  of  the  great  heavenly  Father;  that  the  world 
lay  in  the  sunshine  of  His  eternal  love,  and  that  all  alike 
were  invited  to  seek  His  face.b  It  was  the  first  proclamation 
of  a  universal  religion,  and,  as  such,  an  event  unique  in  the 
history  of  mankind.  In  the  early  ages  of  the  world,  war 
was  perpetual.  Even  after  men  had  long  adopted  city  life 
and  its  civilization,  a  stranger  and  an  enemy  were  synony- 
mous. Thus,  in  the  first  ages  of  Rome,  a  stranger  who 
had  not  put  himself  formally  under  the  protection  of  some 
Roman,  had  no  rights  and  no  protection.  What  the  Roman 
citizen  took  from  him  was  as  lawful  gain  as  the  shell  which 
no  one  owned,  picked  up  on  the  sea-shore.3  He  was  like 
a  wild  beast,  to  be  hunted  and  preyed  on  at  any  one's  will.4 
To  use  Mommsen's  figure,  a  tribe  or  people  must  be  either 
the  anvil  or  the  hammer.  Ulysses  was  only  the  type  of 
the  world  at  large  in  his  day,  when,  in  the  early  part  of  his 
wanderings,  he  landed  in  Thrace,  and  having  found  a  city, 
instantly  sacked  it  and  killed  all  the  inhabitants.  Where 
there  was  no  express  treaty,  plunder  and  murder  were 
always  to  be  dreaded.  The  only  safety  of  individuals  or 
communities  was  their  own  capacity  of  self-defence.  As 
tribe?  and  clans  expanded  to  nations,  the  blood  connection 
secured  peace,  more  or  less,  in  the  area  they  occupied,  and, 

1  Keim,  vol.  ii.  p.  59.  »  Matt.  vi.  28. 

3  Mommsen's  Bom.  Gesch.,  vol.  i.  p.  158.        *  Ibid.,  p.  1G1. 

43 


72  THE   LIFE    OF   CHRIST. 

ultimately,  the  interests  of  commerce,  or  the  impulse  of  self- 
preservation,  joined  even  states  of  different  nationalities 
in  peaceful  alliances.  Isolated  nations,  like  the  Jews,  still 
kept  tip  the  intense  aversion  to  all  but  their  own  race,  but 
the  progress  of  the  world  made  this  more  and  more  excep- 
tional. 

Before  the  age  of  Christ,  the  conquests  of  Rome  had  broken 
down  the  dividing  walls  of  nationality  over  the  civilized 
earth,  and  had  united  all  lands  under  a  common  government, 
which  secured  a  widespread  peace,  hitherto  unknown.  Men 
of  races  living  far  apart  found  themselves  free  to  compete 
for  the  highest  honours  of  public  lite  or  of  letters,  and  Rome 
accepted  men  of  genius,  and  even  emperors,  from  the  obscure 
populations  of  the  provinces.0 

But  though  conquest  had  forced  the  nations  into  an  out- 
ward unity,  there  was  no  real  fusion  or  brotherhood.  Man, 
as  man,  had  gained  nothing.  The  barbarian  and  the  slave 
were  no  less  despised  than  before,  and  had  secured  no  more 
rights.  The  Romans  had  been  forced,  for  their  own  sakes, 
to  raise  the  conquered  to  more  or  less  political  equality  with 
themselves,  but  they  did  so  from  no  sentiment  of  respect  to 
them  as  fellow-men,  and  still  bore  themselves  towards  them 
with  the  same  haughty  superiority  and  ill-concealed  aversion. 
It  was  the  peace  of  political  and  even  moral  death.  All 
mankind  had  become  the  slaves  of  the  despot  on  the  Tiber. 
Ancient  virtues  had  passed  away,  and  vice  and  corruption, 
unequalled  perhaps  in  any  age,  lay  like  a  deadly  miasma 
over  universal  society.  The  union  of  the  world  was  regretted, 
as  superseding  the  times  when  Rome  could  indulge  its  tastes 
in  war  and  plunder.  It  was  a  political  comprehension,  not 
a  moral  federation.  The  hostility  of  the  past  was  impos- 
sible, but  the  world  had  only  become  a  mob,  not  a  brother- 
hood, of  nations,1  and  had  sunk  in  morality  as  it  had 
advanced  in  outward  alliance. 

With  the  Jews,  the  old  hatred  of  all  races  but  their  own 
had  grown  with  the  calamities  of  the  nation.  It  seemed 
to  them  a  duty  to  hate  the  heathen  and  the  Samaritai., 
but  their  cynicism  extended,  besides,  to  all  in  whom  their 
jealousy  for  the  honour  of  the  Law  saw  cause  for  dislike. 
They  hated  the  publicans  ;  the  Rabbi  hated  the  priest,  the 
Pharisee  the  Sadducee,  and  both  loathed  and  hated  the 
common  people,  who  did  not  know  the  ten  thousand  injunc- 

1  See  a  fine  chapter  in  Ecce  Homo.  pp.  127-141, 


WHO   IS   OUR   NEIGHBOUR?  73 

tions  of  the  schools.  They  had  forgotten  what  the  Old 
Testament  taught  of  the  love  of  God  towards  men,  and  of 
the  love  due  by  man  to  his  fellow.  They  remembered  that 
they  had  been  commanded  to  show  no  favour  to  the  sunken 
nations  of  Caanan,  but  they  forgot  that  they  had  not  been 
told  to  hate  them.  The  Law  had  said  "  Thou  shalt  love  thy 
neighbour  as  thyself;  "  l  but  their  neighbour,  they  assumed, 
meant  only  a  Jew  or  a  proselyte,  and  they  had  added  that 
they  should  "hate  their  enemies."  "If  a  Jew  see  a  Gentile 
fall  into  the  sea,"  wrote  Maimonides,  still  cherishing  the  old 
feeling  centuries  later,  "  let  him  by  no  means  take  him  out ; 
for  it  is  written,  '  Thou  shalt  not  rise  up  against  the  blood 
of  thy  neighbour,'  but  this  is  not  thy  neighbour." 3  The 
spirit  of  revenge  which  prevailed,  embittered  even  private 
life  among  the  Jews  themselves.  Each  had  his  own  enemies, 
whom  he  felt  free  to  hate  and  to  injure,  and  all,  alike,  hated 
whole  classes  of  their  own  nation,  and  the  whole  heathen 
races. 

Jesus  was,  now,  by  a  simple  utterance,  to  create  a  new 
religious  era.  "  Te  have  heard,"  said  He,  "  that  it  was  said, 
Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbour  and  hate  thine  enemy.  But 
I  say  unto  you,  Love  your  enemies,  and  pray  for  them  who 
persecute  you ;  that  ye  may  become  sons  of  your  Father, 
who  is  in  heaven ;  for  He  makes  His  sun  to  rise  on  the 
evil  and  good,  and  sends  rain  on  the  righteous  and  un- 
righteous. For  if  ye  love  them  that  love  you,  what  reward 
have  ye  in  my  kingdom  ?  Do  not  even  the  hated  pub- 
1  icans  the  same  ?  And  if  ye  salute  your  brethren  only, 
what  do  ye  that  exceeds  ?  Do  not  even  the  heathen 
Gentiles  the  same  thing  ?  Be  ye,  therefore,  perfect,  as  your 
heavenly  Father  is  perfect." 

It  was  a  new  era  for  man.  Heathenism  had  fine  senti- 
ments, but  they  were  supported  by  no  high  morality,  and  no 
living  hopes.  The  Old  Testament  often  commended  kindness 
and  mercy,3  but  it  also  sanctioned  revenge  and  triumph 
over  the  fall  of  an  enemy,4  and,  even  in  the  most  attractive 
passages,  it  seemed  as  if  piety  were  expected  to  make  the 
anger  of  God  on  one's  adversaries  the  more  certain.5  But 


1  Lev.  xix.  18. 

2  Art.  Naclister,  in  Herzog,  vol.  x.  p.  185.     Hor.  Heb.,  vol.  ii.  p.  134. 

8  Exod.  xxiii.  4,  5.      Ps.  vii.  5.      Prov.  xxiv.  17.      Job  xxxi.  29,  30 
Prov.  xxv.  21. 
4  Ps.  vii.  6  ;  liv.  7.  •  P*.  vii.  6,  7. 


74  THE   LITE   OF   CHRIST. 

Jesus  throws  down  the  dividing  prejudices  of  nationality, 
and  teaches  universal  love  without  distinction  of  race,  merit, 
or  rank.  A  man's  neighbour,  henceforth,  was  every  one 
who  needed  help,  even  an  enemy.  All  men,  from  the  slave 
to  the  highest,  were  sons  of  one  Father  in  heaven,  and  should 
feel  and  act  towards  each  other  as  brethren.  No  humau 
standard  of  virtue  would  suffice ;  no  imitation  of  the  loftiest 
examples  among  men.  Moral  perfection  had  been  recognised, 
alike  by  heathen  and  Jews,  as  found  only  in  likeness  to  the 
Divine,  and  that  Jesus  proclaims  as,  henceforth,  the  one 
standard  for  all  humanity.  With  a  sublime  enthusiasm  and 
brotherly  love  for  the  race,  He  rises  above  His  age,  and  an- 
nounces a  common  Father  of  all  mankind,  and  one  great 
spiritual  ideal  in  resemblance  to  Him. 

With  this  grand  truth  of  Christianity  the  relation  of  man 
to  his  Maker  was  entirely  changed.  The  loyalty  of  a  child  to 
a  father  took  the  place  of  fear,  as  a  motive  to  His  service. 
A  new  spiritual  kingdom  of  filial  love  and  obedience  was 
called  into  being,  with  tender  yearnings  after  Him,  and  child- 
like devotion  .io  His  will — a  kingdom  in  which  the  humble, 
the  meek,  and  the  merciful  found  their  heaven,  and  in  which 
all  who  hungered  and  thirsted  after  righteousness  felt  that 
they  could  be  satisfied.  The  pure  in  heart  were,  as  such,  its 
citizens ;  the  souls  who  love  the  things  of  peace  were  called 
its  children,  and  those  who  bore  persecution  and  sorrow  for 
the  sake  of  righteousness  were  to  inherit  it.d 

To  be  "  perfect  as  the  great  Father  in  heaven  is  perfect," 
is  to  do  God's  will  on  earth  as  the  angels  do  it  above,  and, 
hence,  the  New  Kingdom  is  thus  spoken  of  elsewhere.  It 
was  to  be  wholly  spiritual,  in  contrast  to  the  political  dreams 
of  the  Pharisees.  They  had  transformed  the  predictions  of 
the  prophets  to  a  political  programme,  which  should  be 
realized  by  war  against  Rome,  and  zealous  agitation  against 
the  Sadducean  aristocracy.  They  thought  of  another  .Mar- 
cabaean  war,  to  be  followed  by  a  revelation  of  the  Messiah 
from  heaven.  The  kingdom  of  Jesus,  on  the  contrary,  was 
not  to  rise  like  a  state,  so  that  men  could  say  it  was  here, 
or  there,  because  it  was  already  in  their  midst.1  It  could 
not  be  otherwise.  He  had  proclaimed  that  God  was  the  groat 
Father,  and,  as  such,  the  loving,  fervent  desire  that  they  might 
be  His  children  thrust  aside  the  cold  thought  of  reward, 
which  had  hitherto  ruled.  He  proclaimed  that  God  loved 

1  Luke  xvii.  20,  21, 


ALMSGIVING.  75 

them,  not  in  return  for  their  services,  but  from  the  love  and 
tenderness  of  a  Father's  heart,  which  sent  forth  His  sun  over 
good  and  bad  alike,  and  rejoiced  more  at  a  sinner's  repentance 
than  over  the  weary  exactness  in  Rabbinical  rules  of  ninety 
and  nine  who  thought  themselves  righteous.  The  funda- 
mental principle  of  the  Judaism  of  the  day  was  undermined 
by  the  new  doctrine.  What  need  was  there  for  offerings,  for 
Temple  ritual,  for  washings  or  fastings,  or  scrupulous  tithings, 
when  the  great  Father  sought  only  the  heart  of  His  penitent 
child  ?  The  hope  of  the  Rabbis  that  they  could  hold  God  to 
the  fulfilment  of  what  they  thought  His  promises,  if  only 
the  Mosaic  ideal  of  the  theocracy,  in  their  sense,  was  restored, 
fell  to  the  ground.  The  isolation  of  the  Jews,  and  their 
glory  as  the  chosen  people  of  God,  were  things  of  the  past. 
One  part  of  the  theocracy  after  the  other  was  doomed  to 
fall  before  this  grand  proclamation,  for  its  foundations  were 
sapped.  The  Fatherhood  of  God,  which  to-day  falls  like  an 
empty  sound  on  the  ear  of  the  multitude,  was,  at  its  first 
utterance,  the  creation  of  a  new  world.1' 

Jesus  had  now  set  forth  the  characteristics  of  citizenship 
in  His  New  Kingdom,  and  the  new  law ;  He  passed,  next, 
to  the  new  life.'2  A  warning  was  needed  to  guard  His 
followers,  in  their  religious  duties,  from  the  abuses  of  the 
Rabbinical  party. 

Almsgiving  had  been  exalted  by  the  scribes  to  an  act 
in  itself  meritorious  before  God.  The  words  "  alms,"  and 
"  righteousness," f  were,  indeed,  used  interchangeably.3  "  For 
one  farthing  given  to  the  poor,"  said  the  Rabbis,  "  a  man 
will  receive  heaven."  The  words,  "  I  shall  behold  Thy  face 
in  righteousness,"  were  rendered  in  the  gloss  "  because  of 
alms."  "This  money,"  said  others,  "goes  for  alms,  that 
my  sons  may  live,  and  that  I  may  obtain  the  world  to 
come."  "  A  man's  table  now  expiates  by  alms,  as  the  altar, 
heretofore,  did  by  sacrifice."  "  He  who  gives  alms  will  be 
kept  from  all  evil."  In  an  age  when  the  religious  spirit 
was  dead,  outward  acts  of  religion  were  ostentatiously 
practised,  at  once  to  earn  a  reward  from  God,  and  to  secure 
honour  for  holiness  from  men.  Religion  was  acted  for  gain, 
either  present  or  future.  Against  such  hypocrisy,  Jesus 
warns  His  followers.  "  Take  heed  that  ye  do  not  your 
righteousness  g  before  men,4  to  be  seen  by  them,  otherwise 

1  Hausrath,  vol.  i.  p.  356.  *  Westcott,  Introduction,  p.  358 

»  Hor.  Ueb.,  vol.  ii.  p.  136.  *  Matt.  vi.  1-15. 


76  THE   LIFE   OF   CHKIST. 

you  have  no  reward  with  yonr  Father  who  is  in  heaven." 
They  were  not  to  draw  attention  to  their  charity,  by  having 
it  proclaimed  in  the  synagogue,11  or  by  ostentatiously  giv- 
ing it  in  the  streets,  to  earn  praise  of  men,  but  were  to 
hide  it  as  if  they  would  not  even  let  their  left  hand  know 
what  their  right  hand  was  doing.  Sincerity,  only,  gave 
charity  value.  The  amount  was  not  essential  :  the  spirit  was 
all.  Insincerity  had  no  reward  but  the  empty  honour  from 
met,  got  by  deceit ;  sincerity  was  rewarded  by  their  Father 
in  Heaven,  who  saw  the  secret  deed.1 

Even  prayer  had  become  a  formal,  mechanical  act,  pre- 
scribed by  exact  rules.  The  hours,  the  matter,  the  manner, 
were  all  laid  down.  A  rigid  Pharisee  prayed  many  times  a 
day,  and  too  many  took  care  to  have  the  hours  of  prayer 
overtake  them,  decked  in  their  broad  phylacteries,  at  the 
street  corners,  that  they  might  publicly  show  their  devout- 
ness — or  went  to  the  synagogue  that  the  congregation  might 
see  it.  Nor  were  they  content  with  short  prayers,  but 
lengthened  their  devotions  as  if  to  make  a  merit  of  their 
duration.1  Instead  of  this,  the  members  of  the  New  King- 
dom were  to  retire  to  strict  secrecy  when  they  prayed,  and 
address  their  Father  who  sees  in  secret,  and  He  would  reward 
them  hereafter,  in  the  future  world,  for  their  sincerity.  Nor 
were  they  to  use  the  foolish  repetitions  in  vogue  with  the 
heathen,  who  thought  they  would  be  heard  for  their  much 
speaking.  The  great  Father  knows  what  we  need  before 
we  ask  Him,  and  requires  no  lengthened  petitions.*  Prayer 
in  the  congregation  is  not  forbidden,  for  Jesus  Himself 
frequented  the  synagogue,  and  joined  in  public  devotions. 
But  private  prayer  must  be  private,  to  guard  against  human 
weakness  corrupting  it  into  worthless  parade.  The  simplest, 
shortest  prayer,  unheard  by  human  ear,  is  accepted  of  God, 
if  it  rise  from  the  heart :  if  the  heart  be  wanting,  all  prayer 
is  mere  form. 

It  is  always  much  easier,  however,  to  follow  a  pattern 
than  a  precept,  and,  hence,  Jesus  proceeded  to  set  before 
them,  a  model  prayer.  "  After  this  manner,  therefore,  pray 
ye.  Onr  Father  who  art  in  heaven,  hallowed  be  Thy 
name,  Thy  kingdom  come.  Thy  will  be  done,  as  in  heaven, 
so  also  on  earth.  Give  us  this  day  our  daily  bread.  And 
forgive  us  our  debts  (to  Thee),  as  we,  also,  have  forgiven  our 
debtors.  And  lead  us  not  into  temptation,  but  deliver  us 

1  See  Schiirer,  p.  505.     Hor.  Heb.,  voL  ii.  pp.  144-147.     Matt.  vi.  6,  ff. 


HOW   TO   PRAY.  77 

from  the  evil  one." l  He  added  that  our  being  forgiven  our 
trespasses  by  God  depended  on  our  forgiving  men  theirs 
against  us. 

It  was  the  custom  of  every  Rabbi  to  teach  his  disciples 
a  form  of  prayer,2  and  in  "  The  Lord's  Prayer,"  Jesus,  as 
John  already  had  done,  followed  the  example.  But  what 
a  difference  between  His  model  and  that  of  other  teachers  ! 
He  had  created  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth  for  the 
soul,  and  in  this  prayer  the  mighty  revelation  of  the  Father- 
hood of  God  shines,  like  a  sun,  over  all  humanity.  The 
highest  conceivable  ideal  of  perfection  and  felicity  for  the 
race,  is  offered  in  the  will  of  the  Eternal  Father  being  done 
on  earth  as  it  is  in  heaven.  Childlike  trust  and  dependence 
ask,  and  are  contented  with,  daily  bounty  from  that  Father's 
hand.  His  mercy  is  pleaded  by  hearts  that  already  have 
learned  to  show  it  to  others.  The  spirit  stands  before  Him 
clothed  in  humility,  and  full  of  love  and  tenderness  towards 
its  fellows.  Conscious  weakness  stretches  out  its  hand  for 
heavenly  help,  distrusting  itself,  but  strong  in  a  Higher. 
Each  clause,  almost  each  word,  is  full  of  the  deepest  signifi- 
cance. Each  is  filled  with  Divine  light.1  After  eighteen 
centuries,  Christendom  knows  no  expression  of  thoughts  and 
feelings  so  full  in  so  small  a  compass  ;  so  rich,  so  majestic  in 
praise  and  petition.  Hallowed  phrases,  current  in  His  day, 
may  be  quoted  as  parallels  of  single  parts,  but  He  alone 
united  them  to  words  of  His  own  with  a  breadth  and  solidity, 
a  childlike  simplicity  and  wisdom,  a  strength  and  lowliness 
wholly  unknown  in  Jewish  literature."* 

Fasting  had  become  one  of  the  prominent  religious  usages 
of  our  Saviour's  day.  Though  only  one  fast  had  been 
appointed  by  Moses — that  of  the  Day  of  Atonement — the 
Pharisees  had  added  numerous  others,  especially  on  the  two 
days  of  the  week,  Monday  and  Thursday,  on  which  syna- 
gogue worship  was  held.  When  fasting,  they  strewed  their 
heads  with  ashes,  and  neither  washed  nor  anointed  them- 
selves3 nor  trimmed  their  beards,  but  put  on  wretched 
clothing,  and  showed  themselves  in  all  the  outward  signs  of 
mourning  and  sadness  used  for  the  dead."  Insincerity  made 
capital  of  feigned  humiliation  and  contrition,  till  even  the 


1  The  Doxology  does  not  appear  before  the  middle  of  the  fourth  cen» 
tury.     Tt  is  a  late  addition.    Herzog,  voL  i.  p.  493. 

2  Sepp,  vol.  ii.  p.  326. 

*  Liglttfuot,  vol  ii.  p.  155 


78  THE   LIFE    OF   CHBIST. 

Roman  theatre  noticed  it.  In  one  of  the  plays  of  the  time, 
a  camel,  covered  with  a  mourning  cloth,  was  led  on  the 
stage.  "  Why  is  the  camel  in  mourning  ?  "  asked  one  of  the 
players.  "  Because  the  Jews  are  keeping  the  Sabbath  year, 
and  grow  nothing,  but  are  living  on  thistles.  The  camel  is 
mourning  because  its  food  is  thus  taken  from  it."  l  Rabbis 
were  forbidden  to  anoint  themselves  before  going  out,2  and 
it  was  recorded  of  a  specially  famous  doctor,  that  his  face 
was  always  black  with  fasting.3  All  pretence  was  abhorrent 
to  the  soul  of  Jesus,  especially  in  religion.  "  When  ye  fast," 
said  He,  "  be  not  as  the  hypocrites,  of  a  sad  countenance ; 
for  they  disfigure  their  faces,  that  they  may  appear  unto 
men  to  fast.  Verily  I  say  unto  yon,  They  have  their  reward. 
But  do  thou,  when  thou  fastest,  anoint  thine  head  and  wash 
thy  face ;  that  thou  mayest  not  appear  unto  men  to  fast,  but 
to  thy  Father  who  is  in  secret,  and  thy  Father,  who  sees  in 
secret,  will  reward  thee."  To  seek  effect,  applause,  credit, 
or  gain,  by  a  show  of  godliness,  must  be  shunned  by 
members  of  the  New  Kingdom.  It  would  be  better  to  let 
men  think  evil  of  them,  than  to  be  tempted  to  use  religion  for 
ulterior  ends.  True  pain  and  true  sorrow  hide  from  the  eye 
of  strangers ;  they  withdraw  to  the  secrecy  of  the  breast. 

He  had  already  spoken  of  the  need  of  care  in  the  right 
use  of  the  blessings  of  life ;  but  He  knew  our  proneness  to 
forget,  and  returns  to  the  subject  once  more.  "  Heap  not 
up  for  yourselves,"  said  He,  "  treasures  on  earth,  where  moth 
and  rust  consume,  and  where  thieves  break  through  and 
steal.  But  lay  up  for  yourselves  treasures  in  heaven,0 
where  neither  moth  nor  rust  consumes,  and  where  thieves  do 
not  break  through  nor  steal.  For,  if  your  treasure  is  on 
earth,  your  heart  must  needs  be  careless  of  heaven.  But  if 
it  be  in  heaven,  your  hearts  will  be  there  also.  To  have 
it  there,  you  must  have  the  inner  light  in  your  souls,  yonr 
mind  4  and  heart — by  which  you  perceive  and  cherish  the 
truth — unclouded.  If  they  be  darkened,  it  will  turn  your 
heart  away  from  the  right  and  Divine.  The  body  without 
the  eye  is  in  darkness ;  for  light  enters  only  by  the  eye,  as 
from  a  lamp.  When  your  eye  is  sound,  your  body  is  full  of 
light ;  when  it  is  darkened,  all  within  is  night.  So  it  is  with 
the  eye  of  the  soul." 

1  Sepp.  vol.  ii.  p.  345.  3  Gfrorer,  vol.  i.  p.  165. 

3  Liuhtfoot,  vol.  ii.  p.  154.    Keim,  vol.  ii.  p.  272.      Schiirer,  pp.  505, 
615.    Matt.  vi.  16-18. 
*  o  vovs,  Chrysost.     Matt.  vi.  19-23. 


TEUST   IN   GOD.  79 

"  Do  not  fancy,"  lie  continued,  "  that  yon  can  strive  at 
once  for  riches  and  for  the  kingdom  of  God.  They  are 
absolutely  opposed.  No  man  can  serve  two  masters  whose 
interests  are  opposite.  Either  he  will  hate  the  one  and  love 
the  other,  or  he  will  hold  to  the  one  and  despise  the  other. 
You  cannot  worship  the  God  of  heaven,  and  Mammon,  the 
god  of  wealth.p  To  serve  God,  and  yet  make  money  your 
idol,  is  impossible  !  " 

"  An  undivided  heart,  which  worships  God  alone,  and 
trusts  Him  as  it  should,  is  raised  above  anxiety  for  earthly 
wants.  Therefore,  I  say  unto  you,  Be  not  anxious  for  your 
life,  what  ye  shall  eat,  nor  yet  for  your  body,  what  ye  shall 
put  on.1  Is  not  the  life  more  than  the  food,  and  the  body 
than  the  raiment  ?  Behold  the  birds  of  the  air ;  they  sow 
not,  neither  reap,  nor  gather  into  barns,  and  yet  your  Hea- 
venly Father  feeds  them.q  Are  ye  not  mnch  better  than 
they  ?  Which  of  you,  by  anxious  thought,  can  add  one 
cubit  to  the  length  of  his  life  ?  And  about  raiment  why 
are  ye  anxious  ?  Consider  the  lilies  of  the  field,  how  fair 
and  beautiful  they  grow.2  They  toil  not,  neither  do  they 
spin,  and  yet  Solomon,  in  his  royal  robes,  was  not  arrayed 
like  one  of  these.  But  if  God  so  clothe  the  grass  of  the 
field,  which  to-day  is,  and  to-morrow  is  cast  into  an  oven,' 
will  He  not  much  more  clothe  you,  O  ye  of  little  faith  ?  Be 
not,  therefore,  anxious,  saying,  What  shall  we  eat,  or  what 
shall  we  drink,  or  what  shall  we  put  on  ?"  For  the  Gentiles 
seek  after  all  these  things.  Bat  your  Heavenly  Father 
knows  that  ye  have  need  of  them.  Seek,  first,  His  kingdom 
and  righteousness,  and  they  shall  all  be  added  to  you.  Be 
not,  therefore,  anxious  for  the  morrow.3  The  morrow  will 
have  its  own  cares.  Each  day's  evil  is  sufficient  for  the 
day."  He  enjoins  not  idle  indifference  and  easiness  of  temper, 
but  the  freedom  from  care  of  a  soul  which  firmly  trusts  in 
the  Providence  of  God.  The  citizens  of  the  New  Kingdom 
might  well  confide  in  their  Heavenly  Father,  and  amidst  all 
the  trials  and  straits  even  of  such  a  martyr  life  as  had  been 
predicted  for  them,  might  and  should  retain  calm  and  un- 
shaken confidence  in  the  sustaining  and  guiding  wisdom  and 
love  of  God.  As  His  children,  they  had  an  express  right 
to  look  for  His  all-sufficient  care. 

1  Schleiermacher,  Predigten,  vol.  iii.  p.  389.     Matt.  vi.  24-34 
3  Sepp,  vol.  iii.  p.  207. 

»  Scbleiermaclier,  Predigten,  vol.  i.  p.  124.  Dukes,  p.  68.  Jud.  Hand- 
werkerkben,  p.  22. 


80  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

No  vice  was  more  rank  among  the  Jews,  through  the 
influence  of  their  priestly  and  Rabbinical  leaders,  than 
narrow  bigotry,  which  condemned  all  opinions  varying  in 
the  least  from  their  own.  They  were  trained  to  take  it  for 
granted  that  their  whole  religious  system,  in  its  minutest 
forms  and  rales — their  religious  thought,  faith,  and  life — 
had  been  revealed  by  God  from  heaven.  They  were  a  nation 
of  fanatics,  ready  to  fight  to  the  death  for  any  one  of  the 
ten  thousand  ritual  injunctions  of  their  religious  teachers. 
A  discourse  designed  to  proclaim  the  advent,  character,  and 
laws  of  the  new  theocracy,  could  not  close  without  touching 
on  the  duties  of  social  life,  and  laying  down  pr  ncipJes  for 
guidance.  Christ  had  enjoined  the  broad  law  of  gentle  love, 
as  the  rule  for  intercourse  with  men  at  large.  He  now 
illustrates  it  in  additional  applications. 

"  Judge  not,"  said  He,  "  that  ye  be  not  judged1  (by  God)  ; 
condemn  not,  and  ye  shall  not  be  condemned ;  forgive,  and 
ye  shall  be  forgiven.  For  with  what  judgment  ye  judge 
(men)  ye  shall  be  judged  (hereafter).  Give,  and  it  will  be 
given  to  you  ;  good  measure,  pressed  down,  shaken  together, 
running  over,  will  they  give  into  your  bosom.  For  with 
what  measure  ye  mete,  it  shall  be  measured  to  you.  Be 
charitable  respecting  the  errors  and  shortcomings  of  others, 
that  you  may  not  have  your  own  sins  brought  against  you 
at  the  great  day,  and  find  there  the  condemnation  you  have 
yourself  pronounced  here.  It  is  a  fearful  thing  for  you,  who 
are  to  teach  men,  to  fall  away  from  the  truth,  for  how,  then, 
will  you  instruct  sinful  men  aright  ?  If  the  blind  attempt 
to  lead  the  blind,  both  fall  into  a  ditch;  and  if  you  your- 
selves be  wrong  you  cannot  lead  others,  who  know  nothing 
of  it,  to  the  salvation  of  the  New  Kingdom.  You  will  both 
go  more  and  more  hopelessly  astray  till,  at  last,  you  sink 
into  Gehenna.  Those  you  teach  cannot  be  wiser  than  you, 
their  teachers,  for  a  disciple  is  not  above  his  master,  but 
comes,  at  best,  in  the  end,  to  be  like  him.  If,  then,  you 
would  not  be  blind  leaders  of  the  blind,  take  care,  before 
you  essay  to  judge  and  better  the  religious  state  of  others, 
to  examine  your  own  spiritual  condition,  and  reform  what- 
ever is  wrong  in  it.2  Why  should  you  mark  the  atom  of 

1  Matt.  vii.  1-12.  Luke  vi.  37-42.  See  Sermon  by  Schleiermacher, 
vol  iii.  p.  34.  Jacox's  Secular  Annotations,  first  series,  p.  208.  Scheukcl, 
p.  101.  Keim,  vol.  ii  p.  30, 

8  Luke  vi.  39-41. 


THE   LOVE   OF   OUB   NEIGHBOUES.  81 

straw  or  dust  that  is  in  your  brother's  eye — his  petty  fault — • 
if  you  do  not,  in  your  self-righteousness,  see  the  beam  that 
is  in  your  own  eye  ? 1  *  Self -blinded  hypocrite  !  first  cast  the 
beam  out  of  your  own  eye,  and  then  you  will  see  clearly  to 
cast  the  mote  out  of  your  brother's  eye." 

"  You  will  meet  with  men,"  He  continued,  "  who,  when 
the  Divine  truth  is  offered  them,  will  only  profane  it — men 
utterly  ungodly  and  hardened,  who  wilfully  reject  the  counsel 
of  God,  with  blasphemy,  mocking,  and  slandering.  Do  not 
put  it  in  their  power  to  dishonour  it.  To  do  so  is  like 
casting  a  holy  thing  to  the  street  dogs,  or  throwing  pearls 
before  wild  swine,  who  would  only  trample  them  under 
their  feet,  as  worthless,  and  turn  against  yourselves  and  rend 
you."20 

"  You  will  need  help  from  God  in  your  great  task  ;  for 
your  own  spiritual  welfare,  and  for  success  in  your  work. 
Ask,  therefore,  and  it  will  be  given  you ;  seek,  and  ye  will 
find ;  knock,  and  it  will  be  opened  to  you.  For  every  one 
that  asks  receives  ;  and  he  that  seeks  finds ;  and  to  him  that 
knocks  it  shall  be  opened.  If  your  son  ask  bread,  do  you 
niO';k  him  by  giving  him  a  stone  ?  or,  if  he  ask  a  fish,  do 
you  mock  him  by  giving  him  a  serpent  ?  or,  if  he  ask  an 
egg,  will  you  give  him  a  scorpion?3*  You  need,  then, 
have  no  fear  of  refusal  of  spiritual  help  from  your  heavenly 
Father,  for  if  you  who  are  sinful,  though  members  of  the 
New  Kingdom,  would  not  think  of  refusing  to  supply  the 
wants  of  your  children,  far  less  will  your  Father  above 
refuse  you,  His  spiritual  children,  what  you  need." 

Jesus  had  now  come  to  the  close  of  His  exposition  of  the 
nature  and  duties  of  His  kingdom,  and  ended  His  statement 
of  them  by  a  brief  recapitulation  and  summary  of  all  He 
had  said  of  the  latter,  in  their  relation  to  men  at  large. 
"  All  things,  therefore,  whatsoever  ye  would  that  men  should 
do  to  you,  do  ye  also  so  to  them,  for  this  is  the  Law  and  the 
Prophets."  The  Law  had  said,  "  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neigh- 
bour as  thyself,"4  but  it  had  meant  by  neighbour  a  Jew 
or  a  proselyte,  and  had  commanded  the  extirpation  of  the 
Canaanites,  and  sanctioned  merciless  war  with  the  heathen 
around.  These  grand  words  were,  therefore,  a  rule  for  the 
nation  towards  its  own  members,  but  no  great  law  for  man- 

1  See  a  curious  Lay  Sermon,  by  Jacox,  1st  series,  p.  187.  Keim,  vol. 
ii.  p.  31.  Dukes,  p.  165. 

:   See  Sermons  by  Schleiermacbier,  vol.  iii.  pp.  46,  59,  84 
3  Lufcvj  xi.  12.  *  Lev.  xix.  18. 


82  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

kind.  But  Jesus  ignores  this  narrowness,  and  proclaims  all 
men  brethren,  as  common  children  of  one  Father  in  Heaven. 
This  golden  rule  had  been  proclaimed  more  or  less  fully 
before.  It  is  found  in  Socrates1  and  Menander,2  and  even 
in  the  Chinese  classics.3  Philo  quotes,  as  an  old  Jewish 
saying.  "  Do  not  to  others  what  you  would  be  unwilling  to 
suffer;"  and  the  Book  of  Tobit4  enjoins,  "Do  that  to  no 
man  which  thou  hatest."y  In  the  generation  before  Jesus 
it  had  been  repeated  by  Hillel  to  a  heathen,  who  mockingly 
asked  him  if  he  could  teach  him  the  whole  Law  while  he 
stood  on  one  foot.  "  What  you  would  not  like  done  to 
yourself,  do  not  to  thy  neighbour,"  replied  the  Rabbi — "  this 
is  the  whole  Law  :  all  the  rest  is  a  commentary  on  it — go 
learn  this."5  But,  as  Hillel  gave  it,  this  noble  answer  was 
only  misleading.  It  was  striking  to  find  a  Rabbi  with  such 
enlightened  insight  into  the  essence  of  the  Law,  as  to  seo 
that  all  its  ordinances  and  rites  had  a  moral  end ;  but  it 
was  also  much  more  than  a  mere  code  of  morals  between 
man  and  man.  Its  fitting  summary  is  much  rather  that 
central  requirement  uttered  each  day,  even  now,  by  every 
Jew  in  his  prayers — "Thou  shalt  love -the  Lord  thy  God 
with  all  thine  heart,  and  with  all  thy  soul,  and  with  all 
thy  might."6  Morality,  apart  from  its  religious  basis  and 
supreme  enforcement,  degrades  the  Law  to  a  level  with  the 
common  morality  of  the  world  at  large."  It  was  reserved 
for  Jesus  to  announce  our  duty  to  man  in  its  subordination 
to  our  higher  relation  to  God ;  to  make  it  only  part  of 
that  filial  love  which  reflects  on  all  our  brethren  the  tender- 
ness it  feels  supremely  towards  their  Father  and  ours,  in 
Heaven.  With  Him,  love  of  universal  humanity  has  its 
deep  religious  ground  in  the  love  of  God — whom  we  are  to 
resemble — towards  all  the  race,  as  His  children.  The  love 
of  man,  He  tells  us,  is  the  second  great  commandment,  not 
the  first;8  it  is  the  moon  shining  by  light  borrowed  from 
that  Sun.  The  highest  of  the  Rabbis  cannot  stand  in  the 
presence  of  the  Son  of  Mary  !9 

He  had  reached  His  peroration.  It  remained  only  to  add 
solemn  warnings,  and  these  He  now  gave.  "Enter  in,"  said 
He,  "  through  the  narrow  gate,10  for  narrow  is  the  gate  and 

1  B.C.  436-338.  2  B.C.  342-291.  3  Eicald,  vol.  iv.  p.  270. 

•  Chap.  iv.  15.  •  Jesus  n.  HUM,  p.  29. 

•  Deut.  vi.  5.  i  Jesns  u.  Hillel,  19.  8  Mark  xii.  28-34, 

•  Kkeii,  vol.  i.  p.  138.     Keim,  vol.  ii.  p.  184.     Pnu-;  p.  31. 
10  Land  and  Book,  p.  28.     Matt.  vi.  13-23.     Luke  vi.  41-46. 


FALSE   TEACHEBS.  83 

straitened  is  the  way  of  self-denial  and  struggle  that  leads  to 
life,  and  few  there  are  that  find  it.  But  wide  is  the  gate  and 
broad  is  the  way  of  sin  that  leads  to  destruction,  and  those 
who  enter  through  it  are  many.  Beware  of  false  teachers,1 
who  would  turn  you  aside  from  the  safe  road.  They  vrill 
come  to  you  affecting  to  be  my  followers,  but  they  will  be 
only  wolves  in  sheep's  clothing.  You  will  know  them  fully 
by  their  fruits — that  is,  by  their  lives.  Do  men  gather  grapes 
oif  thorns,  or  figs  off  thistles  ?  2  So,  every  good  tree  brings 
forth  good  fruit ;  but  the  corrupt  tree  brings  forth  evil  fruit. 
The  good,  out  of  the  good  treasure  of  the  heart,  bring  forth 
that  which  is  good  ;  and  the  evil  man,  out  of  the  evil,  brings 
forth  that  which  is  evil ;  for  out  of  the  abundance  of  the 
heart  his  mouth  speaks.3  A  good  tree  cannot  bring  forth 
evil  fruit ;  neither  can  a  corrupt  tree  bring  forth  good  fruit. 
Have  nothing  to  do  with  them,  and  do  not  follow  them,  for 
every  tree  that  brings  not  forth  good  fruit  is  cut  down  and 
cast  into  the  fire.  So,  then,  by  their  fruits  ye  will  know 
them  fully." 

"  Nor  is  the  danger  of  being  led  astray  by  false  teachers, 
light,  for  not  all  who  acknowledge  me  as  their  Master  will 
enter  into  the  glory  of  the  heavenly  Kingdom,  but  those  only 
who  do  the  will  of  My  Father,  who  is  in  heaven.  Many  will 
say  to  me  in  that  day,  '  Lord,  Lord,  did  we  not  teach  in  Thy 
name  confessing  Thee  as  Jesus  Messias,  and  by  the  power  of 
Thy  name  cast  out  devils,  and,  by  the  same  power,  did  we 
not  do  many  mighty  works,  owning  Thee,  and  working 
through  Thee,  in  all  things  ' z  And  then  shall  I  say  unto 
them,  '  I  never  knew  you :  depart  from  me,  ye  that  work 
iniquity.'  Take  warning,  for  even  some  of  you  call  me  Lord, 
Lord,4  and  do  not  the  things  which  I  say."  5 

That  one  in  the  position  of  Jesus — an  unknown  Galilaean  ; 
untrained  in  the  schools  ;  in  early  manhood  ;  with  no  support 
from  the  learned  or  the  powerful — should  have  used  such 
words,  in  a  discourse  so  transcendently  lofty  in  its  teachings, 
is  to  be  explained  only  on  the  ground  that  He  spoke  with  a 
Divine  consciousness  of  being  the  Messiah,  who  should  here- 
after be  the  Judge  of  mankind.  He  calmly  founds  a  kingdom 
in  which  the  only  rewards  and  punishments  are  those  of  the 
conscience  here,  and  those  of  eternity,  after  death.  He  beara 

1  L'Anteclirist,  p.  417. 

2  Tristram,  pp.  426,  427.    Hcrzoy.  vol.  si.  p.  25.  3  Lake  vi.  45. 
4  M  iner,  p.  161.                      6  Luke  vi.  46. 


84  THE   LIFE   OF   CHKIST. 

Himself,  and  speaks,  as  a  King ;  supersedes  or  perfects  the 
laws  of  the  existing  theocracy  as  He  thinks  best ;  invites  ad- 
herents, but  warns  oft'  all  except  the  truly  godly  and  sincere, 
by  holding  out  the  most  discouraging  prospects  through  life ; 
keeps  aloof  from  the  civil  or  ecclesiastical  authorities,  and 
acts  independently  of  both.  Finally,  as  the  one  law  of  His 
invisible  kingdom  in  the  souls  of  men,  He  requires  supreme 
love  and  devotion  to  Himself,  and  demands  that  this  be 
shown  by  humble  and  continuous  efforts  after  likeness  to 
God,  and  by  the  imitation  of  His  own  pure  and  universal 
love  to  mankind.  To  have  conceived  a  spiritual  empire  so 
unique  in  the  history  of  religion,  is  to  have  proved  His  title 
to  His  highest  claims. 

His  concluding  words  are  in  keeping  with  these.  He  had 
announced  that  He  would  judge  the  world  at  the  great  day, 
and  now  makes  hearty  acceptance  and  performance  of  His 
commands  the  condition  of  future  salvation  or  ruin.  "  Every 
one,  therefore  (now,  or  hereafter),  who  hears  these  sayings 
of  mine  and  obeys  them,  is  like  a  man,  who,  in  building  a 
house,  digged  deep,  and  laid  a  foundation  upon  the  rock. 
And  the  winter  rains  fell,1  and  the  torrents  rose,  and  the 
storms  blew,  and  beat  upon  that  house,  and  did  not  shake  it, 
because  it  was  well  built,  and  had  been  founded  upon  the 
rock.  But  every  one  who  hears  them,  and  does  not  obey 
them,  is  like  a  foolish  man,  who,  without  a  foundation,  built 
his  house  upon  the  sandy  earth.  And  the  rain  descended, 
and  the  torrents  rushed  down,  and  the  winds  blew,  and  beat 
upon  that  house,  and  straightway  it  fell,  and  the  ruin  of  that 
house  was  great."  " 

No  wonder  that,  when  He  had  finished  such  an  address,  the 
multitudes  were  astonished  at  His  teaching.  They  had  been 
accustomed  to  the  tame  and  slavish  servility  of  the  Rabbis — 
with  their  dread  of  varying  a  word  from  precedent  and 
authority ;  their  cobwebbery  of  endless  sophistries  and  verbal 
trifling ;  their  laborious  dissertations  on  the  infinitely  little ; 
their  unconscious  oversight  of  all  that  could  affect  the  heart; 
their  industrious  trackings  through  the  jungle  of  tradition 
and  prescription — and  felt  that  in  the  preaching  of  Jesus, 
they,  for  the  first  time,  had  something  that  stirred  their 
souls  and  came  home  to  their  consciences.  One  of  the 
Rabbis  had  boasted  that  every  verse  of  the  Bible  was 
capable  of  six  hundred  thousand  different  explanations,  and 

1  Keim,  vol.  ii.  p.  32.     Matt.  vii.  24-27.    Luke  vi.  47-49. 


JEWISH   INTERPEETATION   OF   SCRIPTURE.  85 

there  were  seventy  different  modes  of  interpretation  cur- 
rent,1 but  the  vast  mass  of  explanations  and  interpretations 
were  no  better  than  pedantic  folly,  concerning  itself  with 
mere  insignificant  minutiae  which  had  no  bearing  on  religion  ' 
or  morals.  Instead  of  this,  Jesus  had  spoken  as  a  legislator, 
vested  with  greater  authority  than  Moses.  To  transmit,  un- 
changed, the  traditions  received  from  the  past,  was  the  one 
idea  of  all  other  teachers  ;  but  He,  while  reverent,  was  not. 
afraid  to  criticize,  to  reject,  and  to  supplement.  To  venture 
on  originality  and  independence  was  something  hitherto  un- 
known. 

The  life  of  Jesus,  in  all  its  aspects,  is  the  great  lesson  of 
humanity  :  His  death  is  its  hope.  But  there  lies  a  wondrous 
treasure  in  His  words.  What  but  a  pure  and  sinless  soul 
could  have  conceived  such  an  idea  of  God  as  the  Father  of 
mankind,  drawing  us  to  Himself  by  the  attraction  of  holy 
and  exhaustless  love  ?  "  It  could  only  rise,"  says  Hausrath, 
"  in  a  spirit  that  stood  pure,  guiltless  and  sinless  before  God 
- — a  spirit  in  which  all  human  unrest  and  disturbance  were 
unknown,  on  which  there  lay  no  sense  of  the  littleness  of 
life,  no  distracting  feeling  of  disappointed  ambition.  Sinful 
man,  with  a  stained  or  even  uneasy  conscience,  will  always 
think  of  God  as  jealous,  wrathful,  and  about  to  avenge  Him- 
self. The  revelation  that  God  is  the  Father  of  men  could 
rise  only  in  a  mind  in  which  the  image  of  God  mirrored 
itself  in  calm  completeness,  because  the  mirror  had  no  specks 
to  mar  it.  The  revelation  of  God  as  the  Father  is  the 
strongest  proof  of  the  absolute  perfection  of  the  human 
nature  in  Jesus."  2 

"  He  has  left  us  not  only  a  life,  but  a  rich  world  of 
thoughts,"  says  Keim,3  "  in  which  all  the  best  inspirations 
and  longings  of  mankind  meet  and  are  reflected.  It  is  the 
expression  of  the  purest  and  directest  truths  which  rise  in 
the  depths  of  the  soul,  and  they  are  made  common  to  all 
mankind  by  being  uttered  in  the  simplest  and  most  popular 
form." 

1  Eisenmenger's  Entdecktes  Jud.,  vol.  i.  pp.  453,  457. 

2  Hausrath,  vol.  i.  p.  355. 

8  Der  Geschichtliche  Christus,  p.  184. 


CHAPTER  XXXVIII. 
OPEN  CONFLICT. 

JESUS  had  now  been  some  months  in  Galilee,  and  the 
season  of  the  great  feasts  had  returned.  It  was  meet 
that  Judea,  which  had  rejected  Him  when  He  first  preached 
in  it,  should  be  once  more  visited,  and  the  news  of  the  King- 
dom once  more  sent  abroad  among  the  throngs  of  pilgrims 
from  every  part  of  the  world,  attracted  at  such  times  to 
Jerusalem. 

Leaving  the  north,  therefore,  for  a  time,  He  again  jour- 
neyed south  ;  perhaps  by  short  stages,  preaching  as  He  went ; 
perhaps  with  one  of  the  bands  of  pilgrims  which  gathered 
from  each  neighbourhood  to  go  up  to  "  the  House  of  the 
Lord."  No  voice  would  join  with  so  rapt  a  devotion  in 
the  joyful  solemnities  of  such  a  journey, — in  the  psalms  that 
enlivened  the  way, — or  the  formal  devotions  of  morning  and 
evening.  But  what  feast  it  was  He  thus  honoured  is  not 
told,  nor  are  there  means  for  deciding.  That  of  Purim,  a 
month  before  the  Passover,  the  Passover  itself,  Pentecost, 
and  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles,  have  each  found  favour  on 
plausible  grounds,  but  where  there  is  such  contrariety  of 
opinion,  the  safest  course  is  to  leave  the  matter  unsettled.* 

Of  the  visit  we  know  only  one  incident,1  but  it  was  the 
turning  point  in  the  life  of  Our  Lord. 

Jerusalem  in  those  days  was  a  contrast,  in  its  water  supply, 
as  in  much  else,  to  the  fallen  glory  of  its  present  condition. 
Several  natural  springs  seem  to  have  flowed  in  the  city  or 
near  it,  in  ancient  times,  but  they  have  long  been  choked  up, 
with  the  exception  of  the  single  "  Fountain  of  the  Virgin,"  still 
found  in  the  Kedron  valley.  Besides  this,  there  is  now  only 
a  solitary  well — that  of  Joab,  at  the  junction  of  the  Kedron 
and  Hinnom  valleys,  near  Siloam,  south-east  from  the  town. 
It  was  doubtless  used  in  Christ's  day,  and  it  is  still  one 

1  John  v.  1-47. 


THE   POOL   OF  BETHESDA.  87 

of  the  principal  sources  of  summer  supply  for  Jerusalem, 
though,  like  everything  else  under  the  withering  spell  of 
Turkish  rule,  it  is  in  such  disrepair  that  its  water,  drawn 
from  a  depth  of  125  feet,  is  tainted  with  sewage.  The  ancient 
supply,  however,  seems  to  have  been  mainly  obtained  by 
collecting  the  rainwater  in  pools  and  cisterns,  and  by  aque- 
ducts which  drained  distant  hills,  and  brought  abundance 
into  the  various  public  pools  and  reservoirs  of  the  city  and 
Temple,b  the  space  beneath  which  was  honeycombed  by 
immense  rock-hewn  cisterns.  Many  houses,  also,  had  cisterns, 
hewn  in  the  rock,  in  the  shape  of  an  inverted  funnel,  to 
collect  the  rain,  but  it  was  from  the  numerous  "  pools  "  that 
the  public  supply  was  mainly  derived.  Eight  still  remain, 
in  more  or  less  ruinous  condition,  and  there  appear  to  have 
been  at  least  three  others,  in  ancient  times. 

One  of  the  most  famous  of  these,  in  Christ's  day,  was 
known  as  the  Pool  of  Bethesda,  which  recent  explorations 
appear  to  have  re-discovered  at  the  north-west  corner  of  the 
Temple  enclosure.  If  the  identification  be  valid,  the  pool 
was  a  great  reservoir,  1G5  feet  in  length,  hewn  in  the  lime- 
stone rock  to  a  breadth  of  48  feet,  and  divided  in  halves  by 
a  pier  of  masonry  5  feet  thick,  built  across  it.  Water  still 
enters  it  from  the  north-west  corner,  probably  from  an 
abundant  spring,  though  now  so  mixed  with  sewage  as  to 
be  unfit  for  drinking.  Eusebius  speaks  of  the  Bethesda  of 
his  day  as  "  twin  pools,  one  of  which  is  filled  by  the  rains  of 
the  year,  but  the  other  has  water  tinged  in  an  extraordinary 
way  with  red." l  This  effect  was  Likely  produced  by  the 
rapid  influx  of  water  through  underground  channels,  after 
heavy  rains.  It  is  said  by  St.  John  to  have  been  close  to 
the  "  Sheep  Gate  " — the  entrance,  doubtless,  of  the  numerous 
flocks  for  the  Temple  market." 

Bathing  in  mineral  waters  has,  in  all  ages,  been  regarded  as 
one  of  the  most  potent  aids  to  recovery  from  various  diseases, 
and  in  the  East,  where  water  is  everything,  this  belief  has 
always  prevailed.2  The  Pool  of  Bethesda,  from  whatever 
cause,  was  in  especial  favour  for  its  curative  powers,  which 
were  supposed  to  be  most  effective  when  the  waters  were 
"  troubled,"  either  by  the  discolouration  after  heavy  rains,  or 
by  periodical  flowing  after  intermission,  as  is  still  the  case 
with  the  Fountain  of  the  Virgin,  near  Siloam.d 

1  Onomasticon,  quoted  in  Recov.  of  Jerusalem,  p.  196. 

2  Vaihinger,  in  Herzog,  vol.  i.  p.  657. 

44 


88  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

Natural  explanations  of  ordinary  phenomena  were  unknown 
in  those  simple  times,  for  there  was  no  such  thing  as  science. 
Among  the  Jews,  as  among  other  races,  everything  was 
attributed  to  the  direct  action  of  supernatural  beings.  In 
the  Book  of  Jubilees,1  which  shows  the  popular  ideas  of 
Christ's  day,  there  are  angels  of  adoration,  of  fire,  wind, 
clouds,  hail,  hoar  frost,  valleys,  thunder,  lightning,  winter, 
spring,  summer,  and  autumn,  and  of  "  all  things  in  the 
heavens  and  earth,  and  in  all  valleys  ;  of  darkness,  of  light,  of 
dawn,  and  of  evening."  The  healing  powers  of  the  Bethesda 
waters  were,  hence,  ascribed  to  periodical  visits  of  an  angel, 
who  "  troubled  the  water."  Popular  fancy  had,  indeed, 
created  a  complicated  legend  to  account  for  the  wonder.  At 
least  as  far  back  as  the  days  of  Nehemiah,2  the  ebbing  and 
flowing  of  some  springs  had  been  ascribed  to  a  great  dragon 
which  lived  at  their  source,  and  drank  up  the  waters  when  it 
woke,  leaving  them  to  flow  only  while  it  was  asleep.  It  was 
even  said  that  a  good  angel  dwelt  beside  healing  springs,  and 
each  morning  gave  them  their  virtue  afresh,  and  a  Rabbi 
had  gone  so  far  as  to  report  that,  as  he  sat  by  a  fountain,  the 
good  angel  who  dwelt  in  it  appeared  to  him,  and  said  that  a 
demon  was  trying  to  get  into  it,  to  hurt  those  who  frequented 
it.  He  was,  therefore,  to  go  and  tell  the  townsfolk  to  come 
with  hammers,  or  iron  rods  or  bars,3  and  beat  the  water  till 
it  grew  red  with  thick  drops  of  blood — the  sign  that  the 
demon  was  conquered  and  slain.* 

Some  such  fanciful  notions,  based,  very  probably,  on  real 
curative  powers  in  the  water  at  certain  seasons,  attracted 
daily  to  Bethesda  a  multitude  of  unfortunates  who  hoped  to 
be  healed  of  blindness,  atrophy,  lameness,  and  other  infirmities, 
by  bathing,  at  the  right  moment,  a  sufficient  number  of  times. 
Charity  had  built  five  porches  round  the  pool,  to  afford  the 
crowd  a  shelter,  and  these,  and  the  great  steps  leading  down 
to  the  waters,  were  constantly  thronged,  like  the  steps  of  a 
sacred  bathing-place  to-day,  on  the  Ganges. 

Among  the  sufferers  was  one  who  had  been  helplessly 
crippled  by  rheumatism  *  or  paralysis  for  thirty-eight  years, 
but  still  clung  to  the  hope  that  he  would,  one  day,  be  healed. 
He  had,  apparently,  caused  himself  to  be  brought  from  a  dis- 
tance, for  he  had  no  friends  on  the  spot,  and  hence  suffered 

1  Cap.  ii.     See  also  Aii.  Engel,  in  Herzog,  vol.  iv.  p.  22. 

*  Chap.  ii.  13. 

8  Vajicra  Rabba,  §  24.    Sepp,  vol.  ii.  p.  37.     Hor.  Hcb.,  vol.  iii.  p.  293. 


THE   CHURCH   OP  AUTHORITIES.  89 

the  pain  of  many  times  seeing  others,  less  helpless,  crowd 
into  the  waters,  while  he  lay  on  his  mat  for  want  of  some 
pitying  aid. 

Jesus  had  every  motive,  at  this  time,  to  avoid  attracting 
attention  in  Jerusalem,  for  it  might  rouse  the  open  hostility 
of  the  Church  authorities,  which  only  waited  an  oppor- 
tunity. The  pitiful  plight  of  the  sufferer,  however,  awoke 
His  compassion,  and  in  sympathy  for  his  story,  though  with- 
out committing  Himself  to  his  ideas  respecting  the  pool, 
He  healed  him  by  a  word,  telling  him  to  "  rise,  take  up 
his  sleeping-mat,  and  walk." 

The  common  feelings  of  humanity,  one  might  have  thought, 
would  have  followed  an  act  so  tender  and  beautiful,  with 
admiration  and  hearty  approval.  But  there  is  no  crime  mat 
may  not  be  done  by  fanaticism  allied  to  religious  opinions ; 
no  deadness  to  true  religion  too  profound  for  the  champion- 
ship of  fancied  orthodoxy.  Pity,  charity,  recognition  of 
worth,  or  nobleness  of  act  or  word,  give  place  to  remorseless 
hatred  and  bloodthirsty  vengeance  where  there  is  religious 
hatred.  Inquisitors  who  sent  thousands  to  the  stake  for 
an  abstract  proposition,  or  immured  them  in  dungeons,  and 
feasted  on  their  torture,  for  their  refusal  to  repeat  some 
wretched  Shibboleth,  have  been  amiable  and  gentle  in  all 
other  relations.  The  hierarchical  party  in  Jerusalem  com- 
prised men  of  all  dispositions,  and  of  every  shade  of  sincerity 
and  its  opposite.  But  it  had  been  touched  in  its  tenderest 
susceptibilities  by  the  preaching  of  the  Baptist ;  for  it  had 
been  called  to  account,  and  had  had  its  shortcomings  held 
up  before  the  nation.  The  instinct  of  self-preservation,  and 
the  conservatism  of  a  priestly  and  legal  order,  were  instantly 
roused,  and  assailed  the  Reformer  with  the  cry  that  the  Law 
and  the  Temple  were  in  danger.  The  Baptist  had  already 
fallen,  most  likely  by  their  help ;  but  a  successor,  more  to  be 
dreaded,  had  risen  in  Jesus.  They  had  watched  His  course 
in  Galilee  with  anxiety,  which  had  already  shown  itself 
during  His  first  short  visit  to  Jerusalem  at  the  Passover 
before,  and  in  His  subsequent  circuits  through  Jndea. 
Spies,  sent  from  Jerusalem,  dogged  His  steps  and  noted  His 
words  and  acts,  to  report  them  duly  to  the  ecclesiastical 
authorities,  who  had  seen  more  clearly,  day  by  day,  that  a 
mortal  struggle  was  inevitable  between  the  old  theocracy 
and  the  Innovator.  Everything  was  in  their  favour.  They 
were  in  power,  and  could  at  any  moment  bring  Him  before 
their  own  courts  on  trial,  even  for  life.  But  They  dreaded 


90  THE  LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

overt  hostility,  and  for  a  time  preferred  to  undermine  Him 
secretly,  by  mooting  among  the  people  suspicions  of  His 
being  a  heretic,  or  affecting  to  think  Him  a  mere  crazed 
enthusiast.  His  most  innocent  sayings  were  perverted  to 
evil;  His  purest  aims  purposely  misconstrued.  Only  tho 
favour  of  the  multitude,  and  His  own  moderation,  prudence, 
and  wisdom,  warded  off  open  violence. 

He  had  now,  however,  given  a  pretext  for  more  decided 
action  than  they  had  yet  taken.  No  feature  of  the  Jewish 
system  was  so  marked  as  its  extraordinary  strictness  in 
the  outward  observance  of  the  Sabbath,  as  a  day  of  entire 
rest.  The  scribes  had  elaborated,  from  the  command  of 
Moses,  a  vast  array  of  prohibitions  and  injunctions,  covering 
the  whole  of  social,  individual,  and  public  life,  and  carried  it 
to  the  extreme  of  ridiculous  caricature.  Lengthened  rules 
were  prescribed  as  to  the  kinds  of  knots  which  might  legally 
be  tied  on  Sabbath.  The  camel-driver's  knot  and  the  sailor's 
were  unlawful,  and  it  was  equally  illegal  to  tie  or  to  loose 
them.  A  knot  which  could  be  untied  with  one  hand  might 
be  undone.  A  shoe  or  sandal,  a  woman's  cup,  a  wine  or  oil- 
skin, or  a  flesh-pot  might  be  tied.  A  pitcher  at  a  spring 
might  be  tied  to  the  body-sash,  but  not  with  a  .cord. 

It  was  forbidden  to  write  two  letters,  either  with  the  right 
hand  or  the  left,  whether  of  the  same  size  or  of  different 
sizes,  or  with  different  inks,  or  in  different  languages,  or 
with  any  pigment ;  with  ruddle,  gum,  vitriol,  or  anything 
that  can  make  marks  ;  or  even  to  write  two  letters,  one  on 
each  side  of  a  corner  of  two  walls,  or  on  two  leaves  of  a 
writing-tablet,  if  they  could  be  read  together,  or  to  write 
them  on  the  body.  But  they  might  be  written  on  any  dark 
fluid,  on  the  sap  of  a  fruit-tree,  on  road-dust,  on  sand,  or  on 
anything  in  which  the  writing  did  not  remain.  If  they  were 
written  with  the  hand  turned  upside  down,  or  with  the  foot, 
or  the  mouth,  or  the  elbow,  or  if  one  letter  were  added  to 
another  previously  made,  or  other  letters  traced  over,  or  if 
a  person  designed  to  write  the  letter  n  and  only  wrote  two  T  T, 
or  if  he  wrote  one  letter  on  the  ground  and  one  on  the  wall, 
or  on  two  walls,  or  on  two  pages  of  a  book,  so  that  they 
could  not  be  read  together,  it  was  not  illegal.  If  a  person, 
through  forgetfulness,  wrote  two  characters  at  different" 
times,  one  in  the  morning,  the  other  perhaps  towards  even- 
ing, it  was  a  question  among  the  Rabbis  whether  he  had  01 
had  not  broken  the  Sabbath. 

The  quantity  of  food  that  might  be  carried  on  Sabbath 


THE   SAI3BATH  LAWS.  91 

from  one  place  to  another  was  duly  settled.  It  must  be  less 
in  bulk  than  a  dried  fig  :  if  of  honey,  only  as  much  as  would 
anoint  a  wound ;  if  water,  as  much  as  would  make  eye- 
salve  ;  if  paper,  as  much  as  would  be  put  in  a  phylactery ;  if 
ink,  as  much  as  would  form  two  letters.1 

To  kindle  or  extinguish  a  fire  on  the  Sabbath  was  a  great- 
desecration  of  the  day,  nor  was  even  sickness  allowed  to 
violate  Rabbinical  rules.  It  was  forbidden  to  give  an  emetic 
on  Sabbath,  to  set  a  broken  bone,  or  put  back  a  dislocated 
joint,2  though  some  Rabbis,  more  liberal,  held  that  whatever 
endangered  life  made  the  Sabbath  law  void,  "  for  the  com- 
mands were  given  to  Israel  only  that  they  might  live  by 
them." 3<r  One  who  was  buried  under  ruins  on  Sabbath, 
might  be  dug  for  and  taken  out,  if  alive,  but,  if  dead,  he  was 
to  be  left  where  he  was,  till  the  Sabbath  was  over.4 

The  holy  day  "began  with  sunset  on  Friday,  and  ended 
with  the  sunset  of  Saturday,  but  as  the  disappearance  of  the 
sun  was  the  only  mark  of  time,  its  commencement  was 
different  on  a  hill-top  and  in  a  valley.  If  it  were  cloudy, 
the  hens  going  to  roost  was  the  signal.  The  beginning  and 
close  of  the  Sabbath  were  announced  by  trumpet  blasts,  in 
Jerusalem  and  in  the  different  towns.  From  the  decline  of 
the  sun  on  Friday,  to  its  setting,  was  Sabbath-eve,  and 
on  work  which  would  continue  into  the  hours  of  Sabbath, 
could  be  done  in  this  interval.  All  food  must  be  prepared, 
all  vessels  washed,  and  all  lights  kindled,  before  sunset. 
The  money  girdle  must  be  taken  off,  and  all  tools  laid  aside. 
"  On  Friday,  before  the  beginning  of  the  Sabbath,"  said  one 
law,  "  no  one  must  go  out  of  his  house  with  a  needle  or  a 
pen,  lest  he  forget  to  lay  them  aside  before  the  Sabbath 
opens.  Every  one  must  also  search  his  pockets  at  that  time, 
to  see  that  there  is  nothing  left  in  them  with  which  it  is 
forbidden  to  go  out  on  the  Sabbath."  5  The  refinements  of 
Rabbinical  casuistry  were,  indeed,  endless.  To  wear  one 
kind  of  sandals  was  carrying  a  burden,  while  to  wear  another 
kind  was  not.  One  might  carry  a  burden  on  his  shoulder, 
but  it  must  not  be  slung  between  two.6  It  was  unlawful  to 
go  out  with  wooden  sandals  or  shoes  which  had  nails  in 
the  soles,  or  with  a  shoe  and  a  slipper,  unless  one  foot  wero 

1  Schiirer,  p.  490.  *  M.  Shab.,  xxii.  6. 

3  Lev.  xviii.  5.  *  Joma,  viii.  7. 


OCrtUrG/,     p.     ti7\J.  flB«     *->< 

3  Lev.  xviii.  5.  *  Joma 

4  Orach  Chajim,  ed.  Lowe,  p.  55. 

6  Origen ;  quoted  by  Gfrorer,  vol.  i.  p.  18. 


92  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

hurt.1  It  was  unlawful  for  any  one  to  carry  a  loaf  on  the 
public  street,  but  if  two  carried  it,  it  was  not  unlawful.2 
The  Sabbath  was  believed  to  prevail  in  all  its  strictness, 
from  eternity,  throughout  the  universe.  All  the  Rabbinical 
precepts  respecting  it  had  been  revealed  to  Jacob  from  the 
originals  on  the  tablets  of  heaven.3  Even  in  hell  the  lost 
had  rest  from  their  torments  on  its  sacred  hours,  and  the 
waters  of  Bethesda  might  be  troubled  on  other  days,  but 
were  still  and  unmoved  on  this.4  h 

In  an  insincere  age  such  excessive  strictness  led  to  con- 
stant evasions  by  Pharisees  and  Sadducees  alike.  To  escape 
the  restrictions  which  limited  a  journey  on  Sabbath  to  2,000 
cubits  from  a  town  or  city,  they  carried  food  on  Friday 
evening  to  a  spot  that  distance  beyond  the  walls,  and 
assumed,  by  a  fiction,  that  this  made  that  spot  also  their 
dwelling.  They  could  thus,  on  the  Sabbath,  walk  the  full 
distance  to  it,  and  an  equal  distance  beyond  it,  this  journey 
being  only  the  legal  distance  from  the  fictitious  place  of 
residence  !  5  To  make  it  lawful  to  eat  together  on  the  Sab- 
bath the  Rabbis  put  chains  across  the  two  ends  of  a  street  in 
which  the  members  of  a  special  fraternity  lived,  and  called  it 
a  single  dwelling,  while  to  excuse  their  carrying  the  materials 
of  their  Sabbath  repast  to  the  common  hall,  they  each  laid 
some  food  in  it  on  Friday  evening,  to  create  the  fiction  of  its 
being  part  of  the  common  dwelling.  The  priestly  Sadducees, 
on  the  other  hand,  made  no  scruple  to  have  even  the  beasts 
destined  for  their  kitchen  driven  to  their  shambles  on  the 
Sabbath,  on  the  pretext  that  their  common  meals  were  only 
a  continuation  of  the  Temple  service,  by  which  the  rest  of 
the  Sabbath  was  not  legally  broken. 

Nor  were  such  equivocations  the  only  liberties  taken  with 
the  sacred  day,  for,  however  uncompromising  towards  others, 
the  Pharisees  were  themselves  disposed  to  violate  the  Sabbath 
laws  when  occasion  demanded.  They  had  one  maxim,  timidly 
applied  it  is  true,  but  still  theirs  :  "  The  Sabbath  is  for  you, 
but  you  are  not  for  the  Sabbath  ;  "  and  another,  still  bolder, 
"  Make  a  common  day  of  your  Sabbath  rather  than  go  to 
jour  neighbour  for  help."  6 

The  priests  and  Rabbis,  thus  secretly  indulgent  to  them- 
selves, but  austerely  strict  before  the  world,  found  an  oppor« 

1  Mishna  Schabbath,  x.  5.  *  Gfrorer,  vol.  i.  p.  18. 

*  B.  d.  JubiL  c.  1.  *  Sepp,  vol.  iv.  p.  35. 

»  Derenbourg,  p.  342  «  Ibid.,  pp.  143,  144. 


A  CHAEGE   AGAINST   CHEIST.  93 

tunity  in  the  cure  at  Bethesda  for  parading  their  hollow 
Puritanism,  and  at  the  same  time  raising  a  charge  against 
Jesus,  for  the  man  had  been  healed  on  the  Sabbath,  and  had 
been  told  to  carry  his  sleeping-mat 1  with  him  to  his  home. 
This  was  enough.  Met  in  the  street,  carrying  his  pallet,  by 
one  of  these  purists,  he  had  been  reprimanded  for  doing 
so  as  contrary  to  the  Law,  and  had  shielded  himself  by  the 
command  of  Him  who  had  miraculously  healed  him.  It  was 
not  till  some  time  after,  when  Jesus  had  come  upon  him  in 
the  Temple,  that  he  knew  the  name  of  his  benefactor,  for 
Jesus  had  hurried  away  from  the  pool,  after  curing  him,  to 
avoid  exciting  the  multitude  round. 

It  seems  from  the  caution  given  him  at  this  second  meet- 
big,  to  "  sin  no  more,  lest  something  worse  should  befall 
him,"  as  if  the  man  had  brought  his  infirmity  on  himself  by 
misconduct.  Nor  did  his  subsequent  behaviour  do  him  much 
credit.  He  had  no  sooner  discovered  who  had  healed  him,  than 
he  went  to  the  officials  and  told  them.  From  that  moment 
the  doom  of  Jesus  was  fixed.  Pharisee  and  Sadducee,  Rabbi 
and  priest,  forgetting  their  mutual  hatreds,  caballed,  hence- 
forth, to  fasten  such  accusations  upon  Him  as  would  secure 
His  death,  and  never  faltered  in  their  resolve  till  they  carried 
it  out,  two  years  later,  on  Calvary. 

Jesus  seems  forthwith  to  have  been  for  the  first  time  cited 
before  the  authorities,  on  the  formal  charge  of  Sabbath- 
breaking  ;  but  His  judges  were  little  prepared  for  the  tone 
of  His  defence.  Left  to  answer  for  Himself,  He  threw  the 
assembly  into  a  paroxysm  of  religious  fury  by  claiming  to 
work  at  all  times  for  the  good  of  men,  since  it  was  only  what 
God,  His  Father,  had  done  from  the  beginning,  notwith- 
standing the  Sabbath  law.  As  His  Son,  He  was  not  to  be 
fettered  by  that  law,  or  subject  to  it,  but  was  Lord  of  the 
Sabbath.  The  assembly  saw  what  this  implied.  He  had 
added  to  His  Sabbath  desecration  the  higher  crime  of  blas- 
phemously "  making  Himself  equal  with  God  by  calling  Him 
specially1  His  father." 2  The  excitement  must  have  been 
great,  for  Orientals  give  free  vent  to  their  feelings,  under  any 
circumstances.  Some  years  after,  the  same  tribunal,  with  the 
crowd  of  spectators,  gnashed  their  teeth  at  the  martyr 
Stephen,  in  their  infuriated  bigotry,  and  cried  out  with  loud 
voices,  and  stopped  their  ears  at  his  words.3  In  all  proba- 
bility a  similar  storm  rose  around  Jesus  now.  But  Ha 

1  See  page  89.  *  John  v.  19.  *  Acts  vii.  54,  57. 


94  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

remained  perfectly  calm,  and  when  silence  was  in  a  measure 
restored,  proceeded  with  His  defence  against  this  second 
charge. 

He  did  not  for  a  moment  deny  that  they  were  right  in  the 
meaning  they  put  on  His  words,  but  stated  more  fully  why 
He  used  them.  It  was  impossible  for  Him  to  act  indepen- 
dently of  His  father ;  He  could  only  do  so  if  He  were  not 
His  Son.  There  was  absolute  oneness  in  the  spirit  and  aim 
of  the  works  of  both,  as  in  those  of  a  son  who  looks  with 
reverence  at  the  acts  of  a  Father,  and  has  no  thought  but  to 
reproduce  them,  "  My  Father,  God,  in  His  love  for  me,  the 
Son,  lays  ever  open  before  me,  in  direct  self-disclosure,  all 
that  He  Himself  does,  that  I  may  do  the  same.  You  marvel 
at  my  healing  the  lame  man,  but  the  Father  will  show  me 
greater  works  than  this,  that  I  may  repeat  them  here  on 
earth,  and  that  you  may  wonder,  not  in  curiosity  as  now,  but 
in  shame  at  your  unbelief." 

"  Let  me  tell  you,"  He  continued,  "  what  these  greater  works 
are.  In  your  Law  it  is  the  special  prerogative  of  the  Father 
to  awaken  and  quicken  the  dead,1  but  it  is  mine  also,  for  I, 
the  Son,  quicken  whom  I  will.  And  as  to  judging  men  here 
(as  to  their  spiritual  state),  it  is  left  to  me  alone  by  my 
Father,  that  all  men  may  honour  me  as  His  representative, 
as  they  honour  Him.  He  who  does  not  honour  me,  the 
Son,  does  not  honour  the  Father  who  sent  me.  If  you  wish 
to  know  whom  I  spiritually  quicken,  they  are  those  who  hear 
my  word,  and  believe  Him  who  sent  me,  for  they  have  ever- 
lasting life  even  here,  and  are  not  under  condemnation,  but 
have  passed  from  death  to  life.  Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto 
you,  The  hour  is  coming,  and  now  is,  when  the  (spiritually) 
dead  will  hear  my  voice — the  voice  of  the  Son  of  God — and 
they  that  hear  it  shall  live.  I  thus  wake  them  to  life,  because 
the  Father  has  made  me  the  Divine  fountain  of  life,  as  He 
Himself,  the  living  God,  is.  He  has  also  given  me  authority 
to  judge  men,  because  I  am  the  Son  of  man. 

"  But  marvel  not  at  what  I  have  said  of  waking  and 
judging  the  spiritually  dead,  for  I  will  do  yet  greater  works. 
I  shall  one  day  wake  the  actually  dead  from  their  graves,  and 
will  judge  them  at  the  great  day,  raising  those  that  did  good 
in  this  world  to  the  resurrection  of  life,  and  those  that  did 
evil  to  a  resurrection  of  judgment.  Nor  is  there  a  fear  of 
eiTor,  for  I  can  do  nothing  of  myself.  1  judge  as  I  hear 

1  Deut.  xxxii.  39.    1  Sam.  ii.  6.    See  also  Tob.  xiii.  2.  Wisdom  xvi.  13. 


SELF-VINDICATION.  95 

from  God,  who,  in  His  abiding  communion  with  me,  makes 
known  His  Divine  judgment,  which,  alone,  I  utter.  Hence 
my  judgment  cannot  err,  because  I  speak  only  that  of  God. 

"  You  may  say  that  I  am  bearing  witness  respecting  my- 
self, and  that,  therefore,  it  is  of  no  value ;  but,  if  you  think 
thus,  there  is  another  that  bears  witness  to  me,  and  ye  know 
that  His  testimony  is  true — I  mean  God  Himself.  You  sent 
to  John,  and  he  bore  witness  to  the  truth.  But  the  testimony 
1  receive  is  not  that  of  man.  I  only  say  these  things  that 
you  may  be  saved,  by  taking  John's  testimony  to  heart,  and 
being  waked  by  it  to  faith  in  me,  and  a  share  in  the  salvation 
which,  as  the  Messiah,  I  offer  you.  What  a  wondrous  ap- 
pearance John  was  !  He  was  a  burning  and  shining  lamp, 
and  you  wished  for  a  time  to  rejoice  in  his  light ;  but  when 
you  found  that  he  called  you  to  repentance  rather  than  to 
national  glory  and  worldly  prosperity,  you  forsook  him,  and 
became  his  enemies.  The  light  he  shed  was  not  of  the  kind 
you  desired. 

"  But  I  have  a  witness  which  is  greater  than  that  of  John. 
The  work  which  the  Father  has  given  me  to  bring  to  com- 
pletion— the  work  of  founding  and  raising  the  new  kingdom 
of  God,  as  His  Messiah — this,  in  all  that  it  implies  of  out- 
ward and  spiritual  wonders,  bears  witness  that  the  Father 
has  sent  me.  And  not  only  does  God  Himself  testify  of  me 
indirectly  by  my  work  as  His  Messiah  ;  He  does  so  directly, 
in  your  Scriptures.  But  ye  have  not  recognised  the  voice 
of  this  testimony,  nor  realized  the  image  of  me  it  presents. 
You  are  spiritually  deaf  to  the  one  and  blind  to  the  other. 
Ye  have  not  the  true  sense  of  God's  word  in  your  consciences, 
for  you  do  not  believe  in  His  Messiah,  whom  He  has  sent, 
and  of  whom  these  Scriptures  testify.  They  witness  to  me 
as  the  mediator  of  eternal  life,  and  therefore  every  one  who 
humbly  studies  them  as  the  guide  to  that  life,  will  be  pointed 
by  them  to  me.  You  search  the  Scriptures,  professing  to  wish 
to  find  life,  and  yet  refuse  to  accept  me  !  How  self-contra- 
dictory and  self-condemning ! 

"  I  do  not  roproach  you  thus,  from  any  feeling  of  wounded 
pride,  for  I  care  nothing  for  the  applause  of  men.  I  do  it 
because  I  know  the  ground  of  your  disbelief — you  have  not 
the  love  of  God  in  your  hearts.  If  you  had,  you  would 
recognise  and  receive  His  Son  whom  He  has  sent.  I  have 
come  in  my  Father's  name,  as  His  commissioned  representa- 
tive— the  true  Messiah — and  you  have  rejected  me  with  un- 
believing contempt,  but  when  a  false  Messiah  comes  in  his 


96  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

own  name,  you  will  receive  him !  It  is  no  wonder  you  have 
rejected  me,  for  how  is  it  possible  that  such  as  you  could 
believe,  who  have  no  higher  craving  than  to  give  and  accept 
empty  earthly  honours,  and  are  indifferent  to  the  only  true 
honour  that  comes  from  being  acknowledged  and  praised  of 
God? 

"  You  trust  in  Moses,  who,  you  think,  has  promised  you 
favour  with  God,  here  and  hereafter.  Beware !  There  is  no 
need  that  I  should  accuse  you  before  my  Father,  for  your 
unbelief  in  me.  Moses,  himself,  in  the  books  in  which  ye 
trust,  is  your  accuser,  for  if  ye  had  believed  His  writings  ye 
would  have  believed  me,  for  he  wrote  of  me.  But  if  ye  be  so 
blinded  as  neither  to  see,  nor  to  believe  his  writings,  how  will 
ye  believe  my  words  ?  " 

The  authorities  had  never  had  such  a  prisoner  before 
them.  They  knew  not  what  to  do  with  Him.  and,  in  their 
confusion  and  utter  defeat,  could  only  let  Him  depart  un- 
harmed. They  had  not  yet  summoned  courage  to  proceed 
to  open  violence. 

This  was  the  turning  point  in  the  life  of  Jesus.  Till  now 
He  had  enjoyed  a  measure  of  toleration  and  even  of  accept- 
ance ;  but,  henceforth,  all  was  changed.  Jerusalem  was  no 
longer  safe  for  Him,  and  even  in  Galilee  He  was  dogged  by 
determined  enmity.1  The  shadow  of  the  Cross  darkened  His 
whole  future  career. 

Free  from  His  enemies,  Jesus  appears  to  have  returned  at 
once  to  Galilee,  in  the  hope,  perhaps,  that  there — far  from 
Jerusalem,  with  its  fierce  religious  fanaticism  and  malevolent 
hypocrisy — He  could  breathe  more  freely  in  the  still  and  clear 
air  of  the  hills.  But  religious  hatred  is  beyond  all  others 
intense  and  persistent.  There  were  Rabbis  and  priests 
in  the  north  as  well  as  the  south,  and  they  watched  His 
every  step. 

A  fresh  occasion  for  accusation  could  not  be  long  of 
rising.  He  had  left  Jerusalem  immediately  after  the  Pass- 
over, and  on  the  Sabbath  after  the  second  day  of  the  Feastk 
— or,  it  may  be,  a  Sabbath  later  2 — a  new  charge  was  brought 
against  Him,  In  the  short  distance  which  it  was  lawful  to 
walk  on  a  Sabbath — less  than  three-quarters  of  a  mile1 — the 
path  lay  through  ripening  fields  of  barley — for  Nisan,  the 

1  Ellicott,  p.  142. 

a  Ewald's  Grscldchte,  vol.  v.  p.  380.  Bibel  Lex.,  vol.  V.  p.  125.  Light- 
foot,  in  loc.  Matt.  xii.  1-8.  Mark  ii.  23-28.  Luke  vi.  1-5. 


PLUCKING   THE   EARS   OF   COEN.  97 

Passover  month,  was  the  ancient  Abib,  or  month  of  earing, 
and  the  first  early  sheaf  was  offered  on  the  second  day  of  the 
Passover.  It  was,  by  the  Law  and  by  Eastern  custom,  free 
to  all  to  pluck  ears  enough  in  a  corn  field,  or  grapes  enough 
from  a  vine,  to  supply  hunger,1  and  the  disciples,  as  every 
Oriental  still  does  in  the  same  circumstances,  availed  them- 
selves of  this  liberty,  plucking  some  ears  of  the  barley,  and 
rubbing  them  in  their  hands  as  they  went  on.  The  field 
must  have  been  near  some  town,  most  likely  Capernaum,  for 
a  number  of  people  were  about,  and  among  others,  some 
spies.™  It  was  no  wonder  both  He  and  the  disciples  were 
hungry,  for  no  Jew  could  break  his  fast  till  after  the  morn- 
ing service  at  the  synagogue,  or  take  supper  till  after  the 
evening  service  ;  but  He  had  sanctioned  two  offences  against 
the  Sabbath  laws.  The  plucking  the  ears  was  a  kind  of 
reaping,  and  the  rubbing  was  a  kind  of  grinding  or  threshing. 
Besides,  it  was  required  that  all  food  should  be  prepared  on 
Friday,  before  sunset,  and  the  rubbing  was  a.  preparation.™ 
On  any  other  day  there  would  have  been  no  cause  of  blame ; 
but  to  break  the  Sabbath  rather  than  suffer  hunger  for  a 
few  hours,  was  guilt  worthy  of  stoning.0  Was  it  not  their 
boast  that  Jews  were  known  over  the  world  by  their  readi- 
ness to  die  rather  than  break  the  holy  day  ?  Every  one  had 
stories  of  grand  fidelity  to  it.  The  Jewish  sailor  had  refused , 
even  when  threatened  with  death,  to  touch  the  helm  a 
moment  after  the  sun  had  set  on  Friday,  though  a  storm  was 
raging ;  and  had  not  thousands  allowed  themselves  to  be 
butchered  rather  than  lift  a  weapon  in  self-defence  on  the 
Sabbath  ?  2  The  "  new  doctrine  "  of  Jesus  would  turn  the 
world  upside  down  3  if  not  stopped. 

The  spies  of  the  hierarchical  party,  who  had  seen  the 
offence,  at  once  accused  Him  for  permitting  it,  but  His  answer 
only  made  matters  worse.  He  reminded  them  how  David, 
when  pressed  by  hunger,  in  his  flight  from  Saul,  had  eaten 
the  holy  bread,  and  given  it  to  his  followers,  though  it  was 
not  lawful  for  any  but  priests  to  eat  it.4p  Did  that  not 
show  that  the  claims  of  nature  overrode  those  of  a  cere- 
monial rule  ?  that  the  necessity  of  David  and  his  followers 
was  to  be  considered  before  the  observance  of  a  tradition  ? 
The  law  of  mature  came  from  God ;  the  theocratic  prohibi- 

1  Land  and  Book,  p.  684.     Ewald's  Alt.,  p.  248.     Lev.  xix.  9.     Deut, 
xxiv.  19-22  ;  xxiii.  25.     Euth  ii.  2. 

2  This  was  changed  after  the  first  sad  instance.     1  Mace.  ii.  41. 
8  Acts  xvii.  6.  *  1  Sam.  xxi.  1.    Lev.  xxiv.  9. 


98  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

tion  was  of  man.  "  And  have  you  not  read  in  the  Law,'* l 
added  He,  "  how  the  priests  work  at  their  duties  on  the 
Sabbath,  and  yet  are  held  blameless,  though  they  are  in  fact 
breaking  the  holy  day,  if  your  traditions  and  rules  are  to  bo 
the  unbending  standard  ?  q  What  is  lawful  for  the  servants 
of  the  Temple  to  do  on  Sabbath  must,  much  more,  be  lawful 
for  my  servants  to  do  on  that  day,  for  I  am  greater  than  the 
Temple.  You  condemn  my  disciples,  because  your  thoughts 
are  so  fixed  on  outward  rites  that  you  have  forgotten  that 
God  thinks  less  of  them  than  of  acts  of  mercy.  Does  He 
not  say,2  '  I  will  have  mercy  and  not  sacrifice?'  It  is  in 
your  want  of  mercy  that  you  accuse  my  followers.  They 
have,  besides,  acted  under  my  authority.  The  Sabbath  was 
made  for  man,  not  man  for  the  Sabbath,  as  even  the  Phari- 
sees allow,  and  therefore,  in  any  case,  its  laws  must  give  way 
before  human  necessities.  But  I,  the  Son  of  man — the 
representative  of  man  as  man — the  Messiah  of  God — am  still 
higher  than  any  individual  man,  and  above  all  your  Sabbath 
laws." 

Such  a  retort  and  such  transcendent  claims  may  well  have 
startled  His  accusers,  but  they  only  deepened  their  hatred, 
for  bigotry  is  blind  and  deaf  to  reason.  Charge  was 
being  added  to  charge,  accusation  to  accusation.  He  had 
claimed  the  power  to  forgive  sins ;  He  had  associated  with 
publicans  and  sinners ;  He  had  shown  no  zeal  for  washings 
or  fasts,  and  now  He  had,  a  second  time,  openly  desecrated 
the  Sabbath. 

His  defence  had  only  made  His  position  towards  the  Phari- 
saic laws  more  antagonistic  than  ever,  for  it  had  denied  that 
they  were  unconditionally  binding.  Their  authority  depended 
on  circumstances :  they  were  not  owned  as  directly  Divine. 
God  had  planted  a  higher  law  in  the  human  breast,  and  the 
system  of  the  Rabbis  must  yield  before  it.  He  had  virtually 
alleged  that  the  time  was  come  to  free  Israel  from  the  yoke 
of  traditional  observance,  and  to  raise  a  new  spiritual  king- 
dom on  the  imperishable  basis  of  truly  Divine  law.3  By 
their  system  man  was  subordinated  to  the  Sabbath ;  not  the 
Sabbath  to  man.  This  harshness  was  not  the  design  or  will 
of  God.  The  Sabbath  had  been  given  by  Him  for  the  good 
of  man,  and  was  to  be  a  day  of  refreshment,  peace,  and  joy ; 
not  of  pain,  sorrow,  and  terror.  Jesus,  therefore,  proclaimed 
expressly  that  man  is  greater  than  the  Sabbath,  in  direct 

1  Num.  xxviii.  9  ff.  *  Hos.  vi.  6.  »  Schenkel,  p.  87. 


HOSTILITY   OF   THE   KABBIS.  99 

contradiction  to  the  Pharisaic  teaching,  which  made  the 
Sabbath  of  immeasurably  greater  worth  than  man.  Man, 
and  still  more  Himself,  as  the  representative  of  humanity, 
in  its  abiding  dignity  and  rights — the  Son  of  man — is  the 
Lord  of  the  Sabbath.  It  was  a  proclamation  of  spiritual 
freedom. 

By  such  teaching,  the  Rabbinical  and  the  priestly  party, 
alike,  felt  themselves  threatened  in  their  cherished  hopes, 
wishes,  and  interests.  Since  His  half-contemptuous  words 
about  the  old  garment  and  the  old  bottles,  the  breach  be- 
tween them  and  Jesus  had  been  final.  They  had  marked  Him 
definitely,  as  opposed  to  traditional  Babbinism,  as  a  danger- 
ous agitator,  and  an  enemy  of  the  venerated  "  Hedge  of  the 
Law," — the  glory  of  successive  generations  of  Rabbis.  The 
hierarchy  would  at  once  have  indicted  Him  publicly,  but  for 
His  wide  popularity,  the  devotion  felt  for  Him  by  the  multi- 
tudes He  had  healed  or  comforted,  the  transparent  singleness 
of  His  aims  and  labours,  the  gentleness  and  dignity  of  His 
character,  which  enforced  reverence,  and  His  Divine  humility 
and  lowliness  of  heart,1  which  made  Him  so  unassailable. 

The  synagogues  were,  as  yet,  open  to  Him,  and  He  still 
frequented  them,  for  the  facilities  they  offered  of  teaching 
the  people.  Another  violation  of  the  Pharisaic  laws  of  the 
Sabbath  soon  followed,  in  one  of  the  services.  He  had  gone 
to  the  synagogue,  and  was  teaching  in  it,  when  He  noticed  a 
man'2  whose  right  hand,  withered  by  long-standing  local 
paralysis  and  its  consequent  atrophy,3  hung  helpless  by  his 
side.  Meanwhile,  the  angry  scribes  and  Pharisees,  now 
constantly  on  the  watch  against  Him,  sat  with  keen  eyes  to 
see  if  he  would  venture  to  break  their  Sabbath  laws  once 
more,  by  healing  the  sufferer,  who  could  claim  no  help  till 
the  sacred  day  was  over,  as  he  was  in  no  immediate  danger 
of  life.  Their  fine-spun  casuistry  had  elaborated  endless 
rules  for  the  treatment  of  all  maladies  on  the  sacred  day. 
A  person  in  health  was  not  to  take  medicine  on  the  Sabbath. 
For  the  toothache,  vinegar  might  be  put  in  the  mouth,  if  it 
were  afterwards  swallowed,  but  it  must  not  be  spat  out 
again.  A  sore  throat  must  not  be  gargled  with  oil,  but  the 
oil  might  be  swallowed.  It  was  unlawful  to  rub  the  teeth 
with  sweet  spice  for  a  cure,  but,  if  it  were  done  to  sweeten 

1  ScJienJcel,  p.  89. 

*  Matt  xii.  9-14.     Mark  iii.  1-6.    Luke  vi.  6-11. 
3  Bilel  Lex.,  vol.  ii.  p.  586. 


100  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

the  breath,  it  was  permitted.  N"o  fomentations,  etc.,  conld  be 
put  to  affected  parts  of  the  body.1  One  prohibition  I  must 
give  in  Latin.  "  Qui  pediculum  occidit  sabb.  idem  est  ac 
si  occideret  camelum."  The  school  of  Shammai  held  it 
unlawful  to  comfort  the  sick,  or  visit  the  mourner  on  the 
Sabbath,  but  the  school  of  Hillel  permitted  it. 

It  was  clear,  therefore,  that,  if  any  cure  of  the  withered 
hand  were  attempted,  there  would  be  ground  for  another 
formal  charge  of  Sabbath-breaking,  which  brought  with  it 
death  by  stoning. 

But  Jesus  never  feared  to  do  right.  No  thought  of  self 
ever  came  between  Him  and  His  witness  to  the  truth. 
Looking  over  at  His  enemies,  as  they  sat  on  the  chief  seats, 
He  read  their  hearts,  and  felt  that  fidelity  to  the  very  law 
which  His  expected  action  would  be  held  to  have  broken, 
demanded  that  that  act  be  done. 

His  whole  soul  was  kindled  with  righteous  anger  and 
sorrow  at  the  hardness  which  forced  conscience  to  be  silent, 
rather  than  confess  the  truth.  It  was  needful  that  such 
hollowness  and  wilful  perversity  should  be  exposed.  As  the 
Son  of  God — the  Messiah — sent  to  found  a  kingdom  of  pure 
spiritual  religion,  He  felt  that  the  wisdom  of  the  schools, 
priestly  mediation,  sacrifices,  Temple  rites,  and  Sabbath 
laws,  were  only  a  glittering  veil,  which  shut  out  the  know- 
ledge of  eternal  truth,  alike  towards  God  and  towards  man. 
He  had  taught  and  healed,  announced  the  kingdom  of  spirit 
and  truth,  cheered  the  poor,  reproved  sinners,  lifted  the 
humble  from  the  dust,  and  gathered  the  godly  round  Him- 
self. Dull,  mechanical  obedience  to  worthless  forms ;  or 
love,  from  the  fulness  of  the  heart,  was  now  the  question,  in 
religion  and  morals.  Should  true  religion  be  spread,  or 
error  confirmed  ?  2  Should  He  silently  allow  blinded  men 
to  fancy  their  blind  leaders  right,  or  should  He  brave  all,  to 
open  their  eyes  and  lead  them  into  the  true  ways  of  His 
Father  ?  Looking  at  the  paralyzed  man,  He  bade  him  rise 
from  the  floor — on  which,  with  the  rest  of  the  congregation, 
he  had  been  sitting  3 — and  stand  forth  in  the  midst,  and,  on 
his  doing  so,  in  ready  obedience  to  one  so  famous,  turned 
once  more  to  the  scowling  Rabbis  on  the  dais.  "  Is  it  lawful 
on  the  Sabbath  days,"  He  asked  them,  "  to  do  good  or  to  do 
evil,  to  save  life  or  to  destroy  it  ?  "  But  they  held  their 
peace,  fearing  they  might  commit  themselves  by  answering 

1  Hor.  TTeb.,  vol.  ii.  p.  201.         •  SclienM,  p.  91.         »  Schilrer,  p.  445. 


CONSPIRACY   AGAINST   CHEIST.  101 

without  careful  reflection,  "  It  is  allowable,  is  it  not,"  Ho 
resumed,  "  to  lay  hold  on  a  sheep  which  has  fallen  into  a  pit 
on  the  Sabbath  day,  and  help  it  out  ?  1  How  much  then,  is 
a  man  better  than  a  sheep  ?  Wherefore  it  is  lawful  to  do 
well  on  the  Sabbath."  "  Stretch  forth  thy  hand,"  said  He, 
to  the  sufferer; — and  the  hand  which,  till  then,  had  hnng 
wasted  and  lifeless  at  his  side,  was  healthy  and  strong  aa 
the  other. 

Jesus  knew  the  significance  of  the  moment.  He  felt  that 
the  silence  of  His  accusers  was  not  from  conviction,  but 
sullen  obstinacy,  which  had  shut  its  ears  against  the  truth. 
He  saw  that,  between  him  and  the  leaders  of  the  nation, 
there  was  henceforth  a  hopeless  separation.  They  had  finally 
rejected  Him,  and  would  henceforward  seek  His  destruc- 
tion. Their  fanaticism,  now  fairly  roused,  forgot  all  minor 
hatreds,  and  united  the  hostile  factions  of  the  nation  in 
common  eagerness  for  His  destruction.  No  parties  could  be 
more  opposed  than  the  nationalists  or  Pharisees,  and  the 
Friends  of  Rome  r  gathered  round  Herod  Antipas  at  Tiberias, 
but  they  now  joined  in  hunting  Jesus  to  the  death.  The 
alliance  boded  the  greatest  danger,  for  it  showed  that,  in 
addition  to  religious  fanaticism,  He  had  now  to  encounter 
the  suspicion  of  designing  political  revolution.  The  Church 
and  the  State  had  banded  together  to  put  "  the  deceiver  of 
the  people  "  out  of  the  way  as  soon  as  possible. 

It  had  been  inevitable  from  the  first  that  it  should  be  so. 
The  Jerusalem  party  expected  the  "  Salvation  of  Israel " 
from  the  unconditional  restoration  of  the  theocracy,  with 
themselves  at  its  head,  and  from  the  strictest  enforcement 
of  outward  legal  observances.  While  the  contrast  between 
Judaism  and  heathenism  was,  meanwhile,  intensified  and 
embittered  to  the  utmost,  they  hoped  before  long  to  crash 
Rome,  or  perish  in  the  attempt.  They  would  have  greeted 
any  one  who  proved  able  to  impose  their  Law,  in  all  its 
strictness,  on  mankind, — as  a  deliverer,  as  the  stem  from  the 
root  of  David,  as  the  Saviour  and  Messiah.  In  Jesus,  on  the 
contrary,  there  appeared  one  who,  while  constraining  their 
wonder  at  His  lofty  morality  and  spiritual  greatness,  wag 
the  very  opposite  of  all  they  wished  and  hoped.  He  claimed 
to  be  the  Messiah,  but  His  ideal  of  the  Messiahship  was  the 
antithesis  of  that  of  the  Rabbis  and  priesthood.  He  had 
announced  Himself  as  the  founder  of  a  new  theocracy  more 

1  Hor.  Htb.,  vol.  ii.  p.  201. 


102  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

spiritual  and  more  holy  than  that  of  Moses.  He  had  thrown 
a  new  light  on  the  Scriptures ;  had  revealed  God  in  a  new 
aspect  as  no  mere  national  deity,  bat  the  Father  of  all 
mankind — and  He  had  taught  the  most  startling  novelties  as 
to  the  freedom  of  the  individual  conscience.  The  Rabbis 
had  enjoyed,  as  their  exclusive  prerogative,  the  exposition  of 
Scripture,  but  they  now  found  themselves  dethroned  by  the 
religious  freedom  Jesus  had  proclaimed,  and  He  had  even 
spoken  of  them  as  a  hindrance  to  true  knowledge.  The  spirit 
of  His  teaching  compromised  the  whole  state  of  things  in  the 
religious  world.  He  announced  a  new  future :  the  vested 
rights  of  the  day  clung  to  the  past,  with  which  their  in- 
terests and  their  passions  were  identified. 

The  new  wine  was  thus  already  bursting  the  old  bottles, 
and  the  result  could  not  be  doubtful.  Conservatism  felt 
itself  imperilled,  for  it  had  been  weighed  and  found  want- 
ing. The  priesthood  had  become  a  dividing  wall  between 
God  and  Israel.  Its  condition  was  a  fit  expression  of  the 
religious  decay  of  the  nation.  The  sacrifices  were  mere 
outward  forms  ;  the  Temple,  notwithstanding  the  glory  with 
which  Herod's  love  of  magnificence  and  hypocritical  piety 
had  adorned  it,  was  a  symbol  of  exclusiveness,  intolerance, 
and  hatred  of  humanity  at  large ;  the  high  officialism  of 
the  day,  was  a  dam  against  every  reform,  every  breath  of 
fresh  religious  thought,  and  every  attempt  at  a  purer  spiritual 
life.1 

1  Schenkel,  vol.  i  p.  90. 


CHAPTER  XXXIX. 
GALILEE. 

THE  opposition  of  the  Rabbis  and  priests,  however  malig- 
nant and  fixed,  was  as  yet  confined  to  secret  plottings.1 
With  the  people  at  large,  Jesus  continued  even  increasingly 
popular.  It  was  advisable,  however,  to  avoid  any  pretext 
for  overt  hostility,  and  hence  He  withdrew  from  Capernaum 
for  a  time,  on  another  mission  to  the  towns  and  villages  on 
the  edge  of  the  lake,  till  the  storm,  in  a  measure,  blew  over. 
To  the  chagrin  of  His  enemies,  the  multitudes  attracted  to 
see  and  hear  Him  were  larger  than  ever.  The  excitement 
was  evidently  spreading  through  all  Palestine,  for  numbers 
still  continued  to  come  from  Jerusalem  and  Idumea  on  the 
south,  from  Perea  and  Decapolis  and  other  parts  on  the  east, 
and  even  from  the  heathen  district  round  Tyre  and  Sidon  on 
the  north.  There  were  many  Jews  settled  in  every  part  of 
the  land,  and  the  concourse  was  no  doubt  of  such  almost 
exclusively.  It  was  even  found  necessary  that  a  boat  should 
attend  Him,  as  He  journeyed  along  the  shore,  that  He  might 
betake  Himself  to  it  when  the  throng  grew  oppressive. 
Miraculous  cases  in  great  number  increased  the  excitement, 
many  who  crowded  round  Him  finding  relief  by  touching 
even  His  clothes,  and  unclean  spirits  falling  down  before 
Him  in  involuntary  confession  of  His  being  the  Son  of  God. 
But  though  His  pity  would  not  refuse  to  heal  any  who  came, 
He  still  sought  to  avoid  the  offence  of  too  great  notoriety,  by 
requiring  secrecy.  His  gentle  and  unostentatious  progress 
was  in  such  vivid  contrast  to  the  noisy  and  disputatious  ways 
of  the  Rabbis,  that  St.  Matthew  saw  in  it  a  fulfilment  of  the 
Messianic  visions  of  Isaiah,  for  He  did  not  strive,  nor  cry 
aloud,  nor  was  His  voice  heard  in  the  streets,  and  in  His 
tender  gentleness  He  would  not  break  a  bruised  reed,  or 
quench  even  the  smoking  flax.2 

1  Matt.  xii.  15-21.    Mark  iii.  7,  12.  *  Isa.  xlii.  1-8. 

45 


104  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

The  Gospels  do  not  enable  us,  in  the  incidents  recorded  by 
them,  to  follow  any  chronological  sequence  of  these  months 
of  our  Lord's  ministry,  but  it  must  have  been  about  this 
time,  perhaps  on  His  return  to  Capernaum,  from  this  mis- 
sion, that  we  must  date  one  of  the  most  interesting  of  their 
narratives.1  He  had  scarcely  reached  home,  after  His  cir- 
cuit, when  a  deputation  of  "  the  elders  of  the  Jews  "  waited 
on  Him.  They  were  the  foremost  men  in  the  Capernaum 
community — the  governing  body  of  the  synagogue,  and,  as 
such,  the  Jewish  magistrates  of  the  town.  It  is  the  habit 
in  the  East  to  send  such  embassies  when  any  request  is  to 
be  made  or  invitation  given  with  circumstances  of  special 
respect,2  but  there  was  a  feature  in  this  case  that  made  it 
very  unusual.  The  members  of  the  deputation,  though 
Jewish  ecclesiastical  officials,  came  as  the  representatives  of 
a  heathen,  possibly  of  a  Samaritan.  Lying  on  the  edge  of 
his  territory,  Herod  Antipas  kept  a  small  garrison  in  Caper- 
naum, and  this,  at  that  time,  was  under  command  of  a 
centurion,  who,  like  many  of  the  better  heathen  of  the  day, 
had  been  drawn  towards  Judaism  by  its  favourable  contrast 
with  idolatry.  He  had  shown  his  sympathy  with  the  nation 
and  his  generous  spirit,  in  a  way  then  not  uncommon  among 
the  wealthy,  by  building  a  synagogue  3  in  the  town — perhaps 
that  of  which  the  massive  ruins  still  remain.4  One  of  his 
slaves  had  been  struck  with  a  paralytic  affection,  and  was 
fast  sinking ;  and  with  a  tenderness  that  did  him  infinite 
honour  in  an  age  when  a  slave  was  treated  by  many 
masters,  and  even  in  the  eye  of  the  Roman  law,*  as  a  mere 
chattel,  he  prayed  Jesus,  through  the  Jewish  elders,b  to 
heal  the  sufferer.  Their  request  was  at  once  complied  with, 
and  Jesus  forthwith  set  out  with  them  to  the  centurion's 
quarters. 

But  the  zeal  of  the  messengers  had  outrun  their  commis- 
sion, for,  as  Jesus  approached  the  house,  a  second  deputation 
met  Him,  to  deprecate  His  being  put  to  so  much  trouble, 
and  to  apologize,  by  a  humble  expression  of  the  centurion's 
Bense  of  his  unworthiness  of  the  honour  of  such  an  One  com- 
ing under  his  roof.  He,  himself,  appears  to  have  followed, 
as  if  it  had  been  too  great  a  liberty  to  approach  Jesus  ex- 
cept at  the  distance  of  two  mediations.  "  Lord,"  said  he, 

1  Matt.  viii.  5-13.     Luke  vii.  1-10.  8  Land  and  Book,  p.  211. 

3  It  is  called  tin--  Synagogue  in  the  Greek  text,  apparently  to  mark  that 
It  was  the  only  one. 

4  Furrer,  p.  324. 


THE  CENTUEION'S  SERVANT.  105 

"  trouble  not  Thyself ;  for  I  am  not  worthy  that  Thon 
shouldest  enter  under  my  roof.  Wherefore,  neither  thought 
I  myself  worthy  to  come  to  Thee ;  but  say  in  a  word,  and 
my  servant  shall  be  healed.  For  I,  also,  am  a  man  set  under 
authority  (and  render  obedience  to  my  superiors),  and  have 
soldiers  under  me,  and  I  say  to  this  one,  Go,  and  he  goes ;  to 
another,  Come,  and  he  comes ;  and  to  my  servant,  Do  this, 
and  he  does  it.  If,  therefore,  You  indicate  your  pleasure  only 
by  a  word,  the  demons  who  cause  diseases  will  at  once  obey 
You  and  leave  the  sick  man,  for  they  are  under  your  authority  ° 
as  my  servants  are  under  mine." 

Faith  so  clear,  undoubting,  and  humble,  had  never  before 
cheered  the  heart  of  Jesus,  even  from  a  Jew,  and,  coming  as 
it  did  from  the  lips  of  a  heathen,  it  seemed  the  first-fruits  of 
a  vast  harvest,  outside  the  limits  of  the  Ancient  People.  He 
had  found  a  welcome  in  Samaria  when  rejected  in  Judea ; 
and  now  it  was  from  a  heathen  He  received  this  lowly 
homage.  The  clouds  that  had  lain  over  the  world  through 
the  past  seemed  to  break  away,  and  a  new  earth  spread  it- 
self out  before  His  soul.  The  Kingdom  of  God,  rejected  by 
Israel,  would  be  welcomed  by  the  despised  Gentile  nations. 
"  Verily,"  said  He,  "  I  tell  you,  I  have  not  found  so  great 
faith,  no,  not  in  Israel.  And  I  say  unto  you,  that  many  shall 
come  from,  the  east  and  the  west,  and  lie  down  at  the  table 
of  God  in  the  kingdom  of  the  Messiah,  as  honoured  guests, 
with  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob,  while  the  Jew,  who  prided 
himself  on  being,  by  birth,  the  child  of  the  heavenly  king- 
dom, and  despised  all  others,  as  doomed  to  sit  in  the  dark- 
ness outside  the  banquet  hall  of  the  Messiah,  will  have  to 
change  places  with  them  !  "  To  His  hearers  such  language 
would  speak  with  a  force  to  be  measured  only  by  their  fierce 
pride  and  intolerance.  To  share  a  grand  banquet  with  the 
patriarchs  in  the  Messianic  kingdom,  was  a  favourite  mode 
with  the  Jews  of  picturing  the  blessedness  that  kingdom 
would  bring.  "  In  the  future  world,"  they  made  God  say,  in 
one  of  their  Rabbinical  lessons,  "  I  shall  spread  for  you  Jews 
a  great  table,  which  the  Gentiles  will  see  and  be  ashamed."  1 
But  now  the  rejection  and  despair  are  to  be  theirs  !  The  con- 
trast between  Jesus  and  the  Rabbis  was  daily  becoming  more 
marked,  for  He  adds  to  all  else  a  grand  vision  of  a  uni- 
versal religion,  and  of  a  kingdom  of  the  Messiah,  no  longer 
national,  but  sending  a  welcome  to  all  humanity  who  will 
submit  to  its  laws. 

1  Tanchum.  in  Schtittgen. 


106  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

"  Go  thy  way,"  added  He,  to  the  centurion,  "  and  as  thou 
hast  believed,  so  be  it  done  to  thee."  And  his  slave  was 
healed  in  that  very  hour. 

He  had  apparently  left  Capernaum  the  same  day,  for  we 
find  Him,  on  the  next,  at  a  village  called  Nam,  twenty-five 
miles  to  the  south-west,  on  the  northern  slope  of  "  Little  Her- 
mon,"  a  clump  of  hills  at  the  eastern  end  of  the  great  plain 
of  Esdraelon.  It  was  still  the  early  and  popular  time  of  His 
ministry,  and  crowds  followed  Him  wherever  He  appeared. 
Nain,  which  is  now  a  poor  and  miserable  hamlet,  inhabited 
only  by  a  few  fanatical  Mahometans,  may  then  have  deserved 
its  name,  "the  beautiful."  The  only  antiquities  about  it  are 
some  tombs  hewn  in  the  hills,  seen,  as  you  approach,  beside 
the  road  which  winds  up  to  the  village.  The  presence  of 
the  Prince  of  Life,  with  a  throng  of  disciples  and  followers, 
might  well  have  banished  thoughts  of  sadness,  but  shadows 
everywhere  lie  side  by  side  with  the  light.  As  He  came 
near,  another  procession  met  Him,  descending  from  ISTain, 
the  dismal  sounds  rising  from  it,  even  at  a  distance,  telling 
too  plainly  what  it  was.  Death  had  been  busy  under  those 
blue  summer  skies,  and  its  prey  was  now  being  borne,  amidst 
the  wail  of  the  mourner,  to  its  last  resting-place.  A  colder 
heart  than  that  of  Jesus  would  have  been  touched,  for  it  was 
a  case  so  sad  that  the  whole  town  had  poured  forth  to  show 
its  sympathy  with  the  broken  heart  that  followed  next  the 
bier.d  It  was  the  funeral  of  a  young  man,  the  only  son  of  a 
widow,  now  left  in  that  saddest  of  all  positions  to  a  Jew — to 
mourn  alone,  in  the  desolated  home  in  which  he  had  died, 
doubtless,  only  a  very  few  hours  before.8  Moved  with  the 
pity  at  all  times  an  instinct  with  Him,  Jesus  could  not  let  the 
train  sweep  on.  It  was  not  meet  that  death  should  reap 
its  triumph  in  His  presence.  Stepping  towards  the  poor 
mother,  He  dried  up  the  fountain  of  her  tears  by  a  soft  appeal. 
"Weep  not,"  said  He,  and  then — careless  of  the  defilement 
which  would  have  made  a  Rabbi  pass  as  far  as  he  could  from 
the  dead — moved  to  the  bier.  Touching  it,  those  who  bore 
the  body  at  once  stood  still.  It  was,  no  doubt,  a  mere  open 
frame,  like  that  still  used  for  such  purposes  in  Palestine. 
"  Young  man,"  said  He,  "  I  say  unto  thee,  Arise."  It  was 
enough.  "  He  that  was  dead  sat  up  and  began  to  speak. 
And  He  delivered  him  to  his  mother." 

It  was  at  Shunem,  now  Solani,1  a  village  on  the  other  side 

1  Smith's  Bible  Dictionary. 


THE   DOUBTS   OF   THE   BAPTIST.  107 

of  the  very  hill  on  which  Nain  stood,  that  Elisha  had  rinsed 
the  only  son  of  the  lady  who  had  hospitably  entertained, 
him. ;  and  the  luxuriant  plain  of  Jezreel,  stretching  out 
beneath,  had  been  the  scene  of  the  greatest  events  in  the  life 
of  Elijah,  who  had  raised  to  life  the  son  of  the  widow,  in  the 
Phenician  village  of  Sarepta,  on  the  far  northern  coast.  No 
prouder  sign  of  their  greatness  as  prophets  had  lingered  in 
the  mind  of  the  nation  than  such  triumphs  over  the  grave, 
and  in  no  place  could  such  associations  have  been  more  rife 
than  in  the  very  scene  of  the  life  of  both.  At  the  sight  of 
the  young  man  once  more  alive,  the  memory  of  Elijah  and 
Elisha  was  on  every  lip,  and  cries  rose  on  all  sides  that  a 
great  prophet  had  again  risen,  and  that  God  had  visited  His 
people.  Nor  did  the  report  confine  itself  to  these  upland 
regions.  It  flew  far  and  near,  to  Judea  in  the  south,  and 
even  to  the  remote  Perea, 

For  now  six  months  ;  it  may  be,  for  more  than  a  year,*  the; 
Baptist — the  one  man  hitherto  recognised,  in  those  days, 
as  a  prophet — had  lain  a  prisoner  in  the  dungeons  of 
Machaerus,  in  hourly  expectation  of  a  violent  death — a 
man,  young  in  years,  but  wasted  with  his  own  fiery  zeal, 
and  now  by  the  shadows  of  his  prison-house.  But  Antipas 
had  not  yet  determined  on  his  ultimate  fate.  Shielding 
him  from  the  fury  of  Herodias,  and  yet  dreading  to  let  him 
go  free,1  he  still  suffered  him,  as  Felix  permitted  Paul  long 
afterwards,  at  Csesarea,  to  receive  visits  from  his  disciples, 
as  if  almost  ashamed  to  confine  one  so  blameless.  The 
rumours  of  Christ's  doings  had  thus,  all  along,  reached  the 
lofty  castle  where  he  lay,  and  must  have  been  the  one  great 
subject  of  his  thought  and  conversation.  As  a  Jew,  he  had 
clung  to  Jewish  ideas  of  the  Messiah,  expecting  apparently 
a  national  movement,  which  would  establish  a  pure  theo- 
cracy, under  Jesus.  Why  had  He  left  him  to  languish  in 
prison  ?  Why  had  He  not  used  His  supernatural  powers  to 
advance  the  Kingdom  of  God  ? 

To  solve  such  questions,  which  could  not  be  repressed, 
two  of  his  disciples  were  deputed  to  visit  Jesus,  and  learn 
from  Himself  whether  He  was,  indeed,  the  Messiah,  or 
whether  the  nation  should  still  look  for  another?  From 
first  to  last,  more  than  sixty  claimants  of  the  title  were  to 
ritte.  John  might  well  wonder  if  the  past  were  not  a  dream, 
aird  Jesus  only  a  herald  like  himself.  He  had  everything 

1  Acts  xxiv.  23. 


108  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

to  depress  him.  A  child  of  the  desert,  accustomed  to  itg 
wild  freedom,  he  was  now  caged  in  a  dismal  fortress,  with 
no  outlook  except  black  lava-crags,  and  deep  gorges,  yawn- 
ing in  seemingly  bottomless  depths.  Burning  with  zeal,  he 
found  himself  set  aside  as  if  forsaken  by  God,  or  of  no  use 
in  His  kingdom.  Even  the  people  appeared  to  have  forgotten 
him,  for  their  fickle  applause  had  begun  to  lessen,  even 
before  his  imprisonment.  His  work  seemed  to  have  been 
without  results  ;  a  momentary  excitement  which  had  already 
died  away.  He  could  not  hope  for  visits  from  Jesus,  which 
would  only  have  given  a  second  prisoner  to  Machaerus — "  the 
Black  Castle." 

The  reaction  from  the  sense  of  boundless  liberty  in  the 
desert  and  the  stir  and  enthusiasm  of  the  great  assemblies 
at  the  fords  of  the  Jordan,  to  the  forced  inaction  and  close 
walls  of  a  prison,  affected  even  the  strong  and  firm  soul 
of  the  hero,  as  similar  influences  have  affected  the  bravest 
hearts  since  his  day.  Moses  and  Elijah  had  had  their  times 
of  profound  despondency,  and  it  was  no  wonder  that  a 
passing  cloud  threw  its  shadow  over  the  Baptist  in  his 
lonely  dungeon. 

The  answer  of  Jesus  was  full  of  calm  dignity.  Isaiah,  the 
special  favourite  of  John,  had  given  the  marks,  ages  before, 
by  which  the  Messiah  should  be  known,  and  these  Jesus 
proceeded  at  once  to  display  to  the  disciples  sent  from 
Machaerus.  Among  the  crowds  around  Him,  there  were 
always  many  who  had  been  attracted  by  the  hope  of  a 
miraculous  cure  of  their  diseases  or  infirmities,  and  these 
He  forthwith  summoned  to  His  presence,  and  healed.  John 
would  understand  the  significance  of  such  an  answer,  and  it 
left  undisturbed  the  delicacy  which  shrank  from  verbal  self- 
assertion.  His  acts,  and  the  gracious  words  that  accom- 
panied them,  were  left  to  speak  for  Him.  It  was  enough 
that  He  should  refer  the  envoys  to  Isaiah,  and  to  what  they 
saw.  "  Go  your  way,  and  tell  John  what  you  have  seen 
and  heard.  The  blind  see,  the  lame  walk,  the  lepers  are 
cleansed,  the  deaf  hear,  the  dead  are  raised,  and  the  poor 
have  the  Gospel  preached  to  them."  1  g  "  Tell  him,  moreover, 
that  I  know  how  he  is  tempted ;  but  let  him  comfort  himself 
with  the  thought  that  he  who  holds  fast  his  faith  in  spite 
of  all  fiery  trials,  and  does  not  reject  the  kingdom  of  God 
because  of  its  small  beginnings,  and  gentle  spirituality,  so 

1  Isa.  xxxv.  5  ;  Ixi.  1.     Matt.  xi.  2-19.     Luke  vii  18-35. 


CHEIST'S  EULOGY  ON  JOHN.  109 

different  from  the  worldly  power  and  glory  expected,  already 
has  the  blessings  it  is  sent  to  bring."  * 

The  messengers  had  hardly  departed,  when  His  full  heart 
broke  out  into  a  eulogy  on  John,  tender,  lofty,  and  fervent. 
"  It  was  no  weak  and  wavering  man,"  said  He,  "  bending 
this  way  and  that,  like  the  tall  waving  reeds,h  that  ye  went 
out  in  bands  to  the  desert  banks  of  the  Jordan  to  see  !  No 
soft  and  silken  man,  tricked  out  in  splendid  dress,  and  living 
on  dainty  fare,  like  the  glittering  courtiers  at  Tiberias! 
John  was  a  prophet  of  God — aye,  the  last  and  the  greatest  of 
prophets,  for  he  was  sent  as  the  herald  to  prepare  the  way  for 
me,  the  Messiah !  I  tell  you,  among  all  that  have  been  born 
of  women,  a  greater  and  more  honoured  than  John  the 
Baptist  has  not  risen !  " 

Passing  from  this  tender  tribute,  which  He  had  already 
paid  to  His  great  forerunner,  even  before  the  authorities  at 
Jerusalem,2  He  proceeded,  as  was  meet,  to  point  out  the 
greater  privileges  enjoyed  by  His  hearers,  than  even  by  one 
so  famous.  "  He  was  great  indeed  in  the  surpassing  dignity 
of  his  office,  as  the  herald  of  the  Kingdom  ;  yet  one  far  less,1 
but  still  a  member  of  that  Kingdom  which  is  now  set  up 
among  you,  is  greater  in  the  honour  of  his  citizenship  3  than 
he,  for  he  stood  outside.  But  he  did  a  mighty  work ;  he 
roused  the  land  to  a  grand  earnestness  for  the  kingdom  of 
the  Messiah,  and  they  who  were  thus  stirred  by  him,  are 
those  now  being  received  into  it  The  Prophets  and  the  Law 
only  prophesied  of  my  coming :  John  announced  me  as 
having  come.  Believe  me,  he  was  the  Elias  who  was  to 
appear."  k 

To  a  Jewish  audience,  no  honour  could  be  so  great  as  this, 
for  Elijah  was  the  greatest  of  all  the  prophets.  "  Elijah 
appeared,"  says  the  son  of  Sirach,  "a  prophet  like  fire,  and 
his  words  burned  like  a  torch.  He  brought  down  famine  on 
Israel,  and  by  his  stormy  zeal,  he  took  it  away.  Through 
the  word  of  the  Lord  he  shut  up  the  heavens,  and  thrice 
brought  down  fire  from  them.  0  !  how  wert  thou  magni- 
fied, 0  Elijah,  by  thy  mighty  deeds,  and  who  can  boast  that 
he  is  thine  equal !  He  raised  the  dead  to  life,  and  brought 
them  from  the  underworld  by  the  word  of  the  Highest.  He 
cast  kings  to  destruction,  and  the  noble  from  their  seats. 
He  received  power  to  punish  on  Sinai,  and  judgments  on 

1  Ewald,  vol.  v.  p.  431.  8  John  v.  35. 

*  Lightfoot,  vol.  ii.  p.  191.     Meyer,  in  loc. 


110  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

Horeb.  He  anointed  kings  to  revenge  guilt,  and  prophets  to 
be  his  successors.  He  was  carried  np  in  a  flaming  storm, 
in  a  chariot  with  horses  of  fire  ;  he  is  appointed  for  the  cor- 
rection of  times  to  come,  to  abate  God's  wrath  before  judg- 
ment be  let  loose,  to  turn  the  heart  of  the  father  to  the  sons, 
and  to  restore  the  tribes  of  Jacob.  It  is  well  for  those  who 
shall  behold  thee  !  " l  All  the  majesty  of  the  prophetic  office 
seemed  incorporate  in  the  Tishbite,  and  yet  this  did  not  appear 
enough  to  Jesus  to  express  the  dignity  of  John,  for  he  was 
more  than  a  prophet,  and  no  greater  had  ever  risen  among 
all  the  sons  of  men.2 

The  message  from  John  was  only  the  utterance  of  the 
general  feeling  which,  by  its  want  of  spiritual  elevation, 
questioned  the  Messiahship  of  Jesns,  because  He  had  not  real- 
ized the  national  idea  of  a  Jewish  hero-king,  at  the  head  of  a 
great  revolt  from  Borne,  destroying  the  heathen,  and  estab- 
lishing the  theocracy  by  wonders  like  the  dividing  of  the 
Bed  Sea,  or  the  thunderings  of  Sinai.  It  struck  home  to  the 
heart  of  the  Saviour,  that  even  His  herald  should  have  no 
higher  or  worthier  conception  of  the  true  nature  of  the 
kingdom  of  God, — that  even  he,  so  near  the  light, — should 
have  caught  so  little  of  its  brightness.  No  wonder  the 
people,  as  a  mass,  rejected  Him.  How  long  had  He  taught 
in  the  towns  of  Galilee,  and  yet  how  disproportionately  small 
was  the  number  He  had  really  won,  in  spite  of  the  throngs 
who  had  pressed  with  eagef  curiosity  and  wonder  round 
Him,  and  the  respect  He  had  excited  by  His  teachings  ! 
His  heart  was  bowed  with  sorrow.  He  had  come  to  His 
own,  and  His  own  did  not  receive  Him.  Infinite  love  and 
pity  for  them  filled  His  soul,  for  He  was  Himself  a  son  of 
Israel,  and  would  fain  have  led  His  brethren  into  the  New 
Kingdom,  as  the  first-fruits  of  the  nations.  But  they  refused 
to  let  themselves  be  delivered  from  the  spiritual  and  moral 
slavery  under  which  they  had  long  sunk.  The  yoke  of  the 
Bomans  was  not  their  greatest  misfortune.  That  of  the 
dead  letter  and  of  frozen  forms  and  formulae,  which  chilled 
every  nobler  aspiration,  and  shut  up  the  heart  against  true 
repentance  and  practical  holiness,  was  a  far  greater  calamity. 
Even  their  highest  ideal — the  conception  of  the  Messiah — 
had  become  a  heated  fantastic  dream  of  universal  dominion, 

1  Ecclus.  xlviii.  1-11. 

8  Hamrath,  vol.  i.  p.  372.  Schenkcl,  p.  41.  Keim,  vol.  ii.  pp.  357-368. 
Reynold*,  pp.  430-432. 


JOHN  HATED   BY  THE   RABBIS.  Ill 

apart  from  religions  reform.  A  glimpse  of  other  fields, 
which  promised  a  richer  harvest,  had,  however,  lifted  His 
spirit  to  consoling  thoughts,  for  the  heathen  centurion  had 
shown  the  faith  which  was  wanting  in  Israel.  His  homage 
had  been  like  the  wave-offering  before  God  of  the  first  sheaf 
of  the  Gentile  world !  Heathenism  might  be  sunk  in  error 
and  sin,  crime  and  lust,  and  all'moral  confusion  might  reign 
widely  in  it ;  there  was  more  hope  of  repentance  and  a 
return  to  a  better  life,  from  heathen  indifference  or  guilt, 
than  from  Jewish  insane,  self-righteous  pride.1 

The  crowd  of  despised  common  people  and  publicans,2  to 
whom  Jesus  had  addressed  His  eulogy  of  John,  received  it 
with  delight,  for  they  had  themselves  been  baptized  by  the 
now  imprisoned  prophet.  There  were  not  wanting  others, 
however,  whom  it  greatly  offended — the  Pharisees  and  Scribes 
present  for  no  friendly  purpose.  With  the  instinct  of  mono- 
poly, they  condemned  at  once  whatever  had  not  come  through 
the  legitimate  channels  of  authorized  teaching.  They  had 
gone  out  to  John,  but  with  the  foregone  conclusion  to  hear, 
criticize,  and  reject  him  with  supercilious  contempt,  as  only 
fit  for  the  vulgar.  Though  a  priest's  son,  he  was  virtually  a 
layman,  for  he  had  not  been  duly  ordained.  He  might  be 
good  enough  in  his  way,  but  he  was  not  a  Rabbi.  He  was 
almost  guilty  of  schism,  like  Korah.  He  was  not  licensed 
by  the  authorities,  and  yet  preached,  as,  indeed,  for  that 
matter,  was  the  case  with  Jesus  Himself.  A  thought  of 
the  bitter  hostility  John  and  He  had  met,  rose  in  the 
Saviour's  mind  at  the  sight  of  the  Rabbis  on  the  skirts  of  the 
crowd,  and  the  sadness  and  indignation  of  His  heart  broke 
out  in  stern  denunciation.  "  To  what  shall  I  liken  the  men 
of  this  generation  ?  They  are  like  children  in  the  empty 
market-places,  playing  at  marriages  and  mournings  ;  some 
making  music  on  the  flute  for  the  one,  some  acting  like 
mourners  for  the  other ;  but  neither  the  cheerful  piping,  nor 
the  sad  beating  on  the  breast,  pleasing  the  companion  audi- 
ence. John  the  Baptist  came  upholding  the  traditions  and 
customs  of  you  Rabbis  ;  for  He  fasted,  and  paid  attention  to 
washings  and  set  prayers,  and  enjoined  these  on  his  disciples  ; 
but  you  said  he  was  too  strict,  and  would  have  nothing  to  do 
with  him,  and  that  he  spoke  in  so  strange  a  way  because  he 
had  a  devil.  I  came  eating  and  drinking — neither  a  Nazarite 
like  John,  nor  requiring  fasts  like  him ;  nor  avoiding  the 

i  Schcnkel,  p.  163.  *  Matt,  xi.  16-30.    Luke  vii.  29-35. 


112  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

table  of  all  but  the  ceremonially  pure,  like  the  Phansees ; 
and  you  say  I  am  too  fond  of  eating  and  of  wine,  and  still 
worse,  am  a  friend  of  the  publicans  and  sinners  you  despise. 
But  the  true  Divine  wisdom,  which  both  he  and  I  have  pro- 
claimed, is  justified  by  those  who  honour  and  follow  it,  for 
they  know  its  surpassing  worth,  though  you  treat  it  as  folly  ! 
The  Divine  wisdom  of  both  his  and  my  coming  as  we  have 
come,  is  vindicated  by  all  who  humbly  seek  to  be  wise,  and 
the  folly  of  men  is  seen  in  their  fancied  wisdom." 

He  would  fain  have  led  into  the  ways  of  peace  all  to  whom 
He  had  preached  in  His  frequent  journeys.  Bat  tender 
though  He  was,  He  was  also  stern  when  stolid  obduracy  shut 
its  eyes  on  the  sacred  light  He  had  brought  to  them.  Most 
of  His  mighty  works  had  been  done,  and  most  of  His  no  less 
mighty  words  had  been  spoken,  in  Chorazin,  Bethsaida,  and 
Capernaum,  the  district  which  He  had  made  His  home.  But 
they  had  led  to  no  general  penitence.  With  a  voice  of  un- 
speakable sadness,  mingled  with  holy  wrath,  He  denounced 
such  wilful  perversity.  "  Woe  unto  thee,  Chorazin,  woe  unto 
thee,  Bethsaida,  for  if  the  mighty  works  I  have  done  in  you 
had  been  done  even  in  Tyre  and  Sidon,  the  types  of  besotted 
heathenism,  they  would  have  repented  long  ago,  in  sackcloth 
and  ashes.  But  I  say  unto  you,  It  will  be  more  tolerable  for 
Tyre  and  Sidon  in  the  Day  of  Judgment  than  for  you.  And 
thou,  Capernaum,  exalted  to  heaven  by  my  dwelling  and 
working  in  you,  shalt  be  thrust  down  to  Hades,  at  the  Day  of 
Judgment ;  for  if  the  mighty  works  I  have  done  in  thee  had 
been  done  in  Sodom,  it  would  have  remained  until  this  day. 
But  I  say  unto  you,  It  will  be  more  tolerable  for  the  land  of 
Sodom,  in  the  Day  of  Judgment,  than  for  thee  !  " 

It  would  seem  as  if,  at  this  point,  some  communication  that 
pleased  him  had  been  made  to  Jesus.  Perhaps  His  disciples 
had  told  Him  of  some  success  obtained  among  the  simple 
crowds  to  whom  they  had  preached  the  New  Kingdom.  What- 
ever it  was,  He  broke  forth  on  hearing  it  into  thanksgiving . 
"  I  praise  Thee,  O  Father,  Lord  of  Heaven  and  earth,  that 
Thou  hast  hid  the  things  of  Thy  Kingdom  from  those  who 
are  thought,  and  who  think  themselves,  wise,  and  qualified  to 
judge — the  Rabbis,  and  priests,  and  Pharisees — and  hast 
revealed  them  to  simple  souls,  unskilled  in  the  wisdom  of  the 
schools.  I  thank  Thee  that  what  is  well-pleasing  to  Thee  has 
happened  thus !  "  The  New  Kingdom  was  not  to  rest  on  the 
theology  of  the  schoolmen  of  the  day,  or  on  official  authority, 
or  on  the  sanction  of  a  corrupt  Church,  or  on  the  support  of 


THE   KINGDOM   OF  HEAVEN   FOB   "  BABES."          113 

privileged  classes,  but  upon  childlike  faith  and  humble  love. 
It  was  not  to  spread  downwards,  from  among  the  powerful  and 
influential,  but  to  rise  from  amidst  the  weak  and  ignoble,  the 
poor  and  lowly,  who  would  receive  it  in  love  and  humility. 
It  was  to  spread  upwards  by  no  artificial  aids,  but  by  the 
attractions  of  its  own  heavenly  worth  alone.  It  was  a  vital 
condition  of  its  nature  that  it  should,  for  it  can  only  be  re- 
ceived in  sincerity,  where  its  unaided  spiritual  beauty  wins 
the  heart. 

Among  the  "babes"  were  doubtless  included- the  con- 
fessors to  be  won  from  the  world  at  large,  and  not  from 
Israel  alone,  for  the  law  of  growth  from  below,  upwards,  is 
that  of  religious  movements  in  every  age  and  country.  All 
reformations  begin  with  the  laity  and  with  the  obscure. 
Jesus  had  nothing  to  hope,  but  everything  to  fear,  from  the 
privileged  orders,  the  learned  guilds,  the  ecclesiastical  author- 
ities, and  the  officials  of  the  Church  generally.  It  sounds 
startling  to  read  of  His  thanking  God  that  these  all-powerful 
classes  showed  neither  sympathy  for  the  New  Kingdom 
founded  by  Him,  nor  even  the  power  of  comprehending  it, 
and  that  it  was  left  to  the  simple  and  childlike  minds  of  the 
common  people,  in  their  freedom  from  prejudice,  to  embrace 
it  with  eagerness.  It  was  because  He  saw  in  the  fact,  the 
Divine  law  of  all  moral  and  religious  progress.  New  epochs 
in  the  spiritual  history  of  the  world  always  spring,  like  seeds, 
in  darkness  and  obscurity,  and  only  show  themselves  when 
they  have  already  struck  root  in  the  soil.  The  moral  and 
religious  life  finds  an  unnoticed  welcome  in  the  mass  of  the 
people,  when  the  higher  ranks  of  lay,  and  even  of  ecclesiastical 
society,  are  morally  and  spiritually  effete,  unfit  to  introduce 
a  reform,  and  bound  by  their  interests  to  things  as  they  are.1 

The  overflowing  fulness  of  heart,  which  had  found  utter- 
ance in  prayer,  added  a  few  sentences  more,  of  undying  in- 
terest and  beauty.  It  might  be  feared  that,  if  old  guides 
were  forsaken,  those  who  took  Him  for  their  leader  might 
find  Him  unequal  to  direct  them  aright.  To  dispel  any  such 
apprehension  He  draws  aside  the  veil  from  some  of  the  awful 
mysteries  of  His  nature  and  His  relation  to  the  Eternal,  in 
words  which  must  have  strangely  comforted  the  simple  souls 
who  heard  them  first,  and  which  still  carry  with  them  won- 
drous spiritual  support,  intensified  by  their  awful  sublimity  as 
the  words  of  One,  in  outward  seeming,  a  man  like  ourselves. 

1  Schenkel,  vol.  i.  p.  166. 


114  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

"All  things  concerning  the  New  Kingdom  are  delivered 
nnto  me  of  my  Father — its  founding,  its  establishment,  its 
spread.  I  am,  therefore,  the  King  and  Leader  of  the  new 
people  of  God — the  head  of  the  new  Theocracy,  divinely 
commissioned  to  rule  over  it.  All  that  I  teach  I  have  re- 
ceived from  my  Father.  I  speak,  in  all  things,  the  mind 
of  God,  and  thus  yon  are  for  ever  safe.  No  one  but  the 
Father,  who  has  commissioned  and  sent  me  forth — Me,  His 
Son — knows  fully  what  I  am,  and  what  measure  of  gifts  I 
have  received  as  Messiah.  Nor  does  any  man  know  the 
Father,  in  His  counsels  for  the  salvation  of  man,  as  I,  His  Son, 
do,  and  those  to  whom  I  make  Him  known.  I  am  the  true 
Light,  who  alone  can  lighten  men,  the  one  true  Teacher,  who 
cannot  mislead.1 

"  Come  unto  me,  therefore,  all  ye  that  labour  and  are 
heavy-laden  with  the  burdens  of  rites  and  traditions  of 
men,  which  your  teachers  lay  on  you — you,  who  can  find  no 
deliverance  from  the  misery  of  your  souls  by  all  these  ob- 
servances— and  I  will  give  your  spirits  rest.  Cast  off  their 
heavy  yoke  and  take  mine,  and  learn  of  me,  for  I  am  not 
hard  and  haughty  like  your  Rabbis,  but  meek  and  lowly  in 
heart,  and  ye  shall  find  rest  for  your  souls.  For  the  yoke  I 
lay  on  you,  the  law  I  require  you  to  honour,  is  not  like 
that  which  you  have  hitherto  borne,  but  brings  health  to  the 
spirit,  and  my  burden  is  light,  for  it  is  the  Law  of  love."  2 

Language  like  this,  briefly  expanded,  for  greater  clearness, 
demands  reverent  thought.  Who  does  not  feel  that  such 
words  could  not  fall  from  the  lips  of  a  sinful  man,  but  only 
from  those  of  one  whose  nature  and  life  lay  far  above  all 
human  imperfection  ?  Who,  even  of  the  highest,  or  wisest, 
or  best,  of  human  teachers,  could  invite  all,  without  excep- 
tion to  come  to  him,  with  the  promise  that  he  would  give 
them  true  rest  for  their  souls  ? 3  And  who,  in  doing  so, 
could  speak  of  it  as  a  thing  apparent  to  all  who  heard  him, 
that  he  was  meek  and  lowly  in  heart  ?  Who  would  think 
of  claiming  the  stately  dignity  of  sole  representative  of  the 
Unseen  God,  and  who  could  speak  of  God  as  his  Father,  in 
the  same  way  as  Jesus  ?  And  who  would  dare  to  link  Him- 
self with  the  Eternal  in  a  communion  so  awful  and  an  inter- 
revelation  so  absolute?  He  makes  us  feel  that,  as  we  listen, 
we  are  face  to  face  with  the  Incarnate  Divine. 

1  Kuinoeli  Commfnt.  in  loc.  3  Mfyer,  in  loc. 

»  Ullmann,  pp.  73,  74.  H.lld  u.  Jesus,  p.  17.  SchcnM,  p.  169, 
Keim's  Christus,  pp.  40,  41.  Weidemann,  Darstelluiigen,  p.  5. 


CHAPTER  XL. 

DARKENING  SHADOWS.— LIFE  IN  GALILEE. 

rpHE  rupture  with  the  hierarchical  party  was  not  as  yet  so 
-•-  pronounced  as  to  prevent  a  more  or  less  friendly  inter- 
course between  Jesus  and  some  of  its  members.  An  incident 
connected  with  one  happened  about  this  time. 

A  Pharisee  of  the  name  of  Simon,  who  seems  to  have  been 
in  good  social  position,  had  met  with  Jesus  in  some  of  the 
Galilasan  towns,  and  had  been  so  attracted  by  Him,  that  he 
invited  Him  to  his  house,  to  eat  with  him.  This  was  a  mark 
of  high  consideration  from  one  of  a  party  so  strict,  for  a 
Pharisee  was  as  careful  with  whom  he  ate  as  a  Brahmin. 
Defilement  was  temporary  loss  of  caste,  and  neutralized  long- 
continued  effort  to  attain  a  higher  grade  of  legal  purity,  and 
it  lurked,  in  a  thousand  forms,  behind  the  simplest  acts  of 
daily  life  and  intercourse.1  To  invite  one  who  was  neither 
a  Pharisee,  nor  a  member  of  even  the  lowest  grade  of  legal 
guilds,  was  amazing  liberality  in  a  Jewish  precisian.  It 
would  seem  as  if,  when  Jesus  accepted  the  invitation,  the 
courtesy  had  already  excited  timid  fear  of  having  gone  too 
far,  and  had  given  place  to  a  cold  patronizing  condescension, 
which  fancied  it  had  conferred,  rather  than  received,  an 
honour  by  His  presence. 

In  the  earlier  ages  of  the  nation  it  had  been  the  habit  to 
sit  on  mats  at  meals, 2  with  the  feet  crossed  beneath  the 
body,  as  at  present  in  the  East,  round  a  low  table,  now 
only  about  a  foot  in  height.  But  the  foreign  custom  of  re- 
clining on  cushions,  long  in  use  among  the  Persians,  Greeks, 
and  Romans,  had  been  introduced  into  Palestine  apparently 
as  early  as  the  days  of  Amos,3  and  had  become  general  in 
those  of  Christ.  Raised  divans  or  table  couches,  provided 
with  cushions  and  arranged  on  three  sides  of  a  square,  sup- 

1  Jost,  vol.  i.  p.  202. 

2  Judges  xix.  6.     1  Sam.  xx.  5,  24.     1  Kings  xiii.  20.     Prov.  xxiii.  1. 
1  Amos  vi.  4,  7  (cir.  B.C.  790). 


116  THE   LIFE   OF   CHKIST. 

plied  a  rest  for  guests,  and  on  these  they  lay  on  their  left 
arm,  with  their  feet  at  ease  behind  them,  outside.  The 
place  of  honour  .was  at  the  upper  end  of  the  right  side, 
which  had  no  one  above  it,  while  all  below  could  easily 
lean  back  on  the  bosom  of  the  person  immediately  behind. 
Hospitality,  among  the  poor,  was  prefaced  by  various  cour- 
tesies and  attentions  to  the  guest,  more  or  less  peculiar  to 
the  nation.  To  enter  a  house  except  with  bare  feet  was 
much  the  same  as  our  doing  so  without  removing  the  hat, 
and,  therefore,  all  shoes  and  sandals  were  taken  oft'  and  left 
at  the  threshold.  A  kiss  on  the  cheek,'  from  the  master  of 
the  house,  with  the  invocation  "  The  Lord  be  with  you," 
conveyed  a  formal  welcome,  and  was  followed,  when  the  guest 
took  his  place  on  the  couch,  by  a  servant  bringing  water 
and  washing  the  feet,  to  cool  and  refresh  them,  as  well  as  to 
remove  the  dust  of  the  road  and  give  ceremonial  cleanness. 
The  host  himself,  or  one  of  his  servants,  next  anointed  the 
head  and  beard  of  the  guests  with  fragrant  oil,  attention  to 
the  hair  being  a  great  point  with  Orientals.  Before  and  after 
eating,  water  was  again  brought  to  wash  the  hands,  as  the  re- 
quirements of  legal  purity  demanded,  and  from  the  fact  that 
the  food  was  taken  by  dipping  the  fingers,  or  a  piece  of  bread, 
into  a  common  dish.  "  To  wash  the  hands  before  a  meal," 
says  the  Talmud,  "  is  a  command ;  to  do  so  during  eating 
is  left  matter  of  choice,  but,  to  wash  them  after  it,  is  a 
duty."  l 

With  all  Jews,  but  especially  with  scrupulous  formalists 
like  the  Pharisees,  religious  observances  formed  a  marked 
feature  in  every  entertainment,  however  humble,  and,  as 
these  were  duly  prescribed  by  the  Rabbis,  we  are  able  to 
picture  a  meal  like  that  given  to  Jesus  by  Simon.* 

Houses  in  the  East  are  far  from  enjoying  the  privacy  we 
prize  so  highly.  Even  at  the  present  day,  strangers  pass 
in  and  out  at  pleasure,  to  see  the  guests,  and  join  in  conver- 
sation with  them  and  with  the  host.b  Among  those  who 
did  so  in  Simon's  house,  was  one  at  whose  presence  in  his 
dwelling,  under  any  circumstances,  he  must  have  been 
equally  astonished  and  disturbed.-  Silently  gliding  into  the 
chamber,  perhaps  to  the  seat  round  the  wall,  came  a  woman, 
though  women  could  not  with  propriety  make  their  appear- 
ance at  such  entertainments.  She  was,  moreover,  unveiled, 
which,  in  itself,  was  contrary  to  recognised  rules.  In  the 

1  Tract.  Cholin,  105.  »  Luke  vii.  3C-50. 


THE   WOMAN   THAT  WAS   A   SINNER.  117 

little  town  every  one  was  known,  and  Simon  saw,  at  the  first 
glance,  that  she  was  no  other  than  one  familiar  to  the  com- 
munity as  a  poor  fallen  woman.  She  was  evidently  in  dis- 
tress, but  he  had  no  eyes  or  heart  for  snch  a  consideration. 
She  had  compromised  his  respectability,  and  his  frigid  self- 
righteousness  could  think  only  of  itself.  To  eat  with  publi- 
cans or  sinners  was  the  sum  of  all  evils  to  a  Pharisee.  It 
was  the  approach  of  one  under  moral  quarantine,  whese  very 
neighbourhood  was  disastrous,  and  yet,  here  she  was,  in  his 
own  house. 

A  tenderer  heart  than  his,  however,  knew  the  deeper 
aspects  of  her  case,  and  welcomed  her  approach.  She  had 
listened  to  the  words  of  Jesus,  perhaps  to  His  invitation  to 
the  weary  and  heavy-laden  to  come  to  Him  for  rest,  and  was 
bowed  down  with  penitent  shame  and  contrition,  which  were 
the  promise  of  a  new  and  purer  life.  Lost,  till  now,  to  self- 
respect,  an  outcast  for  whom  no  one  cared,  she  had  found  in 
Him  that  there  was  a  friend  of  sinners,  who  beckoned  even 
the  most  hopeless  to  take  shelter  by  His  side.  In  Him  and 
His  words  hope  had  returned,  and  in  His  respect  for  her 
womanhood,  though  fallen,  quickening  self-respect  had  been 
once  more  awakened  in  her  bosom.  She  might  yet  be  saved 
from  her  degradation  ;  might  yet  retrace  her  steps  from  pol- 
lution and  sorrow,  to  a  pure  life  and  peace  of  mind.  What 
could  she  do  but  seek  the  presence  of  One  who  had  won  her 
back  from  ruin  ?  What  could  she  do  but  express  her  lowly 
gratitude  for  the  sympathy  He  alone  had  shown  ;  the  belief 
in  the  possibility  of  her  restoration  that  had  been  revived  in 
her  heart  ? 

The  object  of  her  visit  however,  was  not,  long  a  mystery. 
Kneeling  down  behind  Jesus,  she  proceeded  to  anoint  His 
feet  with  fragrant  ointment,  but  as  she  was  about  to  do  so, 
her  tears  fell  on  them  so  fast  that  she  was  fain  to  wipe  them 
with  her  long  hair,  which,  in  her  distress,  had  escaped  its 
fastenings.  To  anoint  the  head  was  the  usual  course,  but 
she  would  not  venture  on  such  an  honour,  and  would  only 
make  bold  to  anoint  His  feet.  Unmindful  of  her  disorder, 
which  Simon  coldly  noted  as  an  additional  shame,  she  could 
think  only  of  her  benefactor.  Weeping,  and  wiping  away 
the  tears,  and  covering  the  feet  with  kisses,0  her  heart  gave 
itself  vent  till  it  was  calmed  enough  to  let  her  anoint  them, 
and,  meanwhile,  Jesus  left  her  to  her  lowly  loving  will. 

The  Pharisee  was  horrified.  That  a  Rabbi  should  allow 
such  a  woman,  or,  indeed,  any  woman,  to  approach  him,  wag 


118  THE   LIFE   OF   CHKIST. 

contrary  to  all  the  traditions,  but  it  was  incredibly  worse  in 
one  whom  the  people  regarded  as  a  prophet.  He  would  not 
speak  aloud,  but  his  looks  showed  his  thoughts.  "  This  man, 
if  He  were  a  prophet,  would  have  known  what  kind  of 
woman  this  is  that  touches  Him,  for  she  is  a  sinner." 

Jesus  saw  what  was  passing  in  his  mind,  and  turning  to 
him,  requested  an  answer  to  a  question.  "  There  was  a 
certain  creditor,"  said  He,  "  who  had  two  debtors.  The  one 
owed  him  five  hundred  pence,  the  other  fifty.  And  when 
they  had  nothing  to  pay,  he  frankly  forgave  them  both. 
Tell  me,  therefore,  which  of  them  will  love  Him  most  ?  " 
Utterly  unconscious  of  the  bearing  of  these  words  on  him- 
self, the  Pharisee  readily  answered,  that  he  suppposed  he 
to  whom  the  creditor  forgave  most,  would  love  him  most. 

"  Thou  hast  rightly  judged,"  replied  Jesus.  Then,  like 
Nathan  with  David,  He  proceeded  to  bring  the  parable  home 
to  the  conscience  of  His  host. 

Turning  to  the  weeping,  penitent  woman  at  His  feet,  and 
pointing  to  her,  He  continued,  "  Simon,  seest  thou  this 
woman  ?  I  entered  into  thine  house ;  thou  gavest  me  no 
water  for  my  feet  as  even  courtesy  demanded  ;  but  she  has 
washed  my  feet  with  tears,  and  wiped  them  with  her  hair. 
Thou  gavest  me  no  kiss  ;  but  this  woman,  since  the  time  I 
entered,  has  not  ceased  to  kiss  my  feet  tenderly.  Thou  didst 
not  anoint  my  head  with  oil ;  but  she  has  anointed  my  feet 
with  ointment.  I  say  unto  thee,  therefore,  her  sins,  which 
are  many,  are  forgiven,  for  she  loved  much ;  but  one  to  whom 
little  is  forgiven,  loves  little."  Then  addressing  the  sobbing 
woman  herself,  He  told  her,  "  Thy  sins  are  forgiven.  Thy 
faith  has  saved  thee :  go  in  peace  ;  " 

That  He  should  claim  to  forgive  sins  had  already  raised 
a  charge  of  blasphemy  against  Him,  and  it  did  not  pass 
unnoticed  now.  But  the  time  had  not  yet  come  for  open 
hostility,  and  His  words,  in  the  meanwhile,  were  only  trea- 
sured up  to  be  used  against  Him  hereafter. 

We  are  indebted  to  a  notice  in  St.  Luke  1  for  a  glimpse  of 
the  mode  of  life  of  Jesus  in  these  months.  He  seems  to 
have  spent  them  in  successive  circuits,  from  Capernaum  as 
a  centre,  through  all  the  towns  and  villages  of  Galilee,  very 
much  as  the  Rabbis  were  accustomed  to  do  over  the  couniry 
at  large.  In  these  journeys  He  was  attended  by  the  Twelve, 
and  by  a  group  of  loving  women,  attracted  to  Him  by  re- 

1  Chap.  viii.  1-3. 


THE   WOMEN   THAT  FOLLOWED   CHEIST.  119 

lationship,  or  by  His  having  healed  them  of  various  diseases ; 
who  provided,  in  part  at  least,  for  His  wants,  and  those  of 
His  followers.  That  He  was  not  absolutely  poor,  in  the 
sense  of  suffering  from  want,  is  implied  in  His  recognition 
as  a  Rabbi,  and  even  as  a  prophet,  which  secured  Him  hos- 
pitality and  welcome,  as  an  act  of  supreme  religious  merit, 
wherever  He  went.  To  entertain  a  Rabbi  was  to  secure  the 
favour  of  God,  and  it  was  coveted  as  a  special  honour.1 
Thus,  though  He  had  no  home  He  could  call  His  own,  He 
would  never  want  ready  admission  to  the  homes  of  others 
wherever  He  went,  so  long  as  popular  prejudice  was  not 
excited  against  Him.  The  cottage  of  Lazarus  at  Bethany 2 
was  only  one  of  many  that  opened  its  doors  to  Him,  and 
He  could  even  reckon  on  a  cheerful  reception  so  confidently, 
as  to  invite  Himself  to  houses  like  that  of  Zaccheus,3  or  that 
of  him  in  whose  upper  room  He  instituted  the  Last  Supper. 
Many  disciples,  or  persons  favourably  inclined  to  Him,  were 
scattered  over  the  land. d  The  simplicity  of  Eastern  life 
favoured  such  kindly  relations,  and  hence  His  wants  would 
be  freely  supplied,  except  in  desert  parts,  or  when  He  was 
journeying  through  Samaria,  or  distant  places  on  the  fron- 
tiers of  Galilee.4  The  willing  gifts  of  friends,  thrown  into 
a  common  fund,  supplied  so  fully  all  that  was  needed  in 
such  cases,  that  there  was  always,  indeed,  a  surplus  from 
which  to  give  to  the  poor.5 

The  names  of  some  of  the  group  of  women  who  thus 
attended  Jesus  have  been  handed  down  as  a  fitting  tribute 
to  their  devotion,  while  those  of  the  men  who  followed  Him, 
with  the  exception  of  the  twelve  Apostles,  are  lost.  The 
religious  enthusiasm  of  the  age,  always  seen  most  in  the 
gentler  sex,  had  already  spread  among  all  Jewish  women, 
for  the  Pharisees  found  them  their  most  earnest  supporters.6 
It  was  only  natural,  therefore,  that  Jesus  should  attract  a 
similar  devotion.  His  parity  of  soul,  His  reverent  courtesy 
to  the  sex,  His  championship  of  their  equal  dignity  with 
man,  before  God,  and  His  demand  for  supreme  zeal  from 
both  sexes,  in  the  spread  of  the  New  Kingdom,  drew  them 
after  Him.  But  so  accustomed  were  all  classes  to  such 
attendance  on  their  own  Rabbis,  that  even  the  enemies  of 
Jesus  found  no  ground  for  censuring  it  in  His  case. 

1  Gfrorer,  vol.  i.  p.  144.  3  John  xii.  1. 

3  Luke  xix.  5.  4  Matt.  xiv.  17.     John  iv.  8. 

*  John  xii.  5 ;  xiii.  29.  Base's  Leben  Jesu,  p.  136.     Schleiermacher'a 

Leben  Jesu,  p.  191.  *  Jos.,  Ant.  xvii.  2.  4 ;  xviii.  1.  3  ;  xiii.  10.  6. 
46 


120  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST.- 

Of  these  earliest  mothers  of  the  Chnrch,  five  are  named. 
Mary,  or  Miriam,  of  the  town  of  Magdala,  from  whom  Jesus 
had  cast  seven  devils ;  Johanna,  the  wife,  not  the  widow,  of 
Chuza,  a  high  official  in  the  palace  of  Herod  Antipas  at 
Tiberias  ;  Susanna,  of  whom  only  the  name  is  known ;  Mary, 
the  mother  of  James  the  Less  and  of  Joses,  and  wife  of 
Klopas ;  and  Schelamith,  or  Salome,  mother  of  James  and 
John,  and  wife  of  Zebedee  or  Zabdai,  perhaps  also  the  sister 
of  Mary  the  mother  of  Jesus,1  as  Mary  the  wife  of  Klopas 
is  also  thought  by  many  to  have  been.  Of  this  little  band, 
so  slightly  yet  so  endearingly  mentioned,  a  surpassing 
interest  attaches  to  Mary  Magdalene,  from  her  unfounded 
identification  with  the  fallen  penitent  who  did  Jesus  honour 
in  the  house  of  the  Pharisee  Simon.  There  is  nothing 
whatever  to  connect  her  with  that  narrative,  for  to  think 
that  she  led  a  sinful  life,  from  the  fact  of  her  having 
suffered  from  demoniacal  possession,  confounds  what  the 
New  Testament  distinguishes  by  the  clearest  language. 
Never,  perhaps,  has  a  figment  so  utterly  baseless  obtained 
so  wide  an  acceptance,  as  that  which  we  connect  with  her 
name.2  But  it  is  hopeless  to  try  to  explode  it,  for  the  word 
has  passed  into  the  vocabularies  of  Europe  as  a  synonym  of 
penitent  frailty. 

Mary  appears  to  have  belonged  to  the  village  of  Magdala, 
or  Migdol,  "the  Tower,"  about  three  miles  north  of  Tiberias, 
on  the  water's  edge,  at  the  south-east  corner  of  the  plain  of 
Gennesareth.  It  is  now  represented  by  the  few  wretched 
hovels  which  form  the  Mahometan  village  of  El-Mejdel, 
with  a  solitary  thorn-bush  beside  it,  as  the  last  trace  of  the 
rich  groves  and  orchards,  amidst  which  it  was,  doubtless, 
embowered  in  the  days  of  our  Lord.  A  high  limestone 
rock,  full  of  caves,  overhangs  it  on  the  south-west,  and  be- 
neath this,  out  of  a  deep  ravine  at  the  ba*ck  of  the  plain,  a 
clear  stream  rushes  past  to  the  lake,  which  it  enters  through 
a  tangled  thicket  of  thorn  and  willows  and  oleanders,  covered 
in  their  season  with  clouds  of  varied  blossoms.  Who  Mary 
was,  or  what,  no  one  can  tell ;  but  legend,  with  a  cruel  in- 
justice, has  associated  her  name  for  ever  with  the  spot,  now 
eacred  to  her,  as  the  lost  one  reclaimed  by  Jesus.3 

The  circle  which  thus  attended  Him  on  His  journeys  was 

1  John  xix.  25.  Matt,  xxvii.  56.  Winer,  Art.  Salome.  De  Wette, 
frandbuch  d.  N.  Test,  in  loc. 

1  Smith's  Dictionary,  Art.  Mary  Magdalene. 

1  Art.  Magdala,  in  Winer,  Bibel  Lex.,  Smith's  Diet.,  and  Herzog. 


THE   PERSONAL   APPEARANCE   OF   CHRIST.          121 

peculiar,  above  all  things,  in  an  age  of  intense  ritualism,  by 
its  slight  care  for  the  external  observances  and  mortifications, 
which  form  the  sum  of  religion  with  so  many.  This  simplicity 
was  made  the  great  accusation  against  Jesus,  as,  in  after 
times,  the  absence  of  sacrifices  and  temples  led  the  heathen 
to  charge  Christianity  with  atheism.1  Even  the  initiatory 
rite  of  baptism  had  fallen  into  abeyance,  and  fasting  and 
the  established  rules  for  prayer  and  ceremonial  purifications 
were  so  neglected,  as  to  cause  remark  and  animadversion.3 
There  is,  indeed,  great  reason  for  the  belief  of  some,  that 
Jesus  and  His  followers  differed,  alike  in  dress,  demeanour, 
mode  of  life,  and  customs,  from  the  teachers  of  the  day  and 
their  followers.3  The  simple  tunic  and  upper  garment  may 
have  had  the  Tallith  worn  by  all  other  Jews,  but  we  may  be 
certain  that  the  tassels  at  its  corners  were  in  contrast  to  the 
huge,  ostentatious  size  4  affected  by  the  Rabbis.  Nor  can  we 
imagine  that  either  Jesus,  or  the  Twelve,  sanctioned  by  their 
use  the  superstitious  leathern  phylacteries*  which  others 
bound,  with  long  fillets,  on  their  left  arm  and  their  forehead, 
at  prayers.  The  countless  rules,  then  as  now  in  force,  for 
the  length  of  the  straps,  for  the  size  of  the  leather  cells  to 
hold  the  prescribed  texts — for  their  shape,  manufacture,  etc., 
and  even  for  the  exact  mode  of  winding  the  straps  round  the 
arm,  or  tying  them  on  the  forehead — marked  too  strongly 
the  cold,  mechanical  conceptions  of  prayer  then  prevailing, 
to  let  us  imagine  that  our  Lord  or  the  disciples  wore  them. 
There  was  no  such  neglect  of  the  person  as  many  of  His 
contemporaries  thought  identical  with  holiness,  for  He  did 
not  decline  the  anointing  of  His  head  or  beard,  or  the 
washing  of  His  feet,  at  each  resting-place.5  Nor  did  He 
require  ascetic  restrictions  at  table,  for  we  find  Him  per- 
mitting the  use  of  wine,  bread,  and  honey,'  and  of  fish,  flesh, 
and  fowl.6  In  Peter's  house  He  invited  others  to  eat  with 
Him ;  and  He  readily  accepted  invitations,  with  all  the 
customary  refinements  of  the  kiss  of  salutation,  and  foot- 
washing,  and  anointing  even  with  the  costliest  perfume.' 

1  Minuc.  F.  Octav.,  x.  8. 

2  Matt.  ix.  14 ;  xii.  1 ;  xv.  1.     Luke  v.  33. 

1  Keim,  vol.  ii.  p.  281.  4  Matt,  xxiii.  5. 

&  Matt.  vi.  16  ;  xxvi.  6.     Luke  vii.  44. 

8  Matt.  xi.  19  ;  vii.  10  ;  x.  29 ;  xiv.  17.  Luke  xxiv.  42.  John  xxi.  13. 
Base's  Leben  Jesu,  p.  139. 

~i  Matt.  viii.  15 ;  ix.  10 ;  xxvi.  6.  Luke  vii.  36  ;  x.  40  ;  xi.  37  ;  xiv.  1 
Mark  xiv.  3. 


122  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

The  Pharisee  atoned  for  his  occasional  entertainments  by 
fasting  on  Mondays  and  Thursdays,  but  Jesus  exposed  Him- 
self to  the  charge  of  indulgence,  because  He  never  practised 
even  such  intermittent  austerities.1  Expense  was,  however, 
the  exception  and  not  the  rule,  for  He  praised  the  Baptist; 
for  having  nothing  costly  or  effeminate  in  his  dress,  and  He 
enjoined  the  strictest  moderation,  both  in  appearance  and 
living,2  on  His  disciples. 

It  is  the  great  characteristic  of  Jesus  that  He  elevated  the 
common  details  of  life  to  the  loftiest  uses,  and  ennobled  even 
the  familiar  and  simple.  In  His  company,  the  evening  meal, 
when  not  forgotten  in  the  press  of  overwhelming  labours, 
was  an  opportunity  always  gladly  embraced  for  informal  in- 
struction, not  only  to  the  Twelve,  but  to  the  many  strangers 
whom  the  easy  manners  of  the  East  permitted  to  gather  in 
the  apartment.3  After  evening  devotions,  the  family  group 
invited  the  familiar  and  unconstrained  exchange  of  thought, 
in  which  Jesus  so  much  delighted.  As  the  Father  and  Head 
of  the  circle,  He  would,  doubtless,  use  the  form  of  thanks 
and  blessing  hallowed  by  the  custom  of  His  nation,  open- 
ing the  meal  by  the  bread  and  wine  passed  round  to  be 
tasted  by  each,  after  acknowledgment  of  the  bounty  of  God 
in  His  gifts.  Then  would  follow  a  word  to  all,  in  turn  : 
the  story  of  the  day,  and  each  one's  share  in  it,  would  be 
reviewed  with  tender  blame,  or  praise,  or  counsel ;  and  the 
faith,  and  hope,  and  love  of  all  would  be  refreshed  by  their 
very  meeting  round  the  table.  How  dear  these  hours  of 
quiet  home  life  were  to  Jesus  Himself,  is  seen  in  the  tender- 
ness with  which  He  saw  His  "  children  "  in  the  group  they 
brought  around  Him, — as  if  they  replaced  in  His  heart  the 
household  affections  of  the  family ;  and  in  the  pain  and 
almost  womanly  fondness,  with  which  He  hesitated  to  pro- 
nounce His  last  farewell  to  them.  To  the  disciples  them- 
selves, they  grew  to  be  an  imperishable  memory,  which  they 
were  fain,  in  compliance  with  their  Master's  wish,  to  per- 
petuate daily,  in  their  breaking  of  bread.  His  greatness 
and  condescension,  the  loving  familiarity'  and  fond  endear- 
ments of  close  intei  course,  the  peace  and  quiet  after  the 
strife  of  the  day,  the  feeling  of  security  under  His  eye  and 
care,  made  these  hours  a  recollection  that  grew  brighter  and 

1  Matt.  xi.  19  ;  xxiii.  6,  25. 

s  Matt.  xi.  8;  viii.  20 ;  x.  9.     Compare  Phil.  iv.  12. 

1  Matt.  ix.  10.     Luke  xxii.  U ;  xx.  U,  29  tf. 


THE   DAILY  LIFE    OF   CHRIST.  123 

more  sacred  with  the  lapse  of  years,  and  deepened  the  long- 
ing for  His  return,  or  for  their  departure  to  be  with  Him. 

In  this  delightful  family  life  there  was,  however,  nothing 
like  communism,  for  there  is  not  a  trace  of  the  property  of 
each  being  thrown  into  a  common  fund.  His  disciples  had, 
indeed,  left  all ;  but  they  had  not  sold  it  to  help  the  general 
treasury.1  Some  of  them  still  retained  funds  of  their  own,2 
and  the  women  who  accompanied  them  still  kept  their  pro- 
perty.3 When  Jesus  paid  the  Temple  tax  for  Himself  and 
Peter,4  He  did  not  think  of  doing  so  for  all  His  disciples.  It 
was  left  to  them  to  pay  for  themselves.  The  simple  wants 
of  each  day  were  provided  by  free  contributions,  when  not 
proffered  by  hospitality,  nor  did  He  receive  even  these  from 
His  disciples,  though  Rabbis  were  permitted  to  accept  a 
honorarium  from  their  scholars.  "  Ye  have  received  for 
nothing,"  said  He,  "  give  for  nothing."  5  He  took  no  gifts 
of  money  from  the  people,  nor  did  He  let  His  disciples 
collect  alms,  as  the. Rabbis  did  their  scholars.  The  only 
bounty  He  accepted  was  the  entertainment  and  shelter  al- 
ways ready  for  Him  in  friendly  Galilee.  From  the  generous 
women  who  followed  Him,  He,  indeed,  accepted  passing 
support,  but,  in  contrast  to  the  greed  of  the  Rabbis,  He  only 
usod  their  liberality  for  the  need  of  the  moment.  His  little 
circle  was  never  allowed  to  suffer  want,  but  was  always  able 
to  distribute  charity,  and,  though  He  seems  to  have  carried 
no  money,  He  expressly  distinguishes  both  Himself  and  His 
disciples  from  the  poor.6 

His  presence  among  His  disciples  was  seldom  interrupted, 
even  for  a  brief  interval.  He  might  be  summoned  to  heal 
some  sick  person,  or  invited  to  some  meal ;  or  He  might  wish 
to  be  alone,  for  a  time,  in  His  chamber  or  among  the  hills, 
while  He  prayed  ;  but  these  were  only  absences  of  a  few 
hours.  It  would  seem  as  if  the  kiss  of  salutation  in  such 
cases  greeted  His  return.7  He  gave  the  word  for  setting  out 
on  a  journey,  or  for  going  by  boat,  and  the  disciples  pro- 
cured what  was  needed  by  the  way,  if  by  land,  and  plied  the 
oar,  if  on  the  lake.8 

He  always  travelled  on  foot,  and  was  often  thankful  for  a 
draught  of  water,  as  He  toiled  along  the  hot  sides  of  the 

1  Matt,  xix,  21,  27.  2  Matt.  x.  9.  3  Luke  viii.  8. 

4  Matt.  xvii.  27.  6  Matt.  x.  8.     Luke  viii.  1. 

•  Luke  xxii.  35.  Matt.  x.  9  ;  xvii.  27  ;  xxvi.  9.  John  xiii.  29.  Schleier- 
macher's  Leben  Jusu,  p.  102. 

1  Matt.  xxvi.  49.  *  Matt.  viii.  18 ;  xvi.  5,  7. 


124  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

white  hills,  or  for  a  piece  of  bread,  procured  in  some  village 
through  which  He  passed.1  Sometimes  He  went  with  His 
disciples,  sometimes  before  them  ;  leaving  them  to  their  own 
conversation,  but  noting  and  reproving,  at  once,  their  mis- 
understandings, or  momentary  misconceptions.2 

When  a  resting-place  had  to  be  found  for  the  night,  He 
was  wont  to  send  on  some  of  His  disciples  before,  or  He 
awaited  an  invitation  on  His  arrival ;  His  disciples  sharing 
the  friendly  welcome,  or  distributing  themselves  in  other 
houses.3  The  entertainment  must  have  varied  in  different 
dwellings,  from  the  simplicity  of  the  prophet's  chamber 
where  the  Shunammite  had  provided  a  bed,  a  table,  a  stool, 
and  a  lamp,  to  the  friendship,  and  busy  womanly  ministra- 
tions, and  homage  of  lowly  discipleship,  of  homes  like  the 
cottage  of  Bethany.  Where  He  was  received,  He  entered 
with  the  invocation,  "  Peace  be  to  this  house  " — but,  unlike 
the  Pharisees,  without  asking  any  questions  as  to  the  Levi- 
tical  cleanness  of  the  house,  or  its  tables,  or  benches,  or 
vessels.4  It  was  very  rarely,  one  would  suppose,  that  He 
was  not  gladly  entertained,  but  when  at  any  time  He  met 
inhospitality,  He  only  went  on  to  the  next  village.  Some- 
times He  bore  His  rejection  silently,  but  at  others,  moved  at 
the  spirit  evinced,  He  shook  the  very  dust  of  the  town  from 
His  feet  on  leaving  it,  as  a  protest.  When  meekness  could 
be  shown  He  showed  it,  but  where  circumstances  demanded, 
He  was  as  stern  as  commonly  He  was  gentle.5 

It  is  not  easy  to  realize  the  daily  life  of  one  so  different 
from  onrselves  as  Jesus,  but  a  delicately  poetical  mind  has 
imagined  the  scene  of  the  healing  of  Mary  Magdalene,  and 
the  appearance  and  acts  of  Christ  so  finely,  that  I  borrow 
some  passages  from,  his  pen.6 

The  landing-place  at  Capernaum  was  at  the  south  side  of 
the  town.  Thither  the  boats  came  that  brought  over  wood 
from  the  forests  of  Gaukmitis,  and  thither  the  boat  steered 
that  bore  Jesus,  His  four  earliest  disciples  acting  as  boatmen. 
He  had  been  on  the  other  side  of  the  lake,  and  had  returned 
now,  in  the  evening.  The  sun  was  just  setting,  but  a  few 
beams  seemed  to  have  lingered,  to  die  away  on  His  face,  and 
<he  full  moon  rose,  from  behind  the  brown  hills  still  bathed 
in  purple,  as  if  to  see  Him.  The  soft  evening  wind  had 

1  Matt.  x.  42.     Mark  vi.  36. 

"  Matt.  xvi.  6  ;  xviii.  1 ;  xx.  24.     Mark  x.  32. 

3  Matt.  xxi.  1.     Luke  ix.  52.     Matt.  x.  11.  4  Matt.  x.  11,  14. 

•  Keim,  vol.  ii.  pp.  282-286.        6  Delitzsch,  Eiri  Tag,  etc.,  pp.  120  ff. 


MARY  MAGDALENE.  125 

risen  to  cool  His  brow,  and  the  waters,  sparkling  in  the 
moonlight,  heaved  and  sank  round  the  boat,  rocking  it 
gently.  As  it  touched  the  shore  there  were  few  people  about, 
but  a  boat  from  Magdala  lay  near,  with  a  sick  person  in  it, 
whom  it  had  taken  her  mother's  utmost  strength  to  hold, 
and  keep  from  uttering  loud  cries  of  distress.  She  had 
been  brought  in  the  hope  of  finding  Jesus,  that  He  might 
cure  her. 

"  Master,"  said  John,  "  there  is  work  yonder  for  you 
already."  "  I  must  always  be  doing  the  work  of  Him  that 
sent  me,"  replied  Jesus ;  "  the  night  cometh  when  no  man 
can  work."  The  mother  of  the  sick  woman  had  recognised 
Him  at  the  first  glance,  for  no  one  could  mistake  Him,  and 
forthwith  cried  out  with  a  heart-rending  voice,  "  O  Jesus, 
our  helper  and  teacher,  Thou  Messenger  of  the  All-Merciful, 
help  my  poor  child, — for  the  Holy  One,  blessed  be  His  name, 
has  heard  my  prayer  that  we  should  find  Thee,  and  Thou 
•us."  Peter  forthwith,  with  the  help  of  the  other  three,  who 
had  let  their  oars  rest  idly  on  the  water,  turned  the  boat,  so 
that  it  lay  alongside  the  one  from  Magdala.  Jesus  now 
rose ;  the  mother  sank  on  her  knees ;  but  the  sick  woman 
tried  with  all  her  might  to  break  away,  and  to  throw  herself 
into  the  water,  on  the  far  side  of  the  boat.  The  steersman, 
however,  and  John,  who  had  sprung  over,  held  her  by  the 
arms,  while  her  mother  buried  her  face  in  the  long  plaited 
hair  of  her  child.  Her  tears  had  ceased  to  flow  ;  she  was 
lost  in  silent  prayer.  "  Where  are  these  people  from  ?  " 
asked  Jesus  of  the  boatman,  and  added,  to  His  disciples, 
when  He  heard  that  she  came  from  Magdala,  "  Woe  to  this 
Magdala,  for  it  will  become  a  ruin  for  its  wickedness  !  The 
rich  gifts  it  sends  to  Jerusalem  will  not  help  it,  for,  as  the 
prophet  says,  '  They  are  bought  with  the  wages  of  unclean- 
ness,  and  to  that  they  will  again  return.' l  Turn  her  face 
to  me,  that  I  may  see  her,"  added  He.  It  was  not  easy  to 
do  this,  for  the  sick  one  held  her  face  bent  over  towards 
the  water,  as  far  as  possible.  John  managed  it,  however,  by 
kind  words.  "Mary,"  said  he,  for  he  had  asked  her  mother 
her  name,  "  do  you  wish  to  be  for  ever  under  the  power  of 
demons  ?  See,  the  Conqueror  of  demons  is  before  thee  ;  look 
on  Him,  that  you  may  be  healed.  We  are  all  praying  for 
you,  as  Moses,  peace  be  to  him,  once  prayed  for  his  sister, — 
*  O  God,  heal  her.'  Do  not  put  our  prayer  to  shame  ;  now  is 

1  Micah  i.  7. 


126  THE   LIFE   OF   CHKIST. 

the  moment  when  yon  can  make  yourself  and  your  mother 
happy."  These  words  told  ;  and  no  longer  opposing  strength 
to  strength,  she  allowed  them  to  raise  her  head,  and  turn  her 
face  to  Jesus.  But  when  she  saw  Him,  her  whole  body 
was  so  violently  convulsed,  that  the  boat  swayed  to  and  fro, 
and  she  shrieked  out  the  most  piercing  wails,  which  sounded 
far  over  the  lake. 

Jesus,  however,  fixing  His  eyes  on  hers,  kept  them  from 
turning  away,  and  as  He  gazed,  His  look  seemed  to  enter 
her  soul,  and  break  the  sevenfold  chain  in  which  it  lay 
bound.*  The  poor  raving  creature  now  became  quiet, 
and  did  not  need  to  be  held ;  her  convulsions  ceased,  the 
contortions  of  her  features  and  the  wildness  of  her  eyes 
passed  off,  and  profuse  sweat  burst  from  her  brow  and 
mingled  with  her  tears.  Her  mother  stepped  back,  and  the 
healed  one  sank  down  on  the  spot  where  her  mother  had 
been  praying,  and  muttered,  with  subdued  trembling  words, 
to  Jesus, — "  O  Lord,  I  am  a  great  sinner ;  is  the  door 
of  repentance  still  open  for  me?"  "Be  comforted,  my 
daughter,"  answered  He,  "  God  has  no  pleasure  in  the 
death  of  the  wicked ;  thou  hast  been  a  habitation  of  evil 
spirits,  become  now  a  temple  of  the  living  God."  The 
mother,  unable  to  restrain  herself,  broke  out — "  Thanks  to 
Thee,  Thou  Consolation  of  Israel,"  but  He  went  on, — "  Re- 
turn now,  quickly,  to  Magdala,  and  be  calm,  and  give  thanks 
to  God  in  silence."  John  stepped  back  into  the  boat  to 
Jesus,  and  the  other  boat  shot  out  into  the  lake,  on  the 
way  home.  The  two  women  sat  on  the  middle  seat.  Mary 
held  her  mother  in  her  arms  in  grateful  thanks,  and  neither 
spoke,  but  both  kept  their  eyes  fixed  on  Jesus,  till  the  shore, 
jutting  out  westwards,  hid  Him  from  their  sight. 

When  the  boat  with  the  women  was  gone,  Peter  bound 
his  to  the  post  to  which  the  other  had  been  tied,  but  Jesus 
sat  still  in  deep  thought,  without  looking  round,  and  the 
disciples  remained  motionless  beside  Him,  for  reverence  for- 
bade them  to  ask  Him  to  go  ashore.  Meanwhile,  the  people 
of  Capernaum,  men,  women,  and  children,  streamed  down  in 
bands  ;  some  soldiers  of  the  Roman-Herodian  garrison,  and 
some  strange  faces  from  Perea,  Decapolis,  and  Syria,  among 
them. 

The  open  space  had  filled,  and  now  Peter  ventured  to 
whisper,  in  a  low  voice  which  concealed  his  impatience, 
"  Maranu  we  Rabbinu — Our  Lord  and  Master — the  people 
have  assembled  and  wait  for  Thee."  On  this  Jesus  rose. 


THE   PREACHING   OF   CHRIST.  127 

Peter  made  a  bridge  from  the  boat  to  the  shore  with  a 
plank,  hastening  across  to  make  it  secure,  and  to  open  the 
way  ;  for  the  crowd  was  very  dense  at  the  edge  of  the  water. 
Christ  now  left  the  boat,  followed  by  the  three  other  disciples, 
and,  when  He  had  stepped  ashore,  said  to  Peter, — "  Schim'on 
Kefa  " — for  thus  He  addressed  him  when  He  had  need  of 
his  faithful  and  zealous  service  in  the  things  of  the  kingdom 
of  God — "  I  shall  take  my  stand  under  the  palm-tree  yonder." 
It  was  hard,  however,  to  make  way  through  the  crowd,  for 
those  who  had  set  themselves  nearest  the  water  were  mostly 
sick  people,  to  whom  the  others,  from  compassion,  had  given 
the  front  place.  Indeed,  Jesus  had  scarcely  landed,  before 
cries  for  help  rose,  in  different  dialects,  and  in  every  form 
of  appeal.  "  Rabbi,  Rabboni,"  "  Holy  One  of  the  Most 
High!"  "Son  of  David!"  "Son  of  God!"  mingled  one 
with  the  other.  Jesus,  however,  waving  them  back  with 
His  hand,  said,  "  Let  me  pass  !  to-night  is  not  to  be  for 
the  healing  of  your  bodily  troubles,  but  that  you  may  hear 
the  word  of  life,  for  the  good  of  your  souls."  On  hearing 
this  they  pressed  towards  Him,  that  they  might  at  least 
touch  Him.  When,  at  last,  with  the  help  of  His  disciples, 
He  made  His  way  to  the  palm,  He  motioned  to  the  people 
to  sit  down  on  the  grass.  The  knoll  from  which  the  palm 
rose  was  only  a  slight  one,  but  when  the  crowd  had 
arranged  themselves  in  rows,  it  sufficed  to  lift  Him  suffi- 
ciently above  them.  The  men  stood  in  the  background, 
leaving  the  front  for  the  women  and  children. 

It  is  a  mistake  to  think  of  Jesus  standing  while  He  taught. 
He  stood  in  the  synagogue  at  Nazareth  while  the  Prophets 
were  being  read,  but  He  sat  down  to  teach.  He  sat  as  He 
taught  in  the  Temple,  and  when  He  addressed  the  multitude 
whom  He  had  miraculously  fed  ;  and  when  He  spoke  from 
Simon  Peter's  boat,  He  did  so  sitting. 

Under  the  palm  lay  a  large  stone,  on  which  many  had 
sat  before,  to  enjoy  the  view  over  the  lake,  or  the  shade  of 
the  branches  above.  The  Rabbis  often  chose  such  open  air 
spots  for  their  addresses.  There  was  nothing  extraordinary, 
therefore,  when  Jesus  sat  down  on  it,  and  made  it  His 
pulpit.  His  dress  was  clean  and  carefully  chosen,  but 
simple.  On  His  head,  held  in  its  place  by  a  cord,  He  wore 
a  white  sudar,  the  ends  of  which  hung  down  His  shoulders. 
Over  His  tunic,  which  reached  to  the  hands  and  feet,  was  a 
blue  Tallith,  with  the  prescribed  tassels  at  the  four  corners; 
but  only  as  large  as  Moses  required.  It  was  so  thrown  over 


128  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

Him,  and  so  held  together,  that  the  grey  red-striped  under- 
garment was  little  seen,  and  His  feet,  which  had  sandals, 
not  shoes,  were  only  noticed  occasionally,  when  He  moved. 
When  He  had  sat  down  and  looked  over  the  people,  they 
became  stiller  and  stiller,  till  nothing  was  heard  but  the  soft 
plash  of  the  ripple  on  the  beach. 

As  He  sat  on  the  stone,  Simon  and  Andrew,  the  sons  of 
Jonas,  stood  on  His  right  and  left  hand,  with  James  and 
John,  the  sons  of  Zabdai.  The  people  stood  around  the 
slope,  for  as  yet  Rabbis  were  heard,  standing.  "  Sickness 
came  into  the  world,"  says  the  Talmud,  "when  Rabban 
Gamaliel  died,  and  it  became  the  rule  to  hear  the  Law 
sitting."1  "  Sons  of  Israel,  men  of  Galilee,"  He  began,  "the 
time  is  fulfilled,  and  the  kingdom  of  God  has  come  ;  repent, 
and  believe  the  Gospel.  Moses,  your  teacher,  peace  be  to 
him,  has  said — '  A  prophet  will  the  Lord  your  God  raise 
unto  you  from  your  brethren,  like  unto  me.  Him  shall  ye 
hear.  But  he  who  will  not  hear  this  prophet  shall  die ! ' 
Amen,  I  say  unto  you :  he  who  believes  on  me  has  everlast- 
ing life.  No  man  knows  the  Father  but  the  Son,  and  no 
man  knows  the  Son  but  the  Father,  and  he  to  whom  the 
Son  reveals  Him."  Then,  with  a  louder  voice,  He  continued, 
"  Come  to  me,  all  ye  that  labour  and  are  heavy-laden,  and 
I  will  give  you  rest.  Take  my  yoke  upon  you  and  learn  of 
me,  for  I  am  meek  and  lowly  in  heart,  and  ye  shall  find  rest 
for  your  souls.  For  my  yoke  is  easy,  and  my  burden  is 
light."  Then,  drawing  to  a  close,  He  added,  "  Take  on  you 
the  yoke  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  for  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  is  the  fulfilling  of  the  Law  and  the  Prophets.  Give 
up  that  which  is  worth  little,  that  you  may  have  what  is  of 
great  price.  Become  wise  changers  who  value  holy  money 
above  all  other,  and  the  pearl  of  price  above  all.h  He  that 
has  ears  to  hear,  let  him  hear."  l 

1  Lightfoot,  vol.  ii.  p.  212. 


CHAPTER  XLI. 
THE  BUESTING  OF  THE  STOEM. 

r  1 1HE  summer  passed  in  a  succession  of  excitements  and  an 
-%•  unbroken  recurrence  of  exhausting  toil.  ^Yherever 
Jesus  appeared  He  was  surrounded  by  crowds,  anxious  to 
see  and  to  hear.  The  sick  everywhere  pressed  in  His  way, 
and  friends  brought  the  bed-ridden  and  helpless  to  Him, 
from  all  quarters.  From  early  morning  till  night,  day  by 
day,  without  respite,  there  was  a  strain  on  mind,  heart,  and 
body,  alike.  Even  the  retirement  of  the  house  in  which  He 
might  be  resting,  could  not  save  Him  from  intruding  crowds, 
and  time  or  free  space  for  meals  was  hardly  to  be  had.  Such 
tension  of  His  whole  nature  must  have  told  on  Him,  and 
must  have  affected  His  whole  nervous  and  physical  system. 
To  be  continually  surrounded  by  misery  in  every  form,  is 
itself  distressing ;  but,  in  addition  to  this,  to  be  kept  on  the 
strain  by  the  higher  spiritual  excitement  of  a  great  religious 
crisis  and  to  be  overtaxed  in  mere  physical  demands,  could 
not  fail  to  show  results,  in  careworn  features,  feverishness  of 
the  brain,  and  the  need  of  temporary  quiet  and  rest.  Yet 
sympathy  was  felt  for  Him  only  by  a  few.  The  thoughtless 
crowds  did  not  realize  that  they  were  consuming  in  the  fires 
of  its  own  devotion,  the  nature  they  intended  to  honour,  and 
His  enemies,  seeing  everything  only  through  the  disturbing 
light  of  their  hatred,  invented  a  theory  for  it  all  that  was 
sinister  enough. 

The  continued  and  increasing  support  Jesus  received  from 
the  people,  was  a  daily  growing  evil,  in  the  eyes  of  the 
ecclesiastical  authorities.  They  were  in  danger  of  losing 
their  influence,  which  they  identified  with  the  interests  of 
orthodoxy,  and  national  favour  with  God.  They  had  let 
Him  gather  four  or  five  disciples,  without  feeling  alarmed, 
for  a  movement  as  yet  so  insignificant  was  almost  beneath 
their  notice.  The  choice  of  a  publican  as  one  of  this  handful 
had,  indeed,  apparently  neutralized  any  possible  danger,  by 


130  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

the  shock  it  gave  to  public  feeling.  The  further  selection 
of  the  Twelve  was,  however,  more  serious.  It  seemed  like 
consolidation,  and  progress  towards  open  schism.  There 
•were,  already,  parties  in  Judaism,  but  there  were  no  sects, 
for  all  were  alike  fanatically  loyal  to  the  Law,  the  Temple, 
and  the  scribes,  and  ready  to  unite  against  any  one  who  did 
not  identify  himself  with  them,  in  every  sense.  Criticism 
was  utterly  proscribed :  blind  worship  of  things  as  they  were 
was  imperatively  required,  and  hence,  Jesus,  with  His  free 
examination  of  received  opinions,  provoked  the  bitterest 
hostility.  As  long,  however,  as  He  had  no  following  He  was 
little  dreaded,  but  signs  of  organization  and  permanence, 
such  as  the  choice  of  the  Twelve,  and  the  growing  enthusiasm 
of  the  people  towards  Him,  determined  the  authorities  on 
vigorous  action.  Information  was  laid  against  Him  at  Jeru- 
salem, where  He  had  already  been  challenged,  and  Rabbis 
were  sent  down  to  investigate  the  whole  question. 

Every  movement  which  did  not  rise  in  the  Rabbinical 
schools  was  suspected  by  the  Rabbis  and  their  disciples, 
and  there  were  circumstances  in  that  of  Jesus,  which  were 
especially  formidable.  The  superhuman  powers  He  displayed 
could  not  be  questioned,  and  the  Rabbis  could  boast  of 
nothing  as  imposing.  They  were  falling  into  the  shade. 
Respect  for  Jesus  was  growing  among  the  people,  in  spite  of 
them.1  His  claims  were  daily  urged  more  frankly,  and  the 
masses  were  disposed  to  assent  to  them.  On  His  return  to 
Capernaum  He  had  cured  a  man  who  was  blind,  dumb,  and 
mad,  and  possessed,  besides,  with  a  devil ;  and  so  astounding 
a  miracle  had  raised  the  question,  far  and  wide,  whether,  in 
spite  of  their  former  ideas,  He  were  not  the  Son  of  David  * — 
the  Messiah,3  after  all.  Men  had,  indeed,  expected  an  out- 
ward political  kingdom,  with  a  blaze  of  miracle  wrought  on 
behalf  of  the  nation  at  large,  but  they  began  to  ask  each 
other,  "  When  the  Christ  cometh  will  He  do  more  miracles 
than  this  man  has  done  r1 "  3  It  could  not  be  endured.  The 
movement  of  John  had  just  been  crushed,  and,  now,  in 
restless  Galilee,  one  far  more  dangerous  to  the  Jerusalem 
dignitaries  was  rapidly  taking  shape  and  consistence.  It 
must  be  put  down  at  any  cost. 

The  Rabbis  from  the  capital,  reverend  and  gray,  did  not 
know  whether  to  be  more  bitter  at  the  discredit  thrown  on 

1  Keim,  vol.  ii.  p.  289.          "  Herzog,  vol.  ix.  p.  432.     ScMrer,  p  582. 
3  John  Vii.  31. 


RABBINICAL   EXORCISMS.  131 

tlieir  own  claims  to  supernatural  powers,  or  at  the  popular 
favour  shown  to  Jesus.  He  cast  out  devils,  indeed,  but  so 
did  they,  and  their  disciples,1  the  exorcists.  It  was  enough 
for  Him,  however,  to  speak,  and  the  sufferer  was  cured  of  all 
ailments  alike,  while  they  used  adjurations,  spells,  and  magic 
formulae,  which  were  dangerously  like  the  superstitions  of 
the  despised  heathen.  They  laid  stress  on  their  knowledge 
of  the  secret  names  of  God  and  the  angels.  To  utter  the 
cipher  which  stood  for  these,  was,  in  their  belief,  to  set  in 
motion  the  Divine  and  angelic  powers  themselves,  and  a 
whole  science  of  the  black  art  had  been  invented,  denning 
how  and  for  what  ends  they  could  be  pressed  into  the  service 
of  their  invoker,  like  the  genii  of  the  Arabian  Nights  into 
that  of  a  magician. 

The  calm  dignity  and  simplicity  of  Jesus,  contrasted  with 
their  doubtful  rites,  was,  indeed,  humiliating  to  them.  The 
mightiest  of  all  agencies  at  their  command  was  the  unutter- 
able name  of  "  Jehovah  " — called  in  the  Book  of  Enoch,  in 
the  jargon  of  the  Rabbinical  exorcists — the  oath  Akal  and 
'"  the  number  of  Kesbeel."  3  By  this  number,  or  oath,  it  was 
held,  all  that  is  has  its  being.  It  had  also  a  secret  magical 
power.  It  was  made  known  to  men  by  the  wicked  angels — 
"  the  sons  of  God  " — Avho  allied  themselves  with  women,  and 
brought  on  the  flood.3  "  It  was  revealed  by  the  Head  of  the 
Oath  to  the  holy  ones  who  dwell  above  in  majesty ;  and  his 
name  is  Beqa."  And  he  said  to  the  holy  Michael  that  he 
should  reveal  to  them  that  secret  name,  that  they  might  see 
it,  and  that  they  might  use  it  for  an  oath,  that  they  who 
reveal  to  the  sons  of  men  all  that  is  hidden,  may  shrink 
away  before  that  name  and  that  oath.  And  this  is  the 
power  of  that  oath,  and  these  are  its  secret  works,  and  these 
things  were  established  by  the  swearing  of  it.  The  heaven 
was  hung  up  for  ever  and  ever  (by  it),  before  the  world  was 
created.  By  it  the  earth  was  founded  above  the  water,  and 
the  fair  streams  come  by  it  for  the  use  of  the  living,  from  the 
hidden  places  of  the  hills,  from  the  foundation  of  the  earth, 
for  ever.  And  by  that  oath  was  the  sea  made,  and  under- 
neath it  He  spread  the  sand,  to  restrain  it  in  the  time  of  its 
rage,  and  it  dare  not  overstep  this  bound  from  the  creation 
of  the  world  to  eternity.  And  through  that  oath  the  abysses 
are  confirmed,  and  stand,  and  move  not  from  their  place, 

1  Matt.  xii.  22-37.     Mark  iii.  19-30.     Luke  xi.  14,  15,  17-23. 

2  Or  "Beka."     Buck  UdiocU,  Isix.  12.  13.  15.  69.        3  Gen.  vi.  2. 


132  THE   LITE   OF   CHEIST. 

from  eternity  to  eternity.  And  through,  that  oath  the  sun 
and  the  moon  fulfil  their  course,  and  turn  not  aside  from  the 
path  assigned  them,  for  ever  and  ever.  And  through  that 
oath  the  stars  fulfil  their  course,  and  He  calls  their  names, 
and  they  answer,  from  eternity  to  eternity.  And  even  so 
the  spirits  of  the  waters,  of  the  winds,  of  all  airs,  and  their 
ways,  according  to  all  the  combinations  of  the  spirits.  And 
by  that  oath  are  the  treasuries  of  the  voice  of  the  thunder 
and  of  the  brightness  of  the  lightning  maintained,  and  the 
treasuries  of  the  rain,  and  of  the  hoar  frost,  and  of  the  clouds, 
and  of  the  rain,  and  of  the  dew.  And  over  them  all  this 
oath  is  mighty."  1 

Possessing  spells  so  mighty  as  they  believed  the  secret  names 
of  the  higher  powers  thus  to  be,  the  Rabbis  had  created  a 
vast  science  of  magic,  as  fantastic  as  that  of  medieval  super- 
stition, to  bring  these  awful  powers  to  bear  on  the  mysteries 
of  the  future,  and  the  diseases  and  troubles  of  the  present. 
Combinations  of  numbers  of  lines,  or  of  letters  based  on  them, 
were  believed  to  put  these  powers  at  the  service  of  the  seer, 
or  the  exorcist.  Resistless  talismans,  protecting  amulets, 
frightful  curses,  by  which  miracles  could  be  wrought,  the  sick 
healed,  and  demons  put  to  flight,  were  thus  formed.  Armed 
with  a  mystic  text  from  the  opening  of  Genesis,  or  the  visions 
of  Ezekiel,2  or  the  secret  name  of  God,  or  of  some  of  the 
angels,  or  with  secret  mysterious  unions  of  letters,  the  Rabbis 
who  dealt  in  the  dark  arts  had  the  power  to  draw  the  moon 
from  heaven,  or  to  open  the  abysses  of  the  earth !  °  The 
uninitiated  saw  only  unmeaning  signs  in  their  most  awful 
formulae,  but  he  who  could  reckon  their  mystic  value  aright 
was  master  of  angelic  or  even  Divine  attributes.3 

The  appearance  of  Jesus  as  a  miracle- worker  so  different 
from  themselves,  must  have  excited  the  Rabbinical  schools 
greatly.  They  made  no  little  gain  from  their  exorcisms,  and 
now  they  were  in  danger  oi  being  wholly  discredited.4  At  a 
loss  what  to  do,  they  determined  to  slander  what  they  could 
not  deny,  and  attribute  the  miracles  of  Jesus  to  a  league  with 
the  devil.  They  had  indeed,  for  some  time  back  been  whisper- 
ing this  insinuation  about,5  to  poison  the  minds  of  the  people 
against  Him,  as  an  emissary  of  Satan,  and  thus,  necessarily,  a 
disguised  enemy  of  Israel,  and  of  man.  It  would  raise  super- 

1  T>as  Buck  Henoch,  Ixix.  12-25. 

»  Gfrorer,  vol.  i.  pp.  60,  246.  *  Hausrath,  vol.  i.  p.  108. 

4  Schroder's  Paulus,  vol.  ii.  p.  30.     Acts  xvi.  16.          *   Matt.  ix.  34. 


CHRIST'S  MIRACLES  ASCRIBED  TO  SATAN.       133 

stitious  terror,  if  they  could  brand  Him  as  a  mere  instrument 
of  the  kingdom  of  darkness. 

The  cure  of  a  man,  blind,  dumb,  and  possessed,  was  so 
astounding,  that  the  Rabbis  ventured  to  spread  their  malig- 
nant slanders  more  widely  than  heretofore.  Jesus  had  re- 
tired to  Peter's  house,  wearied  and  faint,  after  the  miracle, 
but  the  multitude  were  so  greatly  excited  that  they  crowded 
into  the  room,  till  He  could  not  even  eat,  and  among  them 
the  Jerusalem  scribes,  in  their  bitterness  against  Him,  took 
care  to  find  a  place.  He  read  their  faces,  and  knew  their 
words.  "  This  fellow,  unauthorized  and  uneducated  as 
He  is,  casts  out  devils  through  Beelzebub  their  prince." 
They  believed  that  the  world  of  evil  spirits,  like  that  of  the 
angels,  formed  a  great  army,  in  various  divisions,  each  with 
its  head  and  subordinates,  its  rank  and  file  ;  the  whole  tinder 
the  command  of  Satan.  Beelzebub  * — the  "  filth  god," — was 
the  name  given  by  Jewish  wit  and  contempt  to  Beelzebul,d — 
"  the  lord  of  the  (royal)  habitation  " — a  god  of  the  Pheni- 
cians.  To  him  was  assigned  the  control  of  that  division  which 
inflicted  disease  of  all  kinds  on  man,  and  Jesus,  they  hinted, 
was  playing  a  part  under  him,  in  pretending  to  drive  out 
devils  from  the  sick,  that  He  might  win  the  people  to  listen 
to  His  pestiferous  teaching.  They  would  not  admit  that  His 
power  was  Divine,  and  the  ideas  of  the  times  necessarily 
assumed  that  it  must  be  the  opposite.  It  was  of  no  avail  that 
light  streamed  in  on  them ;  for  bigotry,  like  the  pupil  of  the 
eye,  contracts  in  proportion  to  the  outward  brightness.  He 
was,  with  them,  an  emissary  and  champion  of  the  kingdom  of 
the  devil,  and  an  enemy  of  God. 

They  even  went  further.  Not  only  was  He  in  league 
with  the  devil ;  He  Himself  was  possessed  with  an  unclean 
spirit,2  and  the  demon  in  Him  had  turned  His  brain :  "  He 
had  a  devil,  and  was  mad."  3  They  had  spread  this  far  and 
wide,  and  yet  ventured  now  into  His  presence. 

Jesus  at  once  challenged  them  for  their  slanders,  and 
brought  them,  in  the  presence  of  the  multitude,  to  an 
account.  "  His  whole  life  was  before  the  world.  The  aim 
and  spirit  of  it  were  transparent.  Was  it  not  expressly  to 
fight  against  the  evil  and  confused  spirit  of  the  day;  to 
overthrow  all  wickedness  and  all  evil ;  to  restore  moral  and 

1  Buxtorf,  pp.  334,  389.       Gfrorer,  vol.  i.  p.  372.    Lightfoot,  vol.  ii.  p. 
203 ;  vol.  iii.  p.  114.      Lanr/en,  p.  324.      Herzog,  vol.  i.  p.  769.      Dertn- 
lourg,  p.  93.      Tristram,  p.  327. 

2  Mark  iii.  30.  »  John  x.  20. 


134  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

spiritual  soundness  in  the  people ;  did  He  not  strive  after  all 
this,  with  the  fulness  of  His  power  ?  Who  could  deny  that 
He  only  sought  good,  and  spent  all  His  energy  to  advance  it  Y 
And  could  He  league  Himself  with  the  prince  of  darkness  to 
do  good  ?  What  a  ridiculous,  self-contradictory  charge  !  To 
think  of  Him  overcoming  evil  by  evil,  fighting  against  the 
kingdom  of  darkness,  with  the  weapons  of  darkness,  was  al- 
most too  foolish  to  repeat !  No  kingdom  is  willingly  in  con- 
flict with  itself,  for  if  there  be  division  in  it,  already  it  is  in 
process  of  dissolution,  since  nothing  more  is  needed  to  bring 
it  quickly  to  ruin."*  There  was  no  answering  such  an 
argument.  But  Jesus  had  still  more  to  say. 

"  If  I,"  said  He,  "  cast  out  devils  by  the  power  of  Beelze- 
bub, by  whom  do  your  disciples  cast  them  out  ?  l  You  do 
not  attribute  their  works  to  the  prince  of  devils,  why  speak 
of  mine  as  from  him  ?  But  if  I  do  these  things  by  the  power 
of  God,  I  prove  myself  to  be  sent  from  Him,  and  to  be 
His  Messiah,  and  where  the  Messiah  is,  there  is  His  King- 
dom.2 Do  you  still  hesitate  to  draw  this  conclusion  ?  Ask 
yourselves,  then,  how  I  can  invade  the  kingdom  of  Satan, 
and  take  from  him  his  servants,  instruments,  and  victims — 
the  sick,  and  the  possessed — without  having  first  overcome 
himself  ?  The  strong  man's  palace  can  only  be  spoiled  when 
he,  himself,  is  first  bound.  It  is  no  light  matter  to  put  your- 
selves in  the  position  you  take  towards  me.  He  who  is  not 
with  me,  is,  as  may  be  seen  in  your  case,  my  enemy.  No 
neutrality  between  the  Messiah  and  the  devil  is  possible.  If 
you  do  not  help,  with  me,  to  gather  in  the  harvest,  you  scat- 
ter it,  and  hinder  its  being  gathered  !  "  3 

The  arguments  of  Jesus  were  so  irresistible  that  the  Rab- 
bis, taken  in  the  snares  they  had  set  for  Him,  could  say 
nothing,  and  now,  while  they  were  silenced  before  the  people 
they  had  striven  to  pervert,  He  advanced  from  defence  to 
attack.  They  claimed  to  be  the  righteous  of  the  land,  but 
had  no  idea  of  what  true  righteousness  meant.  Jesus  had 
come  to  offer  forgiveness  to  sinners,  not  to  judge  them.  He 
desired  rather  to  deliver  them  from  their  guilt.  But  He 
saw  that  His  enemies,  the  theologians  and  clergy  of  the  day, 
und  the  privileged  classes  generally,  had  determined  to  reject 
Him,  whatever  proofs  of  His  Divine  mission  He  might  ad- 

1  Derenboury ,  p.  106.     Melvill's  Sermons,  vol.  i.  p.  219. 

*  Weidemann,  Darstellungen,  p.  99. 

»  Vllmann,  p.  225.     Schleienuacher's  Predigten,  vol.  iii.  p.  661. 


BLASPHEMY   AGAINST   THE   HOLY   GHOST.          135 

vance.  Their  prejudices  and  self-interest  had  blinded  them 
till  their  religious  faculty  was  destroyed.  They  had  deliber- 
ately refused  to  be  convinced,  and  conscience  grows  dead  if 
its  convictions  are  slighted.  The  heart  becomes  incapable  of 
seeing  the  truth  against  which  it  has  closed  itself.  They 
dared  to  denounce  as  a  spirit  of  evil  the  Holy  Spirit  of  God, 
who  inspired  the  New  Kingdom,  and  in  whose  fulness  Jesus 
wrestled  against  selfishness  and  ambition,  soothed  the  woes 
of  the  people,  opened  a  pure  and  heavenly  future,  and  sought 
to  win  men  to  eternal  life.  Light  was  to  them  darkness,  and 
darkness  light.  They  even  sought  to  quench  the  light  in  its 
source  by  plotting  against  His  life.  This,  He  told  them,  was 
blasphemy  against  the  Divine  Spirit.  They  had  wilfully 
rejected  the  clear  revelation  of  His  presence  and  power,  and 
had  shown  deliberate  and  conscious  enmity  against  Him. 
"  This  awful  sin,"  said  He,  "  cannot  be  forgiven,  because, 
when  it  occurs,  the  religious  faculty  has  been  voluntarily 
destroyed,  and  wilful,  declared  opposition  to  heavenly  truth 
has  possessed  the  soul  as  with  a  devil."  "  To  speak  against 
me  as  a  man,"  He  continued,  "  and  not  recognise  me  as  the 
Messiah,  is  not  a  hopeless  sin,  for  better  knowledge,  a  change 
of  heart  and  faith,  may  come,  and  I  may  be  acknowledged. 
But  it  is  different  when  the  truth  itself  is  blasphemed ;  when 
the  Holy  Spirit,  by  whom  alone  the  heart  can  be  changed,  is 
contemned  as  evil.1  The  soul  has  then  shut  out  the  light, 
and  has  chosen  darkness  as  its  portion.* 

"  I  warn  you  to  beware  of  speaking  thus  any  longer. 
Either  decide  that  the  tree  is  good  and  its  fruit  consequently 
good,  or  that  it  is  bad  and  its  fruit  bad,  but  do  not  act  so 
foolishly  as  you  have  done  in  your  judgment  on  me,  by  call- 
ing the  tree  bad — that  is,  calling  me  a  tool  of  the  devil,  and 
yet  ascribing  good  fruit  to  me — such,  I  mean,  as  the  casting 
out  devils.  Do  not  think  what  you  say  is  mere  words,  for 
words  rise  from  the  heart,  as  if  from  the  root  of  the  man  : 
as  the  tree  and  the  stem,  such  is  the  fruit.  See  that  you  do 
your  duty  by  yourselves,  that  the  tree  of  your  own  spiritual 
being  be  good  and  bear  good  fruit.  The  tree  is  known  by  its 
fruits.  It  is  no  wonder  you  blaspheme  as  you  have  done  ;  a 
generation  of  vipers,  your  hearts  are  evil,  and  you  are  morally 
incapable  of  acknowledging  the  truth,  for  the  lips  speak  as 
the  heart  feels.  Witness  to  the  truth  flows  from  the  lips 
of  the  good ;  such  language  as  yours,  from  the  lips  of  the  evil. 

1  Kcim,  vol.  ii.  p.  342.     ScJtenkel,  p.  10G.     Hcrzog,  vol.  v.  p.  283. 

47 


136  THE  LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

But,  beware ;  for  I  tell  yon  that,  as  such,  words  are  the  utter- 
ance of  the  heart,  and  show  how  yon  are  affected  towards 
God  and  His  Spirit,  you  will  have  to  give  account  of  them 
when  I  come  as  the  Messiah,  to  judgment.  Your  words 
respecting  me  and  my  Kingdom  will  then  justify  or  condemn 
you."1 

At  this  point,  as  was  common  in  the  most  solemn  Jewish 
assemblies,  He  was  interrupted  by  some  of  the  Rabbis  pre- 
sent, They  demanded,  in  strange  contradiction  to  the  theory 
that  He  was  a  secret  agent  of  Beelzebub,  some  astounding 
miracle,  as  a  sign  from  heaven  in  support  of  His  claims  as 
the  Messiah :  as  hereafter  they  did,  in  every  part  of  the 
world,  from  the  Apostles.2  The  masses,  and  even  their 
leaders,  expected  the  repetition  of  all  the  great  deeds  of 
Moses  and  Joshua,  to  inaugurate  the  coming  of  the  Messiah, 
and  other  claimants  did  not  venture  to  resist  the  demand. 
Under  the  Procurator  Fadus,  a  certain  Theudas  drew  out 
the  people  to  the  Jordan  to  see  Israel  walk  through,  once 
more,  on  dry  ground.3  Under  Felix,  a  prophet  promised  to 
throw  down  the  walls  of  Jerusalem,  as  Joshua  did  those  of 
Jericho,  and  gathered  thirty  thousand  men  on  the  Mount  of 
Olives  to  see  them  fall.4  Others  invited  the  nation  to  follow 
them  into  the  wilderness,  where  they  promised  to  show  them 
stupendous  signs  of  the  kingdom  of  God  having  come.5  It 
might  have  seemed  a  temptation  to  One  possessing  super- 
natural power,  to  silence  all  cavil  by  a  miracle  of  irresistible 
grandeur.  Biit  outward  acknowledgment  of  His  claims  was 
of  no  worth  in  a  kingdom  like  that  of  Christ,  resting  on 
love,  and  homage  to  holiness.  He  cared  nothing  for  popu- 
larity or  fame,  and  lived  in  unbroken  self-restraint,  using 
His  mighty  power  only  to  further  spiritual  ends.  It  was 
easy,  therefore,  to  repel  the  seduction,  which  He  had  already 
overcome  in  His  first  great  wilderness  struggle.  "  An  evil 
and  adulterous  generation,"  said  He — "unfaithful  to  God, 
who  chose  Israel  for  His  bride — asks  for  a  sign,  grand  be- 
yond all  I  have  given,  that  I  am  the  Messiah."  Then,  pre- 
dicting His  violent  death,  He  went  on — "  There  shall  be  no 
sign  given  it,  but  that  of  the  prophet  Jonah.  For,  as  he  was 
three  days  and  three  nights  in  the  belly  of  the  fish,  so  shall 
the  Son  of  man  be  three  days  and  three  nights  in  the  king- 

1  Schleiermacher's  Predigten,  vol.  iii.  p.  712. 

8  1  Cor.  i.  22.  >  Ant.,  xx.  5.  1. 

4  Bell.  Jud.,  \.  13.  5.  s  Bell.  Jud..  i.  13.  4. 


DENUNCIATION   OF   THE   BABBIS.  137 

dom  of  the  dead." g  The  spiritual  miracle  of  His  life  and 
words  were  the  only  signs  He  could  vouchsafe  while  He 
lived,  for  at  no  time  did  He  lay  stress  on  miracles  alone  as 
a  means  of  gaining  disciples,  but  subordinated  them  to  His 
proclamation  of  the  Truth.*1  His  preaching  would  itself  be 
a  sign  like  that  of  the  preaching  of  Jonah  to  the  Ninevites.1 
"The  men  of  that  city,"  said  He,  "would  rise  in  the  ."judg- 
ment day,  to  witness  against  this  generation,  for  they  re- 
pented at  the  preaching  of  Jonah,  and  He  was  greater  than 
that  prophet.  The  Queen  of  the  South,  who  came  from 
Sheba  to  hear  the  wisdom  of  Solomon,  would  then  condemn 
them ;  for  she  came  from  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  earth, 
and  great  as  they  thought  the  glory  of  Solomon,1  they  had 
One  greater  than  he  before  them,  in  Himself.  Vast  multi- 
tudes had  gone  out  to  hear  John,  and  had  professed  repent- 
ance ;  vast  multitudes  had  followed  Himself,  and,  yet,  the 
result  had  been  only  temporary  and  superficial.  It  would 
prove  with  this  generation  as  with  a  man  from  whom  an 
unclean  spirit  has  for  a  time  gone  out.  Meeting  no  suitable 
rest  elsewhere,  it  returns,  and  finding  its  former  dwelling  in 
the  man's  soul  ready  for  it,  allies  itself  with  seven  demons 
still  worse  than  itself,  and  with  their  help  enters  the  man 
once  more.  The  Reformation  under  John,  and  under  Him- 
self, was  but  for  a  time  ;  the  nation  would  fall  back  again 
to  its  old  sinful  ways,  and  become  worse  than  ever."  2  He 
foresaw  His  rejection,  and  thus  foretold  it. 

He  had  silenced  the  Rabbis,  and  no  doubt  by  doing  so  had 
intensified  their  hatred  ;  but  a  new  trial  awaited  Him.  The 
insinuation  that  His  brain  was  affected  had  reached  His 
family,  who  still  lived  at  Nazareth.  The  effects  of  the  ex- 
hausting toil  and  constant  excitement  of  these  months,  had, 
apparently,  led  even  His  friends  to  fear  that  He  would  give 
way  under  such  tension,  and  now  the  hints  of  the  Rabbis 
that  He  was  possessed,  and  spoke  and  acted  as  He  did  under 
demoniacal  influence,  raised  the  fear  that  judicial  action 
would  be  begun  against  Him,  on  the  part  of  the  Jerusalem 
authorities.3  Very  possibly  the  simple  household  at  Naza- 
reth, who,  like  other  Jews,  must  have  looked  on  the  Rabbis 
with  superstitious  reverence,  and  have  shrunk  from  question- 
ing anything  they  said,  had  innocently  accepted  the  insinua- 

1  Schenkel,  p.  134.      Keim,  vol.  ii.  p.  434.    Matt.  xii.  38-45.     Luke  xi, 
24-26  29-32. 

2  Htiusrath,  vol.  i.  p.  378.     Keim,  vol.  ii.  p.  433. 

3  Light/not,  vol.  ii.  p.  205. 


138  THE   LIFE   OF   CHKIST. 

fcion  that  He  was  really  out  of  His  mind,  as  a  result  of  being 
possessed.  Prejudiced  in  favour  of  the  common  idea  of  the 
Messiah  as  a  national  hero,  at  the  head  of  Jewish  armies, 
they  had  not  risen  to  any  higher  conception,  and  felt  impelled 
by  every  motive  to  interfere,  and,  if  possible,  put  a  stop  to 
what  seemed  to  them  an  unaccountable  course  of  action  on 
His  part.  It  was  only  about  seven  hours'  distance  from 
Nazareth  to  Capernaum,  over  the  hills ;  they  would  go  and 
see  for  themselves  ;  and  so  Mary  and  the  brothers  and  sisters 
of  Jesus — the  whole  household,  for  Joseph  was  dead — set  out 
for  Peter's  house. 

They  arrived  while  the  crowd,  excited  by  the  miracle  they 
had  just  seen,  and  half  believing  that  Jesus  must  be  the 
expected  Messiah,  still  filled  the  house  and  thronged  the 
courtyard,  so  that  the  Rabbis,  overawed,  could  do  nothing 
against  him.  Anxious  to  withdraw  Him  from  His  dangerous 
course,  and  unable  as  yet  to  understand  Him,  they  had  come 
to  the  conclusion,  perhaps  at  the  instigation  of  the  Rabbis, 
that  the  best  plan  would  be  to  lay  hold  on  Him,  and  take 
Him  home  by  force,  as  one  beside  Himself.  If  they  could  keep 
Him  for  a  time  at.  Nazareth,  under  restraint,  if  necessary,  the 
quiet,  they  hoped,  would  calm  His  mind  and  free  Him  from 
His  hallucinations.  It  is  wonderful  that  they  could  argue 
with  themselves  in  such  a  way ;  especially  that  Mary  could 
have  fancied  it  madness  that  He  acted  as  He  did,  and  called 
Himself  the  Messiah ;  but  vision,  in  spiritual  things  as  in 
nature,  depends,  not  on  the  flood  of  light  around  us,  but  on 
the  eye  on  which  it  falls. 

On  coming  near,  however,  they  found  they  could  not  make 
their  way  through  the  press,  and  had  to  request  those  near 
to  let  Him  know  their  presence,  and  that  they  wished  to 
speak  with  Him.  At  any  moment,  when  busy  with  the 
work  of  the  Kingdom,  all  lower  relations,  bonds,  and  cares 
of  His  earlier  life  ceased  to  engage  Him,  but  much  more 
was  it  so  at  a  time  like  this,  when  engrossed  with  its  supreme 
interests,  and  with  the  victory  over  its  enemies  which  He 
had  hardly  as  yet  completed.  The  most  sacred  of  earthly 
ties  lost  its  greatness  before  the  grandeur  of  spiritual  kinship 
in  the  new  deathless  communion  He  was  founding.  "  Who 
is  my  mother?  "  asked  He,  "  and  who  are  my  brethren  ?  " 
Then,  stretching  His  hands  towards  those  around  Him, 
"  Behold,"  said  He,  "  my  mother  and  my  brethren  !  For 
whosoever  shall  do  the  will  of  my  Father  in  Heaven,1  the 
1  I'llmann,  p.  50, 


JESUS   INVITED  BY  A  PHARISEE.  139 

same  is  my  brother,  and  sister,  and  mother."  l  It  was  the 
same  answer,  in  effect,  as  He  had,  perhaps  before  this,  given 
when  a  woman  in  the  crowd,  unable  to  restrain  herself,  had 
expressed  aloud  her  sense  of  the  surpassing  honour  of  her 
who  had  borne  and  nursed  Him.  "  Yea,"  replied  He, 
"  rather,  blessed  are  they  that  hear  the  Word  of  God  and 
keep  it." 

It  was  from  no  want  of  tenderness  Jesus  thus  spoke.  A 
holy  duty  to  Himself,  His  honour,  and  His  calling,  demanded 
His  acting  as  He  did.  It  was  imperative  that  He  should 
keep  Himself  from  the  hands  even  of  His  nearest  friends,  to 
prevent  their  unconsciously  carrying  out  the  plans  of  His 
enemies  by  violently  restraining  Him.  He  had,  moreover, 
founded  a  new  family  of  which  He  was  the  Spiritual  Head, 
and  this,  henceforth,  as  it  spread  among  men,  was  to  be 
His  supreme  earthly  relationship.  The  ready  faith  of  the 
Samaritans,  and  the  surpassing  example  of  the  heathen  cen- 
turion, had  foreshadowed  the  extension  of  the  New  Kingdom, 
beyond  Israel,  to  all  nations.  To  do  the  will  of  mere  meu, 
whether  priests  or  Rabbis,  was  no  longer  the  condition  of 
heavenly  favour.  Henceforth,  over  the  earth,  to  do  the  will 
of  God  was  the  one  condition  required  to  open  the  gates  of 
the  way  of  life. 

Foiled  in  their  attempt  to  brand  Jesus  publicly  as  in 
league  with  the  devil,  the  Pharisees'4  resolved  to  try  the 
subtler  plan  of  pretending  friendliness,  and  inviting-  Him  to 
partake  of  their  hospitality,  that  they  might  watch  what  He 
said,  and,  if  possible,  provoke  Him  to  commit  Himself  in 
some  way  that  would  bring  Him  within  the  reach  of  the 
law.  It  was  yet  early,  and  one  of  them  asked  Him,  with 
this  treacherous  object,  to  join  the  light  morning  meal,  then 
lately  introduced  into  Palestine  by  the  Romans.1  He  ac- 
cepted the  invitation,  with  a  full  knowledge  of  the  spirit  in 
which  it  had  been  given.  It  had  been  expected,  perhaps, 
that  the  honour  of  entertainment  in  a  circle  of  Rabbis  would 
awe  a  layman  of  humble  standing  like  Jesus,  but  He  took 
care  to  show  His  true  bearing  towards  them  from  the  moment 
He  reclined  at  table.  Washing  the  hands  before  eating  was 
in  all  cases  a  vital  requirement  of  Pharisaic  duty.  A  Rabbi 
would  rather  have  suffered  death  than  eat  before  he  had  done 
so.  "  It  is  better,"  said  Rabbi  Akiba,  "  in  a  time  of  perse- 

1  F.wald,  vol.  v.  p.  413.  Matt.  xii.  46-50.  Mark  iii.  31-35.  Luke  viii. 
1U-21 ;  xi  27,  28. 


140  THE   LIFE   OP   CHRIST. 

cutioii,  to  die  of  thirst  than  to  break  the  commandment,  and 
thus  die  eternally,"  and  proceeded,  before  touching  food,  to 
wash  his  hands,  with  the  allowance  of  drinking  water  brought 
him  by  his  jailer." 1  But  observance  of  Pharisaic  rules 
required  much  more.  Christ  had  just  come  from  among  a 
crowd,  and  had,  besides,  cast  out  a  devil,  and  thus  doubly 
defiled,  ought  to  have  purified  Himself  by  a  bath  before 
coming  to  table  with  those  who  were  Levitically  clean.  A 
Pharisee  always  bathed  himself  before  eating,  on  coming  from 
the  market-place,3  to  wash  away  the  defilement  of  contact 
with  the  unclean  multitude,  and  it  was  naturally  expected 
that  Jesus  would  have  been  equally  scrupulous.1"  He  had 
committed  Himself,  however,  to  uncompromising  opposition 
to  a  system  which  substituted  forms  for  true  spiritual 
religion,  and  took  His  place  on  the  couch  without  any  cere- 
monial purification.  The  host  and  his  guests  were  astonished, 
and  betrayed,  at  least  in  their  looks,  their  real  feelings  towards 
Him  ;  bitter  enough  before,  but  now  fiercer  than  ever,  at  this 
defiant  affront  to  their  cherished  usages. 

Roused  by  their  uncourteous  hostility,  He  instantly  took 
His  position  of  calm  independence  and  superiority,  for  He 
feared  no  human  face,  nor  any  combination  of  human  violence. 
Knowing  perfectly  that  He  was  alone  against  the  world,  He 
felt  that  the  truth  required  Him  to  witness  for  it,  come  what 
might  to  Himself. 

"  I  see,"  said  He,  "  what  you  are  thinking.  You  Pharisees 
clean  the  outside  of  the  cup  and  the  platter,3  but  you  fill 
both,  within,  with  the  gains  of  hypocritical  robbery"  and 
wickedness ;  you  cleanse  the  outside  of  a  cup,  and  think 
nothing  of  your  own  souls  being  full  of  all  evil."  Fools  !  did 
not  He  who  made  the  outside  of  a  cup  make  the  inside  as 
well  ?  As  He  made  all  outward  and  visible  things,  has  He 
not  also  made  all  inward  and  spiritual  ?  How  absurd  to  take 
so  much  care  of  the  one  and  to  neglect  the  other  !  Let  me 
tell  you  how  you  may  attain  true  purification.  Give  with 
willing,  loving  hearts,  what  you  have  in  your  cups  and 
platters,  as  alms,  and  this  will  make  all  your  ceremonial 
washings  of  the  outside  superfluous,  and  cleanse  both  the 
vessels  and  your  hearts.  The  Rabbis  have  told  you  that 
8  charity  is  worth  all  other  virtues  together,' 4  but  your  covet- 

1  Fnibin,  fol.  21.  2. 

*  Mark  vii.  4.    Nork,  p.  140.     Godwyn,  p.  38.     Hausrath,  vol.  i.  p.  88. 

»  Luke  xi.  37-54.  *  Bava  Bathra,  9.  1. 


"WOE  TO  YOU,  LAWYERS!"  141 

onsness  is  a  proverb,  for  you  devour  widows'  houses,  and 
have  invented  excuses  for  a  son  robbing  even  his  father  for 
your  good.1  But  woe  to  you,  Pharisees !  for  it  is  vain  to 
expect  this  of  you,  who  know  nothing  of  true  love.  You  lay 
stress  on  external  trifles,  and  neglect  the  principles  and 
duties  of  the  inner  life  ;  you  tithe  petty  garden  herbs,  like 
mint  and  rue,  and  all  kinds  besides,  and  are  indifferent  to 
right  and  wrong,  and  to  the  love  of  God.  If  you  wish  to 
tithe  the  garden  herbs,2  it  is  well  to  do  so,  but  you  should  be 
as  zealous  for  what  is  much  more  important.0  Your  vanity 
is  as  great  as  your  grasping  hypocrisy  !  Woe  to  you, 
Pharisees  !  for  ye  love  the  chief  seats  in  the  synagogues,  and 
to  be  flattered  by  men  rising  up  as  you  pass  in  the  crowded 
market-place,  and  greeting  you  with  reverent  salutations  of 
Rabbi,  Rabbi,  your  reverence,  your  reverence.3  Woe  to  you  ! 
you.  are  like  graves  sunk  in  the  earth,  over  which  men 
walk,  thinking  the  ground  clean,  and  are  defiled  when  they 
least  suspect  it.p  Men  think  themselves  with  saints  if  in 
your  company,  but  to  be  near  you  is  to  be  near  pollution !  " 

A  Rabin?  among  the  guests  here  interrupted  Him. 
"  Teacher,"  said  he,  u  you  are  condemning  not  only  the 
common  lay  Pharisees,  but  us,  the  Rabbis."  The  interruption 
only  turned  Jesus  against  the  "  lawyers  "  specially.  "Woe 
to  you,  lawyers,  also !  "  said  He,  "  for  ye  load  men  with 
burdens  grievous  to  be  borne,  while  ye,  yourselves,  touch  not 
these  burdens  with  one  of  your  fingers  to  help  the  shoulders 
to  bear  them.  Ye  sit  in  your  chambers  and  schools,  and 
create  legal  rules,  endless,  harassing,  intolerable,  for  the 
people,  but  not  affecting  yourselves — shut  out  as  you  are 
from  busy  life.  Woe  to  you  !  for  ye  build  the  tombs  of  the 
prophets,  but  your  fathers,  in  whose  acts  ye  glory,  killed 
them.  Shame  for  their  having  done  so  might  make  you  wish 
those  sacred  tombs  forgotten ;  but  you  have  no  shame,  and 
rebuild  these  tombs  to  win  favour  with  the  people,  while  in 
your  hearts  you  are  ready  to  repeat  to  the  prophets  of  to- 
day the  deeds  of  your  fathers  towards  those  of  old !  Your 
pretended  reverence  for  these  martyrs,  shown  in  restoring 
their  sepulchres,  while  you  are  ready  to  repeat  the  wicked- 
ness of  their  murderers,  makes  these  tombs  a  witness  against 
you.  The  Holy  Spirit  had  this  in  view,  when  He  said  by 
me,  some  time  since/  '  I  will  send  them  prophets  and  apostles, 

1  Matt,  xxiii.  14.     Mark  vii.  11.    Nork,  p.  141. 

*  Tristram,  pp.  419,  471,  478.  s  Schiirer,  p.  443. 


142  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

and  some  of  thorn  they  will  persecute  and  kill,  that  the  blood 
of  all  the  prophets,  shed  from  the  foundation  of  the  world, 
may  be  required  of  this  generation — from  the  blood  of  Abel 
to  that  of  Zachariah,  who  perished  between  the  altar  and  the 
Temple.'  Yes,  I  say  unto  you,  it  will  be  required  of  this 
generation.  Under  the  guidance  of  you  lawyers  it  was  that 
the  people  treated  them  as  they  did  !  Woe  to  you  !  you  have 
taken  away  from  the  nation  the  key  to  the  temple  of  heavenly 
knowledge,  and  have  made  them  incapable  of  recognising  the 
truth,  by  your  teaching.  You  yourselves  have  not  entered, 
and  you  have  hindered  those  from  entering  who  were  on  the 
point  of  doing  so  !  " 

The  die  was  finally  cast.  Henceforth  Jesus  stood  con- 
sciously alone,  the  rejected  of  the  leaders  of  his  nation. 
There  was  before  Him  only  a  weary  path  of  persecution,  and, 
at  its  end,  the  Cross.  An  incident  recorded  by  St.  Luke, 
seems  to  belong  to  this  period.  The  multitudes  thronging 
to  hear  the  new  teaching  were  daily  greater,  in  spite  of  the 
hostility  of  the  Rabbis ;  for  their  calumnies  and  insinuations 
had  not  yet  abated  the  general  excitement.  "  An  innumer- 
able multitude  "  waited  for  the  reappearance  of  Jesus,  and 
hung  on  His  lips  to  catch  every  word.  He  might  be  attacked 
and  slandered  in  the  house  of  the  Pharisee,  but  as  yet, 
the  crowd  looked  on  Him  with  astonishment  and  respect. 
Opinions  differed  only  as  to  the  scope  of  His  action :  that  He 
was  a  great  Rabbi,  was  felt  by  all. 

It  was  the  custom  to  refer  questions  of  all  kinds  to  the 
Rabbis  for  their  counsel  and  decision,  which  carried  great 
weight,  though  it  might  be  informal  and  extra-judicial.  Their 
words  were  virtually  law,  for  to  dispute  or  oppose  them  was 
well-nigh  criminal.1  To  get  the  support  of  one  so  great  as 
Jesus,  therefore,  in  any  matter,  would,  as  it  seemed,  decide  a 
point  at  once  in  favour  of  any  one  He  supported. 

One  of  the  crowd,  reasoning  thus,  chose  an  opportunity  to 
solicit  His  weighty  interference  in  a  question  of  inheritance,3 
in  which  there  was  a  strife  with  a  brother.  "  Teacher," 
said  he,  "  speak  to  my  brother,  that  he  divide  the  inheritance 
with  me."  But  he  had  utterly  misconceived  Christ's  spirit 
and  sphere.  In  the  briefest  and  most  direct  words,  the  idea 
that  He  had  anything  to  do  with  "judging  "  or  "  dividing  " 
in  worldly  affairs  was  repudiated.  It  was  not  His  province. 

The  question,  however,  gave  an  occasion  for  solemn  warn- 

1  Eisenmenger,  vol.  i.  pp.  331,  332.  *  Luke  xii.  13  ft. 


THE   RICH  FOOL.  143 

ing  against  the  unworthy  greed  and  selfishness  which  lie  at 
the  root  of  all  such  strife,  on  one  side  or  the  other.  Address- 
ing the  crowd,  who  had  heard  the  request,  He  gave  them, 
in  the  following  parable,  a  caution  against  all  forms  of 
covetousness,  or  excessive  desire  of  worldly  possessions. 

"  Watch,"  said  He,  "  and  keep  yourselves  from  all  covet- 
ousness.  For,  though  a  man  may  abound  in  riches,  his  life 
does  not  depend  on  his  wealth,  but  on  the  will  of  God,  who 
can  lengthen  or  shorten  his  existence,  and  make  it  happy  or 
sad,  at  His  pleasure.  Let  me  show  you  what  I  mean. 

"  The  ground  of  a  certain  rich  man  brought  forth  plenti- 
fully. And  he  reasoned  within  himself,  saying,  '  What  shall  I 
do,  because  I  have  no  room  to  stow  away  my  crops  ?  '  And 
he  said,  '  This  will  I  do.  I  will  pull  down  my  barns  and 
build  greater,  and  I  will  gather  together  into  them  all  my 
crops  and  my  property,  and  will  say  to  my  soul,  Soul,  thou 
hast  much  property  laid  up  for  many  years ;  take  thine  ease, 
eat,  drink,  and  be  merry.' 

"But  God  said  unto  him,  'Fool,  this  night  thy  soul  is 
required  of  thee,  and  whose  will  those  things  be  which  thou 
hast  prepared  ?  ' 

"  So,"  added  Jesus,  "  is  he  who  heaps  up  treasures  for 
himself,  and  is  not  rich  towards  God.  Death,  coming  unex- 
pectedly, even  when  latest,  strips  him  of  all,  if  he  has  only 
thought  of  himself  and  of  this  world.  The  true  wisdom  is  to 
use  what  we  have  so  as  to  lay  up  treasures,  by  its  right  em- 
ployment, in  heaven,  that  God  may  give  us  these,  after  death, 
in  the  kingdom  of  the  Messiah." 


CHAPTER  XLII. 
AFTEB    THE    STOBM. 

THE  meal  in  the  house  of  the  Pharisee  was  a  momentous 
event  in  the  life  of  Jesus.  The  fierceness  of  his  enemies 
had  broken  out  into  open  rage,  so  that,  as  He  left,  He  was 
followed  by  the  infuriated  Rabbis,  gesticulating,1  as  they 
pressed  round  Him,  and  provoking  Him  to  commit  Himself 
by  words  of  which  they  might  lay  hold.  A  great  crowd  had 
meanwhile  gathered,2  partly  on  His  side,  partly  turned 
against  Him  by  the  arts  of  his  accusers.  The  excitement 
had  reached  its  highest. 

With  such  a  multitude  before  Him,  it  was  certain  that  He 
would  not  let  the  opportunity  pass  of  proclaiming  afresh  the 
New  Kingdom  of  God.  It  had  been  called  a  kingdom  of  the 
devil,  and  it  was  meet  that  He  should  turn  aside  the  calumny. 
His  past  mode  of  teaching  did  not,  however,  seem  suited  for 
the  new  circumstances.  It  had  left  but  small  permanent 
results ;  and  a  new  and  still  simpler  style  of  instruction, 
specially  adapted  to  their  dulness  and  untrained  minds  and 
hearts,  would  at  least  arrest  their  attention  more  surely,  and 
force  them  to  a  measure  of  reflection.  Pressing  through  the 
vast  throng,  to  the  shore  of  the  lake,  he  entered  a  fishing- 
boat,  and,  sitting  down  at  its  prow,  the  highest  part  of  it, 
began,  from  this  convenient  pulpit,  as  it  lightly  rocked  on 
the  waters,  the  first  of  those  wondrous  parables,  in  which  He 
henceforth  so  frequently  embodied  His  teachings. 

The  Parable  or  Mashal  was  a  mode  of  instruction  already 
familiar  to  Israel  since  the  days  of  the  Judges,3  and  was  in 
familiar  and  constant  use  among  the  Rabbis.  Its  charac- 
teristic is  the  presentation  of  moral  and  religious  truth  in  a 
more  vivid  form  than  is  possible  by  mere  precept  or  abstract 
statement,  use  being  made  for  this  end  of  some  incident 
drawn  from  life  or  nature,  by  which  the  lesson  sought  to 

1  Luke  xi.  53.  *  Luke  xii.  1. 

8  Judges  ix.  7.     Isaiah  v.  1.     Ezek.  xiii.  11,  etc. 


THE  PARABLES  OF  OUR  LORD.         145 

be  given  is  pictured  to  the  eye,  and  thus  imprinted  on  the 
memory,  and  made  more  emphatic.  Analogies,  hitherto  un- 
suspected, between  familiar  natural  facts  and  spiritual  pheno- 
mena ;  lessons  of  duty  enforced  by  some  simple  imaginary 
narrative  or  incident;  striking  parallels  and  comparisons, 
which  made  the  homeliest  trifles  symbols  of  the  highest 
truths,  abound  in  all  the  discourses  of  Jesus,  but  are  still 
more  frequent  from  this  time.  Nothing  was  henceforth  left 
unused.  The  light,  the  darkness,  the  houses  around,  the 
games  of  childhood,  the  sightless  wayside  beggar,  the  foxes 
of  the  hills,  the  leathern  bottles  hung  up  from  every  rafter, 
the  patched  or  new  garment,  and  even  the  noisy  hen  amidst 
her  chickens,  served,  in  turn,  to  illustrate  some  lofty  truth. 
The  sower  on  the  hill-side  at  hand,  the  gaudy  weeds  among 
the  corn,  the  common  mustard  plant,  the  leaven  in  the 
woman's  dough,  the  treasure  disclosed  by  the  passing  plough- 
share, the  pearl  brought  by  the  travelling  merchant  from 
distant  lands  for  sale  at  Bethsaida  or  Tiberias — at  Philip's 
court  or  that  of  Antipas, — the  draw-net  seen  daily  on  the 
lake,  the  pitiless  servant,  the  labourers  in  the  vineyards 
around — any  detail  of  every-day  life,  was  elevated,  as  occa- 
sion demanded,  to  be  the  vehicle  of  the  sublimest  lessons. 
Others  have  uttered  parables ;  but  Jesus  so  far  transcends 
them,  that  He  may  justly  be  called  the  creator  of  this  mode 
of  instruction.1 

The  first  of  the  wondrous  series  was,  fitly,  that  of  the 
Sower,  for  the  planting  of  the  New  Kingdom  must  needs  be 
the  first  stage  towards  further  truths  respecting  it.  In  a 
country  like  Galilee  no  illustration  could  be  more  easily  in- 
telligible, and  it  is  no  wonder  that  Jesus  often  uses  it.  As 
He  sat  in  the  boat,  with  the  multitude  standing  on  the  shore, 
each  feature  of  the  parable  would  be  before  Him — the  sower 
going  out  from  the  neighbouring  town  or  village  to  sow  his 
patch  on  the  unenclosed  hill-side,  with  its  varied  soil,  here 
warm  and  deep,  there  a  mere  skin  over  the  limestone  rock, 
invaded  at  some  spots  by  thorns,  then,  as  now,  so  plentiful 
in  Palestine,  and  crossed  by  the  bridle  path,  along  which  men 
and  beasts  were  passing  constantly.  The  seed  was  good,  and 
the  sower  faithfully  did  his  work,  but  it  depended  on  the  soil 
itself  what  would  be  the  result,  for  the  rain,  and  the  light, 
and  the  heat  came  equally  on  all.  Part  fell  on  the  trodden 

1  Renan's  Vie  de  Jgsus,  p.  167.  Keim,  vol.  ii.  p.  438.  Matt.  xiii.  1-23, 
Mark  iv.  1-25.  Luke  viii.  4-18. 


146  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

path — which,  itself,  though  now  beaten  hard,  was  once  a.i 
Boft  and  yielding  as  any  part  of  the  field — and  was  crushed 
tinder  foot,  or  picked  up  by  the  birds  hovering  near.  Some 
fell  on  spots  in  which  the  springing  thistles  had  already  taken 
root,  and  were  about  to  shoot  up  in  rank  vigour ;  some  on 
the  shallow  skin  of  earth  over  the  rock,  where  the  hot  sun 
hastened  the  growth,  while  the  hard  rock  hindered  the  root 
from  striking  down ;  and  only  a  part  fell  on  good  soil,  and 
yielded  a  return  for  the  sower's  toil.* 

This  parable,  apparently  so  self -illustrative,  troubled,  alike, 
the  minds  of  the  Twelve,  and  of  the  wider  circle  of  hearers 
who  had  any  interest  in  Christ's  words.1  The  mode  of  teach- 
ing was  new  to  them  from  Him,'2  and  the  conceptions  embodied 
in  what  they  had  heard  were  directly  opposite  to  all  they  had 
been  accustomed,  as  Jews,  to  associate  with  the  Messianic 
kingdom.  The  careless  multitude,  drawn  together  only  by 
curiosity,  had  scattered  when  Jesus,  having  finished  His  ad- 
dress, had  returned  to  Peter's  house.  Thither,  however,  a 
number  of  graver  spirits  followed,  with  the  Twelve,  to  seek 
the  explanation  they  felt  assured  would  be  vouchsafed.  It 
was,  indeed,  precisely  what  Jesus  desired,  for  it  afforded  an 
opportunity  for  the  fuller  instruction  of  all  whose  state  of 
heart  fitted  them  to  receive  it,  and  it  drew  them  into  closer 
personal  intercourse  with  Himself.  He  received  them  with 
frank  delight.  "  Unto  you,  who  thus  show  your  interest  in 
the  mysteries  of  the  kingdom  of  God,"  said  He,  "  it  is  given 
to  know  them,  but  to  the  indifferent  outside  multitude,3  they 
are  designedly  left  veiled  in  parable."  To  understand  spi- 
ritual truth,  the  heart  must  be  in  sympathy  with  it;  otherwise, 
to  try  to  explain  it,  would  be  as  idle  as  to  speak  of  colours 
to  the  blind,  or  of  music  to  the  deaf.  Where  the  religious 
faculty  was  dead  or  dormant,  religious  truth  was  necessarily 
incomprehensible  and  undesired.  "  He  came  to  be  a  Light 
to  men,4  and  to  reveal  the  truth,  not  to  hide  it ;  but  men  must 
have  willing  ears,5  and  take  heed  to  what  they  hear,6  pon- 
dering over  it  in  their  hearts.  To  listen  only  with  the 
outward  ear,  like  the  careless  multitude,  is  to  draw  down 
the  punishment  of  God.  In  natures  thus  wilfully  indifferent, 
Btolid  insensibility  only  increases,  the  more  they  hear.  To 
such,  the  very  word  of  life  becomes  a  word  of  death. 

1  Mark  iv.  12.  2  Mark  iv.  33,  34.     Matt.  xiii.  34  ;  x.  13. 

8  Mark  iv.  11.  *  Mark  iv.  21. 

6  Mark  iv.  23.  •  Mark  iv.  24. 


THE   PAEABLE   OF   THE   SOWER.  147 

Rejecting  me,  the  Light,  they  are  given  up  by  God  to  the 
darkness  they  have  chosen,  and  lose,  erelong,  even  the  super- 
ficial interest  in  higher  things  they  may  have  had. 

"  Ye,  on  the  other  hand,"  He  continued,  "  who  really 
have  received  the  truth  into  a  willing  heart,  have  thereby 
proved  your  fitness  for  higher  disclosures,  and  shall  have 
them.1  The  honest  interest  you  show  determines  the  measure 
of  knowledge  you  are  able  to  receive,  and  it  will  be  given 
you.b  He  who  has  opened  his  soul  to  me  will  receive  contin- 
ually richer  insight  into  the  truth.  Alas  for  those  who  shut 
their  eyes  and  stop  their  ears  !  But  blessed  are  your  eyes, 
into  which  you  have  let  the  truth  enter,  and  blessed  are  your 
ears,  into  which  you  have  let  it  sink.  Amen  !  I  say  to  you, 
many  prophets  and  righteous  men  longed  to  see  those  things 
which  ye  see,  and  did  not  see  them ;  and  to  hear  those  things 
which  ye  hear,  and  did  not  hear  them."  2 

Such,  in  brief  explanatory  paraphrase,  was  the  welcome  to 
those  really  anxious  to  understand  the  parable,  which  Jesus 
forthwith  expounded  to  them;  disclosing,  as  He  did  so, 
conceptions  and  principles  which  required  a  complete  revo- 
lution in  their  minds  to  understand  and  appropriate.  He 
announced  that  the  ancient  kingdom  of  God  was,  henceforth, 
spiritualized,  so  that  the  only  relation  of  man  to  it,  from  this 
time,  was  a  moral  one ;  not,  as  heretofore,  in  part  a  political. 
So  entirely,  indeed,  was  this  the  case,  that  He  did  not  even 
speak  of  the  external  agencies  or  organization  by  which  men 
should  be  outwardly  received  as  its  citizens,  but  assumed  that 
acceptance  depended  on  the  man  himself ;  on  his  will  and 
his  sympathy  with  what  the  New  Kingdom  offered.  "  The 
Word  is  the  living  Seed  of  the  Gospel.  As  the  embodiment  of 
all  truth,  it  is  by  following  it  that  the  Will  of  God  is  realized 
by  men,  and  the  one  grand  law  of  the  kingdom  thus  obeyed. 
It  is  given  to  men,  as  the  seed  to  the  ground,  and  they  can 
hear  and  understand  it  if  they  choose,  but  all  depends  on 
their  doing  so.  As  the  strewn  seed  neither  springs  nor  bears 
fruit  on  much  of  the  ground,  and  fails  except  where  it  sinks 
into  good  soil,  so  the  relations  of  men  to  the  Word  of  God 
are  very  various.  Few,  it  may  be,  receive  it  aright,  but  it 
is  always  the  fault  of  men  themselves  if  it  be  not  living  seed 
in  their  hearts.  Wordly  indifference  may  have  made  the 
soil  impenetrable  as  the  trodden  path,  or  have  left  only  a 
skin  of  sentiment  over  hidden  callousness;  or  worldly  cares 

1  Mark  iv.  24.  »  Matt.  xiii.  10,  17. 


148  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

or  pleasures  may  spring  tip  raiikly,  and  choke  the  better 
growth ;  in  all  cases  it  is  the  man,  not  the  seed  or  the  sower, 
on  whom  the  result  turns.  Before  all  things,  this  is  to  be 
felt,  so  that  no  one  may  imagine  that  entrance  into  the  New 
Kingdom  depends  on  any  but  moral  conditions.  Every 
merely  outward  claim  to  citizenship  must  be  laid  aside  ;  it 
is  a  matter  strictly  between  God  and  the  soul.  The  more 
completely  this  is  done,  the  greater  the  fitness  for  entrance. 
We  must  be  willing  simply  to  receive,  without  a  thought 
of  merit  or  right,  what  God  is  pleased  to  give  of  His  free 
bounty.  The  New  Kingdom  is,  in  truth,  altogether  spiritual. 
It  works  directly  on  the  soul,  by  spirit  aal  truth.  It  advances 
in  the  individual  and  the  world,  not  by  outward  power,  or 
political  glory,  or  by  miracles,  but  by  the  Word  sown  in  the 
heart,  and  its  aim,  like  its  nature,  is  spiritual ;  to  make  the 
heart  and  life  visibly  fruitful  in  all  heavenly  grace."  l 

As  the  parable  of  the  Sower  described  the  planting  of  the 
New  Kingdom  in  the  heart,  others  set  forth  the  secret 
invisible  energy  of  the  Word,  by  the  indestructible  vigour  of 
which  the  New  Kingdom  unfolds  itself  in  the  individual  and 
in  the  world.  It  was  compared  to  the  silent  and  mysterious 
growth  of  seed,  which  springs  up  by  unperceived  develop- 
ment, first  into  the  blade,  then  into  the  ear,  and  finally 
into  the  ripened  corn.  The  triumphant  future  found  an 
analogy  in  the  growth  of  a  grain  of  mustard-seed — which, 
though  at  first  a  mere  speck,  grows  to  be  greater  than  the 
herbs,  shooting  out  wride  branches,  and  becoming  a  tree,  in 
the  shade  of  which  the  birds  of  the  air  come  and  lodge. 
It  found  another  in  the  silent  leavening  of  three  measures 
of  meal  by  a  spot  of  yeast  hidden  in  them.  As  surely  as 
the  seed  will  spring,  or  the  mustard-seed  become  a  tree,0  or 
the  yeast  spread  through  all  the  three  measures  of  meal,  a* 
certainly  as  the  spark  kindles  to  a  flame,  the  New  Kingdom, 
will  grow  and  expand  to  world-wide  glory.  It  needs  no 
battles  to  be  won,  as  the  hearers  fancied ;  no  violent  revo- 
lutions. Jesus  knew  that  the  living  force  of  truth  in  each 
single  heart  must  diffuse  itself,  and  that,  as  soul  after  soul 
was  won,  it  would  silently  revolutionize  the  world,  and  leaven 
all  humanity. 

1  Baur,  Geschichte.  p.  33.  Keim,  vol.  ii.  p.  448.  Hausrath,  vol.  i.  p. 
361.  De  Wette  and  Meyer,  in  loc.  Schleiermacher's  Predigten,  vol.  iv. 
pp.  707,  721,  739,  755.  Jacox.  Sec.  Annot.,  1st  series,  p.  386.  Schenket, 
p.  116.  Lund  and  Book,  p.  82.  Furrer,  Palastina,  p.  18.  Robertson'* 
Sermons,  1st  series,  p.  16.  Matt.  xiii.  24-33.  Mark  iv.  26-34. 


THE  PABABLE  OF  THE  TABES.         349 

That  there  should  be  hindrances  was  only  natural,  and 
these  He  shadowed  out  in  the  parable  of  the  Tares  secretly 
sown  by  an  enemy  in  a  man's  field,  and  undistinguishable 
from  the  grain  till  both  had  come  to  fruit.1  For  the  sake 
of  the  wheat,  both  were  left,  by  the  householder,  till  the 
harvest,  but  in  the  end,  the  tares  would  be  gathered  for 
burning,  and  the  wheat  for  the  barn.d  The  full  meaning  of 
this  parable  was  given  afterwards  by  Jesus  Himself.  The 
visible  Church  would  include  in  it,  till  the  last  day,  many 
who  were  not  true  members.  To  separate  them  is  not  the 
part  of  man,  but  of  the  Judge.  But  this  is,  and  could  be, 
meant  only  in  a  general  sense ;  for  the  whole  spirit  of  the 
Gospels  implies  the  rejection  of  the  openly  unworthy,  and 
their  reception  again  on  their  repentance.  "  Those  who 
to-day  are  thorns,"  says  Augustine,  "  may  be  wheat  to- 
morrow." 

"  So,"  said  He,  also,  "my  kingdom  maybe  likened  to  a  net 
cast  into  the  lake  ;  which  encloses  good  fish  and  bad,  and, 
when  full,  is  drawn  to  shore,  and  the  good  gathered  into 
vessels  while  the  bad  are  cast  away."  * 

The  supreme  worth  of  citizenship  in  His  kingdom  He  set 
forth  in  separate  parables.  It  was  like  a  treasure  hidden  in 
a  field/  which,  when  found,  so  filled  the  heart  of  the  dis- 
coverer, that,  for  joy,  he  went  away  and  sold  all  he  had, 
and  bought  the  field,  that  the  treasure  might  be  his.  Or,  it 
was  like  a  priceless  pearl  met  with  by  a  merchant  seeking 
such  a  treasure,  and  secured  by  him  at  the  cost  of  all  he 
had.  The  kingdom  might  be  found  by  some  without  their 
seeking  it,  as  the  treasure  by  the  peasant  in  the  field ;  or  it 
might  be  met  by  one  in  earnest  search  for  it,  like  him  who 
found  the  costly  pearl.  In  either  case,  it  could  only  be 
obtained  by  joyful  self-sacrifice  of  all  things  else  for  its  sake, 
and  by  the  realization  of  the  worthlessness  of  all  human 
possessions  in  comparison  with  it. 

It  is  not  certain  that  all  these  parables  were  spoken  the 
same  day,  though  there  is  nothing  improbable  in  the  suppo- 
sition that  Jesus  should  have  given  such  a  free  utterance  to 
the  wealth  of  imagery  and  illustration  which  flowed  from 
His  lips  with  no  mental  effort.  But  the  evening  came  at 
last,  and  found  him  wearied  out  with  the  work  and  agitations 
of  such  an  eventful  day.  Capernaum  could,  however,  no 
longer  be  the  quiet  home  for  Him  which  it  had  been.  The 

1  Ullmann,  p.  256.     Matt.  xiii.  36-43,  44-53. 


150  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

fierce  rage  of  the  priests  and  Rabbis  in  the  morning,  and 
their  intrigue  with  the  household  of  Nazareth,  to  lay  hold 
on  Him  as  a  madman,  possessed  with  a  devil,  showed  that 
they  would  stop  at  no  wickedness  to  get  Him  into  their 
power.  The  controversy  respecting  Him  had  penetrated 
every  humble  cottage,  and  quiet  work  was  no  longer  possible. 
Moreover,  it  was  necessary  to  introduce  His  disciples  to  a 
wider  sphere  of  life  and  work  than  Capernaum  and  the 
little  districts  round  it,  in  preparation  for  their  independent 
action,  and  to  form  and  strengthen  their  character  and  power 
of  self-reliance  by  putting  it  to  the  proof,  and  revealing  to 
them  the  weaknesses  yet  to  be  overcome. 

The  wall  of  lonely  hills  on  the  east  side  of  the  lake, 
seamed  by  deep  gorges  through  which  the  path  led  to  the 
vast  upland  plains  of  the  eastern  Jordan — a  i-egion  little 
known  to  the  busy  population  of  Galilee,  and  in  bad  repu- 
tation with  most,  as  more  heathen  than  Jewish — offered  Him 
a  secure  retreat.  Instead  of  returning  to  Peter's  house, 
where  new  troubles  might  have  awaited  Him,  He  ordered  His 
disciples  to  carry  Him  to  the  opposite  shore,  that  He  might 
escape  from  all  painful  scenes,  and  enjoy  peace  and  rest  for 
a  time.  His  enemies  would  not  be  likely  to  seek  a  Rabbi 
like  Him  in  such  an  unclean  district ;  least  of  all  in  the 
neighbourhood  He  first  visited — that  of  the  heathen  city, 
Gadara. 

But  the  incidents  of  the  day  were  not  yet  over.  The 
streets  on  the  way  to  the  boat  were  full  of  the  evening 
gossips,  glad  to  talk  with  their  neighbours  in  the  browning 
twilight,  now  their  day's  work  was  done  ;  and,  with  others 
lingering  about,  in  the  hope  of  seeing  the  great  Rabbi.  A 
number  of  these  soon  gathered  round  Christ  and  His  dis- 
ciples as  they  made  towards  the  shore,  and  at  last  the  silence 
was  broken  by  one  of  them,  strange  to  say,  himself  a  Rabbi, 
offering  to  follow  Him  as  His  scholar.  "  Teacher," 1  said 
he,  "  I  will  follow  Thee  wherever  you  go."  *  It  might  have 
seemed  a  great  thing  for  one  in  the  position  of  Jesus  to  have 
a  Rabbi  among  His  disciples,  but  He  never  courted  human 
aid,  or  acted  on  mere  expediency.  •  The  highest,  no  less 
than  the  humblest,  could  only  be  received  on  the  condition 
of  absolute  self-sacrifice  and  sincerity.  Nor  did  He  readily 
accept  those  who  offered  themselves,  but  chose  rather  to 

1  Teacher  (5t5d<r/caXos)  is  the  equivalent  of  Eabbi.  Matt.  vii.  18-27. 
Mark  iv.  35—11.  Luke  viii.  22-23. 


CANDIDATES   FOB  DISCIPLESHIP.  151 

summon  such  as  He  wished,  to  His  immediate  circle.  "  Ye 
have  not  chosen  me,"  said  He,  on  a  future  occasion,  "  but  I 
have  chosen  you."  l  He  returned,  therefore,  only  an  answer 
which  should  test  the  applicant's  motives  to  the  uttermost. 
"  The  foxes  have  holes,  and  the  birds  of  the  air  nests,  but 
the  Son  of  man  hath  not  where  to  lay  His  head."  Virtually 
driven  from  the  one  dwelling  at  Capernaum  He  could  regard 
as  His  home,  and  rejected  from  Nazareth,  He  was,  henceforth, 
a  wanderer,  with  no  fixed  dwelling.  From  this  time  He 
was  almost  a  fugitive  from  His  enemies,  never  remaining 
long  in  any  one  place — a  homeless  and  houseless  man. 

To  a  second  applicant,  who  professed  himself  willing  to 
follow  Him  as  soon  as  he  had  discharged  the  pious  duty  of 
burying  his  father,  the  startling  answer  was  returned,  "  Let 
the  (spiritually)  dead  bury  their  dead,  but  go  thou  and 
preach  the  kingdom  of  God."  3  Under  other  circumstances 
Christ  would  have  commended  such  filial  love ;  but  it  was 
necessary  now  to  show,  by  a  supreme  example,  that  those 
who  sought  to  follow  Him  must  deny  natural  feelings,  other- 
wise entirely  sacred,  when  the  interests  of  the  kingdom  of 
God  required  it.3  He  had  in  mind,  doubtless,  the  thirty 
days'  mourning  *  that  were  virtually  implied,  and  knew  the 
results  of  indecision  in  a  matter  so  paramount.  It  was,  more- 
over, a  requirement  of  the  Rabbis,  in  similar  cases,  that  if  any 
one  who  wished  to  be  a  scholar  of  the  Law,  had  to  choose 
between  burying  even  his  nearest  relation — his  parent,  or 
his  brother,  or  sister — and  devoting  himself  at  once  to  his 
sacred  calling,  he  should  leave  the  burial  to  others,  as  the  less 
important  duty,  and  give  himself  up  on  the  moment,  undi- 
videdly  to  the  Law.5  The  words  of  Jesus  were  the  familiar 
and  well-known  expression  of  this  recognised  condition  of 
even  Rabbinical  discipleship.  The  applicant  would  have 
been  required  to  act  thus  had  he  chosen  to  follow  a  Rabbi, 
and  less  devotion  and  sincerity  could  not  be  demanded  in 
the  service  of  the  New  Kingdom.h 

A  third,  who  asked  leave  before  finally  following  Christ, 
to  go  home  and  bid  his  family  circle  farewell,  received  a 
similar  answer — "  No  one  having  put  his  hand  to  the  plough, 
and  looking  back,  is  fit  for  the  kingdom  of  God ;  he  who 
gives  himself  up  to  the  kingdom  of  God,  must  do  so  with 


1  John  xv.  16.  *  Luke  ix.  60. 

•  Ullmann,  p.  143.  *  HOT.  Heb.,  vol.  ii.  p.  173. 

8  Megilla,  fol.  3,  col.  2, 

A  C\ 


152  THE   LIFE   OF   CHKIST. 

an  undivided  heart,  suffering  no  earthly  cares  to  distract 
him." 

He  had  set  ont  for  the  lake  side  as  soon  as  the  multitudes 
had  scattered  sufficiently  to  open  the  way  ;  and  now,  having 
reached  it,  He  went  into  a  fishing -boat,  just  as  He  was,1  and 
they  pushed  off  in  company  with  some  other  boats.  It  was 
already  late  for  Orientals  to  be  abroad,  and  the  rest  in  the 
open  air,  after  such  continuous  mental  and  bodily  excitement, 
soon  brought  the  sweet  relief  of  deep  refreshing  sleep.  We 
never  hear  of  Jesus  being  ill ;  and,  indeed,  such  a  life  as  His, 
utterly  free  from  all  disturbing  causes  which  might  induce 
disease,  may  well  have  been  exceptionally  healthy.  The 
coarse  leather  boss  of  the  steersman's  seat,  at  the  end  of  the 
boat,  sufficed  for  a  pillow,1  and  presently  he  forgot,  in  deep 
slumber,  the  cares  and  labours  of  the  day. 

The  sail  across,  however,  though  usually  so  refreshing  and 
delightful,  was  destined  to  be  radely  disturbed.  The  lake 
lies  in  its  deep  bed  among  the  hills,  ordinarily,  smooth  as  a 
mirror,  but  sudden  storms  at  times  rush  down  every  wady 
on  the  north-east  and  east,  and  lash  the  waters  into  furious 
roughness.  The  winds  sweeping  over  the  vast  bare  table- 
land of  Graulonitis  and  the  Hauran  and  the  boundless  desert 
beyond,  pour  down  the  deep  ravines  and  gorges,  cut  in  the 
course  of  ages  by  streams  and  torrents,  on  their  way  to  the 
lake,  and  lash  it  into  incredible  commotion.  Its  position, 
about  six  hundred  feet  below  the  Mediterranean,  induces  such 
sudden  hurricanes,  the  lower  level  heating  the  air  over  the 
waters  till  the  colder  atmosphere  of  the  hills  rushes  down  to 
fill  the  vacuum  caused  by  the  rarefaction.2 

Such  a  storm  now  burst  on  the  calm  bosom  of  the  lake, 
and  presently  raised  the  waves  to  such  a  height,  that  the 
unprotected  boat  was  all  but  swamped.  In  the  wild  roaring 
of  the  wind — amidst  blinding  torrents  of  rain,  and  the  thick 
darkness  of  the  hurricane  cloud,  which  blotted  out  the  stars  ; 
and  the  dashing  of  the  sea,  which  broke  over  themk  each 
moment — even  bronzed  sailors  like  the  Twelve  lost  their 
presence  of  mind,  and  were  filled  with  dismay.  Driven 
before  the  wind,  they  were  fast  filling,  and,  as  it  seemed, 
must  presently  go  down.  Through  all  the  wild  tumult  of 
wind,  darkness,  rain,  and  sea,  however,  Jesus  lay  peacefully 
asleep,  so  profoundly  had  He  been  exhausted.  It  seemed 

1  Matt.  viii.  23.-ix.  1.    Mark  iv.  36,-v.  21.    Luke  viii.  23-40. 

2  Winer,  Wind.     Thomson,  Land  and  Book,  pp.  374,  3i>2. 


THE  CALMING  OF  THE  LAKE.         153 

as  if  He  were  indifferent  to  their  fate.  In  their  natural 
reverence  they  long  hesitated  to  rouse  Him,  but  at  last  did  so, 
and  appealed  to  Him  to  save  them.  Amidst  the  terror  around, 
He  was  entirely  self-possessed.  Rising,  He  gently  rebuked 
the  fear  that  had  so  unnerved  them,  and  then,  with  an  awful 
sublimity,  rebuked  the  wind  as  if  it  had  been  a  living  power, 
and  bade  the  angry  sea  be  still;  and  both  wind  and  sea1 
at  once  obeyed  Him.  A  great  calm  spread  over  the  lake. 
"Why  are  ye  fearful,"  said  He,  "0  ye  of  little  faith?" 
They  had  seen  Him  control  disease,  cast  out  devils,  and  even 
raise  the  dead ;  could  they  not  have  felt  assured  that  neither 
winds  nor  waves  could  harm  them  when  He  was  there  ? 
"  What  manner  of  man  is  this  ?  "  muttered  the  awe-struck 
Apostles,  "  for  He  commands  even  the  winds  and  water 
and  they  obey  Him !  " 

The  boat  had  been  driven  to  the  southern  end  of  the  lake, 
and  Christ  consequently  landed  in  the  territory  of  the  city 
of  Gadara,  a  half-heathen  town  on  the  table-land,  twelve 
hundred  feet  above  the  shore,  and  at  some  distance  from  it.m 
It  was  then  in  its  glory,  and  lay  round  the  top  of  the  hill, 
looking  far  over  the  country.  Long  avenues  of  marble 
pillars  lined  its  streets ;  fine  buildings  of  squared  stones 
abounded.  Two  great  amphitheatres  of  black  basalt  adorned 
the  west  and  north  sides,  and  there  was  a  third  theatre  near 
its  splendid  public  baths.  It  was  the  proud  home  of  a  great 
trading  community,  to  whom  life  was  bright  and  warm  when 
Jesus  landed  that  morning,  on  the  shore  beneath,  and  looked 
up  towards  its  walls. 

The  hill  on  which  Gadaran  stands  is  of  soft  limestone,  full, 
like  the  limestone  of  Palestine  generally,  of  larger  and 
smaller  caves,  many  of  which  had  been  enlarged  by  the 
poorer  classes  and  turned  into  dwelling-places,0  for  which 
they  are  used  even  now,  while  others  had  been  converted 
into  tombs,  with  massy  stone  doors.  The  roadside  is  still 
strewn  with  a  number  of  sarcophagi  of  basalt,1  sculptured 
with  low  reliefs  of  genii,  garlands,  wreaths  of  flowers,  and 
human  faces,  in  good  preservation,  though  long  emptied  of 
their  dead. 

Madness  in  every  form  has,  in  all  ages,  been  treated  by 
the  rude  therapeutics  of  the  East,  as  a  supernatural  visitation, 
with  which  it  is  unsafe  to  interfere  more  than  is  needed, 
and,  hence,  even  at  this  day,  furious  and  dangerous  maniacs 

1  BurckharJt  counted  71.     Sepp,  vol.  iii.  p.  286. 


154  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

may,  from,  time  to  time,  be  seen  in  the  towns  of  Palestine, 
in  some  cases,  absolutely  naked.  Others,  equally  furious, 
often  betake  themselves  to  the  mountains,  and  sleep  in 
tombs  and  caves.  In  their  paroxysms  they  become  terribly 
dangerous,  for  their  mental  excitement  gives  them  prodigious 
strength,  and,  hence,  one  is  sometimes  a  terror  to  a  whole 
neighbourhood.1 

Two  such  madmen,  it  seems,  had  taken  up  their  abode  in 
the  caves  and  tombs  by  the  side  of  the  road  from  the  lake 
to  Gadara,  and  had  made  it  almost  impassable,  from  their 
fierceness.  Jesus  had  hardly  set  His  foot  on  shore  before 
they  sallied  out  towards  Him,  shrieking  amidst  the  wild 
howls  of  their  frenzy,  as  they  approached,  in  deprecation 
of  His  interference  with  them.  From  some  reason,  now 
unknown,  St.  Mark  and  St.  Luke  speak  only  of  one  of  these 
two  sufferers,  and  as  their  account  is  the  fuller,  it  is  better 
to  keep  to  it.  Bo'th  were  more  than  merely  insane :  they 
were  possessed  with  devils,  and  conscious  that  they  were  so. 
As  in  similar  cases,  the  demoniac  presence  controlled  the 
human  will,  and  spoke  in  its  own  name.  Both  had  already 
shown  their  terror  at  the  coming  of  One  whom  they  recog- 
nised as  the  Son  of  God,  and  adjured  Him  not  to  torment 
them  before  the  time.  But  now  the  one  of  whom  especially 
St.  Mark  and  St.  Luke  speak,  ran  and  fell  down  before  Jesus, 
in  the  manner  of  Eastern  reverence.  He  had  been  a  terror 
to  the  whole  country  side,  for  he  would  wear  no  clothes,  but 
roamed  the  hills,  naked,  and  would  live  only  in  the  tombs. 
Efforts  had  been  made  to  put  him  in  restraint,  but  neither 
the  ropes  nor  chains  used  had  sufficed  to  hold  him.p  Night 
and  day  he  wandered  the  mountains,  driven  hither  and 
thither  by  the  mysterious  possession  that  had  him  in  its 
power,  filling  the  air  with  his  howls  and  shrieks,  and  cutting 
himself  with  sharp  stones  in  his  frenzy.  But  a  greater  than 
the  strong  man  by  whom  he  was  enslaved  was  now  here. 
Though  dreading  His  presence,  the  demon  could  not  keep 
away  from  it.  It  may  be  that,  in  the  confused  human  con- 
sciousness, there  was  yet  a  glimmer  of  reason  and  moral 
health  which  drove  him  to  the  Saviour ;  but,  if  so,  the  spirit 
took  the  word  from  him,  and  spoke  in  his  stead.  "  What  is 
thy  name  ?  "  said  Jesus  to  the  demon,  and  the  mysterious 
answer  was,  "  Legion,  for  we  are  many."  Forthwith  came 
fcfche  command  to  depart  out  of  the  man.  But,  true  to  diabolical 

1  Land  and  Book,  p.  148. 


DEVILS   CAST   OUT.  155 

instinct,  the  spirits  would  fain  injure,  even  in  leaving.  On 
the  slopes  of  the  hill,  a  great  herd  of  swine,  the  unclean  and 
hateful  abomination  of  the  Jew,  were  feeding.  They  were, 
doubtless,  owned  by  some  of  the  heathen  citizens  of  Gadara, 
for  swine  were  in  great  demand  among  the  foreign  popula- 
tion, as  sacrifices  and  food.  "  Send  ns  into  the  swine,"  cried 
the  devils,  "  and  do  not  drive  us  into  the  abyss,"  q  and  the 
jeque-st  was  granted,  to  the  destruction  of  the  whole  herd, 
which  ran  violently  down  the  slope  into  the  lake  and  were 
drowned.  Jesus,  as  Son  of  God,  was  free  to  act  at  His  will 
with  all  things,  for  they  were  all  His  by  the  supreme  right 
of  creation,  and  this  right  is  continually  used  in  the  moral 
government  of  the  world.  There  is  no  ground  for  a  moment's 
discussion  respecting  an  act  of  One  to  whom  all  things  were 
committed,  as  Head  of  the  New  Kingdom,  by  the  Father.1 

It  is  idle,  in  our  utter  ignorance  of  the  spirit  world,  to 
raise  difficulties,  as  some  have  done,  at  this  incident.  It  is 
recorded  in  three  of  the  four  Gospels,  and  cannot  be  ex- 
plained away  except  by  doing  violence  to  the  concurrent  lan- 
guage of  the  three  Evangelists.  However  mysterious,  it  is 
no  more  so  than  many  facts  in  the  life  of  Jesus,  and  must  be 
taken  simply  as  it  stands. 

The  terror  of  the  Apostles  in  the  storm  had  shown  how 
little  Jesus  could  rely  on  them,  in  the  far  worse  trials  of 
future  years ;  but  the  mighty  power  He  had  shown  in  stilling 
the  tumult  of  the  elements,  had  been  a  lesson  of  confidence 
in  Him,  which  they  could  hardly  forget.  It  was  a  further 
step  in  their  training  to  trust  in  Him,  when  they  now  saw 
Him  perform  the  still  more  wonderful  miracle  of  calming  the 
inward  tempest  of  a  human  soul.  In  neither  case  could  they 
say  a  word.  They  stood  silent  and  ashamed.  They  were 
far,  as  yet,  from  having  grown  to  the  spiritual  manhood  of 
their  great  office. 

The  new  teaching  of  Jesus  had  excited,  for  a  time,  a  wide 
popularity  that  had  even  besieged  His  dwelling  and  thronged 
His  person.  The  people  had  given  Him  their  unhesitating 
confidence.  But  His  collisions  with  the  priests  and  Rabbis, 
and  His  disturbed  relations  to  His  family — with  the  whisper- 
ings of  calumny  on  all  sides — had  chilled  the  enthusiasm 
of  many.  Distrust  and  suspicion  had  been  sown  in  hitherto 
trustful  minds,  and  these  reports  had  penetrated  even  to  the 

1  Matt.  xi.  27.  Neander's  Life  of  Christ,  p.  341.  Ullmann,  p.  133. 
Dukes,  pp.  160,  196. 


156  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

east  of  the  Jordan.  Their  earliest  open  results  were  seen 
at  Gadara,  for  it  was  here  He  first  met  with  open  want  of 
sympathy  with  His  person  and  work.  The  incident  of  the 
destruction  of  the  swine,  infuriating  the  owners,  was  enough, 
with  what  they  had  heard  before,  to  turn  the  people  against 
Him.  The  insinuation  that  He  cast  out  devils  by  a  league 
with  their  chief,  filled  weak  minds  with  terror.  He  had 
hardly  landed,  and  was  in  sore  need  of  rest,  yet  was  at  once 
forced  to  leave.  For  the  first  time,  the  disciples  had  an 
example  of  that  invincible  unbelief  they  were,  hereafter,  to 
meet  so  often.  But,  if  Jesus  were  hindered  from  preaching 
in  Decapolis,  He  had  the  satisfaction  of  leaving  behind  Him 
the  former  maniac,  now  clothed  and  in  his  right  mind,  to 
spread  the  fact  of  his  deliverance.  The  poor  man  would 
fain  have  followed  his  Benefactor,  but  Jesus  had  other  work 
for  him.  Contrary  to  His  rule  hitherto,  He  dismissed  him, 
with  directions  to  go  home  to  his  friends,  and  tell  them  the 
great  things  the  Lord  had  done  for  him,  and  how  He  had 
had  compassion  on  Him.  His  preaching,  however  simple, 
was  a  seed  of  future  good  in  these  regions. 

Forced  to  return  to  Capernaum,  Jesus  had  scarcely  landed, 
when  a  demand  was  made  on  His  sympathy  which  He  could 
not  resist.  One  of  the  rulers,  or  chief  men  of  the  synagogue, 
a  local  dignitary,  named  Jairus,1  had  an  only  daughter,  a 
rising  girl  of  about  twelve,  at  the  point  of  death.  After  all 
that  had  passed  between  Jesus  and  the  Rabbis  in  the  town, 
it  must  have  been  a  great  effort  for  one  in  the  position,  and 
with  the  inevitable  prejudices  of  Jairus,  to  seek  His  aid ;  but 
distress  humbles  pride,  and  often  quickens  faith.  Pressing 
towards  Him,  he  fell  at  His  feet, — as  inferiors  then  did,  and 
still  do,  in  the  East,  before  those  greatly  above  them, — re- 
gardless of  the  crowd  around,  and  besought  Him  to  come 
and  lay  His  hand  on  his  child,  and  restore  her  to  health.  A 
heart  that  sympathized  with  all  sorrow  could  not  withstand 
such  an  appeal,  and,  forthwith,  He  set  out  to  the  ruler's 
house,  through  the  throng  that  attended  all  His  movements. 
Before  arriving  there,  however,  a  message  came  that  the 
sufferer  was  dead,  and  that  there  was  no  need  of  further 
trouble.  They  little  knew  who  was  on  His  way  to  them. 
"  Be  not  afraid,"  said  He  to  the  ruler,  "  only  believe."  The 
crowd  of  relatives  and  friends  that  always  throng  the  chamber 
of  death  in  Palestine,  had  already  begun  the  pitiful  wails 
and  cries  of  Eastern  lamentations,  and  the  dirge-flutes  "had 
commenced  to  add  their  sad  burden  to  the  tumult.  Jesus  had 


HEBKEW  PHAEMACY.  157 

perhaps  been  delayed  before  starting,  and,  as  preparations 
for  burial  commence  as  soon  as  breath  leaves  the  body,  the 
corpse  had  probably  been  washed,  and  laid  out  in  the  custom- 
ary way  for  the  grave,  before  He  came. 

The  noise  and  confusion  were  not  in  keeping  with  the 
work  Jesus  designed.  "  Why  make  ye  this  ado  and  weep  ?  "  * 
said  He,  as  He  entered ;  "  The  damsel  is  not  dead,  but 
staepeth."  lu  He  used  the  word,  doubtless,  just  as  He  after- 
wards did  in  the  case  of  Lazarus,  but  they  mocked  at  His 
pretended  knowledge,  which  seemed  to  impute  error  to  them- 
selves ;  for  they  knew  that  she  was  dead.  He  was  the  Prince 
of  Peace,  and  would  have  no  such  disturbing  excitement,  and 
therefore  caused  the  crowd  to  leave  the  chamber  of  death. 
Only  the  father  and  the  mother  of  the  girl,  and  the  three 
disciples,  Peter,  James  and  John,  were  allowed  to  see  His 
triumph  over  the  King  of  Terrors.  Taking  the  damsel  by 
the  hand,  and  using  words  of  the  language  of  His  people — • 
"  Talitha  cumi — Damsel,  I  say  unto  thee,  arise  "  * — the  spirit 
returned  to  the  pale  form,  and  she  rose  and  walked.  But  in 
Capernaum,  at  a  time  when  His  enemies  were  so  keenly  watch- 
ful, cautious  obscurity  was  needed,  and  He  therefore  enjoined 
silence  as  to  the  miracle. 

On  the  way  a  touching  incident  had  happened.  A  woman, 
troubled  for  many  years  with  an  internal  ailment,  after 
"  having  suffered  many  things  of  many  physicians,  and  hav- 
ing spent  her  all "  in  the  vain  hope  of  cure,  resolved  to  seek 
help  from  Jesus.  It  is  no  wonder  that  she  had  given  up  the 
faculty  of  the  day,  for  their  practice  was  in  keeping  with  the 
scientific  ignorance  of  the  times.  Lightfoot  quotes  from  the 
Talmud  the  Jewish  medical  treatment  of  such  a  complaint. 
It  was  as  follows :  "  Take  of  the  gum  of  Alexandria  the 
weight  of  a  zuzee  (a  fractional  silver  coin)  ;  of  alum  the 
same  ;  of  crocus  the  same.  Let  them  be  bruised  together, 
and  given  in  wine  to  the  woman  that  has  an  issue  of  blood. 
If  this  does  not  benefit,  take  of  Persian  onions  three  logs 
(pints)  ;  boil  them  in  wine  and  give  her  to  drink,  and  say, 
'  Arise  from  thy  flux.'  If  this  does  not  cure  her,  set  her  in  a 
place  where  two  ways  meet,  and  let  her  hold  a  cup  of  wine 
in  her  right  hand,  and  let  some  one  come  behind  and  frighten 
her,  and  say,  '  Arise  from  thy  flux.'  But  if  that  do  no  good, 
take  a  handful  of  cummin  (a  kind  of  fennel),  a  handful  of 

1  Matt.  ix.  18-26.  Mark  v.  22-43.  Luke  viii.  41-56.  Nork,  p.  49, 
F.  D.  Eobertson's  Sermons,  2nd  series,  p.  34. 


158  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

crocus,  and  a  handful  of  fenugreek  (another  kind  of  fennel). 
Let  these  he  boiled  in  wine,  and  give  them  her  to  drink,  and 
say,  '  Arise  from  thy  flux.'  "  If  these  do  no  good,  other  cures, 
over  ten  in  number,  are  prescribed  ;  among  them,  this — "  Let 
them  dig  seven  ditches,  in  which  let  them  burn  some  cuttings 
of  vines,  not  yet  four  years  old.  Let  her  take  in  her  hand  a 
cup  of  wine,  and  let  them  lead  her  away  from  this  ditch,  and 
make  her  sit  down  over  that.  And  let  them  remove  her 
from  that,  and  make  her  sit  down  over  another,  saying  to 
her  at  each  remove, — '  Arise  from  thy  flux.'  "  ly 

But  these  were  only  a  few  of  the  more  harmless  prescrip- 
tions in  vogue.  The  condition  of  medical  science  in  the  East 
may  be  judged  from  its  character  at  the  centre  of  civilization 
and  progress  in  the  West.  Pliny's  Natural  History  gives  us 
some  curious  glimpses  of  this.  Ashes  of  burnt  wolf's  skull, 
stags'  horns,  the  heads  of  mice,  the  eyes  of  crabs,  owls' 
brains,  the  livers  of  frogs,  vipers'  fat,  grasshoppers,  bats,  etc., 
supplied  the  alkalis  which  were  prescribed.  Physicians  were 
wont  to  order  doses  of  the  gall  of  wild  swine,  of  horses'  foam, 
of  woman's  milk ;  the  laying  a  piece  of  serpent's  skin  on  an 
affected  part,  mixtures  of  the  urine  of  cows  that  had  not  been 
sucked,  the  fat  of  bears,  the  juice  of  boiled  bucks'  horns,  and 
other  similar  abominations.2  For  colic,  they  prescribed  the 
dung  of  swine  or  hares,  for  dysentery  powdered  horses'  teeth, 
for  affections  of  the  bladder  the  urine  of  wild  swine,  or  asses' 
kidneys,  or  plasters  of  mice-dung.3  It  was  a  great  assistance 
in  childbirth  if  the  mother,  or  any  of  her  circle,  ate  wolf's 
flesh.*  Cold  in  the  head  was  cured  by  kissing  a  mule's  nose.5 
Sore  throat  was  removed  by  embrocations  of  snails'  slime,  and 
the  inhalation  of  the  fumes  of  snails  slowly  burnt.6  Quinsy 
was  cured  with  the  brain  of  the  marsh  owl :  7  diseases  of  the 
lungs,  with  mouse-flesh;  8  disorders  of  the  stomach  with  boiled 
snails,  of  which,  however,  only  an  odd  number  must  be 
taken ;  weakness  of  the  bowels,  with  powdered  bats  ;  miscar- 
riages were  prevented  by  carrying  about  with  one  a  living 
amphisbaena,  a  small  snake  which  was  believed  to  be  able  to 
go  either  backwards  or  forwards  ;  frogs'  eyes  were  useful  for 
contusions,  if  the  eyes  were  taken  out  at  the  conjunction  of 
the  moon,  and  kept  in  an  egg-shell.  Frogs  boiled  in  vinegar 
were  sovereign  for  toothache ;  for  cough,  the  slime  of  frogs 

1  Hor  Heb.,  vol.  ii.  p.  413.  2  Plin.  Hist.  Nat.,  xxviii.  48  ff. 

8  Ibid,  53  ff.  xxx.  21.  *  Ibid,  xxvi.  77. 

*  Ibid,  xxx.  11.  •  Ibid,  xxx.  11. 

7  Ibid,  xxx.  12.  •  Ibid,  xxx.  14. 


THE   WOMAN  WHO   TOUCHED  JESUS.  159 

which  had  been  hung  up  by  the  feet ;  for  rapture,  sea  hedge- 
hogs— the  echinus— dissolved  in  asses'  milk ;  for  diseases  of 
the  glands,  scorpions  boiled  in  wine ;  for  ague  or  intermittent 
fever,  the  stone  from  the  head  of  sea-eels,  but  it  must  be 
taken  out  at  the  full  moon.1 

The  poor  woman  who  now  determined  to  seek  help  from 
Jesus  had  endured  all  the  tortures  of  such  medical  treatment 
for  twelve  years,  and,  of  course,  was  hurt  rather  than  healed. 
She  could  not,  however,  venture  to  speak  to  Jesus  ;  perhaps 
womanly  shame  to  tell  her  disease  in  public  kept  her  back  ; 
perhaps  reverence  for  One  so  mysteriously  above  other  men. 
Besides,  she  was  unclean,  and  had  to  stand  aloof  from  society. 
Joining  the  crowd  following  Him  to  the  house  of  Jairus,  she 
could  only  dare  to  touch  the  zizith,"  or  tassel,  that  hung  on 
the  corner  of  his  outer  garment,  as  on  those  of  all  other 
Jews,2  The  touch  at  once  healed  her,  but  it  did  not  pass 
unnoticed.  To  have  let  it  do  so,  might  have  seemed  to  give 
countenance  to  a  superstitious  fancy  that  His  clothes  had 
virtue  in  themselves.  Turning  round,  He  at  once  asked  who 
touched  Him.  She  could  no  longer  hide  her  act,  and,  alarmed 
lest  her  boldness  should  be  punished  by  the  renewal  of  the 
trouble  she  now  felt  to  have  been  healed,  fell  down  before 
Him,  and  told  Him  all  the  truth.  It  was  enough.  "  Daugh- 
ter," said  He,  "  thy  faith  hath  made  thee  whole  ;  go  in  peace, 
and  be  whole  of  thy  plague." 

1  Plin.  Hist.  Nat.,  xxx.  15  ;  xx.  43,  44 ;  xxxii.  24 ;  xxvi.  29,  32,  34 ; 
xxxvii.  1. 

3  Num.  xv.  38.  Sehet  Welch  ein  Mensch,  p.  28.  Saum,  Winer. 
Godwyn'e  Aaron  and  Moses,  p.  44.  Schiirer,  p.  496. 


CHAPTER  XLIH. 
DARK    AND    BRIGHT. 

A  MONG  the  crowd  that  had  gathered  round  the  house  of 
-^-*-  Jairus,  the  supernatural  powers  of  Jesus  found  renewed 
exercise.1  No  sooner  had  He  reappeared  than  two  blind  men 
followed  Him  to  Peter's  house,  appealing  to  Him  as  the  long- 
expected  Messiah — "Have  mercy  upon  us,  Son  of  David." 
It  was  an  invariable  condition  of  His  granting  His  miracul- 
ous aid  that  those  who  sought  it  should  come  with  sincere 
and  trustful  hearts,  for  to  such  alone  could  any  higher  good 
be  gained  by  mere  outward  relief.  The  poor  men  eagerly 
assured  him  that  they  believed  He  could  do  what  they  asked, 
and  with  a  touch  of  His  hand  their  eyes  were  opened.  "  Ac- 
cording to  your  faith,"  said  He,  "be  it  unto  you."  The  prudent 
charge  not  to  speak  of  their  restored  sight,  so  necessary  after 
all  that  had  lately  passed,  was  heard  only  to  be  forgotten, 
for,  in  their  joy,  they  could  not  refrain  from  publishing  it 
wherever  they  went.  Another  miracle  of  these  days  is  re- 
corded— the  casting  out  a  devil  from  one  who  was  dumb,  so 
that  the  sufferer,  henceforth,  spoke  freely.  The  multitudes 
were  greatly  moved  by  such  repeated  demonstrations  of 
transcendent  power,  which  seemed  to  surpass  all  that  had 
ever  been  seen  in  Israel,  but  this  popularity  embittered 
His  enemies  the  more.  Repeating  their  old  blasphemy,' 
they  could  only  mutter,  "  He  casts  out  devils  by  being  in 
league  with  their  prince."  2  That  He  should  thus  recognise 
classes  whom  they  represented  as  accursed,  and  from  whom 
they  withdrew  themselves  as  unclean,  seemed  a  reflection  on 
their  teaching  and  conduct.  The  blind,  the  leper,  the  poor, 
and  the  childless,  were  alike  accounted  stricken  of  God,  and 
"  dead,"  by  the  hard  Judaism  of  the  day,3  and  yet  He  asso- 
ciated freely  with  all  who  sought  Him.  Either  He  or  they 
must  be  vitally  wrong. 

1  Matt.  iz.  27-34.  *  Hor.  Eeb.,  vol.  ii.  pp.  203-205. 

8  Lightfoot,  vol.  iii.  p.  94. 


CHRIST  VISITS  NAZARETH.  161 

It  was  now  late  in  the  year,  and  the  Twelve  had  not  yet 
gone  out  on  any  independent  mission.  He  had  taken  them 
with  Him  on  His  circuits  round  Capernaum,  to  train  them 
for  wider  fields.  They  had  seen  Him  scattering  the  first 
seed,  and  caring  for  it  in  its  growth ;  preserving  what  had 
been  won,  strengthening  the  weak,  and  calling  the  careless 
to  repentance.  Their  experience  though  gained  in  this 
narrow  sphere  had  been  widely  varied.  More  lately  they  had 
seen  unbelief  in  the  Gadarenes,  weak  faith  in  themselves,  and 
loving  trust  in  the  woman  who  had  touched  Jesus,  and  even 
in  the  two  blind  men  at  Peter's  house.  Another  lesson, 
however,  was  needed — that  of  fierce  opposition — which  they 
were  destined  to  meet  so  often  hereafter. 

Jesus  had  never  visited  Nazareth  since  His  leaving  it,  and 
His  heart  must  have  yearned  to  proclaim  the  New  Kingdom 
to  the  population  among  whom  He  had  lived  so  long.  The 
visit  of  Mary  and  of  His  sisters  and  brothers,  to  Capernaum, 
to  take  Him  away  with  them,  however  mistaken,  had, 
doubtless,  been  prompted  by  the  tenderest  motives.  Simple 
country  people,  they  had  heard  from  their  holy  Rabbis  that 
He  whom  they  so  loved  had  overstrained  His  mind  and 
body  till  His  reason  had  failed,  and  that  there  was  ground 
to  fear  that  the  Evil  One  had  secretly  taken  advantage  of 
His  enthusiasm  to  work  miracles  by  His  hands.  What  could 
it  be,  indeed,  but  serving  the  Prince  of  Darkness,  to  slight 
the  sacred  traditions  by  acts  like  mixing  with  the  common 
people  withont  bathing  afterwards,  or  breaking  the  Sabbath 
by  healing  on  it,  or  by  allowing  the  disciples  to  pluck  corn  and 
rub  it  in  their  hands  on  the  holy  day,  or  letting  a  leper  come 
near  Him,  or  eating  with  unclean  publicans  and  sinners  ? 
He  was  a  revolutionist ;  He  was  turning  the  world  upside 
down  ;  He  was  questioning  the  wisdom  and  authority  of  the 
Rabbis,  and  who  but  the  devil  or  his  emissary  could  do 
that? 

It  was  a  grave  matter,  however,  to  revisit  Nazareth.  If 
His  nearest  relatives  had  given  way  to  such  fears  respecting 
Him,  what  could  He  expect  from  the  multitude,  who  had 
known  Him  only  in  His  humble  obscurity?  He  must  seem 
to  them,  at  the  least,  a  dangerous  disturber  of  the  religion  of 
the  land  ;  a  fanatic  who  was  stirring  up  confusion  in  Israel. 
But,  where  duty  called,  He  never  knew  fear.  In  company 
with  His  disciples  He  set  out  from  Capernaum,  taking  the 
road  along  the  hills  by  the  lake,  to  Magdala,  turning  west- 
ward from  it,  through  the  Valley  of  Doves,  by  Arbela,  with 


162  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

its  high  cliffs  and  robber  caves,  and  the  Horns  of  Hattin, 
past  Tabor,  south-westerly  to  Nazareth.  It  was  only  a 
journey  of  seven  hours,  and  could  easily  be  made  in  a  day. 
He  stayed  in  Nazareth  several  days,1  no  doubt  in  His 
mother's  house. 

The  sword  had  already  begun  to  pierce  the  Virgin's  heart.8 
Tender,  humble,  patient,  and  loving,  she  had  trials  we  can- 
not realize.  Knowing  that  her  son  was  the  Messiah,  her 
faith  was  sorely  perplexed  by  His  past  course,  for  her  ideas 
were  those  of  her  nation,  and  His  were  wholly  the  opposite. 
Her  intimate  knowledge  of  the  sacred  oracles  of  her  people 
had  shown  itself  in  the  Magnificat :  her  simple  trust  in  God, 
her  happy  thankfulness  of  soul,  her  musing  thoughtfulness, 
her  modest  humility,  her  strength  of  mind  and  energy  of 
purpose,  had  all  been  seen  in  earlier  days,  and,  no  doubt,  as 
she  grew  older,  the  light  of  a  higher  world  was  reflected 
with  ever-increasing  glory  from  her  soul.  But  she  was,  and 
must  have  been,  in  sore  trouble  at  the  position  of  her  Son. 
His  first  interview  with  her  has  been  conceived  thus  :  * — 

"  Refreshment  over,  and  thanks  returned,  with  covered 
head,  by  Jesus,  we  may  fancy  how  Mary  followed  Him  to 
His  own  chamber.  When,  at  last,  she  thus  had  Him  alone, 
she  fell  on  His  neck ;  but  instead  of  kissing  Him,  as  she  had 
done  a  thousand  times,  secretly,  in  spirit,  she  hid  her  face 
on  His  shoulder,  and  a  stream  of  tears  fell  from  her  eyes. 
She  wept  without  speaking,  and  would  not  let  Him  go. 

"  At  last,  Jesus  said,  '  Mother,  be  calm,  and  sit  down  by 
me,  and  tell  me  why  you  weep  ? '  She  did  so,  and  began 
— her  hand  in  His,  and  His  eyes  fixed  on  hers — '  I  rejoice 
that  at  last  I  have  you  again,  and  grieve  that  we  shall  soon 
have  once  more  to  part.'  '  Do  you  know,  then,'  asked  Jesus, 
'  how  soon  or  how  late  I  shall  leave  this  world  ?  '  '0  my 
child,'  replied  Mary,  '  does  not  the  deathly  whiteness  of 
your  face  tell  me  that  you  are  wearing  yourself  out  ?  and  if 
you  do  not  wear  yourself  out,  though  I  am  a  woman,  shut 
in  by  the  four  corners  of  my  house,  how  can  I  help  seeing 
that  the  hatred  of  your  enemies  increases  daily,  and  that 
they  have  long  sworn  your  death  ?  '  '  Granted,'  broke  in 
Jesus,  '  but  has  not  a  great  part  of  the  people  banded  round 
me,  and  does  not  this  stand  in  the  way  of  the  plots  against 
me?'  'Indeed,'  replied  Mary,  'the  might  of  your  preaching, 
your  independence  towards  those  in  power  at  Jerusalem,  the 

1  Mark  vi.  2.  s  Luke  ii.  35. 


CHRIST   IN   THE   SYNAGOGUE.  163 

novelty  of  your  whole  appearance,  and,  above  all,  your 
miracles,  have  won  many  to  your  side,  but  the  favour  of  the 
people  is  like  a  rain-torrent,  which  swells  quickly  only  to 
pass  away  as  soon.'  '  You  are  right,  O  blessed  among 
women,'  answered  Jesus  ;  '  most  of  this  people  seek  not 
salvation  from  sin,  but  from  quite  other  burdens,  and  when 
the  decisive  moment  comes,  they  will  forsake  me,  faint- 
heartedly and  ungratefully.  Your  look  into  the  future  does 
not  deceive  you,  but  even  the  enmity  and  evil  of  men  serve 
the  counsels  of  God,  which  I  came  to  fulfil.  My  way 
goes  downwards  to  deep  darkness,  from  which  my  soul 
shrinks,  but  I  follow  the  will  of  my  Father,  whether  the 
road  be  up  or  down.'  As  He  spoke,  His  countenance,  which 
had  been  clouded  for  a  moment,  was,  as  it  were,  transfigured, 
as  the  Divine  in  His  nature  shone  through  the  human ;  and 
Mary,  drinking  in  all  these  beams,  thrilled  with  a  more  than 
mortal  joy.  There  was  a  long  pause.  Mary  was  silent,  but 
she  was,  as  always,  wrapt  in  prayer.  '  Fair,'  said  she,  in 
the  thoughts  of  her  soul,  'is  the  rising  sun,  fair  the  green 
vine,  fair  the  blue  sea,  but  fairer  than  all  is  He.  What  an 
hour  is  this  !  My  eyes  have  beheld  the  King  in  His  beauty.'  " 
The  picture  is  beautiful,  but  it  ascribes  feelings  to  Mary 
which  sprang  only  later. 

It  had  been  the  instinctive  practice  of  Jesus,  from  early 
childhood,  to  attend  all  the  synagogue  services,  and  He  was 
still  suffered  to  do  so,  in  spite  of  the  opposition  He  had 
excited.1  When  Sabbath  came,  therefore,  He  went  to  morn- 
ing worship,  and,  after  the  reading  of  the  Torah,  stood  up 
in  silent  offer  to  read  the  Haphtara  of  the  day  from  the 
Prophets.  He  was  forthwith  called  to  the  reading  desk, 
when  the  Sheliach  Tsibbur,  or  Hazan,  handed  him  the  roll. 
The  lesson  for  the  day  could  not  have  been  more  appropriate, 
for  it  contained  the  passage  of  Isaiah  which  spoke  of  the 
Messiah — "  The  spirit  of  the  Lord  is  upon  me,  because  He 
anointed  me  to  preach  the  Gospel  to  the  poor.  He  has 
sent  me  to  proclaim  deliverance  to  the  captives,  and  re- 
covery of  sight  to  the  blind  :  to  set  at  liberty  the  oppressed : 
to  proclaim  the  acceptable  year  of  the  Lord."  b  Then  sitting 
down,  He  began  His  Midrash,  or  explanation,  commenting 
on  the  passage  in  language  which  astonished  the  hearers, 
and  applying  the  predictions  of  the  prophets  to  Himself. 

1  Sehet  Welch  ein  MenscJi,  p.  34.  Jost,  vol  i.  p.  177.  Godwyv,  p.  71 
Kitto's  Cyclo.,  vol.  ii.  p.  2'2fc>. 


164  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

But  the  honest  wonder  and  delight  at  His  words  speedily 
gave  way  to  less  friendly  feeling.  Whispers  soon  ran  through 
the  congregation  respecting  Him.  How  came  He  by  such 
wisdom  ?  He  belonged  to  no  school :  claimed  no  place  in 
the  succession  of  Rabbis  :  spoke  on  his  own  authority,  with- 
out ordination  or  sanction  from  the  doctors.  Is  not  this  the 
carpenter,  the  son  of  Mary  and  Joseph,1  the  brother  of  James 
and  Joses,  and  of  Juda  and  Simon  ?  and  are  not  His  sisters 
here  with  us  ?  They  could  not  realize  that  One  with  whom, 
and  with  whose  circle,  they  had  been  on  familiar  relations 
could  be  a  prophet.  Perhaps  His  freedom  towards  the 
traditions  had  offended  the  strict  notions  of  some  of  His 
brothers,  and  the  petty  jealousy  of  a  country  village  could 
not  acknowledge  a  superior  in  one  whom  they  had  long 
treated  as  an  equal,  or  even  an  inferior.  His  humble  origin, 
His  position  as  a  carpenter — a  trade  He  had  learned  among 
them — the  absence  of  anything  special  in  His  family,  and  the 
fact  that  even  they  did  not  acknowledge  His  claims,  were  all 
remembered.  Perhaps  jealousy  of  Capernaum  mingled  with 
other  thoughts,  for  He  had  done  miracles  there,  and  none  in 
Nazareth.  Moreover,  if  He  did  not  belong  to  the  schools, 
He  could  not  speak  or  act  by  inspiration  from  above,  for  the 
Rabbis  were  the  teachers  appointed  by  God.2  He  must  do 
His  miracles,  as  the  Rabbis  said,  by  the  help  of  the  devil. 
He  could  not,  they  began  to  think,  have  come  by  His  know- 
ledge and  eloquence  by  fair  means,  or  in  the  usual  way.  He 
must  have  unholy  aid. 

This  was  enough  to  turn  the  synagogue  against  Him,  and 
His  own  words  intensified  the  revolution  of  feeling,  and 
brought  it  to  a  crisis.  He  frankly  told  them  that  He  knew 
they  thought  "  that  before  helping  them  He  should  help 
Himself,  by  removing  the  suspicion  and  disrespect  they  grow- 
ingly  felt ;  doing  miracles  like  those  of  Capernaum,  as  the  only 
way  to  convince  them  of  His  claims  !  But  He  would  not  do 
in  Nazareth  what  He  had  done  there,  for  He  well  knew  that 
no  prophet  had  any  honour  in  his  own  country.  Had  not 
Elijah  confined  his  miraculous  power  to  strangers,  and  they 
heathen,  and  withdrawn  it  from  Israel  ?  Their  hardness  of 
Veart  enforced  the  same  on  Him,  and  if  Israel,  as  a  whole, 
showed  a  like  spirit,  it,  also,  would  see  His  mighty  works 

1  Luke  iv.  22.  Mark  vi.  3.  The  Proverb,  "  Physician  heal  thyself," 
was  cominou  to  Greeks,  Komans  and  Eabbis. 

3  Jestis  n.  HUH,  p.  17.  Hausrath,  vol.  i.  pp.  348, 396.  Keim,  vol.  ii. 
pp  423-425.  Schrnkel,  pp.  114.  115. 


DRIVEN   OUT   OF   NAZARETH.  165 

withdrawn,  and  shown  among  the  heathen."  They  could 
stand  no  more.  The  whole  synagogue  rose  in  commotion, 
and  in  wild  uproar  hustled  Him  towards  the  steep  wall  of 
rockc  hard  by,  to  throw  Him  from  it,  headlong.  But  His 
time  was  not  yet  come.  A  spell  cast  on  the  fierce  mob 
opened  a  way  for  Him,  and  He  passed  through  them,  and 
left  the  town  unhurt.1 

This  disastrous  result  so  far  exceeded  all  previous  ex- 
perience, that  Jesus  Himself  marvelled  at  their  unbelief.2 
It  even  fettered  His  action,  for  "  He  could  do  no  mighty 
work,  save  that  He  laid  His  hands  upon  a  few  sick,  and 
healed  them."3  He  exerted  His  miraculous  power  only 
towards  those  in  whom  He  found  moral  sympathy,  however 
imperfect.  The  human  will,  mysteriously  independent, 
needed  to  meet  His  supernatural  might,  and  give  it  entrance ; 
as  if  the  soul,  opposed  or  indifferent,  were  wayside  soil,  on 
which  the  seeds  of  physical,  as  of  moral  blessing,  fell  with- 
out fruit. 

But  though  He  left  Nazareth  never  to  return,  He  re- 
mained in  the  neighbourhood  for  a  time,  preaching  in  the 
villages  of  the  great  plain  of  Esdraelon,  far  and  near.  The 
whole  theatre  of  His  activity,  however,  in  this  circuit,  as  in 
previous  ones,  was  limited  beyond  ordinary  conception. 
From  north  to  south,  between  Chorazin,  which  lay  beyond 
Capernaum  and  Jezreel  in  the  great  plain,  was  only  a  dis- 
tance of  ten  hours,  and  from  east  to  west,  from  Chorazin  to 
Cana,  or  Nazareth,  only  six  or  seven.  His  whole  life  was 
spent  in  a  space  represented  by  one  or  two  English  counties, 
but  the  seed  sown  on  this  speck  of  ground  is  yet  to  cover 
the  earth ! 

The  Apostles  had  now  passed  through  a  lengthened  and 
varied  experience,  and  besides  the  constant  instruction  of 
their  Master's  words  and  life,  had  learned  from  their  own 
hearts  how  great  their  moral  deficiencies  still  were.  Their 
faint-heartedness,  irresoluteness,  and  want  of  faith,  were 
evident,  and  they  were  thus  brought  to  that  modest  self- 
distrust  which  alone  could  fit  them  for  the  heavier  duties 
before  them.  They  were  now  to  rise  from  the  position  of 
merely  dependent  followers  and  scholars,3  and  become 
co-workers  with  Jesus,  and  that  not  only  on  the  good  soil 
already  sown,  but,  also,  on  the  hard  trodden  paths,  the 

1  Luke  iv.  16-30.    Matt.  xiii.  54-58.     Mark  vi.  1-6. 
9  Mark  vi.  6.  3  Mark  vi.  6. 


166  THE  LIFE   OF   CHKIST. 

etony  ground,  and  that  pre-occupied  by  thorns.  In  Gadara 
and  Nazareth,  they  had  learned  to  distinguish  the  opposite 
aspects  of  unbelief ;  in  the  one,  that  of  common  natural 
selfishness  and  harshness ;  in  the  other,  that  of  proud  per- 
verted fanaticism.  After  long  wanderings  and  continuous 
trials,  the  Twelve  were  now,  in  their  Master's  opinion,  in  a 
measure  prepared  to  work  by  themselves*  in  spreading  the 
New  Kingdom.  In  spite  of  the  opposition  of  the  interested 
professional  classes,  the  enthusiasm  of  the  people  to  hear 
the  new  teaching  was  unabated.  Multitudes  followed  Jesus 
wherever  He  appeared,  the  synagogues  still  offered  access 
to  the  whole  population  each  Sabbath,  and  in  all  the  cities 
and  villages  of  Galilee,  the  "  Gospel  of  the  Kingdom  "  was 
the  great  topic  of  conversation. 

The  times,  moreover,  were  exciting.  The  whole  country 
rang  with  the  story  of  a  massacre  of  Galileans  by  Pilate,  at 
the  last  Feast  oi  Tabernacles — perhaps  at  the  same  tumult 
in  which  Joseph  Barabbas  was  arrested  as  a  ringleader ;  to 
be  afterwards  freed  instead  of  Jesus.1  Pilate  was  always 
ready  to  shed  the  blood  of  a  people  he  hated,  and  the  hot- 
headed Galileans,  ever  ready  to  take  affront  at  the  hated 
infidels,  gave  him  only  too  many  excuses  for  violence.  They 
had  a  standing  grievance  in  the  sacrifices  offered  daily  for 
the  Empire  and  the  Emperor,2  and  at  the  presence  of  a 
Roman  garrison  and  Roman  pickets  at  the  Temple  during 
the  feasts,  to  keep  the  peace,  as  Turkish  soldiers  do  at  this 
day,  during  Easter,  at  the  Church  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre. 
But  Pilate  had  given  special  offence,  at  this  time,  by  appro- 
priating part  of  the  treasures  of  the  Temple — derived  mainly 
from  dues  voluntarily  paid  by  all  Jews,  over  the  world,  and 
amounting  to  vast  sums  in  the  aggregate — to  defray  the  cost 
of  great  conduits  he  had  begun  for  the  better  supply  of  Jeru- 
salem with  water.  Stirred  up  by  the  priests  and  Rabbis, 
the  people  had  besieged  Pilate's  residence  when  he  came 
up  to  the  city  at  the  feast,  and  with  loud  continuous 
cries  had  demanded  that  the  works  be  given  up.  Seditious 
words  against  himself,  the  representative  of  the  Emperor, 
had  not  been  wanting.  He  had  more  than  once  been  forced 
to  yield  to  such  clamour,  but  this  time  determined  to  put  it 
down.  Numbers  of  soldiers,  in  plain  clothes,  and  armed 
only  with  clubs,  surrounded  the  vast  mob,  and  used  their 
cudgels  so  remorselessly  that  many,  both  of  the  innocent 

1  Ewald,  vol.  v.  p.  91.     Keim,  vol.  ii.  p.  431.  *  Godwyn,  p.  60. 


THE   WATS   OF   PEOVIDENCB.  167 

and  guilty,  were  left  dead  on  the  spot.  The  very  precincts 
of  the  Temple  were  invaded  by  the  legionaries,  and  some 
pilgrims  who  were  so  poor  that  they  were  slaying  their  own 
sacrifices,  were  struck  down  while  doing  so,  their  blood 
mingling  with  that  of  the  beasts  they  were  preparing  for  the 
priests,1  and  thus  polluting  the  House  of  God.1  It  was  an 
unprecedented  outrage,  and  filled  every  breast  in  Judea  and 
Galilee  with  the  wildest  indignation,  though  such  brawls 
were  of  frequent  occurrence.2  The  excitement  had  even 
penetrated  the  palace  at  Tiberias,  and  kindled  bitter  ill- 
feeling  in  Antipas  towards  Pilate,  for  the  men  slain  were 
Galilaean  subjects. 

Another  misfortune  had  happened  in  Jerusalem  a  short 
time  before.  A  tower,  apparently  on  the  top  of  Ophel, 
near  the  Fountain  of  the  Virgin,  opposite  Siloam,  had  fallen 
— perhaps  one  of  the  buildings  connected  with  Pilate's 
public-spirited  steps  to  bring  water  to  the  Holy  City — and 
eighteen  men  had  been  buried  beneath  it ;  in  the  opinion  of 
the  people,  as  a  judgment  of  God,  for  their  having  helped 
the  sacrilegious  undertaking.8 

The  cry  for  a  national  rising  to  avenge  the  murdered 
pilgrims  rose  on  every  side,  but  Jesus  did  not  sanction  it  for 
a  moment.  He  saw  the  arm  of  God  even  in  the  hated 
Romans  and  in  the  fall  of  the  tower,  and,  instead  of  re- 
cognising special  guilt  in  the  sufferers  or  joining  in  a  cry  for 
insurrection  for  the  crime  of  Pilate,  told  His  hearers  that 
the  same  horrors  were  like  to  fall  on  the  whole  nation. 
"  Suppose  ye,"  He  asked,  "that  these  Galilaeans  were  sinners 
above  all  the  Galilaeans,  because  they  have  suffered  such 
things  ?  I  tell  you  nay ;  but,  except  ye  repent,  ye  shall 
all  perish  in  like  manner.  Or  those  eighteen,  upon  whom 
the  tower  in  Siloam  fell  and  killed  them,  suppose  ye  that 
they  were  sinners  above  all  the  men  that  dwell  in  Jerusalem  ? 
I  tell  you  nay ;  but,  except  ye  repent,  ye  will  all  perish  in 
the  same  manner."  "  Israel,"  He  added,  "  is  like  a  fig-tree, 
planted  by  a  man  in  his  vineyard,  which  year  after  year  boro 
no  fruit.h  Wearied  by  its  barrenness,  the  householder  was 
determined  to  cut  it  down,  and  it  was  now  spared  at  the 
intercession  of  the  vine-dresser,  only  for  another  year,  to 
give  it  a  last  respite.  After  that,  if  it  still  bore  no  fruit,  he 
would  cut  it  down,  as  merely  cumbering  the  ground.31  That 

1  Ewald,  vol.  T.  p.  90.     Hntisrath,  vol.  i.  pp.  308,  339. 

1  Ant.,  xx.  5.  3.    Ewald,  vol.  v.  p.  90.  3  Luke  xiii.  1-9. 

49 


168  THE   LIFE   OP   CHRIST. 

year  of  merciful  delay  was  the  passing  moment  of  His  own 
presence  and  work  among  them.  The  nation  had  given  itself 
up  to  a  wild  dream,  that  would  end  in  its  ruin.  Led  by  the 
priests  and  Rabbis,  it  trusted  that  God  would  appear  on 
its  behalf,  and,  by  a  political  revolution,  overthrow  the  hated 
foreign  domination.  The  fruits  of  repentance  and  faith, 
which  God  required,  were  still  wanting.  As  the  vine- 
dresser, Jesus  had  done  all  possible  to  win  them  to  a  better 
frame.  He  had  warned,  besought,  counselled ;  but  they 
were  wedded  to  their  sins  and  their  sinful  pride.  His 
peaceful  kingdom  offered  them  the  only  escape  from  ruin, 
here  and  hereafter ;  but,  as  a  nation,  they  were  more  and 
more  leaning  towards  the  worldly  schemes  of  their  eccle- 
siastical leaders,  and  turned  a  deaf  ear  to  all  proposals  of 
spiritual  self-reform.  Continuance  in  this  course  would 
bring  the  fate  of  those  they  now  lamented  on  the  whole  race. 
If  they  rejected  Him,  God  would  erelong  destroy  them  as  a 
people." 

There  was  still  another  matter  agitating  all  minds,  and 
helping  to  keep  up  the  volcanic  excitement  of  the  country. 
John  lay  a  prisoner  in  the  black  fortress  of  Machaerus, 
almost  within  sight,  and  each  day  men  wondered  if  Antipas 
had  yet  dared  to  put  him  to  death. 

Under  any  circumstances,  the  crowds  following  Jesus 
would  have  touched  a  heart  so  tender ;  but  their  wild  despair 
and  religious  enthusiasm  made  the  sight  of  them  doubly 
affecting.  Might  they  not  be  won  to  the  peace  and  joy  of 
the  glad  tidings  ?  They  seemed  to  Him,  the  Good  Shepherd, 
like  a  great  nock  needing  many  shepherds,  but  with  none ; 
footsore  with  long  travel,  wandering  they  knew  not  whither, 
with  no  one  to  lead  them  to  the  still  waters  and  green  pas- 
tures. "  The  harvest,"  said  He  to  His  disciples,  "  is  plen- 
teous, but  the  labourers  are  few ;  pray  ye,  therefore,  the 
Lord  of  the  harvest,  that  He  will  send  forth  labourers  into 
His  harvest."  There  were  multitudes  to  be  won  for  the 
New  Kingdom — multitudes  prepared  to  hear ;  for  their 
spirits  were  broken  under  personal  and  national  sorrow. 
But  the  number  of  right  teachers  was  small.k 

He  decided,  therefore,  to  delay  no  longer  sending  forth  the 
Twelve.  Calling  them  together,  He  told  them  His  purpose, 
and  fitted  them  to  carry  it  out.  As  a  proof  of  their  mission 
from  Him,  He  invested  them  with  authority  over  spirits,  and 
gave  them  power  to  heal  diseases.  They  were  to  confine 
themselves  for  the  present  to  Jewish  districts,  avoiding 


THE   APOSTLES   SENT   FOETH.  169 

Samaritan  towns,  and  not  turning  their  faces  to  heathen 
parts.  Galilee  itself  was  thus  virtually  their  field  of  labour, 
for  idolatry  had  a  footing  in  every  place  round  it,  and 
within  a  few  miles  of  them  lay  Gadara,  Hippos,  Pella, 
Scythopolis,  and  even  Sepphoris,  with  heathen  worship  in 
their  midst.  Judea  and  Jerusalem  were  not  to  be  thought 
of.  The  simple  Galilaeans  would  be  a  better  beginning  for 
the  Apostles  than  the  dark  bigoted  population  of  the  south. 
One  day  they  would  be  free  to  visit  Samaria,1  as  He  Him- 
self had  done  already.  Meanwhile  they  must  not  stir  up 
Jewish  hatred  by  going  to  either  Samaritans  or  heathen. 
Moreover,  their  Jewish  prejudices  unfitted  them  for  a  mission 
to  any  but  Jews,  for  even  after  this,  the  first  signs  of  hostility 
made  John  wish  to  call  down  fire  from  heaven  on  a  Samaritan 
village,  and  they  could  not  as  yet  handle  aright  the  many 
questions  such  a  journey  would  elicit.  Besides,  Israel  must 
have  another  year  in  which  to  bring  forth  fruit ;  and  withal, 
it  was  their  first  independent  journey.2 

The  burden  of  their  preaching  was  to  be  the  repetition  of 
that  of  John,  and  of  the  earlier  ministry  of  Jesus  Himself. 
"  The  Kingdom  of  Heaven  is  at  hand."  Like  John,  they  were 
heralds,  to  prepare  the  way.  They  were  to  "  Heal  the  sick, 
raise  the  dead,  cleanse  lepers,  cast  out  demons."  They  had 
received  their  miraculous  gifts  freely,  and  must  dispense 
them  as  freely.1  Their  equipment  was  to  be  of  the  simplest, 
for  superfluity  would  divert  the  mind  from  their  great  object, 
and  give  extra  trouble  which  would  only  hinder  them  on 
their  journeys.  It  became  them,  also,  by  their  humble  guise, 
to  disarm  the  suspicion  of  worldliness,  and  to  show  their  im- 
plicit trust  in  God.  They  were  to  take  no  money,  not  even 
any  copper  coin,  in  their  girdles,  the  usual  Eastern  purse ; 
nor  a  wallet  for  their  food  by  the  way ;  nor  two  under  gar- 
ments, but  were  to  wear  only  one ;  nor  were  they  to  have 
shoes,  which  looked  like  luxury,  but  only  the  sandals  of  the 
common  people,  and  they  were  to  have  only  one  staff.™ 
They  were  to  trust  to  hospitality  for  food  and  shelter,  as  the 
peasants  of  Palestine  often  do  even  now ;  offering  in  their 
simplicity  a  striking  contrast  to  the  flowing  robes  and  bright 
colours  of  the  population  at  large.  But  they  were  not  to  go 
alone.  Each  must  have  a  companion,  to  accustom  them  to 

1  Furrer,  p.  242.    Nork,  p.  61.     Matt.  x.  1-11.     Mark  vi.  7- 13.    Luka 
ix.  1-6. 

2  Kcim,  vol.  ii.  p.  325.     Ewald,  vol.  v.  p.  425. 


170  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

brotherly  communion,  to  give  counsel  and  help  to  each  other 
in  difficulties,  and  to  cheer  each  other  on  the  way.  We  may 
fancy  that  Peter  was  sent  with  Andrew,  James  with  John, 
Philip  with  Bartholomew,  the  grave  Thomas  with  the  prac- 
tical Matthew,  James  the  Small  with  Judas  the  Brave-hearted, 
and  Simon  the  Zealot  with  Judas  Iscariot;  the  brother  with 
the  brother ;  the  friend  with  the  friend ;  the  zealous  with  the 
cold. 

No  mention  is  made  of  the  synagogues  in  their  instructions; 
it  may  be  because  the  Apostles  were  not  yet  confident  enough 
to  come  forward  so  publicly.  It  was  to  be  a  house  to  house 
mission.  While  every  traveller,  according  to  the  custom  of 
the  country,  greeted  his  acquaintances  with  laborious  for- 
mality, raising  the  hand  from  the  heart  to  the  forehead,  and 
then  laying  it  in  the  right  hand  of  the  person  met ;  bowing 
thrice,  or  even  as  many  as  seven  times,  according'  to  cir- 
cumstances ;  they  were  forbidden  to  indulge  in  any  greetings 
by  the  way.  Time  was  too  precious,  and  their  mission  too 
earnest,  for  empty  courtesies.  On  entering  a  town  or  vil- 
lage, they  were  to  make  inquiries,  and  thus  avoid  seeking 
hospitality  from  the  unworthy ;  but  having  once  become 
guests,  they  were  to  stay  in  the  same  family  till  they  left 
the  place.  They  were  to  enter  the  dwelling  which  heartily 
welcomed  them,  with  a  prayer  for  its  peace."  Any  house  or 
city,  however,  that  refused  to  receive  them,  was  to  be  treated 
openly  as  heathen,  by  shaking  off  its  dust  from  their  feet  as 
they  left  it.0  But  woe  to  such  as  brought  doAvn  this  wrath  ; 
it  would  be  better  at  the  last  day  for  Sodom  and  Gomorrah 
than  for  the  Galilaean  village,  in  such  a  case  ! 

To  these  directions  for  the  way,  Jesus  added  warnings  that 
might  have  well  filled  with  dismay  men  less  devoted.  He 
predicted  for  them  only  persecution  and  universal  hatred, 
jails,  public  whipping,  and  even  death,  but  cheered  them  by 
the  promise  that  their  brave  and  faithful  confession  of  faith 
in  Him,  before  governors  and  kings,  would  serve  His  cause, 
and  that  endurance  to  the  end  would  secure  their  eternal 
salvation.  They  would  be  like  helpless  sheep  in  the  midst 
of  treacherous  wolves.1  Even  their  work  would  be  different 
from  what  they  might  expect.  To-day  it  was  an  olive- 
branch  ;  to-morrow  it  would  be  a  sword.  Instead  of  peace, 
it  would  divide  households  and  communities,  and  turn  the 
closest  relations  into  deadly  enemies.1*  They  would  need  to 

1  Tristram,  p.  153.     Newman's  Select  Sermons,  p.  293. 


THE   CHARGE   TO   THE   TWELVE.  171 

labour  diligently,  for  before  they  had  gone  over  all  the  towns 
of  Israel,  He  Himself  would  come  to  their  aid  as  the  risen 
and  glorified  Messiah.  They  might  expect  slander,  for  He 
Himself  had  been  charged  with  being  in  league  with  the 
devil,  and  they  could  not  hope  to  fare  better.1  They  were, 
however,  to  be  stout  of  heart,  for  the  Providence  that  watches 
the  birds  of  the  air  would  keep  them  safe.q  He  had  nothing 
to  offer  in  this  world,  but  if  they  confessed  Him  here  He 
would  confess  them,  in  the  great  day,  before  His  Father.  If, 
on  the  other  hand,  they  denied  Him,  He  would,  on  that  day, 
deny  them.  He  frankly  demanded  a  loyalty  so  supreme  and 
undivided,  that  the  most  sacred  claims  of  blood  were  to  be 
subordinated  to  it.  Instead  of  receiving  honours,  He  told 
them  that  they  might  expect  to  be  crucified,  as  He  would 
be.2  To  save  this  life  by  denying  Him  would  be  to  lose  the 
life  to  come ;  but  to  lose  it  by  fidelity  to  Him,  was  to  find 
life  eternal.3  Amidst  all  this  dark  anticipation,  they  need 
not  fear  for  their  bodily  wants,  for  the  greater  the  danger 
braved,  the  greater  would  be  the  reward,  in  His  kingdom, 
to  those  who  showed  them  favour,4  and  this  would  always 
secure  them  friends. 

Such  an  address,  under  such  circumstances,  was  assuredly 
never  given  before  or  since.  To  propose  to  found  a  kingdom 
by  the  services  of  men,  who,  as  their  reward,  would  meet 
only  shame,  torture,  and  death ;  to  claim  from  them  an 
absolute  devotion,  from  mere  personal  reverence  and  love, 
with  no  prospects  of  reward  except  those  of  another  world ; 
and  despite  of  the  opposition  of  all  the  authority  of  the  day, 
to  launch  an  enterprise,  thus  supported  only  by  moral  in- 
fluences, simply  that  men  might  be  won  to  righteousness  by 
the  display  of  pure,  unselfish  devotion  to  their  good,  astounds 
us  by  the  sublime  grandeur  of  the  conception. 

No  details  are  given  of  the  mission,  except  that  the  Twelve 
went  on  a  lengthened  circuit  through  the  towns  and  villages 
of  Galilee,  preaching  the  need  of  repentance,  and  the  glad 
tidings  of  the  New  Kingdom  ;  5  and  that  their  ministry  was 
accompanied  by  miraculous  works  of  mercy — the  casting  out 
devils,  and  the  anointing  with  oil  many  sick,  and  healing 
them — which  were  themselves  proofs  of  their  higher  success, 
gince  such  wonders  were,  doubtless,  as  in  the  case  of  their 
Master,  wrought  only  when  there  was  a  measure  of  faith.* 

1  Gfrorer,  vol.  i.  pp.  381,  389.  8  Godicyn,  p.  200. 

3  Schleiermacher's  Predigten,  vol.  i.  p.  278.  *  Nork,  p.  66. 

*  Mark  vi.  12.    Luke  ix.  6. 


172  THE   LIFE   OF   CHKIST. 

How  long  this  mission  lasted  is  uncertain.  It  may  have 
embraced  weeks,  or  have  extended  over  months,  though,  as 
the  first  journey  of  the  Twelve,  alone,  it  is  not  likely  to  have 
been  very  protracted.  The  success  must  have  been  unusual, 
for,  as  they  appeared,  two  by  two,  in  the  villages  of  Galilee, 
the  name  of  Jesus  was  on  every  tongue,  and  penetrated  even 
tho  gilded  saloons  of  the  hated  Roman  palace  of  Antipas, 
at  Tiberias.  Jesus,  Himself,  had  not  been  idle  while  His 
followers  were  away,  for  their  departure  was  the  signal  for 
a  new,  solitary  journey,  to  preach  arid  teach  in  the  various 
cities.1  His  name  was  thus  spread  abroad  everywhere,  and 
His  claims  and  character  discussed  by  all.  He  had  been 
nearly  two  years  before  the  world,  and  had  steadily  risen 
in  popular  favour,  in  spite  of  the  hierarchical  party.  His 
claims  had  become  the  engrossing  topic  of  the  day.  Hitherto 
the  most  opposite  views  perplexed  all  alike.  More  than 
all  men,  Antipas  felt  his  eyes  irresistibly  fixed  on  Him,  for 
his  conscience  was  ill  at  ease.  He  had  at  last  put  John  to 
death,  and,  true  to  his  superstitious  and  weak  nature,  con- 
cluded that  Jesus  was  no  other  than  the  murdered  Baptist 
risen  from  the  dead,  clothed  with  the  awful  powers  of 
the  invisible  world.  Since  that  dear  head  had  fallen,  the 
weak  and  crafty  worldling  had  hoped  for  peace  and  security, 
but  an  awful  echo  of  the  voice  he  had  silenced  sounded 
louder  and  more  terrible,  from  the  lips  of  Jesus,  at  his  very 
doors.  He  was  now  again  in  Tiberias,  and  the  wide  disper- 
sion of  a  whole  band  of  preachers  of  the  same  apparently 
revolutionary  kingdom,  in  his  immediate  territory,  seemed 
a  designed  defiance  of  his  violence  at  Machaerus,  and  its 
counterstroke.  It  was  certain  that,  when  he  gained  courage 
enough,  he  would  try  to  repeat  the  murder  of  the  first  pro- 
phet by  that  of  the  second.  Suspicion  and  crafty  foresight 
were  his  characteristics.  Jesus  readily,  however,  learned  all 
that  passed  respecting  Himself  in  the  palace,  for  He  had 
followers  in  it,  such  as  Johanna,  the  wife  of  Chuza,  and 
Menahem,  the  foster-brother  of  the  tetrarch,  and  He  was  on 
His  guard. 

While  Antipas  thus  interpreted  the  rumours  respecting 
Jesus,  others  formed  an  opinion  hardly  more  acute  or 
thoughtful,  who  took  Him  for  a  second  Elijah.  John  and 
that  prophet,  in  their  whole  spirit  and  work,  were  men  de- 
voted to  the  traditional  outward  theocracy :  men  who  looked 

1  Matt.  zi.  1 ;  xiv.  1,  2,  6-12.     Mark  vi.  14-10,  21-29.     Luke  ix.  7-9. 


THE  APOSTLES'  EETUBN.  178 

to  the  past.  Jesus,  on  the  other  hand,  had  proclaimed,  even 
in  His  consecration-sermon  on  the  mount,  that  He  de- 
voted His  life  to  the  founding  a  New  Covenant.  Their 
opinion  was  nearer  the  truth  who  believed  Him  a  prophet, 
though  distance  threw  a  mysterious  glory  round  the  pro- 
phets of  the  past,  which  they  failed  to  realize  of  one  in  their 
midst. 

The  news  of  the  death  of  John  seems  to  have  reached 
Jesus  about  the  same  time  as  the  Apostles  returned,  and, 
must  have  seemed  the  prediction  of  His  own  fate.  The  pro- 
spect of  the  cross  had  been  before  His  mind  from  the  first, 
for  even  at  the  Jordan  He  had  been  announced  as  the  Lamb 
of  God.  The  Sermon  on  the  Mount  had  struck  the  key-note 
of  self-sacrifice,  and  He  had  once  and  again  foretold,  more 
or  less  clearly,  that  He  knew  His  path  would  be  towards  a 
violent  death.  It  was  inevitable  that  one  whom  the  interest, 
the  pride,  and  the  reputation  of  the  existing  ecclesiastical 
authorities  combined  to  proscribe,  must  fall  before  their 
hostility.  Even  the  prophets,  as  a  rule,  had  suffered  violent 
deaths,  though  their  protest  against  the  corruption  of  their 
day  involved  no  condemnation  of  the  religious  economy  of 
the  nation.  But  He  had  committed  Himself  deliberately  to 
principles  fatal  to  the  theocracy ;  for  He  had  violated  tra- 
dition, He  had  eaten  with  publicans,  and  He  had  denounced 
the  leaders  of  the  people  as  hypocrites,  blind,  and  wicked. 
It  was  a  life  and  death  matter  for  the  hierarchical  party  to 
try  to  quench  in  His  own  blood  the  fire  He  had  kindled. 

The  meeting  with  the  Apostles  was  perhaps  pre-arranged, 
and  Jesus  returned  to  the  neighbourhood  of  Capernaum,  oi', 
perhaps,  of  Tiberias,1  to  effect  it.  He  had  been  away  for  a 
length  of  time,  and  His  absence  had  evidently  been  deeply 
felt,  for  multitudes  at  once  gathered  round  Him  again,  as 
soon  as  He  re-appeared.  Every  village,  far  and  near,  poured 
out  its  population  to  hear  Him  once  more,  and  the  throng 
was  increased  by  the  countless  passing  bands  of  pilgrims  to 
the  Feast  at  Jerusalem,  for  Passover  was  near  at  hand.2  He 
needed  rest,  and  there  was  much  to  hear  from  the  Twelve, 
but  it  was  impossible  to  have  either  the  rest  or  the  quiet 
intercourse  amidst  such  crowds.  They  had  no  leisure  even 
to  eat.3  It  was,  moreover,  no  longer  safe  for  Him  to  be  in 
the  territories  of  Antipas.4  Taking  the  Twelve  with  Him, 

1  John  vi.  23.  2  John  vi.  4.  8  Mark  vi.  31. 

4  Matt.  xiv.  13-21.     Mark  vi:  30-44.    Luke  ix.  10-17. 


174  THE   LITE   OF   CHEIST. 

therefore,  He  crossed  over  to  the  tetrarchy  of  Philip,  at  the 
head  of  the  lake,  going  by  water,  and  landing  at  the  plain  of 
Batiha,  under  the  shadow  of  Bethsaida,  or  Julias,  where  He 
could  hope  for  privacy,  and  secure  a  safe  retreat  in  the  quiet 
glens,  with  their  rich  green  slopes,  passing  gradually  into 
the  marshes  round  the  entrance  of  the  Jordan  into  the 
lake.1 

But  it  was  vain  to  hope  for  escape.  Some  had  seen  Him 
put  off,  and  watched  the  direction  of  the  boat  till  they  saw 
that  He  was  making  for  Batiha,  which  was  known  as  one  of 
His  resorts.  It  was  only  six  miles  across  the  water  from 
Capernaum.  The  news  soon  spread,  and  crowds  of  those 
most  anxious  to  see  and  hear  Him  set  out  by  land  for  the 
spot.  The  distance  was  farther  than  by  water,  but  they 
ran  afoot,  out  of  all  the  villages,  and  were  waiting  for  Him 
when  He  arrived.  He  had  come  for  rest,  but  it  was  denied 
Him  now  as  at  other  times.  Looking  up  as  the  boat  touched 
the  shore,  the  slopes  were  alive  with  multitudes,  who  showed 
by  their  very  presence,  that  they  felt  themselves  like  sheep 
without  a  shepherd.  The  evil  times,  the  restless  uneasiness 
of  all,  the  high  religious  excitement,  the  darkness  of  their 
spiritual  condition,  and  the  deep  misery  of  their  national 
prospects,  combined  to  touch  His  soul  with  pity.  They  had 
brought  all  the  sick  who  could  be  carried,  or  who  could 
come,  and  as  He  passed  through  the  crowds  He  healed  them 
by  a  word  or  touch.  They  had  greater  wants,  however,  than 
bodily  healing,  and  He  could  not  let  them  go  away  un- 
comforted.  Ascending  the  hill-side,  and  gathering  the  vast 
throng  before  Him,  He  "  spake  unto  them  of  the  kingdom 
of  God,  and  taught  them  many  things." 

The  day  was  spent  in  this  arduous  labour,  but  the  people 
still  lingered.  They  had  been  fed  with  the  bread  of  truth, 
and  seemed  indifferent,  for  the  time,  to  anything  besides. 
Poor  shepherdless  sheep ;  it  was  His  delight,  as  the  Good 
Shepherd,  to  lead  them  to  rich  pastures,  and  as  they  sat  and 
stood  round  Him,  they  forgot  their  bodily  wants  in  the 
beauty  and  power  of  His  words. 

It  was  now  towards  evening,  and  the  company  showed  no 
signs  of  dispersing.2  Food  could  not  be  had  LI  that  lonely 
place,  and  the  Twelve,  afraid  on  this  and  perhaps  other 
grounds,  anxiously  urged  Jesus  to  send  them  away,  that 
they  might  buy  bread  in  the  country  round.  To  their  as 

1  Land  and  Book,  p.  372.  *  Matt.  xiv.  14. 


THE   FEEDING   OF  FIVE   THOUSAND.  175 

tonishment,  however,  He  told  them  that  the  crowd  must  be 
fed  ;  it  would  never  do  to  dismiss  them  hungry  ;  they  might 
faint  by  the  way.  No  more  impossible  a  request  could  have 
been  made.  Between  thirty  and  forty  pounds'  worth  of 
bread,  at  the  value  of  moneyjn  those  days,  would  be  needed 
to  give  each  even  an  insufficient  share.1 '  The  Apostles  could 
not  understand  Him.  Andrew,  perhaps  the  provider  for 
the  band,  could  only  demonstrate  their  helplessness  by  say- 
ing that  the  lad  in  attendance  on  them  had  no  more  than 
five  loaves  of  common  barley  bread — the  food  of  the  poor — 
and  two  small  fishes,  but  what,  he  added,  were  they  among 
so  many  ? 

"  Make  the  men  sit  down,"  said  Jesus.  It  was  in  Nisan, 
"the  month  of  flowers,"  and  the  slopes  were  rich  with  the 
soft  green  of  the  spring  grass — that  simplest  and  most 
touching  lesson  of  the  care  of  God  for  all  nature.  The 
Twelve  presently  divided  the  vast  multitude  into  companies 
of  fifties  and  hundreds,  reminding  St.  Peter,  long  after,  from 
the  bright  colours  of  their  Eastern  dresses,  of  the  flower- 
beds of  a  great  garden.* 

This  done,  like  the  great  Father  of  the  far-stretching 
household,  Jesus  took  the  bread  and  the  fishes,  and  looking 
up  to  Heaven,  invoked  the  blessing  of  God  on  their  use,"  and 
giving  thanks  for  them,2  as  was  customary  before  all  meals, 
proceeded  to  hand  portions  to  the  disciples,  who,  in  turn, 
gave  them  to  the  crowd.  Elisha 3  had  once  fed  a  hundred 
men  with  twenty  loaves,  and  increased  the  oil  in  the  widow's 
cruse,  and  Elijah  had  made  the  meal  and  the  oil  of  the 
widow  of  Sarepta  endure  till  the  Lord  sent  rain  on  the  earth. 
But  Christ,  from  five  loaves  and  two  small  fishes,  not  only 
satisfied  the  hunger  of  five  thousand  men,  besides  women 
and  children,4  but  did  it  so  royally  that  the  fragments  that 
remained  were  enough  to  fill  twelve  of  the  little  baskets  in 
which  Passover  pilgrims  and  other  Jews  were  wont  to  carry 
their  provisions  for  the  way.x  More  was  left  than  there  had 
been  at  first ! 

Jesus  had  thus  supplied  the  wants  of  the  needy,  in  a  way 
the  full  significance  of  which  was  as  yet  far  beyond  what  the 
disciples  either  understood  or  dreamed,  for  He  had  shown 
how  there  dwelt  in  Him  a  virtue  sufficient  to  meet  all  higher 
wants,  as  well  as  the  lower,  so  that  none  who  believed  in 

1  John  vi.  7.  8  Luke  xii.  16.    John  vi.  11. 

3  2  Kin^s  iv.  42.  «  Matt.  xiv.  21. 


176  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

Him  would  ever  have  either  hunger  or  thirst  of  soul  any 
longer,  but  would  find  in  Him  their  all.1  Had  they  known 
it,  He  had  shown  them  that  He  Himself  was  the  Bread  of 
Life,  that  came  down  from  Heaven.2  But  they  at  least 
knew  how  much  they  came  short  of  a  lofty  faith,  which,  in 
loving  trust,  despairs  least  when  the  need  is  greatest,  and 
in  the  strength  of  which  all  is  doubled  by  joyful  imparting, 
while  abundance  remains  instead  of  want.3 

The  effect  on  the  multitude  was  in  keeping  with  the  ideas 
of  the  time.  Murmurs  ran  through  the  excited  throng,  that 
Jesus  must  be  the  expected  prophet — the  Messiah.  Like 
Moses,  He  had  fed  Israel  by  a  miracle,  in  the  wilderness, 
which  the  Rabbis  said  the  Messiah  would  do.  Surely  He 
would  manifest  Himself  now,  if  they  put  Him  at  their  head  ? 
They  had  no  higher  idea  of  the  Messianic  kingdom  than 
the  outward  and  political,  and  would  hasten  its  advent  by 
forcing  Him,  if  possible,  to  proclaim  Himself  King,  and 
thus  open  the  longed-for  war  with  the  hated  Romans,  in 
which  God  would  appear  on  their  behalf. 

Material  power,  not  moral  preparation,  was  the  national 
conception  of  the  path  to  the  Messianic  triumph.  The 
Rabbis  and  the  people  had  decided  for  themselves  the  way 
in  which  the  salvation  of  Israel  was  to  show  itself,  but  be- 
tween their  views  and  those  of  Jesus  there  was  a  great  gulf  > 
He  would  not  use  force,  and  they  were  bent  on  it.  His 
refusal  to  carry  out  their  plan  made  opposition  inevitable, 
and  it  necessarily  grew  deeper  each  day  as  that  refusal 
became  more  clearly  final. 

While  visions  of  national  splendour  dazzled  the  thoughts 
of  His  countrymen,  the  ideal  of  greatness  for  Himself  and 
them  lay,  with  Jesus,  in  humiliation.  His  path  was  in  the 
lowly  valleys,  not  on  the  high  places  of  the  earth.  He 
aimed  only  to  find  the  humble  and  needy,  to  seek  the  lost, 
to  serve  rather  than  to  be  served.  Hiding  His  glory  in  out- 
ward lowliness,  and  never  seeking  honour  from  men,  He 
had,  throughout,  identified  His  will  with  that  of  God,  with  a 
self-restraint  which  showed  the  grandest  force  of  will.  The 
outward  and  material  were  indifferent  to  Him,  and  utterly 
opposed  to  the  Divine  purpose,  if  made  an  aim  in  connection 
with  His  work.  The  reign  of  God  in  His  own  soul  was  the 
perfect  realization  of  the  only  kingdom  He  sought  to  found 

1  John  vi.  35.  »  Ibid.  41,  48. 

8  Ewald,  vol.  v.  p.  4il. 


THE   TWELVE   IN   THE   STORM.  177 

in  the  souls  of  men  at  large,  and  it  had  nothing  in  common 
with  the  vulgar  parade  of  an  earthly  royalty.1 

As  soon,  therefore,  as  He  perceived  the  design  of  the 
crowd  to  force  Him  to  act  as  their  leader,  and  to  instal  Him 
at  Jerusalem  at  the  head  of  a  national  insurrection,  He 
hurriedly  left  them,  and  went  into  the  bosom  of  the  hills, 
beyond  their  reach.  But  His  having  declined  to  be  led  by 
them  to  the  throne  of  David,  in  their  way,  was,  in  reality, 
a  step  towards  the  Cross.  The  very  proposal  was  a  fore- 
shadowing of  His  final  rejection  and  violent  death.  The 
solitude  of  the  mountains  was  His  fittest  retreat,  to  strengthen 
Himself  against  this  new  assault  of  the  temptation  He  had 
so  often  repelled,  and  to  gird  up  His  soul  for  the  trials  that 
lay  in  His  path. 

At  the  first  signs  of  tumult  among  the  people,  He  had  sent 
off  the  Twelve  to  cross  the  lake  again  at  once,  to  the  Beth- 
saida  near  Capernaum,2  while  He  dismissed  the  multitudes. 
They  had  waited  for  Him  till  night  fell,  but,  at  last,  as  He 
did  not  come,  they  set  off  without  Him.  As  they  rowed, 
however,  a  sudden  squall,  blowing  every  way,  struck  down 
on  the  lake  from  the  hills  around,  and  caught  their  boat. 
It  was  the  last  watch  of  the  night — between  three  and  six 
o'clock  in  the  wild  morning,  and  the  weary  boatmen  had 
been  toiling  at  their  oars  through  the  long  night,  but  though 
the  whole  distance  to  be  rowed  was  only  six  miles,  a  third 
of  the  way  was  still  before  them.  Jesus  was  not  with  them 
to  still  the  wind,  and  their  own  strength  and  skill  had  availed 
little.  But  suddenly,  close  to  the  boat,  they  saw  through 
the  gleam  of  the  water  and  the  broken  light  of  the  stars,  a 
human  form  walking  on  the  sea.  The  sight,  which  would 
have  troubled  men  less  superstitious  than  simple  fishermen, 
made  them  cry  out  in  their  terror.  But  it  was  only  momen- 
tary, for  close  at  hand,  so  that  it  was  heard  above  the  wind 
and  the  waves,  came  the  words,  "  Be  of  good  cheer ;  it  is  I : 
be  not  afraid,"  in  a  voice  which  they  knew  was  that  of  Jesus. 
Always  impulsive,  the  warm-hearted  Peter  could  not  wait 
till  the  Deliverer  came  among  them.  "  Would  not  his  Master 
suffer  him  to  come  to  Him  on  the  water?  "  Then  followed 
that  touching  incident  which  has  supplied  a  lesson  for  all 
ages  ;  the  safe  footing  on  the  waves  while  the  Apostle  kept 
His  eyes  fixed  on  his  Lord,  and  the  instant  sinking  when  Hia 

1  Ullmann,  p.  45. 
»  Matt.  xiv.  22-33.    John  vi.  15-21.     Mark  vi.  45-52. 


178  THE   LITE   OF   CHRIST. 

faith  gave  way — an  image  of  His  whole  nature,  and  of  all 
his  future  life.  But  the  saving  hand  was  near,  and  with  the 
gentle  rebuke,  "  O  thou  of  little  faith,  wherefore  didst  thou 
doubt  ?  "  they  were  in  the  boat,  and  as  they  entered,  the  wind 
ceased,  so  that,  presently,  with  easy  sweeps,  their  oars  carried 
them  to  the  shore. 

Like  the  mass  of  men,  the  Twelve  were  slow  at  reasoning, 
or  applying  broadly  the  plainest  lesson.  Had  they  realized 
the  greatness  of  the  miracle  they  had  seen  the  day  before, 
even  the  walking  on  the  sea,  and  the  calming  of  the  wind, 
would  have  seemed  only  what  they  might  have  expected. 
But  their  minds  were  dull  and  unreflecting,  and  their  amaze- 
ment knew  no  bounds.7  It  is  the  characteristic  of  the  un- 
educated, that  they  think  without  continuity,  and  forthwith 
relapse  into  stolid  listlessness  after  the  strongest  excitement. 
The  miracle  of  the  loaves  had  ceased  to  be  a  wonder,  for  it 
was  some  hours  old.  But  this  new  illustration  of  the  super- 
human power  of  their  Master  was  so  transcendent,  that  their 
wonder  passed  into  worship.  The  impression,  like  many 
before,  might  soon  lose  its  force ;  but  for  the  moment  they 
were  so  awed  that,  approaching  Him,  they  kneeled  in  lowliest 
reverence,  and,  through  Peter,  ever  their  spokesman,  paid 
Him  homage  in  words  then  first  heard  from  human  lips — • 
"  Of  a  truth  Thou  art  the  Son  of  God." 


CHAPTER  XLIV. 
THE  TUKN  OF  THE  DAY. 

TTTHEN  day  broke  on  the  scene  of  the  miraculous  meal 
»  V  of  the  evening  before,  a  number  who  had  slept  in  the 
open  air,  through  the  warm  spring  night,  still  remained  on 
the  spot.  They  had  noticed  that  Jesus  did  not  cross  with 
the  Twelve,  and  fancied  that  He  was  still  on  their  side  of 
the  lake.  Meanwhile,  a  number  of  the  boats  which  usually 
carried  over  wood  or  other  commodities,  from  these  eastern 
districts,  had  come  from  Tiberias  ;  blown  roughly  on  their 
way  by  the  same  wind  that  had  been  against  the  disciples. 
In  these,  many,  finding  that  Jesus  had  left  the  neighbour- 
hood, took  passage,  and  came  to  Capernaum,  seeking  for 
Him.1  It  was  one  of  the  days  of  synagogue  worship — 
Monday  or  Thursday — and  they  met  Him  on  His  way  to 
the  synagogue,  to  which  they,  forthwith,  eagerly  pressed.2 
Excitement  was  at  its  height.  News  of  His  arrival  had 
spread  far  and  near,  and  His  way  was  hindered  by  crowds, 
who  had,  as  usual,  brought  their  sick  to  the  streets  through 
which  He  was  passing,  in  hope  of  His  healing  them. 

The  incidents  of  the  preceding  day  might  well  have  raised 
desires  for  the  higher  spiritual  food  which  even  the  Rabbis 
taught  them  to  expect  from  the  Messiah.  But  they  felt 
nothing  higher  than  vulgar  wonder,  and  came  after  Jesus  in 
hopes  of  further  advantages  of  the  same  kind,  and,  above  all, 
that  they  would  still  find  in  Him  a  second  Judas  the  Gaulon- 
ite,  to  lead  them  against  the  Romans.  A  few,  doubtless,  had 
worthier  thoughts  ;  but,  with  the  mass,  the  Messiah's  earthly 
kingdom  was  to  be  as  gross  as  Mahomet's  paradise.  They 
were  to  be  gathered  together  into  the  garden  of  Eden,  to  eat 
and  drink,  and  satisfy  themselves  all  their  days,  with  houses 
of  precious  stones,  beds  of  silk,  and  rivers  flowing  with  wine 

1  John  vi.  22— vii.  1. 

a  John  vi.  59.    Matt.  xiv.  34-36.     Mark  vi.  53-56. 


180  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

and  spicy  oil.1  It  was  that  He  might  gain  this  for  them 
that  they  had  wished  to  set  Him  up  as  king. 

Feeling  how  utterly  He  and  they  were  at  variance,  Jesus 
resolved  to  enter  into  no  irrelevant  conversation  with  them, 
and  waiving  aside  a  question  as  to  His  crossing  the  lake,  at 
onco  pointed  out  their  misapprehension  respecting  Himself, 
and  urged  them  not  to  set  their  hearts  on  the  perishable  food 
of  the  body,  but  to  seek  earnestly  for  that  food  of  the  soul 
which  secures  eternal  life.  So  long  as  they  did  not  crave 
this  beyond  all  things  else,  they  missed  their  highest  advan- 
tage. As  the  Son  of  man — the  Messiah — accredited  from 
God  the  Father  by  His  wondrous  works,2  He  was  appointed 
to  give  them  this  heavenly  food,  and  would  do  so  if  they 
showed  a  sincere  desire  for  it  by  becoming  His  disciples.3 

The  Rabbis  were  accustomed  to  teach  by  metaphors,  and 
the  people  saw  at  once  that  He  alluded  to  some  religious 
duty.  What  it  was,  however,  they  did  not  understand,  but 
fancied  He  referred  to  some  special  works  appointed  by 
God.4*  As  Jews,  they  had  been  painfully  keeping  all  the 
Rabbinical  precepts,  to  secure  so  much  the  richer  an  inheri- 
tance under  the  Messiah.  Yet,  if  Jesus  had  some  additinal 
injunctions,  they  were  willing  to  add  them  to  the  rest,  that 
they  might  still  further  strengthen  their  claim  for  favour  in 
the  New  Kingdom  of  God.5  But,  instead  of  multiplied 
observances,  He  startled  them  by  announcing  that  citizen- 
ship in  the  New  Theocracy  required  no  more  than  their 
believing  in  Him,  as  sent  from  the  Father.  In  this  lay  all, 
for  the  manifold  "  works  of  God  "  would  spring  naturally 
from  it.6 

Those  of  the  crowd  around  who  had  not  seen  the  miracle 
of  the  previous  day  had,  doubtless,  ere  this,  heard  of  it.  It 
had  been  an  amazing  proof  of  supernatural  power,  but  their 
craving  for  wonders  demanded  something  still  more  astound- 
ing, as  a  justification  of  Christ's  claim  to  be  "  the  Sent  of  the 
Father."  A  voice,7  perhaps  that  of  some  open  opponent — for 
the  Rabbis  had  taken  care  to  be  present — therefore  broke  in, 
apparently  half  mocking,  with  the  question,  "  What  '  sign  ' 
He  had  to  show,  that  they  might  see  it,  and  believe  Him  ? 
Moses  proved  his  authority  by  stupendous  '  signs.'  What 

1  Lightfoot,  Hor.  Heb.,  vol.  iii.  p.  304. 
8  John  v.  36.  3  John  vi.  28.  4  Ibid. 

5  Luthardt,  vol.  ii.  p.  52.  6  LilcTte,  vol.  ii.  p.  76. 

7  "  The  Jews  "  is  the  expression  used  by  John  for  Christ's  opponents. 
It  is  employed  here. 


VENEKATION   OF   MOSES.  181 

sign  worthy  the  name  do  you  show,  to  prove  your  right  to 
introduce  new  laws,  in  addition  to  his,  or  in  their  room  ? 
Our  fathers  ate  manna  in  the  wilderness,  as  it  is  written, '  He 
gave  them  bread  from  heaven  to  eat.' l  What  voucher  as 
great  as  this  do  you  offer  ?  " 

The  miracle  of  the  manna  had  become  a  subject  of  the 
proudest  remembrances  and  fondest  legends  of  the  nation. 
"  God,"  says  the  Talmud,  "  made  manna  to  descend  for  them, 
in  which  were  all  manner  of  tastes.  Every  Israelite  found 
in  it  what  best  pleased  him.  The  young  tasted  bread,  the 
old  honey,  and  the  children  oil." 3  It  had  even  become  a 
fixed  belief  that  the  Messiah,  when  He  came,  would  sig- 
nalize His  advent  by  a  repetition  of  this  stupendous  wonder. 
"As  the  first  Saviour — the  deliverer  from  Egyptian  bond- 
age," said  the  Rabbis,  "  caused  manna  to  fall  for  Israel  from 
heaven,  so  the  second  Saviour — the  Messiah — will  also  cause 
manna  to  descend  for  them  once  more,  for  it  is  written,3 
'  There  will  be  abundance  of  corn  in  the  land.' "  4  Moses 
had  gradually  been  half  deified.  It  was  taught  that  God 
counted  him  of  as  much  value  as  all  Israel.5  Most  believed 
that  he  was  five  grades  in  knowledge  above  all  creatures,  even 
angels.  The  lower  part  of  his  body  was  human  ;  the  upper 
divine.  On  his  entrance  to  paradise,  God  left  the  upper 
heavens  and  came  to  him,  and  the  angels  also  came  and 
ministered  to  him,  and  sang  hymns  before  him.  Even  the 
sun,  the  moon,  and  the  stars  came,  and  craved  liberty  from 
him  to  shine  on  the  world,  which  they  could  not  have  done 
had  he  refused. 

It  was  thus  only  an  expression  of  the  public  feeling  of  the 
day  when  Jesus  was  asked  to  repeat  the  descent  of  manna — 
the  greatest  of  the  miracles  of  Moses.  It  is  in  human  nature, 
but  above  all,  in  Eastern  human  nature,  to  associate  high 
office  and  dignity  with  display  and  outward  circumstance,  and 
hence  what  must  have  been  the  popular  expectations  of  exter- 
nal grandeur  and  majesty  in  the  Messiah,  when  they  saw  a 
demigod  in  Moses,  whom  he  was  to  resemble  ?  No  demand 
for  overpowering  "  signs  "  of  the  Divine  approval  of  a  claim 
to  be  the  Messiah  could,  in  this  point  of  view,  be  too  great, 
from  One  whose  outward  appearance,  and  whole  life,  in  other 
respects,  so  entirely  contradicted  the  general  Messianic 
anticipations. 

1  Exod.  xvi.  4.  a  Lightfoot,  Hor.  Heb.,  vol.  iii.  p.  304. 

8  Ps.  Ixxii.  16.  *  Nork,  p.  174.  *  Gfrorer,  vol.  i.  pp.  217-22(X 


182  THE   LIFE   OF   CHBIST. 

But  Jesus,  at  all  times  resolute  in  withholding  miraculous 
action  for  any  personal  end,  had  no  thought  of  satisfying 
their  craving  for  wonders.  "  Moses  indeed,"  said  He,  "  gave 
you  manna,  but  it  was  not  the  true  Bread  of  Heaven." 
He  wished  to  draw  them  from  the  merely  outward  miracle  to 
that  far  higher  marvel,  even  then  enacting  before  their  eyes, 
the  free  offer  of  the  true  Bread  of  Heaven,1  in  the  offer  of 
Himself  as  their  Saviour.  The  manna,  He  implied,  could 
only  by  a  figure  be  called  bread  of  heaven,  for  it  was 
material  and  perishable,  and  the  heaven  from  which  it  fell 
was  only  the  visible  sky,  not  that  in  which  God  dwells. 
Moses  gave  what  was  called  by  a  figure,  "  Bread  of  Heaven," 
but  the  true  Bread  of  Heaven  only  His  Father  could  give, 
and  He  was  giving  it  now.  That  alone  can  be  the  true  Bread 
of  God,  which  comesb  down  from  the  highest  heaven — He 
might  have  said,  from  the  pure  heaven  of  His  own  soul — • 
and  gives  life  to  the  world ;  for  with  Jesus,  those  who  had 
not  this  bread  were  spiritually  dead.3 

"  Master,"  cried  many  voices,  "  give  us  this  bread  hence- 
forth, for  life."  Like  Ponce  de  Leon,  with  the  spring  of 
Unfading  Youth,  in  Florida,3  they  thought  that  the  new  gift 
would  literally  make  them  immortal,  and  eagerly  clamoured 
to  have  a  boon  so  far  in  advance  of  the  mere  barley  loaves  of 
the  day  before. 

"  I  am  the  Bread  of  Life,"  replied  Jesus ;  in  a  moment 
scattering  to  the  winds  their  visions  of  material  plenty  and 
endless  natural  life.  Then,  explaining  Himself,  He  added, 
"  He  that  comes  to  me  shall  never  hunger,  and  he  that 
believes  on  me  shall  never  thirst.  But,  as  I  said  a  moment 
ago,4  you  have  not  only  heard  of  me,  but  have  also  seen 
me,  and  been  eye-witnesses  of  my  deeds  as  the  Messiah,  and 
yet  you  do  not  believe.  All  whom  the  Father  gives  me  will 
come  to  me.  Tou  may  resist  my  invitations  or  yield,5  but 
he  who  resists  is  not  given  me  by  my  Father.  Believe  me 
no  hungering  and  thirsting  soul  that  comes  to  me  will  I  cast 
out  of  my  Kingdom  when  it  is  erected.  How  could  I,  in- 
deed, when  I  have  come  down  from  heaven,  not  to  act  on 
my  own  human  will,  but  only  to  carry  out  the  will  of  my 
Father  in  Heaven,  which  is,  in  this  matter,  that  of  all  whom 
He  has  given  me — not  Jews  alone,  but  all,  without  ex- 

1  Liicke,  vol.  ii.  p.  76.  s  John  vi.  35,  39,  40. 

8  Bancroft's  United  States,  vol.  i.  p.  23. 

«  Verse  29.  6  John  v.  40  ;  iii.  19  ;  i.  11.     Matt,  xxiii.  37. 


THE   BEE  AD   OF  LIFE.  183 

ception — I  should  lose  none,  but  should  raise  them  up  at  the 
last  day ;  or,  in  other  words,  should  give  them  eternal  life." 

These  words,  spoken  in  the  synagogue  at  Capernaum,1 
created  a  great  sensation.  The  congregation,  comprising 
some  Rabbis  and  other  enemies,  had,  fi'om  time  to  time, 
in  Jewish  fashion,  freely  expressed  their  feelings,  and  had 
taken  such  offence  at  His  claim  to  be  the  Bread  that  camo 
down  from  heaven,  that  their  whispers  and  murmurs  now 
ran  through  the  whole  building.  "  How  can  He  say  He 
has  come  down  from  heaven  ?  We  know  His  father  and 
mother.  He  is  from  Nazareth,  and  would  have  us  believe 
He  is  from  God  above.  He  is  mad.  He  has  a  devil.  When 
the  Messiah  comes,  no  one  will  know  whence  He  is."  2 

"  Do  not  murmur  among  yourselves,"  said  Jesus. 
"  Natural  sense  is  worth  nothing  in  this  matter ;  it  will 
never  help  you  to  understand  how  I  am  the  True  Bread 
come  down  from  heaven.  If  you  wish  to  know  how  I  can 
say  so,  you  must  submit  yourselves  to  the  teaching  and  influ- 
ence of  God :  must  hear  and  learn  what  God  says,  for  He 
tells  us  in  the  prophets — '  They  shall  be  all  taught  of  God.'  3 
Only  those  thus  taught  come  to  me  or  believe  in  me.  The 
yielding  your  souls  to  God  and  your  rising  thus  to  com- 
munion with  Him  by  spiritual  oneness,  can  alone  lead  to  the 
faith  that  recognises  the  truth  respecting  me." 

"  Perhaps  you  think,"  He  continued,  to  paraphrase  His 
words,  "  that  to  hear  and  learn  of  God,  you  must  yourselves 
see  Him,  or  commune  directly  with  Him !  If  so,  you 
greatly  err.  To  see  God  immediately,  face  to  face,  is  given 
to  no  mortal  man,  but  only  to  Him  who  is  fr^m  God.  No 
one  but  His  only-begotten  Son,  who  was  in  heaven  and  has 
come  down  thence,  has  seen,  and  now  sees,  the  Father,  and 
reveals  Him  to  man.  Him,  therefore,  the  Son — that  is,  ME — • 
must  you  hear ;  from  ME  must  you  learn,  if  you  would  hear 
and  learn  from  God.4  Amen,  amen,  I  say  to  you,  He  that 
believes  on  me  as,  thus,  the  '  Word '  and  Bevealer  of  the 
Father,  has  everlasting  life.  I  myself  am,  as  such,  that 
Bread  of  Life  of  which  I  have  spoken.  Your  forefathers 
ate  the  manna  which  Moses  gave  in  the  wilderness,  and 
died ;  but  it  is  the  grand  virtue  of  the  true  Bread  of  Heaven, 
that  if  a  man  eat  of  it — that  is,  if  he  receive  my  words  into 
bis  soul — he  shall  not  die,  but  shall  have  everlasting  life." 

1  John  vi.  59.     s  John  vii.  27.    Heh.  vii.  3.    See  vol.  i.  pp.  76, 140,  563. 
3  Isaiah  liv.  13.  *  John  viii.  47  ;  xiv.  9  ;  vi.  47. 


184  THE   LEFE   OF   CHRIST. 

"  I  am  not  only  the  Life-giving  Bread,"  He  added,  "  but 
the  Living  Bread,  and  as  all  that  is  living  communicates  life, 
so  whoever  eats  this  true  Bread  of  Heaven,  that  is,  who- 
ever believes  in  me,  shall  live  for  ever.  As  the  Living 
Bread  I  will  give  myself — my  flesh — that  is,  my  life — for 
the  life  of  the  world." 

He  pointed  thus — in  language  which  His  hearers  could 
have  readily  understood,  had  their  minds  not  been  blinded 
by  opposite  preconceptions — to  His  death  as  the  "  Lamb  of 
God,"  for  mankind.  This,  He  implied,  must  above  all  be 
received,  to  secure  everlasting  life,  for  so,  only,  could  His 
claims  and  authority  be  felt.  He  would  give  His  life  for  the 
spiritual  life  of  men,  as  bread  is  given  for  their  bodily  life  ; 
the  one  to  be  taken  by  the  soul,  the  other  by  the  body. 

The  idea  of  eating,  as  a  metaphor  for  receiving  spiritual 
benefit,  was  familiar  to  Christ's  hearers,  and  was  as  readily 
understood  as  our  expressions  of  "  devouring  a  book,"  or 
"  drinking  in  "  instruction.  In  Isaiah  iii.  1,  the  words  "  the 
whole  stay  of  bread,"  were  explained  by  the  Rabbis  as  re- 
ferring to  their  own  teaching,1  and  they  laid  it  down  as  a 
rule,  that  wherever,  in  Ecclesiastes,  allusion  was  made  to 
food  or  drink,  it  meant  study  of  the  Law,  and  the  practice  of 
good  works.2  It  was  a  saying  among  them — "  In  the  time 
of  the  Messiah  the  Israelites  will  be  fed  by  Him."  3  Nothing 
was  more  common  in  the  schools  and  synagogues  than  the 
phrases  of  eating  and  drinking,  in  a  metaphorical  sense. 
"  Messiah  is  not  likely  to  come  to  Israel,"  said  Hillel,  "  f or 
they  have  already  eaten  Him  " — that  is,  greedily  received  His 
words* — "in  the  days  of  Hezekiah."  A  current  conven- 
tionalism in  the  synagogues  was  that  the  just  would  "  eat  the 
Shechinah."  It  was  peculiar  to  the  Jews  to  be  taught  in 
such  metaphorical  language.  Their  Rabbis  never  spoke  in 
plain  words,  and  it  is  expressly  said  that  Jesus  submitted  to 
the  popular  taste,  for  "  without  a  parable  spake  He  not  unto 
them."  s 

But  nothing  blinds  the  mind  so  much  as  preconceived 
ideas ;  and  dreams  of  national  glory  had  so  inseparably 
associated  themselves  with  their  conception  of  the  Messiah, 
that  a  figure,  which  in  other  cases  would  have  created  no 
difficulty,  led  to  violent  discussion,  some  contending  for  the 

1  Chagiga,  fol.  14.  1.  2  Midrash,  Kohrleth.  fol.  88,  c.  4. 

1  Sanhedrim,  fol.  98,  c.  2.  *  Lightfoot,  Hor.  Heb.,  vol.  iii.  p.  309. 

This  Hillel  was  not  the  great  contemporary  of  Christ,  but  lived  later. 
6  Mark  v.  34. 


THE   OFFENCE   OF   THE   CEOSS.  185 

literal  sense,  which  they  held  as  a  self-contradiction,  others 
favouring  a  metaphorical  explanation.0 

Instead,  however,  of  answering  the  eager  questions  which 
now  rose,  how  this  could  be,  Jesus — resolved  to  break  finally 
with  the  gross  outward  ideas  of  His  kingdom  which  pre- 
vailed— proceeded  to  carry  out  the  paradox  further,  by 
adding  that  they  must  not  only  eat  His  flesh,  but  drink  Hia 
blood — thus  intimating  still  more  clearly  His  violent  death 
and  its  mysterious  virtue  for  the  salvation  of  mankind,  as 
He  was  hereafter  to  do  still  more  vividly  by  the  abiding 
symbols  of  the  Last  Supper.  On  no  other  condition  than 
by  making  the  lessons  and  merits  of  that  death  their  own, 
could  they  have  eternal  life,  or  be  raised  up  at  the  last  day. 
Without  this  they  were  spiritually  dead.  His  flesh  and 
blood  were  true  spiritual  food ;  the  heavenly  bread  of  the 
soul,  the  nourishment  of  the  Divine  life  within.  The  hearty 
recognition  and  reception  of  this  great  truth  would  create  an 
abiding  and  intimate  communion  between  Him  and  those 
who  thus,  as  it  were,  fed  on  Him  as  their  inner  life.  Living 
in  Him,  He  would  live  and  reign  in  them.  Nay,  as  a  further 
result  of  this  intimate  spiritual  union,  this  oneness  of  will 
and  heart  with  Him,  Divine  life  would  go  forth  from  Him  to 
those  in  whom  He  found  it,  as  it  came  forth  to  Himself  from 
the  Father,  Then,  with  a  repetition  of  the  original  figure 
of  His  being  the  Bread  that  came  down  from  heaven — not 
the  manna,  of  which  those  who  ate  were  long  since  dead,  but 
the  bread,  to  eat  which  gave  eternal  life — He  closed  His 
address. 

The  Baptist  had  spoken  of  the  fan  in  the  hand  of  his  great 
successor :  this  discourse  was  the  realization  of  the  figure. 
Those  who  had  hoped  to  find  a  popular  political  leader  in  Christ 
saw  their  dreams  melt  away ;  those  who  had  no  true  sympathy 
for  His  life  and  words  had  an  excuse  for  leaving  Him.  None 
but  those  bound  to  Him  by  sincere  loya'ty  and  devotion 
had  any  longer  a  motive  for  following  Him.  Fierce  pa- 
triotism burning  for  insurrection,  mean  self-interest  seeking 
worldly  advantage,  and  vulgar  curiosity  craving  excitement, 
were  equally  disappointed.  It  was  the  first  vivid  instance 
of  "  the  offence  of  the  Cross  " — henceforth  to  become  the 
special  stumbling-block  of  the  nation.1  The  wishes  and 
hopes  of  the  crowds  who  had  called  themselves  disciples  had 
proved  self-deceptions.  They  expected  from  the  Messiah 

1  1  Cor.  1   23.     Gal.  v.  11. 


186  THE   LIFE   OF   CHBIST. 

quite  other  favours  than  the  identity  of  spiritual  nature 
symbolized  by  eating  His  flesh  and  drinking  His  blood. 
The  violent  death  implied  in  the  metaphor  was  in  direct 
contradiction  to  all  their  ideas.  A  lowly  and  suffering 
Messiah  thus  unmistakably  set  before  them  was  revolting  to 
their  national  pride  and  gross  material  tastes.  "  We  have 
heard  out  of  the  Law,"  said  some,  a  little  later,  "  that  the 
Christ  abideth  for  ever,  and  how  sayest  thou,  the  Son  of  man 
must  be  '  lifted  up,' 1 — that  is  crucified  !  "  "  That  be  far 
from  Thee,  Lord;  this  shall  not  be  unto  Thee,"  said  even 
Peter,  almost  at  the  last,  when  he  heard  of  the  Cross,  so  near 
at  hand,  from  his  Master's  lips.2  The  Messiah  of  popular 
conception  would  use  force  to  establish  His  kingdom,  but 
Jesus,  while  claiming  the  Messiahship,  spoke  only  of  self- 
sacrifice.  Outward  glory  and  material  wealth  were  the 
national  dream ;  He  spoke  only  of  inward  purity.  If  He 
would  not  help  them  with  His  Almighty  power,  to  get  Judea 
for  the  nation,  they  would  not  have  Him.  Their  idea  of  the 
kingdom  of  God  was  the  exact  opposite  of  His. 

The  discourse  had  been  interrupted  in  its  progress,  and 
now  at  its  close,  the  murmuring  and  whispering  grew  more 
earnest  than  ever.  "  This  is  a  hard  saying,"  was  the  general 
feeling,  "  who  can  bear  it  ?  "  "  No  one  could  submit  to  such 
self-denial,"  said  one.  "  I  don't  understand  it,"  said  another. 
"  Blasphemy,"  said  a  third.  "  He  claims  to  be  God."  "  He 
is  not  the  Messiah  for  me,"  said  a  fourth.*1  Jesus,  now  on 
His  way  out  of  the  synagogue,  noticed  all.  "  Does  what  I 
have  said  offend  you  ?  "  said  He.  "  If,  now,  while  I  am  with 
you,  you  think  my  words  hard  and  stumble  at  them,  what 
will  you  say  when  I  tell  you  that  when  I  have  returned  to 
heaven,  whence  I  came,  you  will  still  have  to  eat  my  flesh 
and  drink  my  blood,  if  you  would  become  partakers  of 
eternal  life  ?  Do  you  not  see  from  this  that  I  speak  in  meta- 
phor, and  that  you  are  not  to  take  my  words  literally,  but 
in  their  spirit  and  inner  meaning  ?  It  is  not  my  flesh  you 
are  to  eat,  but  my  words,  which  you  have  just  heard.  These 
you  must  receive  into  your  hearts,  and  they  will  quicken 
you  into  spiritual  life,  for  they  are  spirit  and  life.  If  you 
do  not  believe  on  me  as  the  true  Messiah,  by  His  death  the 
life  of  the  world ;  but  expect  only  a  national  salvation  from 
my  visible  bodily  presence,  as  one  who  will  live  on  earth  for 
ever,  and  reign  in  deathless  splendour,  you  must  find  what 

1  John  xii.  34.  8  Matt.  xvi.  22. 


MANY  FORSAKE   CHEIST.  187 

I  have  said,  an  offence.  Bnt  he  who  desires  from  me,  as  the 
Messiah,  only  the  hidden  life  of  ;the  soul,  its  renewal  in  the 
holy  image  of  God,  and  His  reign  within,  will  find  no  offence 
in  any  of  my  words.  The  truths  I  have  told  you  are  spirit 
and  life,  and  quicken  the  soul  that  receives  them  into  a 
heavenly  life,  as  bread  quickens  the  body.  My  mere  outward 
natural  life,  as  such,  profits  you  nothing.  If  my  words  have 
been  hard  to  any,  it  is  because  they  do  not  believe  in  me,  for 
only  the  believing  heart  can  realize  their  truth." 

In  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  which  inaugurated  His 
public  ministry,  Jesus  had  contrasted  the  theocratic  forms  of 
pupilage  and  the  letter,  with  the  law  of  the  New  Kingdom ;  a 
law  of  the  spirit  and  of  liberty.  In  this  address  to  the  people 
He  contrasted  with  the  theocratic  life  in  its  mere  outward- 
ness and  its  slavery  to  forms,  the  new  life  from  God  which 
He  made  known  a  life  kindled  and  maintained  by  the 
Spirit  from  above,  the  gift  of  the  Heavenly  Father.  The 
dead  letter,  the  outward  material  flesh,  He  told  them, 
profited  nothing  ;  the  form,  the  rite,  the  dogma,  the  institu- 
tion, however  venerable  in  itself — even  His  own  flesh,  as  the 
symbol  of  mere  material  life — had  no  magic  virtue.  Only  the 
inward  essence,  the  truth  embodied,  the  living  principle,  the 
quickening  spirit  received  into  the  heart,  availed  with  God, 
or  sustained  the  heavenly  life  in  the  soul.  The  lifegiving 
Spirit,  as  it  flows  from  the  infinite  fulness  of  God,  and  repro- 
duces itself  in  the  heart,  was  the  true  manna  of  humanity  in 
the  wilderness  of  the  world. 

The  false  enthusiasm  which  had  hitherto  gathered  the 
masses  round  Jesus  was  henceforth  at  an  end,  now  that 
their  worldly  hopes  of  Him  as  the  Messiah  were  exploded. 
His  discourse  had  finally  undeceived  them.  He  was  found- 
ing a  mysterious  spiritual  kingdom ;  they  only  cared  for  a 
kingdom  of  this  world.  It  became  for  the  first  time  clear 
that  no  worldly  rewards  or  honours  were  to  be  had  by 
following  Him,  but  only  spiritual  gifts  and  benefits,  for 
which  most  of  them  cared  nothing.  They  wanted  to  see 
wonders,  to  eat  bread  from  heaven  that  would  protect  them 
from  dying,  and  to  get  places  and  wealth  in  the  new  kingdom 
when  finally  set  up.  They  had  looked  on  Jesus  more  as  a 
miracle-worker  than  a  spiritual  Saviour,  and  wished  to  be 
healed  rather  by  touching  His  garments  than  by  sympathy 
and  communion  with  His  Spirit.  But  He  had  come  to  save 
sinneis,  not  to  work  miracles,  even  of  healing;  to  be  a 
physician  of  souls,  not  of  bodies.  He  had  disenchanted  the 


188  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

insincere  and  selfish  who  had  hitherto  flocked  after  Him,  and 
they  forthwith  showed  their  altered  feelings.  From  the 
moment*  of  this  address,  the  crowds  that  had  thronged  Him 
began  to  disappear,  returning  to  their  homes,  doubtless  in 
angry  disappointment.  It  seemed  as  if  He  would  be  entirely 
forsaken.  Could  it  be  that  even,  the  Twelve  would  leave 
Him  ?  He  knew  them  too  thoroughly  to  look  for  any  answer 
but  an  earnest  assurance  of  their  loyalty.  Yet  it  was  well 
to  put  them  to  the  test,  and  strengthen  their  faith  by  trying 
it.  "  Do  you,  also,  wish  to  leave  me  ?  "  asked  He.  "  To 
whom,  Lord,  shall  we  go  away  ?  "  answered  Peter,  ever  the 
first  to  speak, — "  Thou  hast  words  of  eternal  life,  and  we' 
have  believed  and  known  that  Thou  art  the  Holy  One  of 
God."  But  even  among  the  Twelve,  as  Jesus  knew,  the  fan 
had  chaff  to  separate  from  the  wheat.  "  Did  not  I  myself 
choose  you  Twelve  to  be  specially  my  own,  and  one  even  of 
you  is  a  devil  ?  Beware  of  self-confidence.  If  you  think  you 
stand,  take  heed  lest  you  fall !  "  Eleven,  as  we  know,  refused 
to  leave  Him.  Did  the  first  thought  of  treachery  rise  in  the 
mind  of  Judas  with  the  blasting  of  worldly  hopes  entertained, 
almost  unconsciously,  till  now  ?  His  Master  had  never 
before  spoken  so  plainly.  Henceforth,  to  follow  Him  clearly 
meant  to  give  up  all  worldly  aims  or  prospects,  and  volun- 
tarily choose  a  life,  and  it  might  be  a  death,  of  self-denial 
and  self-sacrifice  for  the  nation  and  the  world — or  act  the 
hypocrite  with  a  faint  hope  of  ulterior  advantage. 

Jesus  had  not  gone  to  the  Passover,  for  it  would  have  been 
unsafe  to  have  shown  Himself  in  Jerusalem.1  His  disciples, 
however,  doubtless  went  up,  for  no  Jew  neglected  to  do  so, 
if  possible.2  He  had  now  been  publicly  teaching  in  Galilee 
for  some  months  over  a  year,  and  had  not  revisited  Judea, 
except  for  a  few  days  at  the  Passover3  before,  since  His 
first  discouraging  circuit4  in  the  south.  The  north  had 
received  Him  with  a  warmth  and  frankness  that  had  won 
His  heart  by  the  contrast  with  the  cold  self-righteous  bigotry 
of  Judea.  It  had  given  him  the  Twelve,  and  the  ready 
audience  he  had  found  had  enabled  Him  to  make  a  small  but 
healthy  beginning  of  the  New  Kingdom.  The  impulsive, 
excitable  Galilaeans  seemed  for  a  time,  indeed,  likely  almost 
as  a  whole,  to  leave  the  Rabbis  for  His  new  teaching.  But 
the  movement  had  been  checked,  and  the  popular  favour 

1  John  vii.  1.     Matt.  xv.  1-20.     Mark  vii.  1-23. 
8  Pressel,  Lebcn  Jesu,  p.  145.  *  John  v.  1.  4  John  Hi.  32, 


THE   NEW   SPIRITUAL   THEOCRACY.  189 

chilled  by  the  restless  efforts  of  the  party  threatened.  Weak 
in  the  north,  they  had  sent  word  to  Jerusalem  of  the  success 
of  the  Teacher  from  Nazareth,  whom  the  orthodoxy  of  Judea 
had  refused  to  follow.  The  Rabbis  of  the  capital — known 
variously  ~  as  "  the  Pharisees,"  "  Scribes,"  or  Sopherim, 
"  lawyers,"  "  masters  of  the  traditions,"  "  Hakamin,  or 
wise  men,"  "  doctors,"  "  expounders  of  the  Law,"  and 
"  ilisputers,"  of  the  Gospels  and  the  Epistles  ;  and  the  official 
ecclesiastical  world  at  large,  the  priests,  canonists,  and 
preachers  of  Judaism,  had  their  stronghold  in  the  Temple 
courts,  and  rivalled  the  bigotry  of  the  more  modern  Mollahs 
and  Softas  of  Mecca  and  Medina.  At  the  first  hint  of  danger, 
a  deputation  had  been  sent  to  Capernaum,  but  they  had 
failed  to  carry  the  people  with  them  in  their  attempts  to  fix 
charges  on  the  new  Teacher.  He  had  defended  Himself  so 
dexterously  against  their  allegations  of  Sabbath-breaking  and 
blasphemy,  that  for  the  time  they  retired  discomfited.  Fresh 
news  from  the  north,  however,  had  again  roused  them. 
More  Rabbis  appeared,  sent  by  the  authorities  in  Jerusalem, 
to  see  if  the  rash  Innovator  could  not  be  crushed,  and  their 
presence  speedily  led  to  a  further  conflict. 

In  the  training  of  the  Twelve  for  their  future  work,  it  was 
necessary,  above  all  things,  to  create  and  foster  the  concep- 
tion of  moral  freedom  ;  for  the  central  point  in  the  contrast 
between  the  New  Kingdom  and  the  old  Theocracy  was  the 
liberty  of  the  former  as  opposed  to  the  bondage  to  the  letter 
that  had  prevailed.  The  deep  and  pure  religiousness  Christ 
demanded  could  only  flourish  where  the  conscience  was 
quickened,  and  made  responsible  by  a  sense  of  perfect  spiritual 
freedom.  He  had  already  announced  this  great  principle  in 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  The  Twelve  had  been  disciplined 
in  it  by  their  mission  journeys,  but  new  illustrations  daily 
showed  how  hard  it  was  for  them  to  emancipate  themselves 
from  hereditary  prejudices,  and  from  Rabbinical  authority. 

The  very  foundation  of  the  new  Society  was  in  itself  a 
breaking  away  from  the  established  Theocracy,  and  it  neces- 
saiilyled  to  continually  more  decisive  acts  of  independence 
and  separation.  The  Jewish  theologians  of  the  Pharisaic 
party,  with  their  pedantic  devotion  to  precedent  and  form, 
and  their  claim  to  direct  the  conscience  of  the  people,  had  to 
a  great  extent  produced  a  mere  outward  religionism,  which 
had  weakened  the  moral  sense  of  the  nation,  and  withered  up 
all  aspirations  for  spiritual  manhood  and  liberty  of  thought. 
They  had  been  very  popular  for  generations,  past  as  the 


190  THE  LIFE   OP  CHRIST. 

reverend  and  zealous  defenders  of  the  holy  Law  handed  down 
from  the  Fathers.  They  had  recognised  in  Jesus,  still  more 
than  in  His  hated  and  feared  predecessor  the  Baptist,  a 
deadly  foe,  and  the  success  of  the  new  teaching  in  Galilee 
imperilled  their  influence  if  it  remained  unchecked.  With 
keen  foresight  they  had  sought  to  anticipate  the  danger, 
but  hitherto  had  failed  so  ignominiously  that  they  had  for 
some  time  past  refrained  from  open  attack,  contenting  them- 
selves with  a  secret  hostility  of  dark  hints,  suspicions  and 
blasphemies,  to  poison  the  minds  of  the  people.  Till  now, 
however,  Jesus  had  refrained  from  turning  on  them,  but, 
while  watched  and  assailed,  had  kept  strictly  on  the  defensive. 
Henceforth  He  took  a  different  course.  To  expose  their 
innuendoes  and  calumnies  was  no  longer  enough.  He  felt 
constrained,  for  the  future,  to  show  that  not  He  but  His 
accusers  were  really  obnoxious  to  the  charges  made  against 
Him  so  recklessly ;  that  not  He,  but  they,  were  leading  the 
people  from  the  right  way,  and  acting  under  unholy  influence, 
and  that  their  zeal  for  God  was  blind,  not  His. 

A  new  attack  by  them  led  to  this  change.  Reports  of  the 
popular  readiness  to  accept  Him  as  Messianic  King,  and  of 
His  resolute  refusal  to  head  such  a  political  movement,  as 
alone  could  meet  their  own  wishes,  had  doubtless  reached 
Jerusalem,  and  this,  coupled  with  rumours  of  His  innovations 
and  independence  as  a  religious  reformer,  had  thoroughly 
alarmed  the  authorities  at  Jerusalem.  Discarding  invective, 
craft,  or  indirect  approach,  their  deputies  now  came,  no 
longer  to  the  disciples,  but  to  Himself,  with  specific  com- 
plaints, which  the  easy  access  to  private  life  permitted  by 
the  freedom  of  Eastern  manners  had  enabled  them  to  estab- 
lish. The  disciples  had  already  given  offence  by  plucking  and 
rubbing  ears  of  barley  on  the  Sabbath,  and  thus,  as  it  was 
held,  reaping  and  threshing  on  the  sacred  day ;  but  a  still 
graver  scandal  in  Pharisaic  eyes  had  been  detected  in  their 
sitting  down  to  eat  without  ceremonially  washing  their  hands. 
The  Law  of  Moses  required  purifications  in  certain  cases,  but 
the  Rabbis  had  perverted  the  spirit  of  Leviticus  in  this,  as  in 
other  things,  for  they  taught  that  food  and  drink  could  not 
be  taken  with  a  good  conscience  when  there  was  the  possi- 
bility of  ceremonial  defilement.  If  every  conceivable  pre- 
caution had  not  been  taken,  the  person  or  the  vessel  used 
might  have  contracted  impurity,  which  would  thus  be  con- 
veyed to  the  food,  and  through  the  food  to  the  body,  and  by 
it  to  the  soul.  Hence  it  had  been  long  a  custom,  and  latterly 


WASHING  OF   THE   HANDS.  191 

a  strict  law,  that  before  every  meal  not  only  the  hands  but 
even  the  dishes,  couches,  and  tables  should  be  scrupulously 
washed. 

The  legal  washing  of  the  hands  before  eating  was  especially 
sacred  to  the  Rabbinist ;  not  to  do  so  was  a  crime  as  great  as 
to  eat  the  flesh  of  swine.  "  He  who  neglects  hand- washing," 
says  the  book  Sohar,1  "  deserves  to  be  punished  here  and 
hereafter."  "  He  is  to  be  destroyed  out  of  the  world,  for  in 
hand-washing  is  contained  the  secret  of  the  ten  command- 
ments." "  He  is  guilty  of  death."  "  Three  sins  bring  poverty 
after  them,"  says  the  Mishna,2  ''and  to  slight  hand- washing 
is  one."  "  He  who  eats  bread  without  hand-washing,"  says 
Rabbi  Jose,  "  is  as  if  he  went  in  to  a  harlot."  The  later 
Schulchan  Aruch  enumerates  twenty-six  rules  for  this  rite 
in  the  morning  alone.  "It  is  better  to  go  four  miles  to  water 
than  to  incur  guilt  by  neglecting  hand- washing,"  says  the 
Talmud.3  "  He  who  does  not  wash  his  hands  after  eating," 
it  is  said,  "  is  as  bad  as  a  murderer."4  The  devil  Schibta  sits 
on  unwashed  hands  and  on  the  bread.5  It  was  a  special 
mark  of  the  Pharisees  that  "  they  ate  their  daily  bread  with 
due  purification,"  and  to  neglect  doing  so  was  to  be  despised 
as  unclean. 

Rabbinism  was  now  in  its  highest  glory,  for  the  great 
teachers  Hillel  and  Shammai,  who  had  died  hardly  a  genera- 
tion before,  had  developed  it  to  the  uttermost.  They  disputed 
so  fiercely,  indeed,  on  many  trifling  details,  that  it  was  often 
said  that  Elias  himself,  when  he  came,  would  hardly  be  able 
to  decide  between  them.  But  they  agreed  respecting  hand- 
washing,  so  that  the  Talmud  maintains  that  "  any  one  living 
in  the  land  of  Israel,  eating  his  daily  food  in  purification, 
speaking  the  Hebrew  of  the  day,  and  morning  and  evening 
praying  duly  with  the  phylacteries,  is  certain  that  he  will  eat 
bread  in  the  kingdom  of  God."  6 

It  was  laid  down  that  the  hands  were  first  to  be  washed 
clean.  The  tips  of  the  ten  fingers  were  then  joined  and  lifted 
up  so  that  the  water  ran  down  to  the  elbows,  then  turned 
dow  n  so  that  it  might  run  off  to  the  ground.  Fresh  water 
was  poured  on  them  as  they  were  lifted  up,  and  twice  again 
as  they  hung  down.  The  washing  itself  was  to  be  done  by 
rubbing  the  fist  of  one  hand  in  the  hollow  of  the  other.? 

1  Gen.  f.  60.  2.     Num.  f.  100.  3.    Deut.  f.  107.  2. 

•  Shabbath,  62.  1.  8  Calla,  f.  58.  3. 

4  Tanchuma,  f.  73.  2.  6  Joma,  i.  77.  2  gloss. 

•  Shablath,  f.  3.  4.  "  Godwyn,  p.  39.    Meyer,  Markus  vii.  3, 


192  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

When  the  hands  were  washed  before  eating  they  must  be 
held  np wards ;  when  after  it,  downwards,  but  so  that  the 
water  should  not  run  beyond  the  knuckles.1  The  vessel  used 
must  be  held  first  in  the  right,  then  in  the  left  hand ;  the 
water  was  to  be  poured  first  on  the  right,  then  on  the  left 
hand,  and  at  every  thir.d  time  the  words  repeated  :  "  Blessed 
art  Thou  who  hast  given  us  the  command  to  wash  the 
hands."  It  was  keenly  disputed  whether  the  cup  of  blessing 
or  the  hand-washing  should  come  first ;  whether  the  towel 
used  should  be  laid  on  the  table  or  on  the  couch  ;  and 
whether  the  table  was  to  be  cleared  before  the  final  washing 
or  after  it."  2 

This  anxious  trifling  over  the  infinitely  little  was,  however, 
only  part  of  a  system.  If  a  Pharisee  proposed  to  eat  common 
food  it  was  enough  that  the  hands  were  washed  by  water 
poured  on  them.  Before  eating  Terumah — the  holy  tithes 
and  the  shew-bread — they  must  be  dipped  completely  in  the 
water,  and  before  the  portions  of  the  holy  offerings  could  be 
tasted,  a  bath  must  be  taken.  Hand- washing  before  prayer, 
or  touching  anything  in  the  morning,  was  as  rigidly  observed, 
for  evil  spirits  might  have  defiled  the  hands  in  the  night. 
To  touch  the  mouth,  nose,  ear,  eyes,  or  the  one  hand  with 
the  other,  before  the  rite,  was  to  incur  the  risk  of  disease  in 
the  part  touched.  The  occasions  that  demanded  the  observ- 
ance were  countless  :  it  must  be  done  even  after  cutting  the 
nails,  or  killing  a  flea.3  The  more  water  used,  the  more 
piety.  "  He  who  uses  abundant  water  for  hand- washing," 
says  B.  Chasda,  "  will  have  abundant  riches."  If  one  had 
not  been  out  it  was  enough  to  pour  water  on  the  hands  ;  but 
one  coming  in  from  without  needed  to  plunge  his  hands  into 
the  water,  for  he  knew  not  what  uncleanness  might  have 
been  near  him  while  in  the  streets,  and  this  plunging  could 
not  be  done  except  in  a  spot  where  there  were  not  less  than 
sixty  gallons  of  water."  4(t 

The  same  scrupulous,  superstitious  minuteness  extended 
to  possible  defilements  of  all  the  household  details  of  daily 
life.  Dishes,  hollow  or  flat,  of  whatever  material,  knives, 
tables,  and  couches,  were  constantly  subjected  to  purifications, 
less  they  should  have  contracted  any  Levitical  defilement  by 
being  used  by  some  one  unclean. 

1  Sfpp,  vol.  iv.  p.  97.  *  Ibid. 

3  Herzog,  Reimgungen,  vol.  xii.  p.  639. 
*  Lightfoot,  llor.  Heb.,  vol.  ii.  p.  418. 


PHAEISAIC  EITUALISM.  193 

This  ritual  exaggeration  was,  apparently,  a  result  of  the 
jealousy  between  the  democratic  Pharisees  "and  the  lordly 
Sadducees.  The  latter  attached  supreme  importance  to  the 
ceremonial  sanctity  of  the  officiating  priests,  to  exalt  them- 
selves as  the  clerical  aristocracy.  The  Pharisees,  to  humble 
them,  laid  the  stress,  as  far  as  possible,  on  the  vessels  used, 
and  the  exactness  of  the  act.  In  keeping  with  their  endless 
washings  in  private,  they  demanded  that  all  the  vessels  of  the 
Temple  itself  should  be  purified  after  each  feast,  lest  some 
unclean  person  might  have  denied  them — a  refinement  which 
drew  down  on  a  Pharisee,  who  was  carrying  out  even  the 
golden  candlestick  itself  to  wash  it  after  a  festival,  the  mock- 
ing gibe  from  a  Sadducee,  that  he  expected  before  long  the 
Pharisees  would  give  the  sun  a  washing.1 

The  authority  for  this  endless,  mechanical  religionism 
was  the  commands  or  "  traditions  "  of  the  Fathers,  handed 
down  from  the  days  of  the  Great  Synagogue,  but  ascribed 
with  pious  exaggeration  to  the  Almighty,  who,  it  was  said, 
had  delivered  them  orally  to  Moses  on  Mount  Sinai.  Inter- 
pretations, expositions,  and  discussions  of  all  kinds,  were 
based,  not  only  on  every  separate  word,  or  on  every  letter, 
but  even  on  every  pause  and  breathing,  to  create  new  laws 
and  observances,  and  where  these  were  not  enough,  oral 
traditions,  said  to  have  been  given  by  God  to  Moses  on  the 
Mount,  were  invented  to  justify  new  refinements.  These 
"  traditions  "  were  constantly  increased,  and  formed  a  NEW 
LAW,  which  passed  from  mouth  to  mouth,  and  from  genera- 
tion to  generation,  till,  at  last,  public  schools  rose  for  its 
study  and  development,  of  which  the  most  famous  were 
those  of  Hillel  and  Shammai,  in  the  generation  before 
Jesus,  and  even,  perhaps,  in  His  early  childhood.  In  His 
lifetime  it  was  still  a  fundamental  rule  that  they  should 
not  be  committed  to  writing.  It  was  left  to  Rabbi  Judah 
the  Holy,  to  commence  the  collection  and  formal  engrossing 
of  the  almost  countless  fragments  of  which  it  consisted,  and 
from  his  weary  labour  ultimately  rose  the  huge  folios  of  the 
Talmud.2 

As  in  the  case  of  the  Brahminical  theocracy  of  India,  that 
of  Judea  attached  more  importance  to  the  ceremonial  precepts 
of  its  schools  than  to  the  sacred  text  on  which  they  were 
based.  Wherever  Scripture  and  tradition  seemed  opposed, 

1  Derenbourg,  pp.  132-134. 

8  Cohen,  pp.  157,  158.  Schiirer,  p.  36.  Hurwitz,  Die  Sagen  der  Ebraer, 
p.  ix. 


194  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

the  latter  was  treated  as  the  higher  authority.  Pharisaism 
openly  proclaimed  this,  and  set  itself,  as  the  Gospel  expresses 
it,  in  the  chair  of  Moses,1  displacing  the  great  lawgiver. 
"It  is  a  greater  offence,"  says  the  Mishna,  "to  teach  any- 
thing contrary  to  the  voice  of  the  Rabbis,  than  to  contradict 
Scripture  itself.  He  who  says,  contrary  to  Scripture,  '  It  is 
not  lawful  to  wear  the  Tephillin  '  " — the  little  leather  boxes 
containing  texts  of  Scripture,  bound,  during  prayer,  on  the 
forehead  and  on  the  arm — "  is  not  to  be  punished  as  a 
troubler.  But  he  who  says  there  should  be  five  divisions  in 
the  Totaphoth" — another  name  for  the  Tephillin,  or  phylac- 
teries 2 — "  and  thus  teaches  differently  from  the  Rabbis,  is 
guilty."  3  "  He  who  expounds  the  Scriptures  in  opposition 
to  the  tradition,"  says  R.  Eleazar,  "  has  no  share  in  the 
world  to  come."  The  mass  of  Rabbinical  prescriptions — not 
the  Scripture — was  regarded  as  the  basis  of  religion,  "for 
the  Covenant  of  God  was  declared  to  have  been  made  with 
Israel  on  account  of  the  oral  Law,  as  it  is  written,  '  After  the 
tenor  of  these  words  I  have  made  a  covenant,'  etc.4  For 
God  knew  that,  in  after  ages,  Israel  would  be  carried  away 
among  strange  people,  who  would  copy  off  the  written  Law, 
and,  therefore,  He  gave  them  the  oral  Law,  that  His  will 
might  be  kept  secret  among  themselves."  5  Those  who  gave 
themselves  to  the  knowledge  of  the  traditions  "  saw  a  great 
light," 6  for  God  enlightened  their  eyes,  and  showed  them 
how  they  ought  to  act  in  relation  to  lawful  and  unlawful 
things,  clean  and  unclean,  which  are  not  told  thus  fully  and 
clearly  in  Scripture.  It  was,  perhaps,  good  to  give  one's 
self  to  the  reading  of  the  Scripture,  but  he  who  reads 
diligently  the  traditions  receives  a  reward  from  God,  and 
he  who  gives  himself  to  the  Commentaries  on  these  traditions 
has  the  greatest  reward  of  all.7  "  The  Bible  was  like  water, 
the  Traditions  like  wine,  the  Commentaries  on  them  like 
epiced  wine."  "  My  son,"  says  the  Talmud,  "  give  more 
heed  to  the  words  of  the  Rabbis  than  to  the  words  of  the 
Law."  8  So  exactly  alike  is  Ultra-High-churchism  in  every 
age,  and  in  all  religions  ! 

1  Matt,  xxiii.  2.  *  Buxtorf,  Lex.,  sub  voc. 

*  Sanhedrim,    xi.    3.     Jost,    Geschichte  d.  Judenthums,  vol.  i.  p.  93. 
Gfrorer,  Jahrhundert,  etc.,  vol.  i.  pp.  146-153.   Eisenmenger,  vol.  i.  p.  329. 
liuxtorft  Synaflor/a  Judaica,  pp.  62-65. 
•    4  Exod.  xxxiv.  27.  *  Ammude  golah,  in  Buxtorft  Syn.  Jud.,  p.  63. 

'  Isaiah  ix.  1.     '  Eisenmenger,  vol.  i.  p.  329.    Buxtorfi  Syn.  Jud.  p.  65r 

8  Eisenmenger,  p.  330. 


EABBINICAL   CONTROVEESIES.  195 

Jesns  had  no  sympathy  with  a  system  which  thus  ignored 
conscience,  and  found  the  essence  of  religion  in  the  slavery 
of  outward  forms.  The  New  Kingdom  was  in  the  heart ;  in 
the  loving  sonship  of  the  Father  in  Heaven ;  and  all  outward 
observances  had  value  only  as  expressions  of  this  tender 
relationship.  The  Pharisees  had  refined  the  Law  into  a 
microscopic  casuistry  which  prescribed  for  every  isolated 
act,  but  Jesus  brought  it  into  the  compass  of  a  living  prin- 
ciple in  the  soul.  Prom  the  outer  particular  requirement, 
He  passed  to  the  spirit  it  was  intended  to  express.  Special 
enactments  were  suffered  to  fall  aside,  if  the  vital  idea  they 
embodied  were  honoured.  A  lifetime  was  hardly  enough 
to  learn  the  Rabbinical  precepts  respecting  offerings,  but 
Jesus  virtually  abrogated  them  all  by  the  short  utterance 
that  "  mercy  was  better  than  sacrifice."  l  The  schools  had 
added  to  the  simple  distinctions  of  the  Law  between  clean 
and  unclean  beasts,  endless  refinements  respecting  different 
parts  of  each,  and  the  necessary  rites  ;  the  simple  rule  of 
Jesus  was — It  is  not  what  enters  the  mouth  that  defiles  a  man, 
but  what  conies  from  the  heart.3  The  Rabbis  contended 
respecting  the  occasions  on  which  vessels  should  be  purified 
in  running  rather  than  in  drawn  water,  and  how  the  puri- 
fications of  wooden  and  metal  dishes  were  to  be  minutely 
discriminated.  Jesus  waived  aside  this  trifling  and  deadly- 
pedantry,  and  told  his  hearers  to  take  care  to  be  clean  within, 
and  then  the  outside  would  be  clean  also.3  Even  the  Sab- 
bath laws,  with  their  countless  enactments,  were  as  briefly 
condensed.  "  It  is  lawful  to  do  good  on  the  Sabbath  day." 
"  The  Sabbath  was  made  for  man,  not  man  for  the  Sabbath."  4 
Such  teaching  was  new  in  Israel.  It  was  revolutionary  in 
the  grandest  sense. 

The  deputation  of  Rabbis  now  sent  to  Capernaum  were 
determined  to  bring  matters  to  a  crisis.  Their  spies,  and 
perhaps  themselves,  had  carefully  gathered  evidence  whether 
Jesus  and  His  disciples  observed  the  traditions,  and  carried 
them  out  with  the  minuteness  of  a  recognised  religious  duty  ; 
whether  He  and  they  dipped  their  hands  duly  before  eating  ; 
whether  they  held  them  up  or  down  in  doing  so ;  whether 
they  wetted  them  to  the  elbows  or  to  the  knuckles,  or 
wetted  only  the  finger-tips,  as  the  school  of  Shammai  pre- 
scribed for  certain  cases ;  and  they  had  fcrund,  to  their  horror, 

1  Matt.  ix.  13  ;  xii.  7-  2  Matt.  xv.  11.     Mark  yii.  15. 

•  Luke  xi.  39.  *  Mark  ii.  27. 


196  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

that  neither  He  nor  His  disciples  washed  their  hands  thus 
ceremonially  at  all.  The  nest  Passover  would  show  how 
formally  they  had  laid  their  information  against  Him,  before 
the  Sanhedrim,  with  its  leaders,  the  high  priest  Caiaphas  and 
the  powerful  Hannas,  for  such  independence  and  audacity. 

Meanwhile,  their  demand  for  an  explanation  gave  Jesus 
the  desired  opportunity  to  break,  finally,  with  their  whole 
party.  A  casuistry  worthy  of  Suarez  or  Escobar,  had 
sapped  the  fundamental  principles  of  morality,  in  the  name 
of  religion.  With  a  keen  eye  to  the  interests  of  their  caste, 
the  Rabbis  had  trifled  with  the  subject  of  oaths  and  vows 
in  such  a  way  that  the  treasury  of  the  Temple  was  not  only 
sacred  from  all  public  appeals,  but  was  continually  enriched 
by  money  which  ought,  rightfully,  to  have  gone  to  the 
support  of  families  and  relations,  and  even  of  aged  or  poor 
parents.  The  utterance  of  the  word  "  Corban  "  h — "  I  have 
vowed  it  to  sacred  uses  " — sequestrated  anything,  absolutely 
and  irreversibly,  to  the  Temple.  It  might  be  spoken  under 
the  influence  of  death-bed  terror,  or  in  the  weakness  of  super- 
stitious fear,  but  if  once  uttered,  the  Church  threw  round 
the  money  or  property  thus  secured,  the  impassable  barrier 
of  her  ghostly  claims. 

To  honour  one's  parents  was  one  of  the  "  Ten  Words  "  of 
Sinai,  and  no  duty  was  held  more  sacred  by  a  Jew  unper- 
verted  by  Rabbinical  sophistry.  It  was  not  forgotten  that 
it  was  the  one  commandment  to  which  a  promise  of  reward 
was  attached.  "  A  child  is  bound  to  maintain  his  parents 
when  old  and  helpless,"  says  one  passage  in  the  Talmud, 
"  even  if  he  have  to  beg  to  do  so."  But  this,  unfortunately, 
was  not  the  uniform  teaching  of  Christ's  day.  If  one  Rabbi 
had  put  filial  duty  before  the  right  to  vow  for  one's  own 
advantage,  others  had  taught  that  it  was  a  duty  to  honour 
God  before  honouring  human  relationships 1 — a  smooth 
phrase  for  legalising  gifts  to  the  Church  at  the  expense 
even  of  father  and  mother.  The  hierarchical  party  ignored 
all  interests  but  their  own,  and  subordinated  natural  dcty 
to  their  own  enrichment.  Pharisaism,  in  its  moral  decay, 
had  come  to  be  a  spiritual  death,  corrupting  the  springs  of 
national  life.  A  few  years  later,  in  the  time  of  the  great 
famine  of  the  year  A.D.  45,  under  Claudius,  the  theocratic 
party  cared  for  themselves  so  heartlessly,  that  while  the 
people  were  perishing  of  hunger  by  hundreds,  no  remission 

1  Xe<?arim.  t.  C4.  col.  1. 


EVASIONS   OF  THE   LAW.  197 


of  Temple  dues  was  permitted,  and  the  Passover  alone 
forty-one  Attic  bushels  of  wheat  presented  at  the  altar,  to  be 
presently  removed  for  the  use  of  the  priests,  though  the  issa- 
rion  —  a  measure  of  three  and  a  half  pints1  —  sold  for  four 
drachmas,2  a  sum  equal  to  about  twenty-six  shillings  at  the 
present  value  of  money.3  Josephus,  indeed,  boasts  that  no 
priest  ate  a  crumb  of  the  grain  thus  relentlessly  hoarded  ; 
but  when  even  a  high  priest  was  known  as  "  the  disciple  of 
gluttons,"  rioting  in  great  feasts  on  the  sacrifices  and  wine 
of  the  altar,4  the  mass  of  his  order  would  not  be  fastidious 
about  the  wheat  and  the  bread. 

Representatives  of  this  smooth  hypocrisy  had  now  gathered 
round  Jesus,  and  proceeded  to  inquire  into  His  alleged  un- 
lawful acts.  "  How  comes  it,"  asked  they,  "  that  a  teacher 
who  claims  a  higher  sanctity  than  others,  can  quietly  permit 
His  disciples  to  neglect  a  custom  imposed  by  our  wise  fore- 
fathers, and  so  carefully  observed  by  every  pious  Israelite  ? 
How  is  it  that  they  do  not  wash  their  hands  before  eating  ?  " 

"  They  neglect  only  a  ceremony  introduced  by  men,"  re- 
torted Jesus  ;  "  but  how  comes  it  that  you,  who  know  the 
Law,  transgress  commands  which  are  not  of  man,  but  from 
God  Himself  ?  How  comes  it  that,  for  the  sake  of  traditions 
invented  by  the  Rabbis,  you  set  aside  the  most  explicit 
commands  of  God  ?  He  has,  for  example,  said  that  we  must 
honour  our  father  and  mother,  and  support  and  care  for 
them  in  old  age.1  He  has  declared  it  worthy  of  death  for 
any  one  to  deny  his  parents  due  reverence,  or  to  treat  them 
harshly  or  with  neglect.  But  you  have  invented  a  doctrine 
which  absolves  children,  in  many  cases,  from  this  command- 
ment. '  If  any  one,'  says  your  '  tradition,'  '  is  asked  by  his 
parents  for  a  gift  or  help,  for  their  benefit,  he  has  only  to 
say  that  he  has  vowed  that  very  part  of  his  means  to  the 
Temple,  and  they  cannot  press  him  further  to  contribute  to 
their  support.'  How  cunningly  have  you  thus  circumvented 
God's  law  !  How  easy  is  it  for  any  one  to  break  it,  and 
affect  a  zeal  for  religion  in  doing  so  ! 

"  Ye  hypocrites  !  acting  religion  "  —  now  for  the  first  time 
thus  denouncing  them  and  their  party  —  "  well  has  Isaiah 
painted  you  when  he  introduces  God  as  saying,  '  This  nation 

1  Diet,  of  Antiquities,  Table.     Diet,  of  Bible,  Weights,  etc. 

2  Jos.,  Ant.,  iii.  15.  3. 

3  Davidson's  A'e?p  Test.,  Table. 

4  Talmud,  quoted  in  Derenlourg,  p.  234.    Matt.  xv.  1-20.     Mark  vii. 
1-23. 


198  THE   LIFE   OF   CHKIST. 

lias  its  worship  in  words,  and  its  religion  is  of  the  lips,  while 
its  heart  is  far  from  Me.  Their  service  of  Me  is  worthless, 
for  it  is  not  My  Law,  but  only  human  invention.'1  These 
words  describe  you  to  the  letter.  You  put  aside  what  God 
has  commanded,  and  has  enforced  by  promises  and  threats, 
and  yet  keep  superstitiously,  '  traditions '  which  only  cus- 
tom, and  homage  to  human  teachers,  have  introduced.  Of 
this  kind  are  your  hand- washings,  and  many  similar  usages." 

Such  a  defence  was  an  open  declaration  of  war  against 
Pharisaism,  and  the  hierarchy  closely  identified  with  it. 
His  words  struck  at  the  insincerity  and  false-heartedness 
of  the  party  as  a  whole,  at  its  fundamental  principles,  its 
practice,  its  modes  of  thought,  its  whole  ideas  and  aims. 
They  are  pious,  very  pious,  He  tells  them,  in  outward  seem- 
ing. They  keep  the  traditions  fastidiously,  but  their  piety 
is  from  the  lips,  not  the  heart ;  obedience  to  the  Rabbis,  not 
God.  They  wash  pots  and  cups,  and  care  for  gifts,  as  their 
religion,  and  ignore  the  commands  of  Jehovah.  No  irony 
could  be  more  keen  or  annihilating.  What  flames  of  rage 
must  it  have  kindled  in  the  hearts  of  the  great  party  so 
mortally  assailed  ?  They  could  not  challenge  His  loyalty  to 
the  higher  law,  for  He  spoke  as  its  Champion  against  their 
human  additions  and  perversions.  They  could  not  but  feel 
that,  far  from  destroying  either  the  Law  or  the  Prophets, 
He  was  ennobling  and  exalting  them.  But  the  very  light 
He  poured  on  the  oracles  of  God  showed  so  much  the  more 
the  worthlessness  of  their  cherished  system,  and  their  mis- 
conception of  their  office  as  the  teachers  of  the  people.  He  had 
virtually  condemned  not  only  their  putting  washings  above 
duty  to  parents ;  He  had  denounced  them  for  laying  more 
stress  on  the  Temple  worship  and  ritual  than  on  such  filial 
piety.  Hence  washings,  sacrifices,  alms,  and  fasts  ;  all  the 
boastful,  pretentious  worship  and  outward  practice  on  which 
they  rested,  were  of  no  value  compared  with  the  great 
eternal  commands  of  God,  and  were  even  crimes  and  im- 
piety, when  they  proudly  set  themselves  in  their  room.  He 
arraigned  Pharisaism,  the  dominant  orthodoxy,  as  a  whole. 
The  system,  so  famous,  so  arrogant,  so  intensely  Jewish,  was 
only  an  invention  of  man  ;  a  subversion  of  the  Law  it  claimed 
to  represent,  an  antagonism  to  the  Prophets  as  well  as  to 
Moses,  the  spiritual  ruin  of  the  nation  ! 

The  die  was  finally  cast.     All  that  it  involved  had  been 

1  Isa.  xxix.  13. 


THE    SPIRITUALITY  OF  THE   NEW  KINGDOM.       199 

long  weighed,  but  He  who  Bad  come  into  the  world  to 
witness  to  the  Truth,  could  let  no  prudent  regard  for  self 
restrain  His  testimony.  It  was  vital  that  the  people  who 
followed  the  Rabbis  and  priests  should  know  what  the 
religion  and  morals  thus  taught  by  them  were  worth.  The 
truth  could  not  find  open  ears  while  men's  hearts  were 
misled  and  prejudiced  by  such  instructors.  No  one  would 
seek  inward  renewal  who  had  been  taught  to  care  only 
for  externals,  and  to  ignore  the  sin  and  corruption  within. 
Pharisaism  was  a  creed  of  moral  cosmetics  and  religious 
masks,  as  all  ritual  systems  must  ever  be.  With  Jesus,  the 
only  true  religion  was  purity  of  heart  and  absolute  sincerity 
to  truth.  Leaving  the  Rabbis,  therefore,  and  calling  round 
Him  the  crowd  which  was  lingering  near,  He  proclaimed 
aloud  the  great  principle  He  had  laid  down — "  Hear  me,  all 
of  you,"  cried  He,  "  and  understand.  There  is  nothing  from 
without  the  man  that,  entering  into  him,  can  defile  him ;  but 
the  things  which  come  out  of  the  man  are  those  that  defile 
him."  Words  clear  enough  to  us,  perhaps,  but  grand  be- 
yond thought  when  uttered,  for  they  were  the  knell  of  caste 
— heard  now,  for  the  first  time,  in  the  history  of  the  world ; — 
the  knell  of  national  divisions  and  hatreds,  and  of  the  religious 
worth  of  external  observances,  as  such,  and  the  inauguration 
of  a  universal  religion  of  spirit  and  truth  !  They  proclaimed 
that  nothing  external,  made  clean  or  unclean,  holy  or  unholy. 
Purity  and  impurity  were  words  applicable  only  to  the  soul 
and  its  utterances  and  acts.  The  charter  of  spiritual  re- 
ligion, the  abrogation  of  the  supremacy  of  forms  and 
formula  for  ever,  was  at  last  announced ;  the  leaven  of 
religious  freedom  cast  into  the  life  of  humanity,  to  leaven  it 
throughout  in  the  end  ! 

Even  the  disciples  were  alarmed  at  an  attitude  so  revolu- 
tionary. In  common  with  the  nation  at  large,  they  looked 
on  the  Rabbis  with  a  superstitious  reverence,  and  now 
hastened  to  tell  Jesus  how  deeply  the  whole  class  was 
offended  by  His  words.  It  was  hard  for  simple  Galilsean 
peasants  to  break  away  from  hereditary  habits  of  thought. 
But  Christ's  answer  was  ready.  "  Every  plant  which  my 
Heavenly  Father  has  not  planted,  shall  be  rooted  out. 
Leave  them :  they  are  blind  leaders  of  the  blind,  and,  as 
such,  both  they  and  their  followers  must  stumble  on  to 
destruction  !  "  *  The  plants  of  human,  not  Divine  planting, 

1  Matt.  xv.  13. 
51 


200  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

were  the  "  traditions  "  and  "  commandments  of  men  " — the 
"  hedge  of  the  Law,"  in  which  the  Rabbis  gloried.  Hence- 
forth, there  was  a  breach  for  ever  between  the  men  of  the 
schools  and  the  New  Kingdom. 

But  the  mind  is  slow  to  realize  great  spiritual  truths.  To 
the  disciples,  their  Master's  words  were  dark  and  strange, 
demanding  explanation.  Nor  was  it  possible,  either  then,  or 
even  to  the  very  last,  to  familiarize  them  with  the  new  ideas 
they  involved,  or  free  them  from  the  influence  of  past 
modes  of  thought.  The  tendency  to  regard  the  external 
and  formal  as  a  vital  and  leading  characteristic  of  religion, 
was  well-nigh  unconquerable  in  minds  habituated  to  Jewish 
conceptions.  An  earnest  request  of  Peter  for  further  ex- 
planation, only  drew  forth  an  amplification  of  what  had  been 
already  said.  The  evil  in  man  was  traced  directly  to  the 
thoughts ;  but  to  eat  with  unwashed  hands,  it  was  repeated, 
made  a  man  in  no  way  "  common  "  or  polluted,  as  alleged  by 
the  Pharisees.  Yet  the  truth  had  to  lie  long  in  the  breasts 
of  the  Twelve  before  it  wrought  their  spiritual  emancipation 
from  the  slavery  of  the  past.  The  natural  and  eternal  dis- 
tinction of  good  and  evil  was  proclaimed,  after  having  been 
obscured  for  ages  by  an  artificial  morality;  but  fully  to 
unlearn  inveterate  prejudice  would  require  the  lapse  of 
generations. 


CHAPTER  XLV. 
THE  COASTS  OF  THE  HEATHEN. 

TESTJS  had  now,  apparently,  been  two  years  before  the 
*J  world  as  a  religious  teacher,  and  had  shared  the  usual 
lot  of  those  who  seek  to  reform  entrenched  and  prosperous 
abuses.  His  brief  and  dazzling  popularity  had  roused  the 
bitter  hostility  of  threatened  interests,  and  they  were  at  last, 
banded  together  for  His  destruction.  For  months  past  He 
had  seen  the  death-clouds  gathering  ever  more  threateningly 
over  Him,  and  devoted  Himself,  with  calm  anticipation 
of  the  end,  to  the  task  of  training  the  Twelve  to  continue 
His  work  when  He  had  perished.  He  had  taken  the  utmost 
care  to  avoid  open  collision  with  His  enemies,  and  to  confine 
Himself  to  the  instruction  of  the  little  circle  round  Him ; 
but  the  priests  and  Rabbis  had  been  quick  to  see  in  this 
very  quiet  and  retirement  their  greatest  danger,  for  open 
conflict  might  destroy  what  peaceful  seclusion  would  give 
opportunity  to  take  root.  "  The  world,"  as  He  Himself 
expressed  it,  "  hated  Him,  because  He  witnessed  of  it  that 
its  works  were  evil." l  Not  only  His  formal  accusations 
and  the  spirit  of  His  teaching,  but  His  whole  life  and 
actions,  and  even  His  gentlest  words,  arraigned  things  as 
they  were. 

Rumours  of  possible  action  against  Him  by  Antipas 
increased  the  difficulty  of  the  situation.  Every  one  knew 
that  He  and  many  of  His  followers  had  come  from  the 
school  of  the  Baptist,  whom  Antipas  had  just  murdered, 
and  it  was  evident  that  His  aim  was  more  or  less  similar  to 
that  of  John,  though  His  acts  were  more  wonderful.  Hence 
speculation  was  rife  respecting  Him.  Was  He  the  promised 
Elias  ?  or,  at  least,  Jeremiah,  risen  from  the  dead  ?  or  was 
He  some  special  prophet  sent  from  God  ?  2  Many,  indeed, 
were  questioning  if  He  might  not  even  be  the  Messiah,  and 

1  John  vii.  7.  3  Mark  vi.  15 ;  viii.  28.     Matt.  xvi.  14. 


202  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

were  willing  to  accept  Him  as  such,  if  He  would  only  head 
a  national  revolt,  in  alliance  with  the  Rabbis  and  priests, 
against  the  Romans.  To  Antipas  His  appearance  was  doubly 
alarming,  for  it  seemed  as  if  the  fancied  revolutionary  move- 
ment of  John  had  broken  out  afresh,  more  fiercely  than  ever, 
and  superstition,  working  in  an  uneasy  conscience,  easily  saw 
in  Him  a  resurrection  of  the  murdered  Baptist,  endowed, 
now,  with  the  awful  power  of  the  eternal  world  from  which 
he  had  returned.  A  second  murder  seemed  needed  to  make 
the  first  effective,  and  to  avoid  this  additional  danger  Jesus 
for  a  time  sought  concealment. 

But  the  craft  and  violence  of  the  half-heathen  Antipas 
was  a  slight  evil  compared  with  the  hatred  which  glowed 
ever  more  intensely  in  the  breasts  of  the  Rabbis  and  priests 
of  Jerusalem,  and  in  those  of  the  Pharisees  and  other 
disciples  of  the  schools,  scattered  over  the  country.  The 
demands  of  Jesus  went  far  beyond  the  mere  summons  of  the 
Baptist,  to  prepare  for  a  new  and  better  time.  He  required 
immediate  submission  to  a  new  Theocracy.  He  excited  the 
fury  of  the  dominant  party,  not  like  the  Baptist,  by  isolated 
bursts  of  denunciation,  bat  by  working  quietly,  as  a  King  in 
His  own  kingdom,  which,  though  in  the  world,  was  yet  some- 
thing far  higher.  Hence,  the  feeling  against  Him  was  very 
different  from  the  partial,  cautious,  and  intermittent  hatred 
to  the  Baptist.  The  hierarchy  and  the  Rabbis,  as  the 
centre  of  that  which,  with  all  its  corruptions,  was,  as  yet, 
the  only  true  religion  on  earth,  felt  themselves  compromised 
directly  and  fatally  by  Him,  and  could  not  maintain  them- 
selves as  they  were,  if  He  were  tolerated.  The  whole 
spiritual  power  of  Israel  was  thus  arrayed  against  Him ;  a 
force  slowly  created  by  the  possession,  for  ages,  of  the 
grandest  religious  truths  known  to  the  ancient  world,  and 
by  the  pride  of  a  long  and  incomparably  sublime  national 
history.  In  the  past,  it  had  been  assailed  from  without,  at 
long  intervals,  but  in  recent  years  it  had  been,  for  the  first 
time,  attacked  from  within  by  the  Baptist,  and  now  felt 
itself  still  more  dangerously  assaulted  by  this  Galilaean. 
To  crush  such  an  apparently  insignificant  opponent — a 
peasant  of  Nazareth,  rising,  singly  and  unsupported,  against 
a  power  so  colossal — seemed  easy ;  nor  could  it  be  fancied 
more  difficult  to  scatter  and  destroy  His  small  band  of 
followers,  as  yet,  mostly,  despised  peasants. 

The  first  official  step  towards  the  repression  of  the  new 
movement  had,  apparently,  been  already  taken,  on  !the 


JESUS  IS  EXCOMMUNICATED.  203 

occasion  of  the  last  visit  of  Jesus  to  Jerusalem.  His  cure 
of  the  blind  man  on  the  Sabbath,  had  then  brought  down 
on  Him  the  warning  punishment  of  the  lesser  excommuni- 
cation, which  entailed  formal  exclusion  from  the  synagogues 
of  Judea,1  and  was  all  they  dared  as  yet  inflict.  In  conse- 
quence of  it,  He  had  never  returned  to  the  south,  but 
confined  Himself  to  the  north,  where  the  synagogues  were 
still  open  to  Him.  The  same  sentence  seems  now  to  have 
been  gradually  extended  to  the  synagogues  of  Galilee,  for 
we  cease  to  read  of  His  entering  them  or  teaching  in  them. 
But  as  this  measure  evidently  failed,  spies  were  let  loose  on 
Him,  to  dog  His  steps  constantly,  and  find  ground  for  fresh 
charges,  even  by  invading  the  privacy  of  His  home  life. 

This  deadly  hatred,  with  all  that  it  involved  in  the  future, 
had  been  foreseen  from  the  first,  and  His  utmost  care,  His 
seclusion,  and  His  innocence,  had  only  delayed  the  crisis 
that  had  now  come.  The  foundation  of  His  New  Kingdom 
on  a  firm  basis,  by  the  choice  and  preparation  of  the  Twelve, 
had,  however,  lightened  the  thought  of  it,  and  neutralized 
its  worse  consequences.  Yet  it  was  still  necessary  to  ward 
off  the  catastrophe  as  long  as  possible,  in  order  to  advance 
the  great  work  of  building  up  and  consolidating  the  infant 
society  He  had  established ;  for  it  was  slow  work  to  ripen 
vigorous  faith  and  adequate  spirituality,  even  in  those  under 
His  personal  influence.  But  the  growing  hatred  and  ill-will 
of  His  enemies  made  lengthened  residence  in  any  one  place 
henceforth  undesirable,  and  He  had  from  this  time  to  take 
more  frequent,  as  well  as  wider  circuits,  to  escape  them. 
Yet  there  were  compensating  benefits  even  in  this  wandering 
life,  for  it  made  it  easier,  amidst  the  many  unforeseen  inci- 
dents of  each  day,  to  raise  the  Twelve  to  that  higher  faith 
and  greater  steadfastness  which  yet  failed  them,  and  it 
enabled  Him  to  help  many  in  outlying  parts,  who  were  fitted 
to  receive  good  at  His  hands.  The  gracious  purpose  of  God 
was  thus  leading  Him  to  visit,  in  peace,  all  the  chief  places  of 
the  land,  which  it  was  His  great  mission  to  summon  to  enter 
His  kingdom. 

One  inevitable  result  was,  that  the  nearer  the  end  came, 
the  more  necessary  was  it  to  make  clear  to  the  Twelve 
the  causes  of  this  hatred  shown  towards  Him,  and  the 
Divine  necessity  of  His  approaching  death.  Hence,  He 
took  every  opportunity  from  this  time  to  impress  both 

!-  John  vii.  1 ;  xiii.  21 ;  ix.  22,  34  ;  xii.  42.     Ewald's  Christus,  p.  384. 


204  THE   LIFE    OF   CHEIST. 

thoughts  more  and  more  clearly  on  His  followers.  His 
warnings  against  the  corruptions  of  the  hierarchical  party 
became  more  frequent,  and  constantly  keener,  until,  at 
last,  the  Twelve  understood,  in  some  measure,  the  whole 
situation.1 

Forsaking  the  shores  of  the  Sea  of  Galilee,  He  now  turned 
to  the  far  north,  with  the  Twelve  as  companions  of  His 
flight.  His  way  led  Him  over  the  rough  uplands  towards 
Safed,  with  its  near  view  of  the  snowy  summits  of  Lebanon. 
Then,  leaving  Gischala  on  the  right,  the  road  passed  through 
one  of  the  many  woody  valleys  of  these  highland  regions, 
till,  at  the  distance  of  two  days'  journey  from  the  lake,  it 
reached  the  slope  at  the  foot  of  which  lay  the  plains  of  Tyre. 
A  yellow  strip  of  beach  and  sand  divides  the  hills  from 
the  sea,  into  which  stretched  the  insular  tongue  of  land  on 
which  Tyre  was  built.2  He  looked  down,  perhaps  for  the 
first  time  so  closely,  on  the  smoking  chimneys  of  the  glass 
works  of  Sidon  and  of  the  dye  works  at  Tyre  ;  on  the  long 
rows  of  warehouses  filled  with  the  merchandise  of  the  world ; 
on  the  mansions,  monuments,  public  buildings,  palaces  and 
temples  of  the  two  cities,  and  their  harbours  and  moles 
crowded  with  shipping.  The  busy  scene  before  Him  was 
the  land  of  the  accursed  Canaanite  ;  the  seat  of  the  worship 
of  Baal  and  Ashtaroth,  which  had  of  old  so  often  corrupted 
Israel ;  a  region,  with  all  its  wealth  and  splendour,  and  sur- 
passing beauty  of  palm  groves  and  gardens  and  embowering 
green,  so  depraved  and  polluted,  that  the  Hebrew  had 
adopted  the  name  of  Beelzebub — one  of  its  chief  idols — as 
that  of  the  Prince  of  Devils.  Yet,  even  here,  Jesus  felt  a 
pity  and  charity  unknown  to  His  nation,  and  the  great  sea 
beyond,  whitened  with  wing-like  sails,  awoke  a  fair  dream 
of  the  future,  when  distant  lands,  washed  by  the  waves  over 
which  these  vessels  sped,  would  gladly  receive  the  message 
He  came  to  deliver. 

Whether  He  passed  into  heathen  territory  is  a  question. 
He  may  only  have  gone  as  far  as  the  border  of  the  alien 
district.  The  whole  region  was  more  or  less  thickly  settled 
by  Jews,  drawn  by  commerce,  or  through  long  historic  asso- 
ciation with  the  district,  which  had  been  assigned  to  Asshur, 
though  never  won  by  that  tribe.  As  long  ago  as  the  days  of 
the  Judges,  the  population  had  been  half  heathen,  half  Jewish,3 

1  Ewald's  Christus,  pp.  449-454. 
8  Hausrath,  vol.  i.  p.  402.  3  Judges  i.  32. 


THE   SYKO-PHENICIAN   WOMAN.  205 

Kept  back,  through  all  their  history,  from,  the  sea-coast,  Israel 
had  come  to  hate  the  life  of  a  sailor  from  which  they  were 
thus  debarred,  and  hence  were  contented  to  settle  amidst  the 
busy  traders  of  Phenicia,  without  attempting,  after  the  first 
failure,  to  dispossess  them.1  ~No  retreat  could  have  promised 
more  safe  retirement,  but  Jesus  was  now  too  universally 
known  to  remain  anywhere  undiscovered,  for  numbers  had 
come  to  Galilee,  even  from  these  very  districts,  to  see  and 
hear  Him. 

His  mission,  during  His  life,  had  been  repeatedly  defined 
by  Himself,  as  only  to  the  lost  sheep  of  the  House  of  Israel. 
That  he  felt  no  narrow  exclusiveness  had  been  already  shown 
by  the  incidents  of  His  journey  through  Samaria,  and  by  the 
prophetic  joy  with  which  He  had  predicted  the  entrance  of 
many  from  the  heathen  world  into  His  New  Society.2  Even 
His  sympathy  with  publicans  and  sinners,  and  with  the  out- 
cast sunken  multitude,  whose  ignorance  of  Rabbinical  pre- 
cepts was  held  to  mark  them  as  accursed  of  God,  had,  in  fact, 
been  as  distinct  protests  against  Pharisaic  bigotry  as  He 
could  have  made  even  by  the  formal  recognition  of  heathen 
as  citizens  of  His  New  Kingdom.  And  had  He  not  proclaimed 
the  supreme  truth  that  God  was  the  great  Father  of  all  man- 
kind, and  that  the  human  race,  round  the  world,  were  brethren 
in  His  great  household  ?  But  pity  for  His  own  nation — 
the  Israel  of  the  Old  Covenant— for  the  time  forbade  His 
going  forth  to  all  races,  with  the  open  invitation  to  join  the 
new  Theocracy.  It  would  at  once  have  sealed  the  fate  of  His 
people  ;  for  what  was  offered  to  the  heathen  would,  from  that 
very  fact,  have  been  instantly  rejected  by  the  fanatical  Jew. 

It  was  vain  for  Him  to  seek  rest.  A  woman  of  the  country, 
by  language  a  Greek,  by  nationality  a  Canaanite,  and  by 
residence  a  Syro-Phenician — for  Phenicia  was  attached  to 
the  Roman  province  of  Syria — perhaps  a  heathen,  but,  in  any 
case,  of  a  humble  religious  heart,  heard  that  He  was  in  the 
neighbourhood.3  His  fame  had  long  before  spread  so  widely, 
that  the  wondrous  cures  He  had  performed  were  everywhere 
known.  Among  others,  this  woman  had  heard  of  them,  and 
maternal  love  was  quick  to  turn  them  to  its  own  unselfish 
account.  She  had  a  daughter  "  grievously  vexed  with  a 
devil,"  and  at  once  came  over  the  border*  to  implore  Jesus 

1  Rosenmilllcr,  vol.  i.  p.  324.     Sepp,  vol.  iv.  p.  104.    Keim,  vol.  ii.  p.  407. 

2  Matt.  viii.  11 ;  xviii.  29. 

8  Matt.  xv.  21-28.  Mark  vii.  24-30.  Paulas,  Leben  Jtsu,  vol.  i.  p,  380, 
Ewald's  Christus,  p.  454.  Hess,  LdenJcsu,  vol.  i.  p  420. 


206  THE   LIFE    OF   CHRIST. 

to  have  mercy  on  her  child.  The  half  belief  that  He  was  tho 
Messiah  had  spread  even  to  Tyre,  and  was  accepted,  in  her 
poor  unenlightened  way,  by  the  supplicant.  He  was  abroad 
with  the  Twelve  when  she  fonnd  Him,  and  forthwith  entreated 
Him — "  Lord,  son  of  David,  have  mercy  on  me."  She  had 
made  her  child's  trouble  her  own.  Such  an  incident,  at  it 
time  when  He  sought  to  remain  unknown,  must  have  been 
very  disturbing,  for  it  might  put  His  enemies  on  His  track. 
From  whatever  cause,  He  took  no  notice  of  her  prayers. 
But  she  would  not  be  denied,  and  persistently  followed  Him 
with  her  wailing  petitions,  as  He  went  along,  till  the  Twelve, 
filled  with  harsh  Jewish  prejudice,  and  mistaking  the  reason 
of  their  Master's  silence,  grew  indignant  at  her  pertinacity, 
and  begged  Him  to  send  her  away  and  stop  her  crying  after 
them.  That  a  foreigner,  and,  above  all,  a  Canaanite,  accursed 
of  God,  should  share  His  mercies,  was,  as  yet,  far  too  liberal 
a  conception  for  them.  Did  not  the  Rabbis  teach  that  the 
race  built  their  houses  in  the  name  of  their  idols,  so  that  evil 
spirits  came  and  dwelt  in  them  ?  l  and  was  not  Beelzebub, 
the  Prince  of  the  Devils,  their  chief  God  ?  The  answer  of 
Jesus  seemed  to  favour  this  bitter  exclusiveness — "  He  was 
not  sent  except  to  the  lost  sheep  of  the  House  of  Israel  !  " 
They  little  knew  that  His  help  was  kept  back  only  in  pity  for 
His  own  nation,  whom  mercy  to  abhorred  unclean  Canaanites 
would  embitter  against  Him  to  their  own  destruction.  It 
was  vain,  however,  to  try  to  weary  out  a  mother's  love. 
Following  Him  into  the  house,  though  He  would  fain  have 
remained  unknown,  she  cast  herself  at  His  feet  and  renewed 
her  prayer.  To  the  Twelve  she  was  only  a  "  dog,"  as  the 
Jews  regarded  all  heathen.2  Veiling  the  tenderness  of  His 
heart  in  affected  roughness  of  speech,  softened,  doubtless,  by 
the  trembling  sympathy  of  His  voice  and  His  gentle  looks, 
He  told  her  that  the  children — Israel,  the  sons  of  God — must 
first  be  fed  before  others  could  be  noticed.  "  It  is  not  right," 
said  He,  "  to  take  the  children's  bread  and  cast  it  to  the 
dogs."  Then,  as  now,  the  traveller,  entering  or  leaving  a 
town  or  village,  had  only  too  much  reason  to  notice  the  troops 
of  lean,  sharp-nosed  masterless  dogs,  which  filled  the  air 
wibh  their  cries  as  he  passed,  and  no  one  could  sit  at  a  meal 
without  the  chance  of  some  of  them  coming  in  at  the  ever- 


1  Eisenmtnger,  vol.  i.  p.  522. 

2  Kisenmemjer,  vol.  i.  p.  716.     Lightfoot,  Hor.  Heb.,  vol.  i.  p.  230. 
Nork,  p.  75. 


JOUENET  TO   C.33SAKEA  PniLIPPI.  207 

open  door  to  pick  up  the  fragments,1*  always  to  be  found 
where  only  the  fingers  were  used  at  table. 

With  a  woman's  quickness,  and  a  mother's  invincible  love, 
deepened  by  irrepressible  trust  in  Him  whose  face  and  tones 
so  contradicted  His  words,  even  this  seeming  harshness  was 
turned  to  a  resistless  appeal.  "  Yes,  Lord,"  said  she  "  it  is 
true:  still  the  dogs  are  allowed  to  eat  the  fragments  that 
fall  from  the  children's  table."  She  had  conquered.  "  O 
woman,"  said  Jesus,  "  great  is  thy  faith;  be  it  unto  thee  as 
thou  wilt."  His  word  was  enough,  and  going  her  way  she 
found,  on  reaching  her  house,  that  her  daughter,  no  longer 
raving,  was  perfectly  cured,  and  lay  calmly  in  bed,  once  more 
herself.0  The  Twelve  had  learned,  at  last,  that  even  heathen 
"  dogs  "  were  not  to  be  sent  away  unheard. 

How  long  Jesus  stayed  in  these  parts  is  unknown.  It 
would  seem  as  if  this  incident  had  forced  Him  to  leave 
sooner  than  He  had  proposed.  He  did  not,  however,  return 
at  once  to  Capernaum,  but  set  out  north-eastwards,  through 
the  territory  of  Sidon,  to  the  country  east  of  Jordan.  The 
Roman  road,  which  ran  over  the  richly  wooded  hills,  almost 
straight  eastward,  from  Tyre  to  Ceesarea  Philippi,  was  too  far 
to  the  south.  He  must  have  taken  the  caravan  road,  which 
still  runs  from  Sidon  on  the  south  side  of  the  mountain 
stream  Bostrenus,  climbing  the  spurs  of  Lebanon,  with  their 
woods  and  noble  mountain  scenery,  till  it  crosses  the  range, 
amidst  peaks  six  thousand  feet  high,  at  the  natural  rock- 
bridge  over  the  deep,  rushing  Leontes.  Turning,  now,  down 
the  valley  of  the  Tipper  Jordan,  under  the  shadow  of  the 
Hermon  range,  rising  9,500  feet  high  in  their  highest  peak, 
He,  erelong,  at  Csesarea  Philippi,  reached  the  open  country, 
with  a  wide  view  of  the  broad  reedy  marshes  of  Ulatha  and 
Merom,  the  hills  of  Galilee,  and  the  wide  uplands  of  Gaulo- 
nitis.  How  long  He  spent  on  the  journey  is  not  told.  Per- 
haps He  stopped  by  the  way,  for  Lebanon  was  full  then,  as 
now,  of  villages ;  perhaps  He  only  passed  through  them  on 
His  journey.  His  final  purpose  by  this  wide  circuit,  was  to 
reach  His  old  haunts  without  going  through  Galilee,  a.nd 
this  brought  Him,  apparently  for  the  first  time,  to  the  w  ide 
territory  of  the  ten  allied  free  cities — the  Decapolis. 

These  cities  were  simply  places  which  the  Jews  had  not 
succeeded  in  re-conquering,  after  their  return  from  Babylon. 
They  had  thus  remained  in  the  hands  of  the  heathen,  though 
in  Palestine ;  had  preserved  distinct  municipal  government, 
and  had  joined  in  a  political  alliance,  offensive  and  defensive. 


208  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

To  the  Jews  they  were  a  continual  offence,  and  they  were 
the  first  to  suffer  from  the  frenzied  fanaticism  of  the  nation 
when  it  rose  in  its  last  great  revolt.  Most  of  them,  full  of 
busy  life,  and  adorned  with  splendid  temples,  baths,  theatres, 
and  public  buildings,  when  Jesus  passed  through  them,  were 
destined,  before  another  generation,  to  perish  by  fire  and 
sword. 

Even  here  the  fame  of  the  great  Teacher  attracted  multi- 
tudes of  Jews  settled  all  over  the  half-foreign  district,  espe- 
cially in  its  towns  and  cities,  and  revived  for  a  time  the 
cheering  scenes  of  the  past.  The  cripple,  the  blind,  the  dumb, 
the  deformed,*1  and  many  others,  variously  afflicted,  were 
either  brought  to  Him,  or  came  ;  till  He  was  once  more  forced, 
as  of  old,  to  retreat  to  the  hills,  in  the  vain  effort  to  secure 
quiet.  The  popular  excitement,  however,  made  rest  impos- 
sible. They  sought  and  found  Him  wherever  He  might  be, 
and  enjoyed  not  only  the  benefits  of  His  supernatural  power, 
but  the  richer  blessings  of  His  teaching.1  Only  one  inci- 
dent is  given  in  detail.2  A  man  had  been  brought  to  Him 
who  was  deaf,  and  could  only  stammer  inarticulately ;  and 
He  was  besought  to  heal  him.  From  some  motive  not  stated, 
He  varied  from  His  usual  course.  Taking  him  aside  from 
the  multitude,  perhaps  to  have  more  freedom,  perhaps  to 
avoid  their  too  great  excitement  and  its  possibly  hurtful 
political  consequences,  He  put  His  fingers  into  the  man's  ears 
and  touched  his  tongue  with  a  finger  moistened  on  His  own 
lips.  It  may  be  that  these  simple  forms  were  intended  to 
waken  faith  in  one  who  could  hear  no  words,  for  without  the 
fitting  spirit,  the  miracle  would  not  have  been  wrought. 
Looking  up  to  heaven,  as  if  to  lift  the  thoughts  of  the  unfor- 
tunate man  to  the  Eternal  Father,  whose  power  alone  could 
heal  him,  Jesus  then,  at  last,  uttered  the  single  word  of  the 
popular  dialect — "  Ephphatha,"  "Be opened" — and  He  was 
perfectly  cured.  An  injunction  to  keep  the  miracle  private 
was  of  no  avail ;  the  whole  country  was  presently  filled  with 
reports  of  it,  and  of  other  similar  wonders. 

The  vast  concourse  attracted  by  such  scenes  may  be  ima- 
gined ; 3  for  in  the  East  especially,  it  is  easy  for  the  popula- 
lation,  with  their  simple  wants,  and  the  mildness  of  the  sky, 
which  in  the  warm  months  invites  sleeping  in  the  open  air 
by  night,  to  camp  out  as  they  think  fit.  But,  as  often 

1  i\:att.  xv.  29-31.  *  Mark  vii.  32-37. 

8  Matt.  xv.  32-38.     Mark  viii.  1-9. 


THE   FEEDING  OF  FOUR   THOUSAND.  209 

happens,  even  in  our  own  day,  with  the  Easter  pilgrims  at 
Jerusalem,  many  found  their  provisions  run  short,  and  as 
in  these  strange  and  motley  crowds  numbers  often  die  of 
want,1  not  a  few  of  those  following  Jesus  might  have  sunk 
by  the  way  before  they  reached  home,  but  for  His  thought- 
ful care.  Once  more  the  crowds  were  caused  to  sit  on  the 
grass,  and  were  fed  from  the  scanty  provision  found  on 
the  spot,  which  was  only  seven  of  the  thin  round  loaves 
of  the  country,  and  a  few  small  dried  fish  from  the  Lake 
of  Galilee.  Four  thousand  men,  besides  women  and  child- 
ren, were  supplied  from  this  scanty  store,  and  seven  baskets9 
of  fragments,  afterwards  gathered,  attested  that  they  had 
suffered  no  stint. 

Leaving  the  eastern  side  of  the  lake,  to  which  His  wan- 
derings had  led  Him,  Jesus  now,  once  more,  crossed  to  the 
neighbourhood  of  Magdala,1  at  the  lower  end  of  the  plain 
of  Gennesareth,  and  close  to  Capernaum.  He  had  scarcely 
reappeared  before  His  enemies  were  once  more  in  motion. 
The  Pharisees  had  already  stifled  their  dislike  of  the  Hero- 
dians,  and  had  formed  an  alliance  with  them,  that  they 
might  the  more  easily  crush  Him.  It  marked  the  growing 
malignity  of  feeling,  that  a  class  fanatically  proud  of  their 
ceremonial  and  moral  purity — a  class  from  whose  midst  had 
sprung  the  Zealots  for  the  Law,  who  abhorred  all  rule  except 
that  of  a  restored  Theocracy — should  have  banded  themselves 
with  a  party  of  moral  indifferentists,  partial  to  monarchy, 
and  guilty  of  flattering  even  the  hated  family  of  Herod. 
But  a  still  more  ominous  sign  of  increasing  danger  showed 
itself  in  even  Sadducees  joining  the  Pharisees  to  make  new 
attempts  to  compromise  Jesus  with  the  authorities. 

The  Sadducees,  few,  but  haughty  and  powerful,  enjoyed  the 
highest  posts  in  the  Jewish  state,  and  represented  the  Law. 
They  were  of  the  priestly  caste,  and  held  the  chief  offices  in 
the  hierarchy.  Their  name  was  perhaps  derived  from  the 
famous  ancient  family  of  Zadok,  of  whom  Ezekiel  speaks  as 
having  the  charge  of  the  altar,  and  as,  alone,  of  the  sons  of 
Levi,  appointed  to  come  before  the  Eternal,  to  serve  Him.2 
Joshua,  the  son  of  Jozedek,  the  comrade  of  Zerubbabel,  was 
of  this  House,  so  that,  both  before  and  after  the  Return,  it 
Reems  to  have  been  the  foremost  among  the  priestly  families. 
In  any  case,  the  Sadducees  of  the  times  of  Josephus  and  the 

1  Tobler's  Topograph.  v.  Jerus.,  vol.  ii.  p.  698. 
3  Ezek.  xl.  46.     Zunz  und  Fiirst'   Bibel. 


210  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

Apostles  not  only  held  the  highest  Temple  offices,  but  repre- 
sented the  purest  Jewish  blood.1 

But  this  priestly  aristocracy  were  by  no  means  the  most 
zealous  for  the  sanctuary  from  which  they  drew  their 
honours  and  wealth.  They  counted  in  their  ancestry  not 
only  high  priests  like  Joshua  and  Simon  the  Just,  but 
traitors  to  their  country  like  Manasseh,*  Menelaus,  and  the 
younger  Onias.  Already,  in  the  time  of  Ezra  and  Nehemiah, 
they  had  given  occasion  for  the  charge  that  the  highest 
officials  had  been  foremost  in  breaking  the  Theocratic  laws, 
and  had  even  sought  to  turn  parts  of  the  Temple  into  a 
splendid  family  mansion.2  They  had  coquetted  and  debased 
their  offices  to  win  favour  with  the  Ptolemies  and  the  Syrian 
kings ;  they  had  held  back,  in  cold,  selfish  woiidliness, 
from  taking  a  vigorous  part  in  the  glorious  Maccabasan 
struggle,  and  now  truckled  to  heathen  procurators,  or  a 
half  heathen  king,  to  preserve  their  honours  and  vested  in- 
terests. To  please  Herod,  they  had  admitted  Simon  Boethus, 
the  Alexandrian,  the  father  of  the  king's  young  wife,  to  the 
high  priesthood,  from  which  a  strict  Jew,  Jesus  the  son  of 
Phabi,  had  been  expelled,  to  make  room  for  him.  They  had 
even  shown  frank  and  hearty  submission  and  loyalty  to 
Rome. 

The  nation,  with  its  chosen  religious  leaders,  the  Pharisees 
— the  representatives  of  the  "  Saints  "  who  had  conquered  in 
the  great  war  of  religious  independence — never  forgot  the 
faint-heartedness  and  treachery  of  the  priestly  nobles  in 
that  magnificent  struggle.  Their  descent  might  secure  them 
hereditary  possession  of  the  dignified  offices  of  the  Church, 
and  there  might  still  be  a  charm  in  their  historical  names ; 
but  they  were  regarded  with  open  distrust  and  aversion 
by  the  nation  and  the  Pharisees  alike,  and  had  to  make 
many  concessions  to  Pharisaic  rules  to  protect  themselves 
from  actual  violence. 

The  strict  fanatical  heads  of  the  synagogue — the  leaders  of 
the  people — and  the  cold  and  polished  Temple  aristocracy, 
were  thus  bitterly  opposed,  and  it  added  to  the  keenness  of 
the  dislike  that  the  dreams  by  the  Rabbinical,  or  Pharisaic 
party,  of  a  restored  Theocracy,  could  only  be  realized  through 
the  existing  organization  of  the  priesthood,  of  which  the  in- 
different Sadducees  had  the  control. 

1  Ant.,  xviii.  3.  4.     Acts  iv.  1-3 ;  v.  17. 
*  Ezra  ix.  2.     Neh.  xiii.  7- 


THE    SADDUCEES.  211 

Theological  hatred,  the  bitterest  of  all  passions,  added  addi- 
tional intensity  to  this  political  opposition.  The  Sadducees 
had  no  inclination  to  be  taught  their  duty  by  the  Rabbis  of 
village  synagogues,  and  rejected  the  whole  body  of  Pharisaic 
tradition  and  jurisprudence,  taking  for  their  only  authority 
the  written  Law  of  Moses,  though  to  this  were  generally 
added  some  traditions  of  their  own.  As  the  highest  dig- 
nitaries of  the  Theocracy,  and  members  of  families  which 
had  officiated  in  the  Temple  of  Solomon  itself,  they  disdained 
to  be  taught  what  was  lawful  in  Israel,  or  to  accept  the  hair- 
splitting refinements  of  the  democratic  and  puritan  Pharisees. 
To  the  constantly  increasing  decisions  and  requirements  of 
the  Rabbis,  they  stolidly  opposed  the  venerable  letter  of  the 
ancient  Law.  That  their  creed  was  cold  and  rationalistic, 
compared  to  that  of  the  Rabbis,  was,  perhaps,  the  result  of 
this  attitude,  but  was  not  its  cause.  The  instinctive  conser- 
vatism of  "  the  first  in  rank,"  inevitably  took  its  stand  on 
the  original  documents  of  the  Law  in  opposition  to  the  heated 
exaggerations  of  the  plebeian  schoolmen.  Both  sides  vaunted 
their  orthodoxy.1  The  Sadducees  were  as  deeply  committed 
to  support  the  Theocracy  as  their  popular  rivals,  for  it  was 
the  basis  of  their  dignities,  their  wealth,  and  even  their 
existence.  Fierce  controversies,  often  culminating  in  blood- 
shed, marked  the  equal  devotion  of  both  to  their  respective 
opinions,  and  these  opinions  themselves  illustrated  the  position 
of  the  two  parties.  The  Sadducees  uniformly  fell  back  on 
the  letter  of  the  Law,  the  prescriptive  rights  of  the  Temple, 
and  the  glory  of  the  priesthood  ;  the  Pharisees,  on  the  other 
hand,  not  only  maintained  the  authority  of  the  Rabbinical 
traditions,  the  value  of  sacred  acts  apart  from  the  interposi- 
tion of  the  priest,  but  advocated  popular  interests  generally. 
The  contrast  between  the  spirit  of  the  two  parties  showed 
itself  prominently  in  the  harsh  tenacity  with  which  the 
Temple  aristocracy  held  to  the  letter  of  the  Mosaic  Law  in 
its  penalties,  as  opposed  to  the  milder  spirit  in  which  the 
Pharisees  interpreted  them,  in  accordance  with  the  spirit  of 
the  times.  The  Pharisees,  for  example,  explained  the  Mosaic 
demand — an  eye  for  an  eye  and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth  2 — meta- 
phorically, and  allowed  recompense  to  be  made  in  money, 
but  their  rivals  insisted  on  exact  compliance.  The  Sad- 
ducees required  that  the  widow  should  literally  spit  in  the 
face  of  the  brother-in-law  who  refused  her  the  Levirate  mar- 

l  Ant.,  xvii.  2.  4;  xviii.  1.  4.  2  Deut.  xxii.  24. 


212  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

riage  rights,1  but  it  was  enough  for  the  Pharisees  that  she 
spat  on  the  ground  before  him.  The  Pharisees  permitted 
the  carcass  of  a  beast  that  had  died2  to  be  used  for  any 
other  purpose  than  food,  to  save  loss  to  the  owner,  but  the 
Sadducees  denounced  the  penalties  of  uncleanness  on  so  lax 
a  practice.  They  sternly  required  a  false  witness  to  be 
pat  to  death,  according  to  the  letter  of  the  Law,  even  ii  his 
testimony  had  done  the  accused  no  injury,  and  many  did 
not  even  shrink  from  carrying  out  the  reasoning  of  the 
Rabbis,  that,  as  two  witnesses  were  always  required  to  con- 
demn the  accused,  both  witnesses  should  always  be  executed 
when  any  perjury  had  been  committed  in  the  case.3 

This  blind  insistance  on  the  letter  of  laws  which  ages  had 
made  obsolete,  fixed  on  the  Sadducees  the  name  of  "  The 
Condemning  Judges,"  and  Josephus  testifies  that  they  were 
more  ruthless  in  their  judicial  decisions  than  any  other 
Jews.4  The  Pharisees,  on  the  other  hand,  had  for  their 
axiom  the  saying  of  Joshua  Ben  Perachia — "  Judge  every- 
thing on  the  presumption  of  innocence  ;  "  or  that  of  Hillel — 
"  Put  yourself  in  your  neighbour's  place  before  you  judge 
him."  Hence,  a  prisoner  congratulated  himself  when  he 
saw  on  his  judges,  opposite  him,  the  broad  phylactery  of  the 
Pharisee,  and  not  the  white  robe  of  the  priestly  Sadducee. 
Both  our  Lord  and  St.  Paul  had  the  multitude  stirred  up 
against  them  by  the  Pharisees,  but  they  were  condemned 
by  Sadducee  judges,  and  it  was  Sadducee  judges  who  mur- 
dered St.  James.5 

This  relentless  ferocity  of  priestly  Houses,  who  rested  on 
the  favour  of  the  rich  and  titled  few,  was  dictated  only  by 
the  class  interests  of  the  Temple  nobility,  whose  claims  ai>d 
privileges  could  not  be  justified  except  by  the  blind  main- 
tenance of  things  as  they  were.  Resolute  unyielding  immo- 
bility was  their  only  safety ;  the  least  innovation  seemed  an 
omen  of  revolution. 

But  there  were  even  deeper  grounds  of  dislike  and  oppo- 
sition. The  Pharisees,  as  the  hereditary  representatives  of 
Puritans  who  had  delivered  the  nation  in  the  great  struggle 
against  Syria,  looked  forward  with  touching  though  fana- 
tical yearning,  to  the  realization  of  the  prophecies  of  Daniel, 
which,  as  they  understood  them,  promised  that  Israel,  under 

1  Dent.  xxv.  9.  2  Lev.  vii.  24. 

3  Gratz,  Gesch.  d.  Jud.,  2  Auf.  vol.  iii.  p.  459.  4  Ant.,  xx.  9.  L 

'  Derenbourp,  p.  200.     Eenan,  Vie  de  Jesus,  p.  46. 


SADDUCEAN   THEOLOGY.  213 

the  Messiah,  and  with  it,  themselves,  should  be  raised  "  to 
dominion,  and  glory,  and  a  kingdom ;  that  all  peoples, 
nations,  and  languages  should  serve  Him,  and  that  His 
kingdom  should  be  everlasting."  1  They  believed  that  this 
national  triumph  would  be  inaugurated  so  soon  as  Israel,  on 
its  part,  carried  out  to  the  full  the  requirements  of  the 
ceremonial  law,  as  expounded  in  their  traditions.  It  was  a 
matter  of  formal  covenant,  in  which  the  truth  and  righteous- 
ness— that  is,  the  justice,  of  Jehovah  were  involved.  The 
morals  they  demanded  might  be  only  mechanical,  and  their 
observances  a  mere  slavery  to  rites  and  forms  ;  but  they  be- 
lieved that  if  they  fulfilled  their  part,  God  must  needs  fulfil 
His,  and  they  strove  hard  to  make  the  nation,  like  them- 
selves, "  blameless,"  touching  this  righteousness  ;  2  that  they 
might  claim  Divine  interposition  as  a  right.  The  zeal  of  the 
Pharisee  for  the  Law  was,  thus,  a  mere  hired  service,  with 
all  the  restlessness,  exaggeration,  emulation,  and  moral 
impurity,  inseparable  from  a  mercenary  spirit. 

To  this  dream  of  the  future,  the  Sadducees  opposed  a  stolid 
and  contemptuous  indifference.  Enjoying  the  honours  and 
good  things  of  the  world,  they  had  no  taste  for  a  revolution 
which  should  introduce,  they  knew  not  what,  in  the  place  of 
a  state  of  things  with  which  they  were  quite  contented. 
Their  fathers  had  had  no  such  ideas,  and  the  sons  ridiculed 
them.  They  not  only  laughed  aside  the  Pharisaic  notion  of 
righteousness,  as  identified  with  a  life  of  minute  and  endless 
observance,  but  fell  back  on  the  Mosaic  Law,  and  mocked 
at  the  Messianic  hope  from  which  the  zeal  of  their  rivals  had 
sprung.  "  The  Sadducees,"  says  Josephus,  "  believe  that  the 
soul  dies  with  the  body,  and  recognise  no  authority  but  that 
of  the  Law.3  Good  was  to  be  done  for  its  own  sake,  not  for 
reward  in  the  Messianic  kingdom,  or  at  the  resurrection  of 
the  dead."  "The  Sadducees,"  says  Rabbi  Nathan,4  "use 
daily,  vessels  of  gold  and  silver,  not  for  pride,  but  because 
the  Pharisees  torment  themselves  in  this  life,  though  they 
will  have  nothing  in  the  next."  h  As  to  the  world  to  come, 
they  left  it  doubtful,  maintaining,  in  opposition  to  the  Phari- 
sees, if  the  words  in  the  Talmud  be  not  an  interpolation,  that 
it  could  not  be  proved  from  the  Books  of  Moses.5  They  even 
went  the  length  of  inventing  diffictilties  which  they  supposed 
involved  in  the  resurrection  of  the  dead.6  "  They  believe 

1  Dan.  vii.  14.  J  Phil.  iii.  6.  3  Ant.,  xviii.  1.  4. 

*  Geiger,  Urschrift,  p.  105,  note.  '  Derenbourg,  p.  131. 

•  Matt.  xxii.  23. 


214  THE   LIFE   OF   CHBIST. 

neither  in  the  resurrection,  nor  in  angel,  nor  spirit,  but  the 
Pharisees  confess  both,"  says  St.  Luke.1 

To  all  this  was  added  the  embittennent  of  opposite  views 
on  the  great  subject  of  human  freedom  and  Divine  fore- 
knowledge. Like  all  puritans,  the  Pharisees  exalted  the 
latter  though  they  did  not  deny  the  former.  They  had 
a  profound  belief  in  Providence,  understanding  by  it  that 
they  themselves  were  the  favourites  of  Jehovah,  and  could 
count  on  His  taking  their  side.  "  The  Sadducees,"  says 
Josephus,  "  maintain  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  pre- 
destination, and  deny  that  human  affairs  are  regulated  by 
it,  maintaining  that  our  destiny  rests  with  ourselves ;  that 
we  are  the  cause  of  our  own  good  fortune,  and  bring  evil  on 
us  by  our  own  folly."  3  They  were,  in  fact,  mere  men  of  the 
world,  believing  only  in  the  present ;  the  Pharisees  were 
mystics,  to  whom  the  future  and  the  supernatural  were  all- 
important. 

The  nation  zealously  supported  the  Pharisees.  The  spirit 
of  the  age  was  against  the  Sadducees.  The  multitude  dis- 
liked to  hear  that  what  the  Maccabaeans  had  defended  with 
their  blood  was  uncanonical.  They  yielded  cheerfully  to  the 
heavy  yoke  of  the  Pharisaic  Rabbis,  for,  the  more  burden- 
some the  duties  required,  the  greater  the  future  reward  for 
performance.  The  Pharisees,  moreover,  were  part  of  the 
people,  mingled  habitually  with  them  as  their  spiritual 
guides,  and  were  the  examples  of  exact  obedience  to  their 
own  precepts.  Their  Messianic  dreams  were  of  national 
glory,  and  thus  the  crowd  saw  in  them  the  representatives 
of  their  own  fondest  aspirations.  The  Sadducees — isolated, 
haughty,  harsh,  and  unnational — were  hated;  their  rivals 
honoured  and  followed.  The  extravagances  and  the  hypo- 
crisy of  some  might  be  ridiculed,  but  they  were  the  accepted 
popular  leaders.3 

Indeed,  apart  from  all  other  considerations,  the  fact  that 
the  Sadducees  supported  zealously  every  government  in 
turn,  was  enough  to  set  the  people  against  them.  Instead 
of  this,  the  Pharisees  shared  and  fostered  the  patriotic  and 
religious  abhorrence  of  the  Roman  supremacy,  and  were 
sworn  enemies  of  the  hated  Herodian  family.  The  result 
was  that,  in  the  words  of  Josephus,  "  the  Pharisees  had  such 

1  Acts  xxiii.  8.  2  Ant ,  xiii.  5.  9. 

8  Hausrath,  vol.  i.  pp.  117-132.  Dtrenbourg,  pp.  127-139,  157-200, 
108,  104.  H.rzuy,  vol.  xii.  p.  475. 


SNAKES.  215 

an  influence  with,  the  people,  that  nothing  could  be  done 
about  Divine  worship,  prayers,  or  sacrifices,1  except  accord- 
ing to  their  wishes  and  rules,  for  the  community  believed 
they  sought  only  the  loftiest  and  worthiest  aims  alike  in 
word  and  deed.  The  Sadducees  were  few  in  number  ;  and 
though  they  belonged  to  the  highest  ranks,  had.  so  little 
influence,  that  when  elected  to  office,  they  were  forced  to 
comply  with  the  ritual  of  the  Pharisees  from  fear  of  the 
people." 

There  were,  doubtless,  many  priests  who  were  not  Sad- 
ducees— men  serving  God  humbly ;  devoted  to  their  sacred 
duties,  and  living  in  full  sympathy  of  thought  and  life  with 
the  Pharisees.2  In  the  disputes  with  Jesus,  we  may  be 
sure  that  many  such  Pharisaic  priests — the  great  company, 
perhaps,  who,  within  a  short  time  after  His  death,  became 
"  obedient  to  the  Faith  "s — took  no  part  in  the  fierce  ma", 
of  their  brethren.  But  now,  for  the  first  time,  the  Sad"- 
ducees — haughty  clerical  aristocrats  of  the  Temple — joined 
with  the  hated  vulgar  Pharisees  of  the  synagogue  to  accom- 
plish the  destruction  oi  the  new  Teacher.  It  was  the  most 
ominous  sign  of  the  beginning  of  the  end  that  had  yet 
appeared. 

Eager  for  a  fresh  dispute,  the  strange  allies,  very  likely 
fresh  from  Jerusalem,  no  sooner  found  that  He  had  returned, 
than  they  sallied  forth4  to  open  a  discussion.  ''  You  claim," 
said  they,  ''to  be  a  teacher  come  from  Grod,  and  have  | 
many  '  signs  '  that  you  are  so  in  the  miracles  you  have  per- 
formed. But  all  these  signs  have  been  untrustworthy,  for 
we  know  that  the  earth  and  even  the  air  is  filled  with 
demons.  It  is  quite  possible  that  the  prince  of  the  devils,  to 
deceive  men  into  supporting  your  claims,  may  have  given  you 
power  for  a  time  over  these  demons,  and  thus  all  that  yon 
have  done  may  be  only  a  dark  plot  to  ruin  ns.  The 
Egyptian  magicians  did  miracles,  but  our  fathers  refused  to 
believe  even  many  of  the  wonders  wrought  by  Moses",  for  they 
might  have  been  achieved  only  by  magic  and  incantations.5 
A  sign  from  heaven,  however,  is  different.  It  is  beyond  the 
power  of  devils  :  *  they  can  neither  shine  like  the  sun,  nor 
give  light,  like  the  moon,  nor  give  rain  unto  men.'  6  Our 
Rabbis  tell  us  that  when  the  King-Messias  comes,  and  the 

1  Ant.,  iviii.  1.  3,  4.  8  Derenlour.\  p.  121. 

*  Acts  vi.  7.  4  Mark  vi: 

6  Maimonides,  in  Sfpp,  vol.  v.  p.  iV2.  •  Barach  vi.  53.  66. 

- 


216  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

great  war  between  Gog  and  Magog  begins,  signs  from  heaven 
will  appear.1  We  are  not  to  expect  Him  till  a  rainbow  has 
spanned  the  world  and  filled  it  with  light.2  Give  us  bread 
from  heaven,  as  Moses  did ;  or  signs  in  the  sun  and  moon,  like 
Joshna ;  or  call  down  thunder  and  hail,  like  Samuel ;  or  fire 
and  rain,  like  Elijah  ;  or  make  the  sun  turn  back,  like  IsaiaL  ; 
or  lot  us  hear  the  Bath  Kol  which  came  to  Simon  the  Just — 
that  we  may  believe  you."  3 

But  Jesus  knew  the  men  with  whom  he  had  to  do,  and 
would  hold  as  little  communication  with  them  as  possible. 
The  tempter  had  long  before  urged  Him  to  make  a  vain  dis- 
play of  His  supernatural  power  in  support  of  His  claims ;  but 
as  it  was  monstrous  that  miracles  should  be  thrown  away  on 
the  prince  of  darkness,  or  wrought  at  his  will,  it  was  no  less 
so  to  work  them  at  the  bidding  of  men  filled  with  his  spirit. 
The  worth  of  proof  depends  on  the  openness  to  conviction. 
He  had  already  said  that  to  cast  pearls  before  wild  swine  was 
only  to  invite  them  to  turn  and  rend  you.  No  "  sign  "  could 
avail  where  there  was  no  sympathy.  The  truth  He  came  to 
proclaim  appealed  to  the  heart,  and  must  be  its  own  evidence, 
winning  its  way,  by  its  own  Divine  beauty,  into  humble  and 
ready  breasts.  External  proofs  could  only  establish  external 
facts. 

With  biting  irony  He  turned  on  them  in  a  few  brief  incisive 
sentences.  "  How  is  it  that  ye,  who  are  so  skilled  in  the 
signs  of  the  heavens,  are  so  dull  to  read  those  around  you  ? 
You  watch  the  sky,  and  talk  of  signs  in  it.  In  the  evening 
you  say,  '  Fair  weather,  for  the  sky  is  red ; '  and  in  the  morn- 
ing, '  Foul  weather  to-day,  for  the  sky  is  red  and  lowering.' 
When  yon  see  a  cloud  rising  in  the  west,  you  say,  '  There 
comes  a  shower  ; '  when  you  see  a  south  wind  blowing,  you  say 
'  There  will  be  heat.'  4l  You  pretend  to  tell,  by  the  way  the 
Bmoke  blows  on  the  last  evening  of  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles, 
what  weather  there  will  be  for  the  year.  If  it  turn  north- 
ward, you  say  there  will  be  much  rain,  and  the  poor  will 
rejoice  ;  if  it  turn  south,  you  say  that  the  rich  will  rejoice  and 
the  poor  mourn,  for  there  will  be  little  rain ;  if  it  turn  east- 
ward, all  will  rejoice  ;  if  westward,  all  mourn.5  If  God  have 
been  so  gracious  to  men  as  to  give  signs  of  fair  weather,  of 

1  Talnrnd,  Sabbat.,  f.  139.  1.  s  Sohar,  Gen.,  f.  53.  2. 

•  Rosenmuller,  vol.  i.  p.  328.      Paulns,  vol.  ii.  p.  328.      Sepp,  vol.  v.  p. 
65.     Lightfoot,  Hor.  Heb.,  vol.  ii  pp.  231,  421. 

4  Matt.  xvi.  1-4.     Luke  xii.  54-57 

•  Lightfoot,  Hor.  Heb.,  vol.  ii.  p.  231. 


SIGNS   OF  THE   TIMES.  217 

wind,  and  of  rain,  how  much  more  must  He  have  given  signs 
of  the  near  approach  of  the  Messiah  ?  You  are  diligent  to 
excess  in  studying  the  sky,  but  you  ask  signs  of  my  being 
the  Messiah,  as  if  none  had  been  given,  when  many  unmis- 
takable ones  invite  you  in  your  own  Scriptures,  in  the  events 
of  the  day,  the  preaching  of  John,  and  in  my  own  miracles, 
teaching,  and  life.1  An  evil  and  adulterous  generation  seeks 
after  a  sign  of  the  approach  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  of  its  own 
choosing,  while  it  is  blind  to  those  around  it,  that  the  Messiah 
must  come,  if  the  nation  is  not  to  perish.  I  will  give  you  no 
sign  but  that  of  the  prophet  Jonah ;  for  as  the  warning  of  his 
words  was  the  only  one  given  to  the  Ninevites,  my  preaching 
will  be  the  only  sign  given  to  you.  It  is  its  own  evidence. 
Apart  from  my  miracles,  my  life  and  the  Divine  and  heavenly 
truth  I  preach,  are  sufficient  proof  that  I  am  sent  by  God. 
Hereafter,  indeed,  Jonah  will  become  a  sign  in  another  sense  ; 
for  as  He  was  three  days  and  three  nights  in  the  whale's 
belly,  so  I,  when  put  to  death,  shall  be  the  same  time  in  the 
grave." 

So  saying,  He  left  them.  It  was  clearly  unsafe  to  stay  in 
their  neighbourhood.  Henceforth  He  could  only  lead  a 
fugitive  outlawed  life,  and  with  a  deep  sigh  at  the  hopeless- 
ness of  winning  over  men  blinded  by  prejudice  and  hardened 
in  heart,  He  entered  the  boat  once  more  and  crossed  the 
lake  to  the  lonely  and  secure  eastern  side. 

1  RoBenmiiller's  Scholia  on  New  Test.,  vol.  i.  p.  329. 


CHAPTER  XLVL 
IN  FLIGHT  ONCE  MOEE. 

r  I  THE  renewed  attempt  to  involve  Jesus  in  a 
-*-  dispute  had  failed.  He  had  not  made  an  ostentations 
display  of  supernatural  power  at  the  bidding  of  His  enemies, 
but  had  tnrned  sharply  on  them,  and  had  left  them  discom- 
fited before  the  multitude.  They  had  hoped  to  have  depre- 
ciated Him,  as  a  mere  unauthorized  intruder  into  the  office 
of  Rabbi,  and  to  have  had  an  easy  triumph,  but  His  modest, 
yet  dignified  and  keen  retort,  had  put  them  to  shame.  Their 
bitterness  against  One,  now  hated  and  feared  more  than  ever, 
was  so  much  the  greater. 

His  departure  that  autumn  evening  might  well  have  sad- 
dened His  heart.  It  was  His  final  rejection  on  the  very  spot 
where  He  had  laboured  most,  and  He  was  leaving  it,  to 
retum  indeed,  for  a  passing  visit,  but  never  to  appear  again 
publicly,  or  to  teach  or  work  miracles.  As  the  boat  swept 
out  into  the  lake,  and  the  whole  scene  opened  before  Him — 
the  white  beach,  the  green  plain,  the  wooded  hills  behind, 
the  white  houses  reflected  in  the  water,  and  over  them  the 
stately  synagogue,  in  which  He  had  taught  so  often  and  done 
such  mighty  acts — it  was  no  wonder  that  He  sighed  deeply 
in  spirit,  borne  down  by  the  thought  of  the  darkened  mind, 
the  perverted  conscience,  and  the  stony  heart  that  had  re- 
jected the  things  of  their  peace. 

Sitting  in  the  boat  amidst  His  disciples  He  was  still 
full  of  such  thoughts.  They  had  heard  His  words  to  His 
enemies,  but  they  did  not  seem  to  have  realized  all  the  danger 
implied  in  the  incident.  Many  had  been  led  away  from 
Him  by  the  deceitful  slanders,  or  specious  arguments,  of  the 
hierarchical  party,  and  it  was  well  that  they  should  be  put 
on  their  guard. 

"  Take  heed,  beware,"  said  He  solemnly,  "  of  the  leaven  of 
the  Pharisees  and  Sadducees,  and  of  the  party  of  Herod."  l 

1  Matt.  xvi.  6-12.     Mark  viii.  14-21. 


THE   DULNESS   OF  THE  DISCIPLES.  219 

It  so  happened,  however,  that  in  their  hurried  flight,  having 
had  no  time  to  lay  in  provisions,  there  was  only  one  loaf  in 
the  boat,  and  with  the  childishness  of  uneducated  minds,  they 
at  once  fancied  He  referred  to  their  having  come  without 
bread.  At  the  well  of  Samaria  they  had  thought  he  referred 
to  common  food  when  He  spoke  of  the  meat  of  the  soul ; 
they  had  been  as  dull  in  catching  the  metaphor  of  His  flesh 
being  the  bread  of  life,  and  hereafter  they  were  to  think  only 
of  natural  rest  when  he  spoke  of  the  dead  Lazarus  as  sleep- 
ing. Reflection,  like  continuity  of  thought,  comes  only  with 
mental  training.  The  uncultured  mind,  whether  old  or 
young,  learns  slowly.  They  might  have  remembered,  from 
the  twice  repeated  miraculous  feedings  of  the  multitude,  that 
it  was  indifferent  how  little  they  had  with  them  when  their 
Master  was  in  their  midst,  but  it  needs  a  thoughtfulness  and 
depth  beyond  that  of  average  fishermen  and  peasants,  such 
as  they  were,  to  reason  and  reflect.  "  He  tells  us,"  they 
whispered,  "  that  if  we  buy  bread  from  a  Pharisee  or  a  Sad- 
ducee,  the  bread  would  defile  us,  as  it  would  if  we  bought  it 
from  a  Samaritan." l  So  rude  was  the  spiritual  material 
from  which  Jesus  had  to  create  the  founders  of  Christianity ! 

"  O  ye  of  little  faith,"  interrupted  He,  "  why  do  ye  reason 
among  yourselves  because  ye  have  no  loaves  ?  Are  your 
hearts  hardened  that  you  cannot  understand  ?  Have  you 
forgotten  when  I  broke  the  five  loaves  among  the  five  thou- 
sand, and  the  seven  among  the  four  thousand,  how  many 
baskets  and  wallets  full  of  fragments  ye  took  up  ?  How 
could  you  think  you  would  ever  want  after  that,  whether  we 
had  bread  with  us  or  not  ?  Do  you  not  see  that  when  I 
spoke  of  leaven  I  was  thinking  not  of  loaves  but  of  instruc- 
tion ?  Beware  of  the  teaching  of  the  Pharisees,  Sadducees, 
and  Herodians,2  about  me  or  about  religion.  They  would 
gladly  fill  your  minds  with  slanders  and  misleading  fancies  ; 
draw  you  away  from  me,  and  corrupt  your  hearts  by  their 
superstition  and  religious  acting,  and  self-righteous  pride,  or 
by  their  worldliness  and  unbelief." 

The  course  of  the  boat  was  directed  to  the  head  of  the 
lake,  to  Bethsaida,  newly  re-named  Julias  by  the  tetrarch 
Philip,  in  honour  of  the  daughter  of  Augustus,  his  patrou. 
The  old  name  of  the  village  had  not  yet,  however,  been  lost. 

1  Eosenmiiiler's  Scholia  on  New  Test.,  vol.  i.  p.  331.      Hor.  Heb.,  vol. 
ii.  p.  233.     Bnxtorf.  Syn  Jud.,  p.  401. 

2  Wieseler's  Beitragc,  p.  124.     Gcdwyn's  Aaron  and  Moses,  p.  61. 


220  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

It  was  on  the  route  to  the  district  to  which  Jesus  was  hurry- 
ing, and  might  well  have  detained  Him  as  a  resting  place 
tinder  other  circumstances.  Lying  on  the  green  hill  above 
the  plain  of  Batiha — the  scene  of  the  miraculous  feeding — it 
overlooked,  at  a  short  distance,  the  entrance  of  the  Jordan 
into  the  lake.  To  the  west  stretched  the  wide  tract  of  black 
basalt,  rough  and  barren,  reaching  from  the  marshes  of 
Jordan — dotted  with  buffaloes  luxuriating  in  the  mire — to 
Chorazin  and  Capernaum.  To  the  south  rose  the  bare  table- 
land on  the  east  of  the  lake,  and  the  town  itself,  boasting  the 
splendid  tomb  just  built  by  Philip,  for  his  own  use,  was  not 
wanting  in  beauty.1  But  Jesus  had  no  leisure  to  stay,  nor 
was  there  an  inducement  in  any  kindly  bearing  of  the  popu- 
lation towards  Him.  He  had  often  taught  in  their  streets 
and  synagogue,  and  had  lived  in  their  houses,2  and  done 
many  mighty  works  before  them,  yet,  like  the  people  of 
Chorazin  and  Capernaum,  they  had  listened  to  their  Rabbis 
rather  than  to  Him,  and  had  refused  to  repent.  There  still, 
however,  were  some  who  had  better  thoughts,  and  these, 
seeing  Him  enter  the  town,  hurriedly  brought  a  blind  man, 
that  He  might  touch  and  heal  him.  Even  in  a  place  that 
would  not  hear  Him,  His  tender  heart  could  not  withhold  its 
pity.  It  would  have  attracted  notice  when  it  was  most  to 
be  avoided  had  He  healed  the  sufferer  in  the  public  street, 
and,  therefore,  taking  him  by  the  hand,  he  led  him  into  the 
fields  outside.  The  cure  might  have  been  wrought  by  a  word, 
but  He  chose  to  use  the  same  simple  form  as  in  the  case  of  the 
dumb  man  in  the  Decapolis.  Touching  the  blind  eyes  with 
His  moistened  finger,  perhaps  to  arrest  the  wandering 
thoughts  and  predispose  him  to  trust  in  the  Healer,  He  asked 
the  blind  man  "  if  he  saw  aught  ?  "  The  supernatural  power 
of  the  touch  had  had  due  effect.  With  upturned  eyes,  the 
hitherto  blind  could  see  indistinctly.  Men  moved  before  him, 
in  undefined  haze,  like  trees.*  The  partial  cure  must  have 
strengthened  his  faith,  and  thus  prepared  him  for  perfect 
restoration.  Another  touch  and  he  could  see  clearly,  far  and 
near.3  "  Go  to  your  home,"  said  Jesus,  "  without  returning 
to  the  town,  and  tell  no  one  about  it."  b  The  less  publicity 
given  to  His  acts  or  words,  the  safer  for  Christ. 

The  retreat  to  which  Jesus  was  making  was  the  town  of 
Caesarea  Philippi.      It  lay  on  the  north-east  of   the  reedy 

1  Thomson  Land  and  Book,  p.  360,     Eohr's  PaJrstina,  p.  126. 
1  Luke  xiii.  26.     Matt.  xii.  21.     Mark  viii.  22-26.          3  rrj\avyus. 


CHEIST  AT   CJ3SABEA  PHILIPPI.  221 

and  marshy  plain  of  El  Huleh.  It  was  close  to  Dan,  the 
extreme  north  of  the  bounds  of  ancient  Israel,  as  Beersheba 
was  the  extreme  south.  Almost  on  a  line  with  Tyre,  it  was 
thus,  far  out  of  the  reach  of  the  Rabbis  and  High  Priests.  A 
town,  Baal-Gad — named  from  the  Canaanite  god  of  fortune 
• — had  occupied  the  site  from  immemorial  antiquity ;  but 
Philip  having  rebuilt  it  splendidly,  three  years  before  Christ's 
birth,  had  called  it  Caesarea,  in  honour  of  Augustus,  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  prevailing  flattery  of  the  Emperor.  It 
had  been  the  pleasure  of  his  peaceful  reign  to  adorn  it  with 
altars,  votive  images,  and  statues,1  and  his  own  name  had 
been  added  by  the  people,  to  distinguish  it  from  the  Caesarea 
on  the  sea-coast.2  Nineteen  years  before  Christ's  birth, 
Herod  the  Great,  Philip's  father,  in  grateful  acknowledg- 
ment of  the  gift  of  the  districts  of  Panias  and  Ulatha, 
adorned  the  spot  with  a  grand  temple  of  white  marble, 
dedicated  to  the  Emperor,  who,  while  still  alive,  was  thus 
deified  by  the  king  of  the  Jews.  The  worship  of  the  shepherd 
god  Pan,  to  whom  a  cave  out  of  which  burst  the  waters  of 
the  Jordan,  was  sacred,  had  given  its  second  name,  Panias 
— now,  Banias —  to  the  place.  It  was  one  of  the  loveliest 
spots  in  the  Holy  Land,  built  on  a  terrace  of  rock,  part  of 
the  range  of  Hermon,  which  rose  behind  it  seven  or  eight 
thousand  feet.  Countless  streams  murmured  down  the 
slopes,  amidst  a  unique  richness  and  variety  of  flower,  and 
shrub,  and  tree.  The  chief  source  of  the  Jordan  still  bursts 
in  a  full  silver-clear  stream  from  a  bottomless  depth  of 
water,  in  the  old  cave  of  Pan,  at  the  foot  of  the  mountain, 
beneath  a  high  perpendicular  wall  of  rock,  adorned  with 
niches  once  filled  with  marble  Naiads  of  the  stream  and 
Satyrs  of  the  woods,  and  with  countless  votive  tablets  ;  but 
now  strewn  round  with  the  ruins  of  the  ancient  temple  of  the 
god.  Thick  woods  still  shade  the  channel  of  the  young 
river.  Oaks  and  olive  groves  alternate  with  pastures  and 
fields  of  grain,  and  high  over  all  rises  the  old  castle  of  Banias, 
perhaps  the  "  Tower  of  Lebanon  that  looketh  towards 
Damascus,"  of  the  Song  of  Solomon.3 

To  this  scene  Jesus  had  now  come,  and  might  have  found 
in  -the  beauty  of  nature  a  balm  for  His  tired  and  stricken 
heart,  had  he  been  free  to  think  of  such  outward  charms. 

1  Ant.,  xv.  10.  3.      Bell.  Jud.,  i.  21.  3  ;  iii.  10.  7.     Vita,  13.       Benan, 
chap.  viii. 

2  Rohr,  p.  183.     Thomson,  p.  228.     Furrer,  p.  362. 

3  Song  of  Sol.  vii.  4. 


222  THE   LIFE    OF   CHKIST. 

From  the  hill  on  which  the  town  stood — one  of  the  lower 
spurs  of  Hermon — the  view  ranged  over  all  northern 
Palestine,  from  the  plains  of  Phenicia  to  the  hills  of  Samaria. 
In  the  north-west  rose  the  dark  gigantic  mountain  foims  of 
Lebanon ;  to  the  south  stretched  out  the  rich  table-k»nd  of 
the  Hauran.  From  Hermon,  not  from  Zion,  or  the  Mount  of 
Olives,  one  beholds  "  the  good  land,  the  land  of  brooks,  of 
waters,  of  fountains,  of  depths  that  spring  out  of  the  valleys 
and  hills  ;  a  land  of  wheat  and  barley,  and  vines,  and  fig-trees, 
and  pomegranates ;  a  land  of  oil  olive  and  honey." 1  Far 
and  near  the  surpassingly  fruitful  landscape  was  watered  by 
sparkling  brooks  flowing  into  the  main  stream  of  Jordan, 
here  only  twenty  steps  broad.  So  far  back  as  the  days  of 
the  Judges,  the  children  of  Dan,  wandering  hither  from  the 
south,  had  found  it  wanting  in  nothing  that  earth  could  give. 
Wheat  fields  alternated  with  fields  of  barley,  maize,  sesame, 
and  rice,  olive  orchards,  meadows,  and  flowery  pastures— the 
delight  of  countless  bees ;  and  the  slopes  were  covered  with 
woods,  vocal  with  the  songs  of  birds. 

But  even  Jesus  had  few  thoughts,  at  such  a  time,  for  mere 
rural  glories.  He  was  a  fugitive  and  outlaw,  rejected  by 
the  nation  He  had  come  to  redeem  ;  safe  only  because  He  was 
outside  the  bounds  of  Israel,  in  a  heathen  region.  It  was 
clear  that  His  public  work  was  virtually  over,  for  even  in 
Galilee,  where  multitudes  had  followed  Him,  His  popularity 
had  waned  under  the  calumnies  of  the  Rabbis,  and  His  steady 
refusal  to  sanction  the  popular  conception  of  the  Messiah. 
From  the  moment  they  had  seen  that  He  sought  only  spiritual 
aims,  and  was  not  a  second  Judas  the  Galilean,  they  had 
gone  back  to  their  own  teachers,  who  favoured  the  national 
views,  and  instead  of  demanding  repentance  and  a  new  life, 
recognised  their  race  as  the  favourites  of  Jehovah,  and  the 
predestined  heirs  of  the  Messiah's  Kingdom.  The  death  of 
the  Baptist  foretold  Christ's  own  fate.  The  crisis  of  His  life 
had  come.  If  He  had  won  few  true  followers,  He  had 
securely  i'ounded  the  New  Kingdom  of  God.  It  might  indeed, 
as  yet,  be  but  a  seed  in  the  great  field  of  the  world,  or  a 
speck  of  leaven  in  the  vast  mass  of  humanity  ;  but  the  seed 
would  multiply  itself  to  the  ends  of  the  earth,  and  the  leaven 
would  slowly  but  surely  spread,  age  after  age,  through  the 
whole  race  of  man.  His  own  death  would  now  no  longer  be 
fatal  to  the  New  Society ;  the  germ,  of  its  fullest  development 

1  Deut.  viii.  7,  8. 


PBOCLAMATION  AS  THE   MESSIAH.  223 

would  survive  in  the  bosom  of  the  Twelve,  and  of  the  other 
faithful  souls  who  had  received  Him. 

But  it  was  necessary  that  the  band,  to  whom  the  spread  of 
His  Kingdom  after  His  death  would  be  entrusted,  should  be 
confirmed  in  their  faith,  and  enlightened  by  explicit  dis- 
closures of  His  spiritual  dignity  and  His  relations  to  them- 
selves. There  was  much,  even  in  their  humble  and  honest 
hearts,  that  needed  correction  and  elevation.  They  were 
Jews,  trained  in  the  theology  of  His  enemies,  and  still 
unconsciously  influenced  by  it  to  a  great  extent. 

The  conceptions  of  Jesus  respecting  His  kingdom  were 
utterly  different  from  theirs,  and  therefore  He  had  not,  as 
yet,  formally  claimed  the  title  of  Messiah,  even  in  the  circle 
of  the  Twelve,  though  He  had  never  hesitated  to  accept  Mes- 
sianic homage  when  it  was  offered.  Once,  to  the  Samaritan 
woman,  and  once,  by  silent  assent,  to  the  Twelve,  He  had 
assumed  the  awful  dignity,  and  the  whole  spirit  of  His  teaching 
and  life  implied  His  claim  to  it.  But,  even  to  the  Apostles, 
there  had  been  a  reticence  and  .caution,  that  He  might  not 
anticipate  the  development  of  their  religious  nature,  and 
disclose  a  mystery  they  were,  as  yet,  unable  to  receive. 
Before  the  people  at  large  He  had  never  assumed  the  Messiah- 
ship,  for,  with  their  gross  political  ideas,  to  have  done  so 
would  have  been  to  bring  Himself  into  collision  with  the 
State  at  once.  He  had  even,  as  far  as  possible,  kept  His 
supernatural  work  in  the  background,  shunning  publicity  as 
a  worker  of  miracles,  and  leaving  the  progress  of  His  Kingdom 
rather  to  the  Divine  beauty  of  His  teaching  and  life.  To  have 
put  Himself  forward,  from  the  first,  as  the  Messiah,  would 
have  closed  at  once  all  avenues  of  influence ;  for  He  was  in 
every  way  the  very  opposite  of  the  national  ideal.  They 
expected  their  race  to  be  exalted  to  supreme  honour  and 
power ;  He  sought  to  humble  them  to  the  lowliest  contrition. 
They  expected  that,  under  the  Messiah,  the  heathen  would 
bow  before  Israel ;  He  proclaimed  that  the  heathen  were  to 
have  equal  rank  and  rights  with  "the  people  of  God."  They 
expected  that  the  traditions  of  the  Rabbis,  with  their  infinite 
observances,  were  to  be  made  the  law  for  all  countries  and 
ages  ;  He  announced  their  utter  abrogation,  and  the  establish- 
ment, with  men  at  large,  of  a  new  covenant  of  filial  liberty,  in 
place  of  the  old  covenant  with  a  single  people.  They  expected 
a  sudden  and  violent  political  convulsion,  heralded  by  a 
disturbance  of  the  order  of  nature  by  unprecedented  signs 
and  wonders  in  the  heavens  and  on  earth,  and  of  the  history 


224  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

of  nations  ;  He  taught  that  the  Messianic  Kingdom  would  be 
brought  about  only  by  the  silent  might  of  words,  and  of  the 
Spirit  of  God,  renewing  all  natural  and  moral  relations  of  men, 
but  only  by  a  slow  and  well-nigh  imperceptible  advance.  Not 
only  the  nation,  but  even  the  Twelve,  had  utterly  to  unlearn 
the  fixed  ideas  of  the  past,  before  a  spiritual  Messiahship 
could  be  welcome  to  them.  How  difficult  that  was,  is  shown 
by  the  request  of  Salome,  the  mother  of  James  and  John,  after 
the  disciples  had  openly  acknowledged  their  Leader  as  the 
Messiah,  that  her  two  sons  should  sit  in  the  high  places  of 
honour,  on  the  right  and  left  of  the  Messianic  throne.1 

In  the  conscious  Divinity  of  His  nature,  Jesus  had  never 
yet  asked  the  Twelve  any  question  respecting  Himself,  but 
it  was  necessary,  now  that  the  end  was  approaching,  that 
they  should  know  Him  in  His  true  dignity.  He  must  re- 
veal Himself  definitely  as  the  Messiah,  and  be  formally 
accepted  as  such.  To  have  confined  Himself,  like  John,  to 
the  announcement  of  the  kingdom  of  God  as  at  hand,  would 
have  left  that  kingdom  incomplete,  and  have  created  ex- 
pectations of  the  future  advent  of  some  other  as  its  Head. 
Without  a  personal  centre  round  which  to  gather,  all  that 
He  had  done  would  speedily  fade  away.  He  Himself,  in 
the  matchless  beauty  of  His  life,  and  the  infinite  attractive- 
ness of  His  self-sacrificing  death,  must  necessarily  be  the 
abiding  soul  of  the  New  Society  through  all  ages,  for  its 
fundamental  principle,  from  the  first,  had  been  personal 
love  towards  Him.  His  words,  His  whole  life,  His  voluntary 
humiliation,  the  transcendent  self-restraint  and  self-denial 
which  had  used  unlimited  supernatural  power  only  for 
others,  and  had  submitted  to  poverty,  obscurity,  and  op- 
position, erelong  to  culminate  in  the  endurance  of  a  violent 
death  for  the  good  of  mankind,  raised  Him  to  a  Divine  and 
perfect  ideal  of  love  and  goodness,  which,  of  itself,  pro- 
claimed Him  the  King — that  is,  the  Messiah — in  the  new 
kingdom  He  had  founded.  "  The  love  of  Christ  "  was  to  be 
the  watchword  of  His  followers  in  all  ages  ;  the  sentiment 
that  would  nerve  them  to  endure  triumphantly  the  bitterest 
persecutions,  and  even  death  ;  that  would  constrain  them  to 
life-long  devotion  to  His  cause,  in  obedience  to  His  com- 
mands, and  in  imitation  of  His  example.  The  words  of  a 
future  disciple,  St.  Paul,  would  be  only  the  utterance  of  all 
others  worthy  the  name,  in  every  age  :  "  The  love  of  Christ 

1  Mark  x.  35.   Matt.  xx.  20. 


OPINIONS   RESPECTING  CHEIST.  225 

constraineth  us."1  "With  St.  John,  they  would  "love  Him 
because  He  first  loved  us."  2  He  had  established  a  kingdom, 
for  the  first  and  only  time  in  history,  on  personal  love  to 
the  founder,  and  it  was  necessary  that  He  should  definitely 
reveal  Himself  in  His  spiritual  relation  to  it  as,  henceforth, 
its  recognised  Messiah- King. 

A  crisis  so  momentous  in  the  development  of  His  great 
work  must  have  profoundly  affected  a  nature,  sensitive  and 
holy,  like  His.  His  whole  life  was  an  unbroken  communion 
with  His  Father  in  Heaven,  but  there  were  moments  when 
this  passion  of  the  soul  appeared  to  grow  more  intense.  His 
human  weakness,  though  unstained  by  evil,  was  fain  to 
strengthen  itself  by  drawing  near  to  His  Father  above,  with 
whom  every  beat  of  His  thoughts  moved  in  undisturbed 
and  awful  harmony.  In  all  His  temptations,  He  had  ever 
betaken  Himself  to  prayer,  and  this  was  a  moment  of  unspeak- 
able sublimity.  For  Israel  had  now  rejected  Him,  and  there 
rose  before  Him  only  the  vision  of  the  Cross.  His  Kingdom, 
more  clearly  than  ever,  was  to  go  forth  to  conquer  the 
world,  from  the  gates  of  His  opened  grave,  and  He  had, 
therefore,  while  yet  with  them,  to  take  His  seat  as  the 
Messiah- King  among  those  in  whom  that  kingdom  saw  its 
first  subjects. 

He  had,  thus,  been  absorbed  in  thought  and  separated  in 
fervent  prayer,  as  they  passed  from  town  to  town  on  His 
northward  journey,  until  at  last  they  reached  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  Csesarea  Philippi.3  There,  He  once  more  went 
aside,  in  some  lonely  spot  among  the  rich  wooded  valleys, 
for  solitary  devotion.  Before  He  returned  to  the  Twelve,  He 
had  determined  to  delay  no  longer  a  full  self -revelation ;  to 
throw  aside  the  veil,  and  openly  assume  the  Messiahship 
which  had  long  been  silently  ascribed  to  Him  in  His  little 
circle,  and  as  silently  accepted,  without  a  formal  and  definite 
investiture. 

"  Whom  do  men  say  that  I,  the  Son  of  man,  am  ?  "  sufficed 
to  introduce  the  momentous  topic.  The  answer  showed  how 
little  He  had  been  understood,  and  how  utterly  the  fixed 
national  idea  of  a  Messiah  had  darkened  the  general  mind. 
"  Some  say,  with  Antipas,  the  spirit  of  John  the  Baptist  has 
entered  Thee,  and  that  Thou  workest  through  it,  or  that 
Thou  art  John  himself,  risen  from  the  dead,  and  appearing 

1  2  Cor.  v.  14.  2  1  John  iv.  19. 

•  Matt.  vi.  13-20.     y.  ark  viii.  27-30.    Luke  ix.  la -21. 


226  THE   LITE   OF   CHEIST. 

tinder  another  name  ;  some,  that  Thou  art  Elias,  who,  liko 
Enoch,  has  never  died,  but  was  taken  up  alive  to  heaven, 
and  has  now  returned  in  the  body,  as  Malachi  predicted,  to 
prepare  for  the  Messiah ;  some,  that  Thou  art  Jeremiah,  come 
to  reveal  the  Ark  and  the  sacred  vessels  which  he  hid  in 
Mount  Nebo,  and  thus  inaugurate  the  approaching  reign  cf 
the  Messiah;  or  one  of  the  prophets,  sent  from  the  other 
world  by  God,  as  a  herald  of  the  Coming  One."8  They  could 
not  add  that  any  regarded  Him  as  the  Messiah.  His  refusal 
to  appeal  to  force,  and  head  a  political  revolution,  had  caused 
an  almost  universal  repudiation  of  the  thought. 

Jesus  expressed  neither  sorrow  nor  displeasure  at  such  an 
utter  failure  to  recognise  His  true  character  and  dignity.  He 
had  been  the  subject  of  the  keenest  interest  and  discussion, 
from  His  relation  to  the  Expected  One,  and  this,  of  itself,  pro- 
mised a  rich  result,  when  His  followers,  after  His  departure, 
directed  the  minds  of  men  to  a  clearer  conception  of  the 
Messianic  kingdom.  He  Himself  knew  His  rightful  glory 
and  was  unaffected  by  any  popular  judgment.  But  He  had 
now  to  obtain  from  the  lips  of  the  Twelve — the  special 
witnesses  of  His  life  and  daily  words — a  higher  confession, 
which  He  knew  they  only  needed  a  question  from  Him  to 
utter  gladly.  "  But  whom  say  ye  that  I  am  ?  "  Instantly 
from  the  lips  of  Simon  Peter,  the  impulsive,  tender,  loving, 
rock-like  disciple,  came  all  that  the  full  heart  of  His  Master 
waited  to  hear.  "  Thou,  my  Master  and  Lord,"  said  he, 
doubtless  with  beaming  joy,  "  Thou  art  the  Christ — Antah 
Meschicha — the  son  of  the  living  God."  Thus,  in  the  out- 
skirts of  the  heathen  town  dedicated  to  the  deified  Augustus, 
Jesus  was  proclaimed,  with  no  preparatory  circumstance,  in 
the  privacy  of  a  small  band  of  Galilean  fishermen,  as  the 
King  of  the  Universal  Israel ;  here,  a  fugitive  whose  only 
earthly  crown  was  to  be  the  one  of  thorns,  He  assumed  pub- 
licly the  empire  of  all  the  world,  as  the  Messiah  of  God. 

The  greatness  and  significance  of  this  confession  of  Peter, 
made  in  the  name  of  the  Twelve,  cannot  be  exaggerated.  It 
was  a  striking  advance  towards  realizing  the  great  truth  of 
the  Incarnation,  and  the  clear  intelligence  would  one  day 
follow  the  open  and  ardent  utterance  of  the  heart.  Hitherto 
Jesus  had  revealed  Himself  chiefly  as  the  "  Son  of  man," 
and  "  the  Son  of  God ;  "  but  He  now  received  from  those 
who  had  been  constantly  with  Him,  as  a  faint  acknowledg- 
ment of  the  conviction  wrought  by  His  life  and  words  and 
mighty  works,  the  formal  inauguration  as  the  Messiah- King 


THE   CONFESSION  OF   PETEB.  227 

of  a  spiritual  and  deathless  empire.  Nathanael  had,  indeed, 
anticipated  the  great  confession  at  the  opening  of  His 
ministry,1  and  the  disciples  had  recognised  Him  as  the  Son 
of  God,  on  that  wild  night  when  they  found  that  the  form 
walking  on  the  waves  was  not  the  Spirit  of  the  storm,  but 
their  loving  Master,  and  when  the  very  winds  and  waves 
were  seen  to  obey  Him.3  But  the  time  was  not  then  ripe  for 
His  definite  installation  as  Messiah,  and  the  incidents  passed 
off.  Simon,  also,  had  cheered  His  troubled  soul,  when  the 
great  secession  of  the  disciples  took  place  at  Capernaum,3  by 
an  anticipation  of  His  confession  at  Csesarea  Philippi,  but 
Pie  had,  as  it  were,  waived  it  aside.  Now,  however,  He 
formally  accepted  what,  hitherto,  He  had  silently  allowed ; 
for  the  hour  had  come. 

"  Blessed  art  thou,  Simon  Barjona,"  said  He ;  "  flesh  and 
blood  hath  not  revealed  this  to  you ;  you  have  not  learned 
it  from  my  lowly  outward  form,  and  it  has  come  to  you  from 
no  human  teaching ;  my  Father  in  Heaven  has  disclosed  it 
to  you."  As  a  deliberate  confession  of  faith  it  was,  indeed, 
amazing.  The  Twelve  had  been  the  daily  witnesses  of 
the  human  simplicity  and  poverty  of  His  life,  His  home- 
lessness,  His  weary  wanderings  afoot,  and  all  the  circum- 
stances of  His  constant  humiliation,  which  might  well 
have  counterbalanced  the  great  memories  their  privileged 
intimacy  had  afforded,  and  obscured  their  spiritual  signifi- 
cance. These  last  months  had,  moreover,  surrounded  Him 
with  all  the  depreciations  of  a  fugitive  life.  Yet  the 
Apostles  broke  through  the  hereditaiy  prejudice  of  their 
race,  with  whom  tradition  and  absolute  uniformity  in  reli- 
gious things  had  an  inconceivable  power, — they  disregarded 
the  judgment  of  their  spiritual  rulers  and  leaders  ;  rising 
above  the  utmost  ideas  of  those  around ;  and  had  seen, 
in  their  lowly  rejected  Master,  the  true  Lord  of  the  New 
Kingdom  of  God.  Nor  is  the  fact  less  wonderful  that  the  life 
and  words  of  Jesus,  seen  thus  closely,  should  have  created 
such  a  lofty  and  holy  conception  of  His  spiritual  greatness, 
amidst  all  the  counteractions  of  outward  fact  and  daily  fami- 
liarity. In  spite  of  all,  He  was  the  Malka  Meschicha — the 
King-Messiah — to  those  who  had  known  Him  best. 

The  ardent,  immovable  devotion  of  Peter,  the  first  to  own 
his  Master  as  Messiah,  as  He  had  been  first  in  all  other  utter- 
ances of  trust  and  reverence,  won  for  itself  an  illustrious 

1  John  i.  50.  2  Matt.  xiv.  33.  »  John  vi.  69. 


228  THE   LITE   OF   CHEIST. 

tribute  from  Jesus.  The  weary  sad  heart,  that  had  so  much 
to  grieve  it,  was  filled  for  the  time  with  a  pure  and  kingly 
joy  at  the  proof  thus  given,  that,  at  last,  a  true  and  solid 
beginning  had  been  made.  He  had,  doubtless,  long  yearned 
for  a  time  when  the  Twelve  would  be  advanced  enough 
in  spiritual  things  to  allow  Him  to  disclose  His  utmost 
thoughts  and  ultimate  designs,  and  this  time  had  now  come, 
He  had  never  yet  spoken  of  the  future  government  or  organ- 
ization of  the  New  Kingdom,  as  a  visible  communion,  and 
did  not  propose  to  lay  down  any  detailed  laAvs  even  now. 
He  hastened  to  tell  Peter,  however,  that  this  Society, — His 
Churchd  or  congregation,  "called  out"  from  the  world  at 
large,  would  be  entrusted  to  him  after  His  own  decease.  As 
buildings  in  the  country  around  were  founded  on  a  rock, 
that  the  floods  and  storms  might  not  overthrow  them,  so  it 
would  be  raised  on  the  rock-like  fidelity  shown  by  him  in  his 
great  confession. 

Turning  to  him,  Christ  continued,  "  I  have  something  to 
say  that  concerns  you.  You  are  to  me,  as  when  I  first  saw 
you, — Petros — the  rock  (petra)  which  I  will  make  the  founda- 
tion stone,  when  my  Church,  in  which  my  followers  will  be 
enrolled,  is  to  be  built.  In  its  building  you  will  do  me  the 
greatest  service,  like  the  stone  on  which  all  others  rest,  itself 
resting  on  the  firm  rock  beneath — which  is  Myself.  On  you 
and  such  rock-like  souls,  it  will  rise,  but  on  you  first,  and  the 
gates  of  death  will  be  powerless  against  it ;  for  it  shall  outlive 
the  grave  and  reach  on  into  eternity.  Fast  closed  as  are 
the  gates  of  the  grave,  they  shall  open  wide  to  let  forth 
my  followers  to  the  resurrection  of  the  just,  nor  shall  the 
powers  of  evil  be  able  to  overturn  the  New  Society  thus 
gathered.  I  have  called  you  the  rock  on  which  I  shall  raise 
my  Church* — I  call  you  also  the  steward,  to  whom  the  charge 
of  it  is  entrusted.  As  such  I  shall  give  you,  after  my  ascent 
to  heaven,  the  keys  of  it,1  to  admit  such  as  you  think  worthy, 
both  Jews  and  heathen,  and  to  shut  out  those  whom  you 
think  unfit.  I  commit  to  you,  moreover,  the  government 
and  discipline  of  its  membership  :  whatever  you  forbid  as  un- 
becoming my  kingdom,  or  as  unfitting  for  membership  in  it, 
shall  be  as  if  forbidden  by  me,  myself,  in  heaven ;  and  what- 
ever you  permit,  as  not  contrary  to  its  welfare,  or  not  exclud- 
ing from  it,  shall  be  as  if  I  myself  permitted  it,  from  above. 
It  will  be  left  to  your  decision,  which  will  be  recognised 

1  See  Isaiah  xxii.  22.     Gfrorer,  vol.  i.  p.  155. 


THE   ROCK-FOUNDATION   OF   THE   CHURCH.         229 

before  God,  what  may  be  forbidden,  as  a  hindrance  to  entry 
into  my  Chnrch  on  earth,  or  unworthy  of  it ;  and  what  may 
be  permitted,  as  not  barring  from  its  membership."1  How 
Peter  exercised  this  honour  in  the  Apostolic  Church  was 
hereafter  to  be  seen,  when  he  rose  as  mouthpiece  of  the  eleven 
in  the  election  of  a  twelfth  ; l  when  he  spoke  for  them  on  the 
Day  of  Pentecost,  before  the  multitude,  and  by  his  constant 
mention  as  chief  and  foremost  of  the  Apostles.  Jesus  was 
almost  immediately  to  extend  the  same  dignity  and  authority 
to  the  whole  of  the  Twelve,2  but  Peter  had  just  precedence 
in  recognition  of  his  worth  and  character.  The  figments  of 
Roman  creation,  by  which,  from  this  tribute  to  his  love  and 
enthusiasm,  a  vast  structure  of  priestly  arrogance  and  usur- 
pation has  been  raised,  need  no  notice  in  this  place. 

The  New  Society  was  at  last  formally  constituted,  and 
provision  made  for  its  government  and  continuance  after  its 
founder's  death.  Henceforth,  He  moved  in  the  midst  of  the 
Twelve  as  the  recognised  Messiah,  of  whom  they  were  the 
future  designated  envoys. 

But  the  approaching  end  of  the  great  drama  could  not  be 
left  untold.  Jerusalem  was  the  one  spot  in  which  alone  the 
work  of  Jesus  could  be  completed.  Galilee  had  been  only 
the  place  of  preparation.  The  Temple  and  its  ministering 
priests,  the  Rabbis  and  the  schools,  were  in  the  Holy  City. 
David  had  reigned  there,  and  there  must  the  Messiah  be 
declared,  to  vindicate  the  honour  of  God,  and  proclaim  the 
new  spiritual  theocracy  in  the  centre  of  the  religious  world. 
His  work  in  Galilee  was  virtually  over;  for  though  not 
finished,  it  was  hopelessly  paralyzed  and  checked.  He  might 
return,  but  it  would  avail  nothing  against  the  conspiracy 
that  everywhere  faced  Him.  But  in  Jerusalem  He  had  both 
to  begin  and  to  complete  His  work.  He  must  go  to  the 
capital,  for  Galilee  was  in  great  measure  closed  against  Him. 
He  had  assumed  the  Messiahship,  and  he  must  needs  pro- 
claim it  openly  before  His  enemies  in  their  stronghold.  Ho 
knew  that  only  death  awaited  Him,  but  that  death  had  been 
foreseen  in  the  eternal  counsels  of  God  as  the  mysterious 
atonement  for  the  sins  of  the  world. 

It  would  have  been  premature  to  have  spread  abroad  the 
momentous  incident  of  the  ascription  and  formal  acceptance 

1  Acts  i.  15;  ii.  14,  37,  38 ;  iii.  1,  4,  12 ;  iv.  8,  19 ;  v.  3,  29  ;  viii.  20; 
x.  6;  xi.  2  ;  xii.  5,  etc.,  etc. 

2  Matt,  xviii.  18.     See  Stanley's  Apostolic  Agf,  pp.  152  ff. 


230  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

of  the  title  of  Messiah.  The  Twelve  must  needs  know  the 
great  truth,  but  the  multitude  must,  for  a  time,  be  left  to 
their  own  fancies.  He  was  to  be  preached  as  a  crucified  and 
risen  Saviour,  not  as  a  Jewish  Messiah,  and  this  could  not 
be  till  the  end  had  come.  Nor  did  even  the  Apostles  as  yet 
understand  the  Divine  plan  of  salvation  clearly  enough,  and 
the  Jews,  moreover,  might  have  taken  advantage  of  the 
preaching,  for  seditious  movements.  So  imperative  was 
temporary  secrecy,  indeed,  that  He  gave  the  strictest  in- 
junctions that  no  man  should  be  told  what  had  happened. 

The  idea  of  a  suffering  Messiah,  was,  however,  so  wholly 
foreign  to  all  prevailing  conceptions,  that  it  was  indispens- 
able that  the  catastrophe  at  Jerusalem,  foreseen  by  Jesus 
from  the  first,  but  now  near  at  hand,  should  be  made  familiar 
to  the  Twelve,  as  part  of  the  all-wise  purpose  of  God  in  the 
development  of  the  new  spiritual  kingdom.  It  has  been  a 
disputed  point  whether  any  of  the  Rabbis  of  Christ's  day  had 
thought  of  the  Messiah  as  destined  to  suffer  and  die.8  Beyond 
question  some  had  applied  to  Him  the  passages  of  Isaiah, 
which  speak  of  the  servant  of  God  as  wounded  for  our  trans- 
gressions, but  it  is  equally  certain  that  the  idea  had  not  only 
found  no  general  acceptance,  but  was  entirely  opposed  to  the 
feeling  of  the  nation.  From  this  time,  therefore,  Jesus  began 
systematically  to  prepare  the  Apostles  for  His  approaching 
violent  death,  returning  to  the  sad  topic  at  every  oppor- 
tunity ;  that  a  truth  so  disagreeable  and  so  contrary  to  their 
lifelong  ideas  might  gradually  become  familiar  to  them  ; 
and  that  they  might  come  to  feel  that  it  was  in  accord- 
ance with  the  Divine  plan  of  His  kingdom.  He  had  spoken 
of  it  before,  but  now  threw  aside  all  vagueness,  and  im- 
pressed it  on  them  with  the  utmost  distinctness  ;  doubtless, 
explaining  from  their  own  Scriptures,  as  He  did  afterwards  to 
the  disciples  on  the  way  to  Emmaus,  how  the  Christ  needed 
to  suffer  these  things,  before  entering  into  His  glory.1  To 
revolutionize  fixed  belief  is  never  easy,  for  the  will  has  to 
be  persuaded  as  well  as  the  understanding.  Hitherto,  their 
minds  had  not  been  prepared  for  such  a  shock,  and  even  yet, 
as  we  shall  often  see,  they  were  very  slow  to  give  up  their 
preconceptions,  and  realize  what  seemed  so  contradictory. 

It  was  impossible,  however,  to  mistake  the  warnings  of 
their  Master,  however  hard  it  might  be  to  reconcile  them 

1  Luke  xxiv.  26.  Matt.  xvi.  21-28.  Mark  viii.  31-38 ;  ix.  1.  Luke 
ix.  2-2-27. 


A  FEESH   TEMPTATION.  231 

with  their  own  ideas.  "  He  nmst  go  to  Jerusalem,"  He  said, 
"  and  suffer  many  things  of  the  elders,  and  chief  priests, 
and  scribes,  and  be  killed,  and  after  three  days,  rise  again." 
But  so  far  were  the  Twelve  from  comprehending  such  an 
announcement,  that  Peter,  too  impulsive  to  wait  for  an 
opportunity  of  telling  how  much  it  distressed  him,  could  not 
restrain  his  feelings.  True  to  his  character,  he  forthwith 
took  Jesus  by  the  hand,  and  led  Him  aside,  to  remonstrate 
with  Him,  and  dissuade  Him  from  a  journey  which  would 
have  such  results.  "  God  keep  this  evil  far  from  Thee,  my 
Lord  and  Master,"  h  said  he.  "  You  must  not  let  such  things 
happen.  They  will  utterly  ruin  the  prospects  of  your  king- 
dom, for  they  match  ill  with  the  dignity  of  the  Messiah.  If 
there  be  any  danger  such  as  you  fear,  why  not  use  your 
supernatural  power  to  preserve  yourself  and  us.  It  is  not 
to  be  endured  that  you  should  suffer  such  indignities."  It 
was  the  very  same  temptation  as  the  arch  enemy  had  set 
before  Christ  in  the  wilderness, — to  employ  His  Divine  power 
for  His  own  advantage,  instead  of  using  it,  with  absolute 
self-surrender,  only  to  carry  out  the  will  of  His  Father. 
But,  as  ever  before,  it  was  instantly  repelled.  His  quick, 
stern  answer  must  have  made  Peter  recoil,  afraid.  "  Get 
thee  behind  me,"  said  He,  "out  of  my  sight,  thou  tempter; 
thou  art  laying  a  snare  for  me  ;  thy  words  show  that  in  these 
things  thou  enterest  not  into  the  thoughts  and  plans  of  God, 
but  considerest  all  things  only  from  the  ideas  of  men,  with 
their  dreams  of  ambition  and  human  advantage."  Peter 
still  fancied  that  Jesus  would  be  an  earthly  monarch,  and 
that  the  proper  course  to  take,  under  the  circumstances,  was 
to  oppose  force  with  force.  He  had  yet  to  learn  that  the 
kingdom  of  his  Master  was  to  be  established  by  suffering 
and  self-denial. 

It  was  a  moment  unspeakably  solemn.  Even  the  few 
faithful  ones,  and  their  very  Coryphgeus — their  leader  and 
mouthpiece — while  hailing  Jesus  as  the  Messiah,  clung  to 
the  old  national  ideas,  and  could  not  reconcile  them  with 
His  suffering  and  dying.  He  had  rebuked  the  temptation 
which  appealed  to  Him,  as  a  man,  so  strongly,  to  take  the 
ease  and  glory  which  invited  Him,  and  to  abandon  the  path 
of  sorrow  and  lowliness,  which  might  be  the  spiritual  life  of 
the  world,  but  was  His  own  humiliation  and  martyrdom.  It 
had  been  driven  away  from  His  stainless  soul,  like  darkness 
from  the  sun,  but  its  power  in  the  minds,  even  of  the  Twelve, 
was  only  too  clear.  The  truth,  in  all  its  repugnancy,  must 


232  THE  LIFE   OP   CHEIST. 

be  forced  on  them  more  clearly  than  ever,  that  they  might 
no  longer  continue  with  Him  if  it  offended  them ;  for  He 
would  receive  none  as  His  disciples  who  did  not  cheerfully 
embrace  a  career  of  self-denial  and  absolute  devotion,  even 
to  the  sacrifice  of  life,  for  His  sake,  with  no  prospect  whatever 
of  earthly  reward.  Nor  would  He  even  accept  any  one 
willing,  from  a  mercenary  spirit,  to  suffer  here  that  he  might 
receive  a  reward  hereafter ;  for  though  such  a  reward  was 
promised  to  those  who  were  faithful  to  the  end,  absolute 
sincerity  was  required  in  His  service.  It  must  be  the  grate- 
ful, spontaneous  expression  of  true  love  and  devotion. 

Even  in  such  an  outlying  district  as  that  of  Caesarea 
Philippi,  numbers  of  the  population — for  there  were  many 
Jews  in  the  region — had  gathered  to  hear  and  see  Him,  and 
were  near  at  hand  at  the  moment.  The  test  required  from 
the  Twelve  was  no  less  imperative  for  these ;  the  "  floor " 
must  be  thoroughly  "fanned  and  cleansed"  from  all  self-de- 
ception or  designed  hypocrisy. 

Without  giving  Peter  time,  therefore,  to  excuse  himself, 
and  leaving  him  to  the  shame  of  his  reproof,  Jesns  called 
the  people  and  the  Apostles  round  Him,  and  continued  the 
subject  on  which  He  had  begun  to  speak. 

"  I  must  needs  suffer,"  said  He,  "  before  I  enter  into  my 
glory,  but  so  must  all  who  would  be  my  followers.  If  any 
man  propose  to  be  my  disciple,  he  must  literally  follow  me 
in  my  path  of  humiliation  and  sorrow.  Whatever  would 
hinder  absolute  devotion  and  self-sacrifice  must  be  given  up. 
He  must  make  me  his  one  aim.  All  that  stands  in  the  way 
of  undivided  loyalty  to  me — the  love  of  ease,  of  pleasure, 
and  even  of  life — must  be  surrendered.  The  hopes  and 
prospects  which  engage  other  men  must  be  abandoned,  and 
in  their  stead  he  must  daily  take  up  the  sufferings  and  self- 
denials  which  come  on  him  for  my  sake,  and  bear  them,  as  a 
man  condemned  to  death  bears  the  cross  on  which  he  is  to 
die.  I  have  set,  and  shall  set  him,  the  example  I  require  him 
to  follow.  Any  one  who  thinks  he  can  be  my  disciple,  and 
enter  into  my  kingdom  hereafter,  and  yet  carry  himself  so  in 
this  evil  time  as  to  escape  suffering  and  enjoy  life  and  its 
comforts,  deceives  himself.  If  he  seek  this  life  by  denying 
my  name,  as  he  must  needs  do,  in  this  age,  to  escape  persecu- 
tion, he  will  lose  life  eternal.  But  he  who  is  willing,  for  my 
sake,  to  sacrifice  his  natural  desire  for  pleasure  and  ease, 
and  even  to  give  up  life  itself,  if  required,  will  assuredly 
receive  everlasting  life  when  I  come  in  my  kingdom.  Hard 


SELF-DENIAL  DEMANDED.  233 

though  this  seem,  it  is  the  wisest  and  best  thing  yon  can  do 
to  comply  heartily  with  it.  What  has  a  man  in  the  end  if, 
by  denying  me  for  his  worldly  interests,  he  gain  even  the 
whole  world,  and  lose  that  existence  which  alone  is  worthy 
the  name  ?  Unprepared  for  the  eternal  life  of  my  kingdom, 
and  without  a  share  in  it ;  with  his  breath  he  loses  not  only 
all  that  he  has,  but  himself  as  well.  What  gain  here  will 
repay  him  for  the  loss  of  the  life  hereafter  ? 

"  I  say  this  on  good  grounds,  and  with  absolute  truth. 
For,  though  now  only  a  man  like  yourselves,  I  shall  one 
day  return  in  a  very  different  form,  with  the  majesty  of  my 
Father  in  heaven,  and  accompanied  by  legions  of  angels,  to 
recompense  every  one  according  to  his  works.  In  that  day 
each  true  disciple  will  be  rewarded  according  to  his  loving 
devotion  and  self-sacrifice  for  my  sake,  and  will  be  received 
by  me,  as  the  Messiah,  into  my  kingdom.  But  I  shall  be 
ashamed  of  any  one,  and  count  him  unfit  to  enter  that 
kingdom,  who  for  love  of  life  and  ease,  or  for  fear  of  man, 
or  from  shame  of  my  present  lowly  estate,  or  of  my  cross, 
has  wanted  courage  and  heart  to  confess  me  openly,  and 
separate  himself,  for  love  to  me,  from  this  sinful  generation. 
It  may  be  hard  for  you  to  think,  as  you  see  me  standing 
here  before  you,  that  I  shall  one  day  come  in  heavenly 
majesty ;  but  that  you  may  know  how  surely  it  will  be  so,  I 
shall  grant  to  some  of  you,  now  present,  a  glimpse  of  this 
majesty,  not  after  my  death,  but  while  I  am  still  with  you, 
that  they  may  see  me,  the  Son  of  man,  in  the  glory  in  which 
I  will  come  when  I  return  to  enter  on  my  kingdom." 


CHAPTER  XLVn. 

THE  TRANSFIGURATION. 

JESUS  had  now  utterly  broken  with  the  past.1  Hitherto 
He  had  been  slowly  educating  the  Twelve  to  right  con- 
ceptions of  Himself  and  His  great  work,  and  in  doing  so 
had  had  to  oppose  their  stubborn  prejudice,  enlighten  their 
ignorance,  illustrate  His  meaning  by  significant  acts,  resist 
the  sophistry  and  superficial  literalism  of  the  Rabbis,  and 
lead  the  way  to  a  higher  spiritual  ideal  and  life  by  His  own 
daily  example  and  words.  They  had  now  been  in  His 
society,  however,  for  over  two  years,  and,  at  last,  had  risen 
to  a  more  just  estimate  of  His  dignity  and  of  the  nature  of 
His  work.  He  was  henceforth  free  from  the  anxiety  which 
had  been  inevitable  so  long  as  nothing  had  been  definitely 
accomplished  towards  the  perpetuity  of  His  Kingdom ;  for 
the  confession  of  Peter,  in  the  name  of  his  brethren,  was  the 
assurance  that  that  kingdom  would  outlive  His  own  death, 
and  spread  ever  more  widely  through  an  unending  future. 
The  joy  of  victory  filled  His  soul,  though  the  cross  was  al- 
ready near  at  hand.  Henceforth  He  bore  Himself  as  soon 
to  leave  the  circle  with  whom  He  had  dwelt  so  long ;  now, 
preparing  them  for  His  humiliation  by  showing  its  Divine 
necessity ;  now,  uttering  His  deepest  thoughts  on  the  things 
of  His  kingdom ;  now,  kindling  their  hearts  by  visions  of  the 
joy  that  would  spread  over  all  nations  through  the  Gospel 
they  were  to  preach.  The  future  alone  filled  His  heart  and 
mind. 

His  gladness  of  soul  at  Peter's  confession  had,  like  all 
human  raptures,  been  tempered  by  shadow.  He  had  read 
the  hearts  of  the  Twelve,  and  saw  that,  though  they  had 
approached  the  truth  in  their  conception  of  the  Messiah, 

1  Authorities  for  this  chapter :  Hess,  Leben  Jesu,  vol.  ii.  pp.  113  ff. 
Ewald,  vol.  v.  pp.  460,  461.  Presael,  pp.  186  ff.  Lightfoot,  HOT.  Heb.t 
vol.  ii.  p.  243.  Schleierrnacher's  Predigten,  vol.  ii.  p.  386 ;  vol.  iv.  p.  388. 
Rosenmiiller's  Scholia  on  New  Test,  in  loc.  Msyer,  in  loc.,  etc.  etc. 


THE   TRANSFIGUEATION.  235 

they  were  still  Jews,  in  linking  with  it  the  expectation  of  an 
oarthly  political  kingdom,  with  its  ambitions  and  worldly 
satisfactions.  They  had  risen  above  the  difficulties  that 
blinded  the  nation ;  the  thought  of  Nazareth — Galilee — 
human  relationship — lowly  position — human  wants — rejec- 
tion by  the  Rabbis — familiar  intercourse  with  the  "  unclean  " 
multitude,  and  much  beside,  that  had  been  a  stumbling  block 
to  others ;  but  it  was  hard  for  them,  in  the  presence  of  one 
who,  to  outward  appearance,  was  only  a  man,  to  realize  that 
He  was  also  the  only-begotten  Son  of  God,  and,  like  His 
Father,  Divine. 

The  announcement  that  He  was  to  enter  into  His  glory  as 
Messiah,  by  suffering  shame  and  death,  not  only  shocked  all 
their  preconceptions  :  they  could  not  understand  it,  and  were 
sorely  discouraged.  They  needed  to  be  cheered  in  their 
despondency,  and  led  gradually  to  accept  the  disclosure 
of  His  approaching  humiliation.  His  promise  that  some  of 
them,  before  their  death,  should  see  His  kingdom  come  with 
power,  was  doubtless  treasured  in  their  hearts ;  but  they 
little  thought  its  fulfilment  was  so  near. 

Six  days  passed ; 1  or  eight,  including  the  first  and  last ; 
days  full,  no  doubt,  of  sad  and  grave,  as  well  as  joyous, 
thoughts  ;  sad  that  their  Master  spoke  of  suffering  violence, 
and  death ;  grave  that  He  should  not  only  have  dashed  all 
their  hopes  of  a  national  regeneration,  but  should  have 
painted  their  own  future  in  colours  so  sombre  ;  yet  joyous, 
amidst  all,  in  vague  anticipations  of  the  predicted  spiritual 
grandeur  of  the  New  Kingdom,  of  which  they  were  to  be 
heralds.  Little  by  little,  they  would  be  sure  to  catch  more  of 
His  spirit  from  daily  intercourse  with  Him,  and  learn  imper- 
ceptibly how  the  purest  joy  and  the  noblest  glory  come  from 
self-sacrificing  love ;  how,  in  the  highest  sense,  it  is  more 
blessed  to  give  than  to  receive.  We  are  told  nothing  of  this 
sacred  interval,  but  may  well  conjecture  how  it  passed. 

The  scene  of  the  Transfiguration,  like  that  of  nearly  all 
other  incidents  in  the  life  of  our  Lord,  is  not  minutely  stated. 
St.  Luke,  indeed,  calls  it  "  The  Mountain,"  but  gives  it  no 
closer  name.  It  seems,  however,  certain,  that  the  tradition 
is  incorrect,  which  from  the  days  of  St.  Jerome  ~  has  pointed 
to  Mount  Tabor  as  the  locality.  The  summit  of  that  hill 
— an  irregular  platform,  embracing  a  circuit  of  half  an  hour's 

1  Matt.  xvii.  1-13.     Mark  ix.  2-13.     Luke  ix.  28-36. 
*  A.D.  340-420.     Tobler  s  Pakcst.  Description*,  iv.  v.  vL 


236  THE   LITE   OF   CHRIST. 

walk — was  fortified,  apparently  from  the  earliest  ages,  and 
Josephus  mentions,  about  A.D.  60,  that  he  strengthened  the 
defences  of  a  city  built  on  it.  Picturesque,  therefore,  though 
the  hill  looks,  as  the  traveller  approaches  it  over  the  wide 
plain  of  Esdraelon,  it  could  not  have  been  the  spot  where 
Jesus  revealed  His  glory,  for  it  could  not  offer  the  seclusion 
and  isolation  indicated  in  the  Gospels.  Nor  is  there  any 
reason  to  think  that  the  Twelve  and  their  Master  had  left 
the  neighbourhood  of  Caesarea  Philippi,  for  St.  Mark  1  ex- 
pressly mentions  that  they  did  not  start  for  Galilee  till  at 
least  the  day  after. 

It  must  have  been,  therefore,  on  one  of  the  spurs  of  Hermon, 
"  the  lofty  mountain,"  near  which  He  then  found  Himself, 
that  the  Transfiguration  took  place.  Brought  up  among  the 
hills,  such  a  region,  with  distant  summits,  white  in  spots  with 
snow  even  in  summer,  its  pure  air,  and  the  solitude  of 
woody  slopes  and  shady  valleys,  must  have  breathed  on 
the  wearied  and  troubled  spirit  of  our  Lord,  an  ethereal  calm 
and  deep  peaceful  joy,  seldom  felt  amidst  the  abodes  of 
men. 

Taking  the  three  of  His  little  band  most  closely  in 
sympathy  with  Him,  and  most  able  to  receive  the  disclosures 
that  might  be  made  to  them,  He  ascended  into  the  hills 
towards  evening,  for  silent  prayer.  The  favoured  friends 
were  Peter,  the  rock-like,  His  host  at  Capernaum  from  the 
first ;  and  the  two  Sons  of  Thunder,  John  and  James ;  loved 
disciples  both,  but  John,  the  younger,  nearest  his  Master's 
heart  of  all  the  Twelve,  as  most  like  Himself  in  spirit. 
They  had  been  singled  out,  already,  for  similar  especial 
honour,  for  they  alone  had  entered  the  death-chamber  in  the 
house  of  Jairus,  and  they  were,  hereafter,  to  be  the  only 
witnesses  of  the  awful  sorrow  of  Gethsemane. 

Evening  fell  while  Jesus  poured  out  His  soul  in  high  com- 
munion with  His  Father,  and  the  three,  having  finished  their 
nightly  devotions,  had  wrapped  themselves  in  their  abbas 
and  lain  down  on  the  hill-side,  to  sleep.  Meanwhile  their 
Master  continued  in  prayer,  His  whole  soul  filled  with  the 
crisis  so  fast  approaching.  He  had  taken  the  three  with 
Jijm,  to  overcome  their  dread  of  His  death  and  repugnance 
to  the  thought  of  it,  as  unbefitting  the  Messiah  ;  to  strengthen 
them  to  bear  the  sight  of  His  humiliation  hereafter;  and  to 
give  them  an  earnest  of  the  glory  into  which  He  would  enter 

1  Chap.  ix.  30. 


MOSES   AND   ELIJAH.  237 

after  His  decease,  and  thus  teach  them  that,  though  unseen, 
He  was,  more  than  ever,  mighty  to  help.  He  was  about  to 
receive  a  solemn  consecration  for  the  cross,  but,  with  it,  a 
strong  support  to  His  soul  in  the  prospect  of  such  a  death. 
He  was  a  man  like  ourselves,  and  His  nature,  now  in  its 
high  prime,  and  delighting  in  life,  must  have  shrunk  from 
the  thought  of  dying.  The  prolonged  agony  and  shame  of 
BO  painful  and  ignominious  an  end,  must  have  clouded  His 
spirit  at  times ;  but,  above  all,  who  can  conceive  the  moral 
suffering  that  must  have  been  in  the  thought  that,  though 
the  Holy  One,  He  was  to  be  made  an  offering  for  sin  ;  that, 
though  filled  with  unutterable  love  to  His  people,  He  was  to 
die  at  their  hands  as  their  enemy ;  that,  though  innocent 
and  stainless,  He  was  to  suffer  as  a  criminal ;  that,  though 
the  beloved  Son  of  God,  He  was  to  be  condemned  as  a 
blasphemer  ?  As  He  continued  praying,  His  soul  rose  above 
all  earthly  sorrows.  Drawn  forth  by  the  nearness  of  His 
Heavenly  Father,  the  Divinity  within  shone  through  the  veil- 
ing flesh  till  His  raiment  kindled  to  the  dazzling  brightness 
of  light,  or  of  the  glittering  snow  on  the  peaks  above  Him, 
and  His  face  glowed  with  a  sunlike  majesty.  Amidst  such 
an  effulgence  it  was  impossible  the  three  could  sleep.  Roused 
by  the  splendour,  they  gazed,  awe-struck,  at  the  wonder, 
when,  lo  !  two  human  forms,  in  glory  like  that  of  the  angels, 
stood  by  His  side — Moses  a  and  Elijah,  the  founder,  and  the 
great  defender,  of  the  Old  Economy,  which  He  had  come 
at  once  to  supersede  and  to  fulfil.  Their  presence  from  the 
upper  world  was  a  symbol  that  the  Law  and  the  Prophets 
henceforth  gave  place  to  a  higher  Dispensation ;  but  they 
had  also  another  mission.  They  had  passed  through  death, 
or,  at  least,  from  life,  and  knew  the  triumph  that  lay  beyond 
mortality  to  the  faithful  servants  of  God.  Who  could  speak 
to  Him  as  they,  of  His  decease  which  He  should  accomplish 
at  Jerusalem,  and  temper  the  gloom  of  its  anticipation  ? 
Their  presence  spoke  of  the  grave  conquered,  and  of  the 
eternal  glory  beyond.  The  empty  tomb  under  Mount  Abarim, 
and  the  horses  and  chariot  of  Elijah,  dispelled  all  fears  of  the 
future,  and  instantly  banished  all  human  weakness.1  That 
His  Eternal  Father  should  have  honoured  and  cheered  Him  by 
such  an  embassy  at  such  a  time,  girt  His  soul  to  the  joyful 
acceptance  of  the  awful  task  of  redemption.-  Human  agitation 
and  spiritual  conflict  passed  away,  to  return  no  more  in  their 

1  Buskin's  Mod.  Painters,  vol.  iii.  p.  392. 


238  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

bitterness  till  the  night  before  Calvary.  His  whole  nature 
rose  to  the  height  of  His  great  enterprise.  Henceforth  His 
one  thought  was  to  finish  the  work  His  Father  had  given 
Him  to  do. 

Meanwhile,  the  three  Apostles,  dazzled,  confused,  and  lost 
in  wonder,  gazed  silently  on  the  amazing  sight,  and  listened. 
But  it  is  not  given  to  earth  to  have  more  than  brief  glimpses 
of  Heaven.  Moses  and  Elijah  had  erelong  finished  their 
mission,  and  were  about  to  return  to  the  presence  of  God. 
Could  they  not  be  induced  to  stay  awhile  ?  Peter,  ever  first 
to  speak,  and  hardly  knowing,  in  his  confusion,  what  he  said, 
would  at  least  try  to  prolong  such  an  interview.  "  Master," 
said  he,  to  amplify  his  words,  "  it  is  good  for  us  to  be  here ; 
let  us  gather  some  branches  from  the  slopes  around,  and  put 
up  three  booths,  like  those  of  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles ;  one 
for  Thee,  one  for  Moses,  and  one  for  Elijah."  The  cares  and 
troubles  of  his  wandering  life,  and  all  his  gloomy  forebodings 
for  his  Master  and  himself,  had  faded  away  before  such 
brightness  and  joy,  and,  in  his  fond  childlike  simplicity,  he 
dreamed  of  lengthening  out  the  delight. 

The  Almighty  had  come  down  of  old,  to  Mount  Sinai,  in 
blackness,  and  darkness,  and  tempest ;  but  now,  a  bright 
cloud  descended  from  the  clear  sky,  like  that  from  which  He 
had  of  old  spoken  to  Moses  at  the  door  of  the  Tabernacle, 
and  overshadowed  Jesus  and  the  two  heavenly  visitors,  fill- 
ing the  three  Apostles  with  fear,  as  they  saw  it  spread  round 
and  over  their  Master,  and  those  with  Him.  It  was  the 
symbol  of  the  presence  of  God,  for  He,  also,  had  drawn  nigh 
to  bear  witness  to  His  Eternal  Son.  It  was  not  enough  that 
Moses  and  Elijah  had  honoured  Him — a  yoice  from  the 
midst  of  the  cloud  added  a  still  higher  testimony  :  "  This  is 
my  beloved  Son,  in  whom  I  am  well  pleased  ;  hear  ye  Him." 
Such  a  confirmation  of  the  great  confession  of  Peter  was 
never  to  be  forgotten.  Almost  a  generation  later,  when  he 
wrote  his  second  Epistle,  the  remembrance  of  this  night  was 
as  vivid  as  ever.  "  We  were  eye-witnesses,"  says  he,  "  of 
His  Majesty.  For  He  received  from  God  the  Father  honour 
and  glory,  when  there  came  such  a  voice  to  Him  from  the 
excellent  glory,  '  This  is  my  beloved  Son,  in  whom  I  am 
well  pleased ;  hear  ye  Him.'  And  this  voice  which  came 
from  heaven,  we  heard,  when  we  were  with  Him  in  the  holy 
mount."  1  The  brightness  of  a  vision  so  amazing  lingered  in 

1  2  Pet.  i.  17,  18. 


THE   THREE   TABEENACLES.  239 

the  memory  of  those  who  beheld  it  to  the  latest  day  of  their 
lives. 

Sore  afraid,  the  three  fell  on  their  faces,  for  who  could 
stand  before  God  ?  But  the  Voice  had  come  and  gone,  and, 
with  it,  the  cloud  and  the  visitors  from  the  eternal  world ; 
and  Jesus  was  once  more  alone.  Calming  their  fears  by  a 
gentle  touch,  He  bade  them  "  arise  and  not  be  afraid,"  and 
they  found  themselves  once  more  alone,  Master  and  followers, 
with  the  stars  over  them,  and  the  silent  hills  around.  The 
Divine  glory  had  faded  from  His  countenance,  and  His  robes 
were  once  more  like  their  own,  but  they  could  never  forget 
in  what  Majesty  they  had  seen  Him;  never  forget,  in  His 
humiliation,  that  they  had  heard  Him  called  "  the  beloved 
Son,"  by  the  lips  of  the  Eternal  Himself ;  nor  could  they 
ever  hesitate  whom  to  obey  when  they  had  seen  Moses  and 
Elijah — representatives  of  the  Law  and  the  Prophets — with- 
draw before  Him,  and  had  heard  Him  proclaimed  from  the 
Cloud  of  the  Presence  as  far  higher  than  they.  God  Himself 
had  said,  in  express  words,  or  in  effect,  "  He  who  is  now 
with  you  alone,  whose  heavenly  dignity  you  have  seen,  He 
whom  you  daily  see  in  His  wonted  lowliness,  is  the  same, 
even  in  this  humiliation,  as  when  in  the  bosom  of  the  Father 
— '  My  Son,  who  pleases  me  always.'  Henceforth  receive 
the  Law  from  His  lips  alone ;  henceforth,  let  all  men  hear 
Him  only ;  He  is  the  Living  Voice  of  the  unseen  God."  b 

It  was  now  morning,  and  the  nine  were  awaiting  the  return 
of  their  Master  and  His  friends.  What  the  conversation  was 
between  Jesus  and  the  three,  as  they  descended  from  the 
mountain,  is  not  told  us.  There  was,  once  more,  freedom  to 
speak,  though,  doubtless,  they  did  so  with  a  strange  rever- 
ence, hardly  venturing  to  talk  of  what  they  had  seen  and 
heard.  Nor  could  they  relieve  their  minds  by  telling  the 
wonders  of  the  night  to  the  others  of  the  Twelve,  for  even 
they  were  so  little  prepared  for  such  disclosures,  that  Jesns 
commanded  that  the  vision  should  be  told  "to  no  man,  till 
the  Son  of  man  be  risen  from  the  dead." 

It  illustrates  the  difficulty  Jesus  had  to  overcome,  before 
new  religious  ideas  could  be  familiarized  to  the  minds  even 
of  those  under  His  continuous  teaching,  that,  though  the 
three  had  often  heard  of  the  resurrection  of  the  dead  directly 
or  indirectly  from  Jesus  Himself,1  they  were  at  a  loss  to 
know  what  the  words  meant,  as  He  now  used  them,  and 

1  John  ii.  19.     Mark  viii.  81. 


240  THE   LIFE   OF   CHKIST. 

disputed  among  themselves  about  them.  He  had  told  the 
Jews  that  if  they  destroyed  the  Temple  of  His  body,  He 
should  raise  it  again  the  third  day ;  and  only  a  week  before 
the  Transfiguration,  on  the  day  of  Peter's  memorable  utter- 
ance, He  had  used  almost  the  very  words  which  perplexed 
them  now.  But  though  thrice  repeated,  they  were  still  dark 
atd  mysterious. 

The  resurrection  from  the  dead  was,  indeed,  an  article  of 
the  current  Jewish  theology,  but  it  was  so  taught  by  the 
Rabbis,  that  the  three  found  it  hard  to  reconcile  their  pre- 
vious ideas  with  the  language  of  Jesus.  They  had  heard 
from  some  of  the  preachers  in  the  synagogues,  that  Israel 
alone  would  rise ; 1  from  others,  that  the  resurrection  would 
include  godly  heathen  also,-  who  had  kept  the  seven  com- 
mands given  to  the  sons  of  Noah ;  from  some,  that  all  the 
heathen  outside  the  Holy  Land  would  be  raised,  but  only  to 
shame  and  everlasting  contempt  before  Israel ; 3  while  still 
others  maintained,  that  neither  the  Samaritans,  nor  the  great 
mass  of  their  own  nation,  who  did  not  observe  the  precepts 
of  the  Rabbis,  would  have  part  in  the  resurrection.4  But 
if  there  was  confusion  as  to  who  should  rise  again,  there 
was  still  more  contradiction  between  what  they  had  always 
heard  before,  of  the  occasion  and  time  of  the  resurrection ; 
and  the  words  that  bad  fallen  from  Jesus.  They  had  been 
trained  to  believe  that  all  Israel  would  be  gathered  from  the 
four  quarters  of  the  earth,  at  the  coming  of  the  Messiah,  and 
that  the  dead  would  be  raised  immediately  after.5  But 
before  this  resurrection,  which  would  thus  inaugurate  the 
reign  of  the  Messiah,  Elias  was  first  to  come,  and  they  still 
clung  to  this  idea,  in  spite  of  all  that  Jesus  had  said6  to 
remove  it.  They  had  always,  moreover,  heard  the  syna- 
gogue preachers  say  that  the  holy  dead,  when  thus  raised, 
were  to  take  part  in  the  kingdom  of  the  Messiah,  at  Jerusalem, 
and  once  more  become  fellow-citizens  with  the  living. 

At  the  mention  of  the  resurrection,  therefore,  the  thought 
instantly  rose  in  their  minds,  how  it  could  take  place  when 
Elijah  had  not  yet  appeared,  and  how  Jesus  could  speak  of 
Himself,  alone,  as  rising  from  the  grave,  and  that  on  the  third 
day.  It  was  clear  there  must  be  some  contradiction  between 
His  words  and  what  they  had  hitherto  been  taught.  AVhat 
could  He  mean  by  this  rising  from  the  dead  ?  Only  He 

1  Eisenmcnger,  vol.  ii.  p.  904-907.        2  Ibid,  p.  908.        s  H>id,  p.  909, 
4  Ibid,  pp.  915,  916.  •  Ibid,  p.  895.  6  Matt.  xi.  14. 


THE   PEEDICTED  ELIAS.  241 

could  answer.  To  solve  the  point  they  asked  Him,  "  How 
is  it  that  our  Rabbis  say  Elias  must  come  before  the  dead 
shall  be  raised — that  is,  before  the  opening  of  the  reign  of 
the  Messiah,  which  the  resurrection  is  to  announce  ?  You 
speak  of  yourself  alone,  rising  from  the  dead,  and  that  on 
the  third  day,  and  say  nothing  about  this  reappearance  of 
Elias,  which  the  Rabbis  tell  us,  is  to  be  three  days  before 
the  coming  of  the  Messiah.1  Is  it  wrong  when  they  say 
that  he  will  stand  on  the  hills  of  Israel,  and  weep  and 
lament  over  the  desolate  and  forsaken  land,  till  his  voice  is 
heard  through  the  world,  and  that  he  will  then  cry  to  the 
mountains,  '  Peace  and  blessing  come  into  the  world,  peace 
and  blessing  come  into  the  world !  ' — '  Salvation  cometh, 
salvation  cometh ! ' 2  and  gather  all  the  scattered  sons  of 
Jacob,  and  restore  all  things  in  Israel  as  in  ancient  times  ? 
They  affirm  that  Elias  will  turn  the  hearts  of  all  Israel  to 
the  Messiah ;  how  is  this  to  be  reconciled  with  your  saying 
that  the  Messiah  must  suffer  many  things  of  the  high  priests 
and  rulers,  and  be  rejected  and  put  to  death?  " 

"  You.  are  right,"  replied  Jesus,  "  when  you  say  that 
Elias  must  come  before  me,  the  Messiah.  The  purpose  of 
God,  and  ancient  prophecy,  require  it.  But,  as  I,  the  Son 
of  man,  now  when  I  am  come,  must  suffer  many  things, 
and  be  set  at  nought  and  rejected,  as  the  prophets  have  fore- 
told, although  I  have  given  so  many  proofs  of  my  heavenly 
mission;  so  has  it  already  happened  with  him  who  was  the 
Elias  sent  by  my  Father  to  prepare  my  way.  He,  like  my- 
self, has  already  come,  but  they  knew  him  as  little  as  they 
have  known  me,  and  they  have  done  to  him  as  their  hearts 
wished.  He  has  suffered  even  to  death,  as  I,  the  Messiah, 
must  also  suffer."  Words  so  precise  could  not  be  misunder- 
stood. They  saw  that  He  spoke  of  John  the  Baptist.3 

Our  moments  of  exaltation  and  rapture  are  only  passing, 
and  are  often  thrown  into  vivid  contrast  by  the  shadows 
that  constantly  linger  beside  the  light.  When  He  ascended 
the  mountain  with  Peter  and  the  sons  of  Zebedee,  Jesus 
had  left  the  other  disciples  at  the  foot.  The  night,  with 
its  wondrous  vision,  had  passed  away,  and  He  was  now 
returning  to  His  little  band,  who  waited  for  Him  in  u 

1  Eisenmenger,  vol.  ii.  p.  696.     Gfrorer,  vol.  ii.  p.  227.     Langcn,  pp. 
210,  491.     Schiirer,  p.  581. 

2  Eisenmenger,  vol.  ii.  p.  697. 

»  Matt.  xvii.  14-21.     Mark  ix.  14-29.     Luke  ix.  37-43. 


242  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

neighbouring  hamlet  or  village.  The  Jewish  population 
scattered  round  Csesarea  Philippi  had  already  heard  of  His 
arrival  in  their  parts,  and,  from  various  motives,  had  gathered 
to  see  and  hear  Him.  Hence  no  sooner  was  He  seen  de- 
scending the  slopes,  than  the  whole  multitude  moved  in 
His  direction,  to  meet  Him.  His  sudden  appearance  was 
opportune.  An  incident  had  just  taken  place,  which  was 
stiil  exciting  no  little  dispute  between  some  scribes  and  the 
disciples.  A  Jew  in  the  crowd  had  a  son — his  only  child — 
who  had  been  afflicted  from  birth  with  the  form  of  demoniac 
possession  shown  by  epilepsy,  joined  with  madness  and  want 
of  speech.  He  had  brought  him,  in  the  hope  that  Jesus 
would  heal  him,  and  the  disciples,  who  had  often  before 
wrought  similar  miracles  when  sent  on  missions  through  the 
country,  had  tried,  in  His  absence,  to  cure  the  boy,  and 
had  failed.  It  was,  indeed,  a  special  case,  for  the  lad  was 
subject  to  violent  convulsions,  in  which  he  foamed  at  the 
mouth,  and  gnashed  with  his  teeth,  and  these  had  often  en- 
dangered his  life,  by  coming  on  him  at  times  when  he  would 
have  been  drowned  or  burned  had  not  help  been  near.  His 
whole  body,  moreover,  was  withering  away  under  their  in- 
fluence. 

The  failure  of  the  disciples  had,  apparently,  been  connected 
with  the  excitement  and  agitations  of  the  last  week.  Peter's 
confession  in  their  name,  that  they  believed  their  Master  to 
be  the  Messiah,  had  been  sadly  overcast  by  the  shock  to  all 
their  previous  ideas  from  His  repeated  intimations  of  His 
approaching  violent  death,  and  of  a  similar  fate  possibly  over- 
taking themselves.  It  had  been  a  week  of  spiritual  strug- 
gle, which  Jesus  designedly  left  them  to  undergo,  though  He 
knew,  throughout,  that  one  of  them  would  yield  to  the  trial. 
The  nearer  the  time  came  for  the  journey  to  Judea  of  which 
He  had  spoken,  and  the  less  they  could  conceal  from  them- 
selves that  their  devotion  to  Him  imperilled  their  own  safety, 
the  more  troubled  and  faltering  grew  their  minds,  and  this 
inevitably  affected  them  in  all  their  relations.  In  such  a 
hesitating  and  half-dispirited  frame,  they  had  no  such  tri- 
umphant faith  as  when  they  had  gone  out  on  their  first 
independent  apostolic  mission,  and  diseases  and  evil  spirits 
yielded  to  their  commands,  in  their  Leader's  name.  Hence, 
they  had  the  mortification  not  only  of  failing  to  work  a  cure, 
but  of  having  to  bear  the  cavils  and  sneers  of  the  Rabbis, 
who  were  only  too  glad  to  seize  a  momentary  triumph  at 
their  expense. 


THE   CUBE   OF  A  POSSESSED  EOT.  243 

Meanwhile,  the  people  showed  Jesus  all  outward  respect. 
The  report  of  His  wonderful  deeds  elsewhere  had  raised  an 
excitement  that  was  visible  on  every  face.  They  greeted  and 
welcomed  Him,  and  were  impatient  to  hear  what  He  should 
say  in  this  matter  between  His  followers  and  their  own 
Doctors. 

Turning  to  these,  now  in  the  flush  of  victory,  Jesus  dis- 
concerted them  by  the  simple  demand  to  know  the  matter 
in  dispute.  But  though  they  had  been  bold  enough  before 
the  humble  disciples,  they  were  silent  in  the  commanding 
presence  of  the  Master. 

Presently,  the  father  of  the  unfortunate  boy  pressed 
through  the  crowd,  catching  fresh  hope  that  the  Teacher 
could,  perhaps,  do  what  the  disciples  could  not.  Kneeling 
before  Him,  he  told  all  that  had  happened  ;  how  the  disciples 
had  been  willing  to  help,  but  had  failed.  The  whole  story 
kindled  Christ's  sad  indignation.  He  had  been  long  with 
both  disciples  and  people,  and  after  all  His  mighty  acts  and 
unwearied  teaching,  the  former  had  at  best  a  dark  and  waver- 
ing faith,  and  the  latter  were  ready  to  reject  Him  entirely. 
"  O  faithless  and  perverse  generation,"  cried  He,  "  have  ye, 
then,  no  faith  at  all  ?  Must  I  be  always  present  with  you  ? 
Are  all  the  proofs  you  have  had  of  my  help,  when  absent 
from  you  in  body,  forgotten  ?  Have  not  I  given  you  power 
over  demons,  and  to  cure  diseases,  and  promised  to  be  with 
you,  that  you  might  do  such  wonders  ?  How  could  you 
show  such  want  of  faith  as  to  doubt  my  promises,  and  think 
anything  too  difficult  either  to  attempt  or  do,  whether  I  am 
present  with  you  or  not  ?  Will  you  never  conquer  your 
unbelief  ?  How  long  shall  I  suffer  you  ?  Where  is  the  boy  ? 
Bring  him  to  me." 

The  boy  was  brought  at  once ;  but  his  eyes  no  sooner  met 
those  of  Jesus  than  he  was  seized  with  a  paroxysm  of  his 
malady,  and  fell  on  the  ground,  in  violent  convulsions,  and 
foaming  at  the  mouth.  Insane,  dumb,  and  writhing  on  the 
earth,  no  sadder  spectacle  of  the  kind  could  well  have  been 
seen. 

It  was  desirable  that  the  throng  around  should  have  the 
whole  incident  impressed  on  their  minds,  and  it  was  neces- 
sary for  the  permanent  good  of  the  agonized  father  himself 
that  his  faith  should  be  strengthened. 

"  How  long  has  he  suffered  in  this  way  ?  "  asked  Jesus. 

"  From  childhood,  and  often  the  spirit  casts  him  into  the 
water  and  into  the  fire,  to  kill  him.  But  if  Thou  canst  da 


244  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

anything  at  all,  have  compassion  on  me  and  him,  and  help 
us." 

"If  Thou  canst?"  replied  Jesus,  repeating  his  words  in 
gentle  rebuke.  "  All  things  are  possible  to  him  that  be- 
lieves." 

The  intense  emotion  of  the  father  conld  restrain  itself  no 
longer.  His  son's  cure  had  been  made  to  turn  on  his  own 
confidence  in  the  Healer,  and  that,  even  if  sincere,  might  not 
be  deep  enough  to  secure  the  favour  so  unspeakably  wished. 
In  his  distress  he  could  only  break  out  into  the  pitiful  cry, 
which  has  risen  from  unnumbered  hearts  since  his  day, 
"Yes,  I  believe  :  help  Thou  mine  unbelief,  if  my  faith  is  too 
weak."6 

The  crowd  had  been  closing  in  from  all  sides  on  Jesus  and 
the  unhappy  father  and  son,  and  further  delay  was  to  be 
avoided.  Turning,  therefore,  to  the  boy,  Jesus  addressed 
the  demon :  "  Speechless  and  deaf  spirit,  I  charge  thee,  come 
out  of  him,  and  enter  no  more  into  him."  A  wild  shriek 
and  a  dreadful  convulsion d  followed,  and  then  the  boy  lay 
still  and  motionless,  so  that  he  seemed  dead.  Many,  indeed, 
said  he  was  dead.  But  Jesus  took  him  by  the  hand,  and, 
lifting  him  up,  delivered  him  to  his  father,  amidst  the 
loudly  expressed  wonder  of  the  multitude  at  the  mighty 
power  of  God. 

The  disciples,  humbled  by  their  failure,  and  unable,  in 
their  self-deception,  to  account  for  it,  took  the  first  opportu- 
nity, on  their  gaining  privacy,  to  ask  their  Master  to  what  it 
was  owing.  "  It  was  simply,"  said  Jesus,  "because  of  your 
little  faith  ;  e  indeed,  I  may  say  your  want  of  faith ;  for  I  as- 
sure you  that  if  you  had  steadfast,  unwavering  faith,  though 
ever  so  small,  in  my  help,  and  in  the  power  of  God,  no  dif- 
ficulty would  be  too  great  for  you  to  remove.  You  know 
how  men  call  overcoming  difficulties  '  removing  a  mountain  ; >f 
I  tell  you  that  no  mountain  of  difficulty  would  be  so  great — 
far  less  this  one  which  foiled  you — that  it  would  not,  at  the 
word  of  firm  trust  in  God,  be  moved  out  of  your  way."  1 
"  As  regards  this  cure,"  He  added,  "  you  had  to  do  with  a 
kind  of  demoniac  possession,  which  especially  demands  strong 
faith,  for  every  attempt  to  overcome  it  without  such  faith 
as  comes  through  prayer  so  persistent  that  it  neglects  even 
the  needs  of  the  body  for  the  time,  must  be  fruitless.8  It 
never  is  the  greatness  of  the  difficulty,  but  only  the  weakness 

1  Sclileiermaclier'a  Predigten,  vol.  iii.  p.  675. 


CAUTION  DEMANDED.  245 

of  your  faith,  that  stands  in  your  way.  Remember  this  in 
years  to  come." 

Jesus  did  not  stay  long  in  the  district  of  Caesarea  Philippi, 
but  soon  turned  once  more  towards  Galilee,  probably  taking 
the  road  by  Dan,  across  the  slopes  of  Lebanon,  with  the 
wild  reed-forests  of  the  Huleh  marshes  on  its  south  side, 
and  on  its  north  the  huge  mountain  masses  of  Lebanon  and 
Hermon,  and  the  broad,  well-watered  sweep  of  upland  valley 
between.1  He  would  thus  most  easily  reach  the  hills  of 
Galilee  by  an  unusual  route,  and  escape  the  publicity  of  an 
approach  by  the  ordinary  roads.  It  was  the  last  time  He 
was  to  visit  the  scene  of  so  great  a  part  of  His  public  life, 
and  He  felt,  as  He  journeyed  on,  that  He  could  no  more  pass 
from  village  to  village  as  openly  as  in  days  gone  by,  for  the 
eyes  of  Hi  a  enemies  were  everywhere  on  Him.  The  time 
He  had  previously  given  to  teaching  and  healing  was  now 
devoted  mainly  to  the  special  preparation  of  His  disciples 
for  the  approaching  end.  Now  and  then,  when  special 
occasion  demanded,  He  was  as  ready  as  ever  to  relieve  the 
wretched,  or  to  justify  and  repeat  the  words  which  He  had 
so  often  delivered  in  the  synagogues ;  but  He  usually  shunned 
notice,  not  wishing,  in  the  words  of  St.  Mark,  that  any  man 
should  know.  Avoiding  the  more  populous  places,  and 
seeking  by-paths  among  the  hills,u  where  He  would  meet 
few  and  escape  notice,  He  made  His  way  towards  His  old 
home,  Capernaum.  But  He  could  no  longer  show  Himself 
anywhere  as  He  had  done  in  the  days  of  His  popularity,  for 
every  word  or  act  would  have  created  new  excitement,  and 
given  a  fresh  ground  for  accusation.  He  had  resolved  to  go 
to  Jerusalem  and  there  meet  His  fate,  but  He  could  only  do 
this  by  guarding  against  anything  which  might  lead  to  His 
arrest  in  Galilee,  for  in  that  case  He  would  be  tried  and 
condemned  by  a  local  court.  Jerusalem  alone  must  see  the 
catastrophe,  for  it  was  the  centre  of  the  nation,  the  head- 
quarters of  the  priesthood  and  Rabbis,  His  enemies,  and 
His  death  there  would  be  distinctly  their  work — their  open 
and  formal  rejection,  as  representatives  of  the  nation,  of  the 
New  Kingdom,  and  of  Himself  as  the  Messiah. 

He  stayed  in  Galilee,  therefore,  only  so  long  as  His  purpose 
to  go  to  Jerusalem  permitted,  and  meanwhile  withdrew  from 
public  life,  to  devote  Himself  especially  to  the  Twelve,  and 
prepare  them  for  His  death,  of  which  He  seems  to  hare 

»  Matt.  xvii.  22,  23.     Mark  ix.  30-32.     Luke  ix.  43-45. 


246  THE  LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

spoken  very  often.  One  of  the  fragments  of  His  intercourse 
with  them,  while  slowly  journeying  onwards  to  His  own  town, 
has  been  preserved  to  us.  "  You  have  heard,"  said  He,  "  how 
the  multitudes  express  their  amazement  at  the  mighty  power 
of  God  shown  in  the  miracles  they  have  seen  me  perform,  as 
in  the  case  of  the  cure  of  the  boy  after  my  descent  from  the 
mount.  Let  their  words,  in  which  they  have  thus  acknow- 
ledged and  magnified  my  acts  as  not  less  than  Divine,  sink 
into  your  memories,  and  strengthen  and  confirm  your  faith 
in  me  as  the  Messiah.  For  I,  the  Son  of  man — the  Messiah 
— whose  mighty  works  you  have  heard  extolled  so  greatly, 
might  easily  have  set  myself  at  the  head  of  the  people,  and 
led  them  by  supernatural  power,  as  they  and  their  chief  men 
wish,  to  outward  national  glory.  But  I  will  assuredly  be 
abandoned  by  the  multitude,  and  delivered  up  to  the  authori- 
ties, because  I  will  not  use  my  power  for  any  but  holy  and 
spiritual  ends.  I  will  be  betrayed  into  the  hands  of  my 
enemies,  and  they  will  put  me  to  death,  but  I  shall  rise  again 
on  the  third  day." 

They  were  too  full  of  their  worldly  hopes,  which  still 
mingled  strangely  with  their  vague  recognition  of  their 
Master  as  the  Son  of  God, — too  unwilling  also  to  think 
earnestly  on  a  subject  so  unpleasant,  and  so  opposed  to  their 
ideas  of  the  Messiah, — to  understand  what  He  meant  by  these 
sad  forebodings.  He  needed  only  to  speak  the  word,  and  the 
people  would  follow  Him,  and  He  might,  by  His  miraculous 
power,  which  it  seemed  to  them  could  not  be  used  for  a 
nobler  end,  set  up  the  Theocracy,  as  even  John,  apparently, 
had  expected  He  would.  Such  language  seemed  part  of  His 
dark  sayings,  with  a  secret  meaning  which  He  would  some 
day  explain.  They  would  fain  have  wished  this  explanation, 
indeed,  at  once,  to  calm  their  minds,  but  they  hesitated  to 
ask  Him  for  it.  He  might,  perhaps,  if  they  did  so,  tell  them 
something  still  more  unpleasant,  as  He  had  done  lately  to 
Peter,  in  a  similar  case.  Besides,  they  did  not  like  to  think 
about  what  they  disliked  so  greatly,  and  turned  from  mat- 
ters which  only  filled  them  with  gloom  to  others  more  in 
keeping  with  their  wishes  and  hopes. 

These  offered  themselves  in  the  distinction  Jesus  often 
eeemed  to  make  in  His  bearing  to  one  or  other  of  their 
number.1  Human  nature  is  always  the  same,  and  jealousy 
was  as  rife  in  those  days  as  now.  However  impartially  He 

1  Matt,  xviii.  1-35.    Mark  ix.  33-50.    Luke  ix.  46-50. 


DISPUTES  OP  THE   TWELVE.  247 

might  treat  them,  their  own  characteristics  made  it  impos- 
sible that  he  should  be  as  intimate  and  confidential  with 
some  as  with  others.  In  some  cases,  as  at  the  Transfigura- 
tion, He  had  thought  fit  to  take  onlj  a  few  of  them  with 
Him,  and  He  seemed  lately  to  have  put  especial  honour  on 
Peter,  while  his  friendship  for  John  was  closer  and  more 
tender  than  for  any  other.  All  this,  however,  would  have 
troubled  the  less  favoured  ones  little  but  for  their  almost 
invincible  belief  that  He  would  soon  proclaim  Himself  as  the 
Messiah  in  the  Jewish  sense,  and  found  a  great  political 
kingdom.  Everything  was  seen  through  this  preconception, 
and  any  marks  of  preference  were  taken  as  indications  of 
future  position  in  the  expected  revolution.  They  assumed 
that,  having  been  chosen  from  all  their  countrymen,  by  Jesus, 
as  His  closest  followers,  they  would  have  the  chief  places  in 
the  new  empire  He  was  to  found,  but  there  was  abundant 
room  for  jealousy  in  their  individual  claims  to  this  or  that 
prominent  dignity.  Accustomed  to  discuss  everything  openly, 
they  naturally  fell  into  warm  controversy  as  to  the  just 
distribution  of  the  great  offices  of  state  among  them,  when 
Jesus  should  be  installed  at  Jerusalem  as  Monarch  of  the 
world. 

In  this  dispute,  however,  their  Master  took  no  part.  Nor, 
indeed,  did  they  wish  Him  to  do  so,  for  they  had  fallen 
behind,  in  order  that  He  might  not  hear  them.  They  were 
ashamed  to  have  Him  know  what  occupied  their  thoughts, 
so  little  in  harmony  with  His  teaching  and  spirit.  But  He 
had  noticed  all,  though  He  said  nothing  for  the  moment. 
Meanwhile  they  once  more  entered  Capernaum. 


CHAPTER  XLVHI. 
BEFORE  THE  FEAST. 

riHHERE  is  something  intensely  human  in  the  return  of 
-*-  Jesus  to  Capernaum  in  the  face  of  imminent  danger.1 
It  had  been  His  home,  and  He  was  in  all  sinless  regards  a 
man.  He  longed  to  see  the  old  familiar  spots  once  more ; 
the  hills  behind  the  town,  among  which  He  had  so  often 
wandered ;  the  shady  woods  and  orchards  and  vineyards, 
rich  in  foliage,  or  glowing  with  their  ripening  fruit  in  these 
summer  months.  He  had  often  looked  out  from  them  on  the 
sparkling  waters,  and  at  the  clustered  houses,  which  had 
yielded  the  few  whom  He  had  gathered  round  Him  in  His 
long  sojourn  as  their  fellow-citizen.  These  He  would  now 
fain  strengthen  in  their  faith,  before  leaving  them  for  ever. 

His  entrance  into  the  town  was  marked  by  an  application 
to  Peter,  by  the  local  collectors  of  the  Temple  tax,  for  its 
payment  by  his  Master.  Moses  had  provided  funds  for  the 
erection  of  the  Tabernacle,  by  the  imposition  of  a  tax  of  half 
a  shekel  on  each  male,  payable  at  the  "  numbering  of  the 
people,"  -  and  this,  since  the  Babylonish  Captivity,  had  been 
required  yearly.  It  was  equal,  nominally,  to  about  one  and 
threepence  of  our  money,  but  really,  to  at  least  six  times  as 
much,3  and  was  demanded  from  all  Israelites  of  the  age  of 
twenty,  even  the  poorest. 

It  was  mainly  from  this  heavy  tax,  paid  as  a  sacred  duty 
by  every  Jew,  in  whatever  country,  that  the  Temple  treasury 
was  filled  with  the  millions  of  silver  coins  which  were  so 
strong  a  temptation  to  lawless  greed.  Crassus,  Sabinus,  and 
Pilate,  in  succession,  had  laid  violent  hands  on  this  un- 
measured wealth,  and  the  reckless  greed  of  Floi-us,  in  its 

1  Matt.  xvii.  24-27.     Mark  ix.  33. 
*  Exod.  xxx.  11,  12.     2  Chron.  xxiv.  6.     Neh.  x.  32. 
3  Buxtorf,  p.  577.     Ewald,  Alterthiimer,  p.  403.     Michaelis,  Das  Recht 
Uosis,  vol.  iii.  §  173. 


THE   TEMPLE   TAX.  249 

plunder,  was  the  proximate  cause  of  the  last  great  war,  which 
destroyed  both  Temple  and  city.1  b 

The  Shelihim,*  or  "  messengers,"  who  collected  this  tax  in 
Judea,  visited  each  town  at  fixed  times.  In  foreign  countries, 
places  were  appointed  for  its  collection  in  every  city  or  district 
where  there  were  Jews — and  where  were  they  not  ? — the 
chief  men  of  their  community  in  each  acting  as  treasurer, 
and  conveying  the  amounts  in  due  course  to  Jerusalem.2 
Three  huge  chests,  carefully  guarded  in  a  particular  chamber 
in  the  Temple,  held  the  yearly  receipts,  which  served,  besides 
providing  the  beasts  for  sacrifice,  to  pay  the  Rabbis,  inspectors 
of  victims,  copyists,  bakers,  judges,  and  others  connected  with 
the  Temple  service,  and  numerous  women,  who  wove  or 
washed  the  Temple  linen.  It  supplied,  also,  the  costs  of  the 
water  supply,  and  of  the  repairs  of  the  vast  Temple  build- 
ings. 

The  collection  began  in  the  Holy  Land  on  the  1st  of  Adar 
— part  of  our  February  and  March — the  month  of  the  "  re- 
turning sun,"  and  the  next  before  that  of  the  Passover.  By 
the  middle  of  it  the  official  exchangers  in  each  town  had  set 
up  their  tables,  and  opened  their  two  chests  for  the  tax 
of  the  current  and  of  the  past  year,  for  many  paid  it  for 
two  years  together.  They  supplied  for  a  trifling  charge,  to 
all  who  required  it,  the  old  sacred  shekel,  coined  by  Simon 
the  Maccabee,  for  only  that  coin  was  received  by  the 
Temple  authorities,  in  homage  to  Pharisaic  and  national 
sentiment.  At  first  everything  was  left  to  the  good  will  of 
the  people,  but  after  the  25th,  prompt  payment  was  required, 
and  securities,  such  as  an  under  garment,  or  the  like,  were 
taken  even  from  pilgrims  coming  up  to  the  feast. 

It  was  very  likely,  therefore,  that  the  time  of  grace  had 
expired  before  Jesus  reached  Capernaum,  so  that  the  collectors 
— apparently  respectable  citizens — felt  themselves  justified  in 
broaching  the  question  to  Peter,  whether  his  Teacher  did 
not  pay  the  two  drachmas  ?  Perhaps  they  fancied  He  was 
of  the  irreconcilable  school  of  Judas  the  Gralilaean,  who  would 
pay  no  Temple  tax  so  long  as  the  Holy  City  was  polluted  by 
the  heathen  Roman.3  His  enemies,  indeed,  had  probably 
insinuated  that  this  was  the  case,  to  bring  Him  into  suspicion 
with  the  government. 

1  Jos.,  Bell.  Jud.,  ii.  3.  3  ;  14.  6  ;  15.  6. 

*  Philo,  de  Monarch.,  vol.  ii.  p.  224.     Jos.,  Ant.,  xviii.  9.  1. 

»  Lightfoot,  Hor.  Htl ,  vol.  ii.  p.  252.    Sepp,  vol.  ii.  p.  247. 


250  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

Peter,  ever  zealous  for  his  Master's  honour,  and,  as  usual, 
impulsive,  no  sooner  heard  the  application  than  he  answered 
affirmatively,  on  his  own  authority,  and  forthwith  set  off  to 
find  Jesus  and  report  the  matter  to  Him. 

If  the  exact  time  for  payment  had  passed  while  Christ 
had  been  away  from  Capernaum,  the  collectors  were,  doubt- 
less, anxious  to  gather  all  arrears,  to  take  with  them  to 
Jerusalem  at  the  approaching  Feast  of  Tabernacles  in  Sep- 
tember. As  if  to  show  that  not  even  the  most  insignificant 
matter  that  concerned  His  disciples  escaped  His  notice,  even 
when  not  bodily  present  with  them,  Peter  no  sooner  appeared 
than  He  anticipated  his  errand  by  asking  him  his  opinion, 
whether,  when  kings  levy  taxes  or  tolls,  they  exacted  them 
from  their  own  children,  or  only  from  their  subjects  ? 

"  I  think,"  replied  Peter,  "  that  only  the  subjects  pay." 
"  Then,  of  course,"  replied  Jesus,  "  the  king's  children  are 
free." 

He  wished  to  show  that  it  would  have  been  no  failure  of 
duty  to  leave  the  tax  unpaid.  Peter  had  already  owned  Him 
as  the  "  Son  of  God,"  and  it  was  for  the  Temple  of  God  the 
impost  was  levied.  It  might,  therefore,  be  just  and  proper 
to  collect  it  from  the  nation  at  large,  but  it  was  not  fitting 
to  ask  it  from  Him.  "  I  am  a  king  and  a  king's  son  ;  far 
more  than  any  Roman  or  Herodian  prince — for  I  am  the  Son 
of  God,  as  thou  hast  said,  and  this  tax  is  for  the  Temple 
of  God,  My  Father,  the  Great  King,  and  thus  I  should  be 
free."  • 

But,  while  thus  maintaining  to  His  apostle  His  rightful 
immunity,  He  was  too  prudent  to  urge  it  in  public.  He 
was  not  recognised  as  the  Son  of  God  outside  the  little  circle 
of  His  disciples,  but  was  only  an  Israelite,  like  others,  to 
men  at  large,  and,  as  such,  was  under  the  Law.  It  would 
have  given  ground  of  accusation  and  misconception  had  He 
hesitated  to  pay  what  all  Jews  gave  cheerfully  as  a  religious 
duty." 

"  It  would  not  do  for  me,  nevertheless,"  continued  He, 
therefore,  "  to  seem  to  refuse.  They  would  not  understand 
what  I  have  been  saying  to  you.  Take  your  line  and  go  to 
the  lake ;  you  need  not  wait  till  you  catch  a  number  of  fish 
to  make  up  the  amount.  Take  the  first  that  comes  to  your 
hook,  and  you  will  find  in  its  mouth  a  stater,"  which  is  twice 
as  much  as  is  needed.  With  it  you  can  pay  for  me  and  for 
yourself." 

The  result  is  not  given,  but  there  can  be  no  question  tliat 


THE  OLD  THEOCEACT  AND  THE  NEW.      251 

the  command  secured  its  own  fulfilment.1  No  lesson  could 
have  been  given  more  suited  to  benefit  Peter  and  his  com- 
panions. It  taught  them  that,  though  they  were  His  apostles, 
they  could  not  claim  exemption  from  labour  for  their  own 
support,  but  yet  it  quickened  them  to  a  firm  repose  on  His 
Avatchful  care,  which  could  help  them  in  any  extremity. 

They  remained  for  a  short  time  in  Capernaum,  and,  hap- 
pily, we  have  a  glimpse  of  their  quiet  private  intercourse ; 
doubtless  the  picture  of  their  ordinary  life.2  He  had  de- 
layed allusion  to  the  hot  discussion  on  the  way  till  the  quiet 
of  evening  and  home. 

"  Tell  me,"  said  He,  turning  to  one  of  them,  "about  what 
were  you  disputing  among  yourselves  on  the  road  "  But  the 
question  received  no  answer,  for  all  were  alike  ashamed  of 
their  unworthy  jealousies  and  ambitions,  and  sat  humbled 
and  silent. 

It  was  an  opportunity  for  impressing  on  them  once  more 
the  fundamental  characteristic  of  His  kingdom.  Their  daily 
work,  as  disciples,  reminded  them  continually  of  their  rela- 
tions to  it,  and  it  already  engrossed  their  thoughts,  but  they 
still  failed  to  realize  its  purely  spiritual  character.  The 
trials  waiting  them  rendered  it,  thus,  the  more  necessary  to 
strengthen  and  support  them  beforehand,  by  correcting  their 
misapprehensions,  and  elevating  their  tone. 

In  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  they  had  heard,  if  they  could 
have  understood  it,  how  utterly  His  kingdom  contrasted 
with  all  their  previous  ideas.  They  had  been  repeatedly  told 
that  moral  fitness  alone  secured  entrance  to  it,  and  that 
every  external  claim — whether  the  fulfilment  of  legal  duties, 
or  national  privilege,  or  sacred  calling,  or  whatever  had 
hitherto  been  supposed  to  give  a  title  to  membership  in  the 
old  Theocracy — must  be  abandoned  as  worthless.3  The  reign 
of  God,  now  proclaimed,  was,  in  fact,  only  the  homage  of 
the  soul,  which  had  prepared  itself,  like  a  purified  Temple, 
by  humble  repentance  and  holy  life,  to  be  a  habitation  of  His 
Heavenly  Father.  Man  must  only  receive  from  God ;  not 
pretend  to  give  to  Him. 

Citizenship  in  the  New  Kingdom  of  the  Messiah  was  pos- 
gible  only  when  no  thought  of  claim  obtruded. 

It  was  thus,  in  effect,  simply  a  reproduction  of  the  spirit 

1  Trench's  Miracles,  pp.  373-388. 

1  Matt,  xviii.  1-35.     Mark  ix.  33,  50.     Lukeix.  46-50 

•  Baur,  Die  Drei  Ersten  Jahrh.,  p.  34.     Schenkel,  p.  153. 


252  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

of  Jesus  Himself  that  was  demanded,  for  the  great  charac- 
teristic which  gave  His  life  its  matchless  beauty,  was  His 
perfect  Divine  humility.  His  lowly  meekness  had  protected 
Him  at  the  opening  of  His  ministry,  when  tempted  to  self- 
exaltation  ;  it  had  subordinated  His  own  will,  as  by  a  law  of 
His  being,  to  that  of  God';  it  had  opened  His  heart  to  the 
poor  of  His  nation,  cast  out  and  despised  by  the  religious 
pride  of  the  day ;  it  had  made  Him,  throughout,  the  friend 
of  the  oppressed,  the  lowly,  and  the  wretched;  it  had  led 
Him,  of  His  free  choice,  to  despise  all  worldly  honour,  and 
it  was  now  bearing  Him,  with  a  kingly  grandeur,  to  the 
abasement  of  the  Cross,  that  He  might  open  to  His  people, 
and  to  mankind,  the  way  to  peace  with  their  Father  in 
Heaven,  and  found  a  kingdom  of  holiness,  truth,  and  lore  ; 
to  ennoble  and  bless  the  present,  and  expand  into  eternal 
felicity  in  the  world  to  come. 

It  was  vital,  therefore,  for  His  disciples,  then,  as  now, 
that  they  should  have  the  same  heavenly  temper.  Without 
it,  they  could  neither  be  efficient  instruments  in  spreading 
His  kingdom,  nor  have  any  share  in  it  themselves,  for  it 
was,  itself,  the  Kingdom — the  reign  of  God — in  the  soul. 
The  danger  of  self-elevation  had  been  greatly  increased  from 
the  moment  when  Jesus  had  accepted  from  them,  at  Csesarea 
Philippi,  their  formal  ascription  of  the  Messianic  dignity. 
What  seductive  dreams  lay  for  Galilgean  fishermen  in  their 
being  commissioned  by  the  Messiah,  as  His  confidential 
friends,  and  the  first  dignitaries  of  His  kingdom  !  They 
had,  indeed,  heard  Jesus  speak  of  suffering  a  shameful  death, 
as  the  immediate  result  of  His  proclaiming  Himself  as  the 
Messiah ;  but  when  the  mind  is  already  preoccupied  by 
strong  views,  it  is  incredibly  hard  to  turn.  Even  the  most 
discouraging  incidents  are  transformed  into  supports,  or  at 
least  argued  aside.  "Perhaps  Jesus  had  only  spoken  thus 
to  try  them ;  perhaps  it  was  one  of  the  dark  sayings  He 
used  so  often."  Their  future  dignity  in  the  Kingdom  had 
been  the  topic  of  constant  disputes  and  discussions,  ever 
since  the  eventful  day  at  Caesarea  Philippi.  Had  they  not 
received  spiritual  graces  and  powers  ?  For  what  had  they 
gone  through  so  much  toil  and  danger  ?  The  reward  could 
not  be  far  distant.  When  it  came,  which  of  them  should 
have  the  first  place,  and  be  the  Minister  of  the  New  Reign  ? 

They  must  be  taught  how  utterly  they  deceived  them- 
selves. 

Jesus  had  sat  down  in  the  house  and  called  the  Twelvo 


"LIKE  A  LITTLE  CHILD."  253 

before  putting  the  question.1  As  they  stood  round  Him — • 
for  disciples  of  a  Rabbi  always  stood  when  their  masters  sat 
down  to  teach  them — His  first  words  scattered  the  whole 
unworthy  dream  of  their  hearts. 

"  Whoever  of  you,"  said  He,  "  it  matters  not  which,  seeks 
to  be  before  the  other,  and  would  distinguish  himself  in  My 
Kingdom,2  can  only  do  so  by  cheerfully  stooping  to  render 
even  the  humblest  services  to  all  the  rest.  He  must  show 
himself  the  willing  servant  of  all,  by  doing  whatever  he  can 
to  serve  the  others.  He  must  seek  and  find  his  greatness  in 
this  lowly  humility."* 

Such  language  was  well-nigh  incomprehensible  to  men 
misled  by  worldly  pride  and  ambition.  They  were  thinking 
of  themselves  rather  than  of  their  Master ;  of  receiving 
rather  than  rendering ;  of  selfish  ease  and  honour,  rather 
than  loving  self-sacrifice,  which  He  had  often  told  them  was 
the  condition  of  their  discipleship.  He,  therefore,  resolved 
to  bring  them  to  a  better  frame,  and  this  by  an  illustration 
rather  than  words.  They  knew,  by  experience,  that  even 
His  most  unpalatable  and  His  darkest  words,  had  a  greater 
fulness  of  truth  than  their  imperfect  insight  could  realize. 
They  had,  doubtless,  also  at  times,  misgivings  respecting 
their  dreams  of  the  future,  though  they  could  not  as  yet  lay 
these  aside.  Some  of  them  had  even  gone  so  far  as  to  ask 
Him  the  particular  dignities  He  intended  for  each,  that 
future  strife  might  be  checked  by  an  authoritative  announce- 
ment. 

Calling  a  little  boy  of  the  household ;  lifting  him  in  His 
arms,  and  pressing  him  fondly  to  His  breast,  as  if  to  show 
how  much  nearer  such  an  one  was  to  Him  than  even  the 
Apostles  in  their  present  mood,  He  drew  their  attention 
to  the  child.  Love  of  children  and  of  their  childish  traits, 
had  always  marked  Him.  A  child,  in  His  eyes,  was  a  type 
of  humility, — the  grace  so  dear  to  Him.  It  raises  no  over- 
weening claims  such  as  men  advance,  and  accepts  all  its 
relations  in  life  as  it  finds  them ;  it  adapts  itself  uncon- 
sciously to  the  lowliest  and  most  ungenial  lot,  and  finds 
happiness  in  it.  It  is  the  embodiment  of  dependence  and 
need ;  of  having  nothing,  and  yet  looking  with  simple  trust 
to  a  higher  than  itself. 

The  Twelve  noted  His  act  with  wonder,  not  knowing  what 
it  meant.  He  now  proceeded  to  explain  it. 

1  Matt,  xviii.  1.     Mark  ix.  33.    Luke  ix.  46.          f  Hess,  vol.  ii.  p.    147, 


254  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

"  You  see  this  child,"  said  He ;  "  I  tell  you  solemnly,  that, 
unless  you  abandon  your  present  worldly  ideas  and  ambi- 
tious thoughts,  and  become  as  simple  and  humble,  and  as 
lovingly  dependent  on  God  as  it  is  on  man,  you  shall  not 
even  enter  my  Kingdom,  far  less  hold  a  high  place  in  it. 
Yon  see  how  this  child  has  no  thought  but  of  perfect  loving 
trust  towards  me ;  how  it  does  not  pretend  to  give  the  worth 
of  what  it  receives,  but  opens  its  whole  soul  to  me  with  artless 
innocence.  Such  sweet  humility  must  be  found  in  him  who 
would  seek  to  be  greatest  in  my  New  Kingdom.  To  have  the 
heart  of  a  child  is  the  fixed,  abiding,  condition  of  admission, 
of  accepted  service,  or  of  honour.  This  child  is  willing  to  be 
the  least  of  you  all,  and  to  serve  you  all,  and,  as  I  have  said, 
whoever  of  you  is  like  it  in  this,  is  the  greatest  among  you. 
Your  ambition  must  guide  itself  by  this  rule.  Your  strife 
shows  that  you  have  not  yet  rightly  grasped  the  true  nature 
of  my  Kingdom.  It  has  no  external  dignities  of  power  and 
rank ;  for  it  is  a  reign  of  principles,  not  a  worldly  dominion. 
All  its  members  are  therefore,  brethren,  on  a  footing  of 
perfect  equality.  Any  one  may,  indeed,  distinguish  himself 
beyond  others,  but  not  by  external  honour  and  dignity,  as  in 
the  kingdom  set  up  by  Moses,  or  as  in  that  of  the  Messiah 
expected  by  the  nation.  The  honours  of  my  Kingdom  are 
won  only  by  spiritual  likeness  to  myself,  your  example  and 
Master.  Self-denial,  self-sacrifice,  the  surrender  of  person 
nad  goods  for  the  sake  of  the  brotherhood,  unselfish  love, 
are  the  only  path  to  the  highest  place." 

He  had  now  answered  the  question ;  but  the  sight  of  the 
child  kindled  another  thought  of  no  less  moment.  "  Yon 
are  looking  for  great  events,  and  thinking,  with  weak  pride, 
of  your  claims  as  my  followers,  and  maybe  tempted  to 
slight  and  despise  any  one  as  spiritless,  and  beneath  you, 
who  is  humble  and  unassuming,  like  this  child  on  my  knee. 
But  let  me  tell  you,  that  any  one  who  honours  and  receives 
to  his  heart  even  a  single  child- like  soul  which  delights  in 
meekness  and  humility,  as  learned  from  me,  has  done  the 
same  in  spirit,  and  will  receive  a  like  reward  as  if  he  had 
received  me  myself,  and  done  me  personal  honour.  And 
since  all  that  is  done  to  me  from  an  honest  heart,  is  homage 
done  to  my  Father  who  sent  me,  He  Himself  will  show  His 
approval,  for  even  the  humblest  that  lives,  if  he  be  my 
disciple,  is  great  and  honoured  before  Him." 

The  use  of  the  words  "in  my  name"  had,  meanwhile, 
recalled  to  John  "the  Son  of  Thunder,"  an  incident  of 


THE   CUP  OF   COLD   WATER.  255 

their  recent  journey.  The  Twelve  had  met,  in  their  way,  one 
casting  out  devils  in  the  name  of  Jesus,  though  he  was  not 
one  of  their  company,  and  instead  of  "  receiving  "  him,  had 
charged  him  to  desist,  because  he  was  not  of  their  own 
number.  John  now  reported  the  matter,  as  if  struck  by 
I  .he  contrast  between  his  own  conduct  and  the  counsel  jast 
given.  "Forbid  him  not,"  replied  Jesus;  "One  who, 
though  not  of  my  circle,  has  yet  attained  so  strong  a  faith 
in  me  that  he  works  miracles  through  my  name,  needs  not 
be  feared  as  likely,  by  any  sudden  change,  to  speak  against 
me."  The  want  of  forbearance  had  sprung  from  the  want 
of  humility,  for  pride  is  the  special  source  of  impatience. 
"  He  who  is  not  against  us,"  continued  Jesus,  "  is  for  us." 
He  whom  John  had  treated  so  harshly  had,  at  least,  acted 
in  His  name,  though  perhaps,  with  a  very  imperfect  con- 
ception of  His  true  dignity,  or  of  the  scope  and  greatness  of 
His  work.  But  he  was  very  different  from  the  blasphemers 
who  did  not  shrink  from  speaking  of  the  Holy  Spirit  as  a 
spirit  of  evil.  Moreover,  the  nearer  the  end  approached,  the 
more  needful  it  was  to  root  out  any  signs  of  selfish  or 
haughty  feelings  in  the  Twelve,  and  to  lead  them  to  look 
with  kindly  eyes  on  even  a  partial,  if  friendly,  relationship 
to  Him.  He  wished  them  to  realize  that  worthiness  to  rank 
in  the  New  Society  was  shown  by  the  goodwill,  and  trustful, 
child-like  spirit,  which  led  to  devotion  to  Him,  rather  than 
by  the  measure  of  knowledge  evinced.  It  was  of  great 
moment,  at  this  time,  to  wake  kindly  and  broad-hearted 
feelings  towards  any,  who,  while  acting  apart,  were  yet 
well-disposed.  Were  He  once  gone,  it  would  be  left  to  His 
disciples  to  continue  His  work,  and  it  would  depend  upon 
them  whether  the  Society  founded  by  Him,  would  be  really 
the  beginning  of  a  new  epoch  in  religion,  or  only  a  piece  of 
new  cloth  sewed  on  an  old  garment ;  whether  it  would  be 
a  Jewish  sect  or  a  faith  for  mankind.8 

"  No  one  is  to  be  lightly  esteemed,"  continued  Jesus,  "  who 
shows  you  the  slightest  mark  of  goodwill  or  friendship,  were 
it  only  what  all  give  so  readily  in  these  sultry  lands,  a  drink 
of  cold  water,  when  given  because  you  are  my  disciples. 
Even  this  will  be  rewarded  by  God  as  an  act  worthy  His 
favour.  Nor  are  you,  only,  thus  honoured.  So  precious  to 
me  is  the  humble  child-like  spirit  which  you  are  ready  to 
despise,  that  if  any  one,  by  words  or  deeds,  cause  even  one 
such  soul  who  believes,  to  turn  away  from  me ;  as  you  were 
in  danger  of  doing  when  you  forbade  the  stranger  to  cast 


256  THE   LIFE    OF   CHEIST. 

out  devils  in  my  name  ;  it  would  be  better  for  him  that  one 
of  the  huge  mill-stones  h  turned  by  an  ass  were  hung  round 
his  neck,  and  he  drowned  in  the  depths  of  the  lake,  that  he 
might  be  saved  from  so  great  a  sin. 

"  Alas  for  the  world- wide  sorrow  which  the  sins  of  many, 
who  will  call  themselves  mine,  will  cause,  by  keeping  men 
from  me !  They  will  judge  of  me  by  these  unworthy  fol- 
lowers, and  keep  aloof  from  tny  Kingdom.  It  cannot,  indeed, 
be  otherwise,  for  the  evil  that  is  in  man  will  make  even  the 
name  of  religion  a  scandal.  But  how  awful  the  judgment 
that  awaits  him  who  turns  another  from  the  way  of  life  ! 

"  I  have  said  that  it  would  be  better  for  a  man  to  die  than 
that  he  should  lead  another  astray.  So,  whatever  may  tempt 
you  to  sin,  and  thus  bring  scandal  on  my  name,  had  much 
better  be  put  from  you,  at  any  cost.  If  anything,  therefore, 
however  dear  to  you,  incites  you  to  evil,  or  keeps  you  from 
a  godly  life,  thrust  it  from  you.  If  the  most  precious  mem- 
bers of  the  body — a  foot  or  a  hand — be  cut  off,  to  prevent 
death  of  the  whole  ;  how  much  rather  should  we  put  away, 
at  any  sacrifice,  any  sins  of  thought  or  act,  which,  by  mis- 
leading others,  would  cause  us  to  lose  eternal  life,  and  be 
cast  into  hell-fire,  where  the  worm  never  dies,  and  the  fire 
is  not  quenched.1 

"  Every  one  cast  into  the  fire,  which  the  prophet  thus 
calls  unquenchable — every  one,  that  is,  who  gives  himself 
up  to  sin — shall  certainly  suffer  the  wrath  of  God,  and  be 
salted  with  fire,  as  the  victims  on  the  altar  are  salted  with 
salt.  But  every  one  whose  humble  and  steadfast  faith  in 
me  has  shown  him  to  be,  as  it  were,  a  pure  and  worthy 
sacrifice,  fit  to  be  laid  on  the  altar  of  God,  will,  on  his  en- 
trance into  the  heavenly  kingdom  of  the  Messiah,  be  salted, 
not  with  fire,  but  with  the  gift  of  higher  grace,  that  he  may 
endure  unto  life  eternal.1  Salt  is  of  value  to  prevent  cor- 
ruption, and  I  have,  before  now,  called  you  '  the  salt  of  the 
earth ; '  because,  if  you  are  my  true  disciples,  you  will 
arrest  the  corruption  that  prevails  among  men,  and  make 
the  community  sound.  How  dreadful,  however,  if  you,  the 
salt,  lose  your  savour.  How  will  you  regain  it  ?  If  you 
turn  to  evil,  and,  through  sloth  or  faint-heartedness,  be 
untrue  to  your  calling,  how  can  your  needful  energy  and 
efficiency  be  restored  ?  You  wish  to  be  accepted  at  last  as 
pure  and  worthy  offerings  to  God,  and  to  receive  the  gift 

1  Isa.  Ixvi.  24.     Nork,  p.  121.     Schiirer,  p.  596. 


CHEIST'S  LITTLE  ONES.  257 

of  heavenly  wisdom,  which  is  everlasting  life.  To  attain 
it,  take  care  to  guard  the  salt  of  true  wisdom,  which  has 
been  already  given  you — the  grace  bestowed  on  you  to  be 
my  disciples.  Remember,  moreover,  that  salt  is  the  symbol 
of  peace  ;  be  at  peace  among  yourselves,  and  do  not  dispute 
and  argue  as  you  have  been  doing,  lest  you  lose  the  power 
and  fruits  of  my  teaching." 

Jesus  had  for  the  time  digressed  from  His  original  subject 
— the  humble  and  child-like  among  His  followers — but  now 
returned  to  it. 

"  Respecting  those  little  ones  of  whom  I  was  speaking — 
lowly,  self-distrustful ;  weak  yet  it  may  be  in  faith,  as  little 
children  are  in  strength — I  would  further  say  :  Take  heed l 
that  ye  do  not  slight  or  contemn  any  one  of  them,  for  I  tell 
you,  so  greatly  honoured  and  so  dear  are  they  in  the  sight  of 
God,  that  the  humblest  of  them,  for  their  very  humility,  are 
placed  by  Him  under  the  loving  care  of  the  highest  angels, 
who  stand  before  Him,  and  see  His  face  continually.  Glori- 
ous though  all  angels  be,  only  such  exalted  spirits — the 
princes  of  heaven — are  thought  worthy,  by  God,  to  minister 
to  them  and  protect  them.k 

"  To  slight  or  despise  even  one  such  would,  indeed,  be  to 
undo,  so  far,  the  very  end  for  which  I  have  come  as  the 
Messiah.  You  may,  by  doing  so,  turn  him  away  from  me, 
and  so  cause  his  soul  to  be  lost.  Much  rather,  ii  you  meet 
with  a  humble  spirit,  still  weak  in  the  faith,  which  has 
gone  astray,  should  you  do  your  utmost  to  bring  it  back. 
For  what  shepherd  feeding,  it  may  be,  a  hundred  sheep,  in 
our  upland  pastures,  if  one  of  them  stray,  does  not  leave  the 
ninety  and  nine,  and  set  off  into  the  hills  to  seek  for  the  one 
that  has  wandered  ?  And  if  he  be  so  happy  as  to  find  it,  I 
say  to  you,  beyond  doubt  he  rejoices  more  over  the  one  thus 
saved  than  over  the  ninety  and  nine  that  had  not  strayed, 
In  the  same  way  as  it  grieves  the  shepherd  if  even  one  of 
his  sheep  should  be  lost,  so  it  grieves  my  Father  in  Heaven 
that  one  of  these  feeble,  simple  souls  should  perish,  and  it 
sorely  displeases  Him  if  it  do  so  by  the  neglect  or  fault  of 
any  of  my  disciples. 

"  Let  me  pass  to  a  distinct,  yet  related  subject — the  proper 
treatment  of  a  brother  in  the  faith  who  does  you  any  wrong, 
by  anger,  envy,  selfishness,  or  in  any  other  way.  Do  not 
wait  till  he  who  has  thus  injured  you  comes  to  you  to  make 

1  Gfrorer,  vol.  L  p.  374.     Lanyen,  p.  331. 


258  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

amends,  but  go  to  him  by  yourself,  and  tell  him  his  fault  in 
private ;  that,  if  possible,  you  may  get  him  to  own  it  be- 
tween you.  and  him  alone,  and  thus  the  scandal  of  difference 
between  disciples  spread  no  farther,  and  he  be  won  for  my 
New  Kingdom,  from  which  he  would  have  been  shut  out, 
if,  by  refusing  to  be  reconciled,  he  had  shown  no  repentance. 
Seek  his  good,  not  your  own  justification  merely;  however 
wronged,  think  less  of  yourself  than  of  his  eternal  salvation. 

"  If,  however,  he  will  not  listen  to  your  kindly  remon- 
strance and  persuasion,  go  a  second  time  to  him,  taking  two 
or  three  witnesses  with  you,  as  Moses  directed  in  other 
cases ; 1  if,  perchance,  though  he  has  not  been  moved  by 
your  single  appeal,  that  of  two  or  three,  supporting  you,  may 
lead  him  to  see  and  acknowledge  his  fault.  Their  testimony, 
besides,  will  prevent  his  denial  of  his  confession,  should  he 
make  one,  and  afterwards  repudiate  it ;  while,  if  he  refuse  to 
listen  and  to  admit  his  fault,  and  the  matter  must  be  brought 
before  the  Assembly,  it  will  establish  and  confirm  at  once  the 
fact  of  your  private  visit  for  attempted  reconciliation,  and 
his  stubborn  refusal  to  hear  even  the  two  or  three  brethren 
taken  with  you  on  the  second  visit. 

"  The  Rabbis  enjoin  that  the  offender  shall  go  to  him 
whom  he  has  injured,  and  own  his  fault,  and  that  if  he  can- 
not thus  procure  forgiveness,  he  shall  take  others  with  him 
and  seek  to  obtain  it ; 2  but  I  require  that  he  who  is  wronged 
do  this,  that  he  may  show  his  humility  and  his  patient  love 
for  a  guilty  brother. 

"You  know,  moreover,  how  a  stubborn  offender,  who 
refuses  private  amends,  is  at  last  publicly  reproved  in  the 
synagogue  and  in  the  schools.3  In  my  new  society,  the 
congregation  of  the  new  Israel — the  Kahal,  or  assembly  of 
my  followers,  which  will,  hereafter,  be  called  the  Church, —  is 
to  make  a  third,  final,  attempt  to  win  the  guilty  one  to  re- 
pentance. You  are  to  tell  the  facts  to  the  '  congregation,' 
and  ask  their  godly  offices,  and  they,  through  appointed 
representatives,  will  then  seek  to  bring  him  to  a  right  frame 
of  mind.  If,  after  all,  he  refuse  to  hear  even  the  congre- 
gation, you  are  freed  from  further  responsibility,  and  are 
absolved  from  all  future  religious  relationship  to  him ;  as 
you  have  hitherto  thought  yourselves  to  be  from  the  heathen, 
and  from  men  of  vicious  life,  such  as  the  publicans.  Not  that 

1  Deut.  xix.  15,  in  Sept.  *  Lightfoot,  Hor.  Heb.,  voL  ii.  p.  254, 

1  Lightfoot,  vol.  ii.  p.  255. 


THE   POWER   TO   OPEN  AND   SHUT.  259 

you  are  to  despise  Mm,  or  refuse  him  the  common  offices  of 
humanity,  as  your  countrymen  do  to  such  classes ;  you  are 
still  to  love  and  seek  to  win  him  back,  even  till  the  very  last, 
as  your  Heavenly  Father  does  with  the  unthankful  and  evil. 

"  Let  every  offender  think  how  solemn  his  position  will  be 
if  thus  obdurate  before  the  congregation.  I  have  already 
given  Peter — as  the  key-bearer  of  my  spiritual  Temple,  the 
New  Society  I  have  founded — power  to  forbid  and  allow,  to 
enact  and  define,  what  is  needed  for  its  future  government 
and  discipline,  and  have  told  you  that  what  he  ordains,  so 
far  as  it  is  in  harmony  with  the  mind  of  the  Spirit  of  God, 
will  be  confirmed  by  me  in  heaven,  as  if  I  were  still  with 
you  on  earth.  This  power  I  now  extend  to  you  all,  my  twelve 
faithful  followers,  and  I  give  you,  as  a  body,  the  same  assur- 
ance of  my  confirmation  of  what  you  appoint  for  the  govern- 
ment of  my  Society.  Peter  is,  thus,  only  the  first  among 
equals.  If  the  remedy  I  have  pointed  out  be  insufficient  to 
meet  such  offences  as  my  Kingdom  extends,  I  leave  it  to  you 
to  devise  and  apply  what  other  means  may  seem  needed,  as 
the  occasion  demands.  And  that  you  may  feel  how  formally 
and  solemnly  I  now,  before  my  departure,  depute  this  power 
to  you,  I  tell  you,  further,  that  if  two  of  you  shall  agree  on 
any  matter,  thus  affecting  the  salvation  of  souls  by  the  right 
discipline  of  my  Church,  or  for  other  good  ends,  and  shall 
ask  my  Father  in  Heaven  to  grant  your  desire,  He  will  do 
so.  For  where  two  or  three  of  you  are  gathered  together  in 
my  name,  I  am  in  their  midst,  so  that  you  need  not  doubt 
my  promise,  that  what  even  so  few  agree  to  ask  my  Father, 
in  matters  pertaining  to  my  Kingdom,  will  be  granted."  * 

The  Twelve  had  listened  to  their  Master  in  reverent  silenoe, 
but  now  the  ever  self-asserting  Peter,  still  intensely  Jewish 
in  feeling,  interrupted  Him  by  a  question  conceived  in  the 
narrow  and  formal  spirit  of  Rabbinism. 

"  Lord,"  said  he,  "  our  teachers  tell  us  that  if  a  person  do 
us  wrong  we  are  to  forgive  him,  a  first,  second,  and  third 
time,  but  not  a  fourth.1  What  sayest  Thou  ?  Would  seven 
times  be  enough  ?  " 

"  I  am  far  from  limiting  my  requirement  to  seven  times," 
replied  Jesus.  "  Instead  of  that,  if  you  be  of  a  truly  humble 
and  child-like  spirit,  as  you  ought,  you  will  forgive  to  seventy 
times  seven — that  is,  any  number  of  times.  Let  me  shovf 
you  my  thoughts  on  this  point  by  a  p^arable. 

.  Joma,  i.  86.  2. 


260  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

"  The  subjects  of  my  kingdom  are  like  the  servants  of  a 
certain  ruler,  with  whom  their  lord  would  make  a  reckoning. 
So  he  called  before  him  his  revenue  collectors,  the  gatherers 
of  his  taxes  and  tolls,  and  demanded  a  settlement  from  them. 
Among  others,  one  was  brought  to  him  who  owed  him  ten 
thousand  talents — that  is,  thirty  millions  of  shekels™ — a  sum 
it  was  hopeless  for  him  to  think  of  repaying.  When  the  king 
heard  how  much  he  owed,  he  cried  out  that  '  he  would  be 
paid,'  and  commanded  him  to  be  sold  as  a  slave,  with  his 
wife  and  children,  and  all  that  he  had,  in  satisfaction  of 
the  debt."  Hearing  this,  the  servant  fell  down  before  him, 
beseeching  him,  '  Lord,  have  patience  with  me,  and  I  will  pay 
thee  all.'  At  this  his  lord  was  moved  with  compassion,  and 
having  ordered  him  to  be  unbound,  not  only  gave  him  time, 
as  he  had  asked,  but,  knowing  he  could  never  pay,  forgave 
him  the  debt  altogether. 

"  This  servant,  however,  thus  freely  forgiven,  went  out 
and  found  one  of  his  fellow-servants  who  owed  him  a  hun- 
dred denarii l — less  than  the  seven  hundredth-thousandth 
of  what  he  had  himself  owed — and  laid  hold  of  him  by  the 
throat,  saying  fiercely,  '  Pay  what  you  owe.'  The  debtor 
thereupon  fell  down  at  his  feet,  as  he  had  fallen  at  those  of 
his  lord,  and  besought  him,  '  Have  patience  with  me,  and  I 
will  pay  thee.'  But  he  had  no  pity,  and  cast  him  into  prison, 
till  he  should  pay  the  debt.  His  fellow-servants,  seeing  what 
was  being  done,  were  troubled  at  such  hardheartedness,  and 
at  the  ill-treatment  of  the  poor  man,  and  came  and  told  their 
lord  all  that  had  happened.  Then  the  lord,  having  called  the 
offender,  said  to  him,  '  O  wicked  servant,  I  forgave  you 
all  the  great  debt  you  owed  me,  because  you  asked  me, 
though  you  sought  only  time,  not  forgiveness.  Should  not 
you  also  have  had  pity  on  your  fellow-servant,  as  I  had  pity 
on  you  ?  '  And  his  lord  was  indignant,  and  delivered  him 
over  to  the  torturers,  to  deal  with  him  in  the  prison-house  as 
they  thought  fit,  till  he  should  pay  all  that  was  due  to  him. 

"  So,  the  forgiveness  God  has  granted  you,  of  your  great 
debt  to  Him,  which  you  could  never  pay — the  guilt  of  your 
tins — must  lead  you  from  your  heart  to  forgive  your  brother 
man,  not  seven,  but  any  number  of  times,  the  far  smaller 
debt  he  may  owe  you ;  for  if  you  do  not  forgive  him,  the 
wrath  of  God  will  burn  upon  you  at  the  great  day,  and  you 
will  be  cast  into  everlasting  punishment." 

1  At  ?£<?.  a  denarius,  the  whole  debt  wns  £3  2s.  6rf. 


THE   LOFTINESS   OF   CHKIST'S  NATURE.  261 

The  transcendent  loftiness  of  Christ's  spiritual  nature 
shines  out  through  this  whole  episode.  In  His  perfect  humi- 
lity, He  makes  no  personal  claims.  As  on  every  occasion, 
He  declares  simplicity,  and  lowliness,  like  that  of  childhood, 
the  mark  of  true  discipleship ;  asks  no  higher  or  more  signal 
acknowledgment,  as  a  man,  than  was  to  be  shown  to  all 
others ;  and  ranks  the  friendly  and  kind  treatment  of  any 
of  His  followers  as  if  done  to  Himself.  He  demands  no  ex- 
clusive honour,  but,  on  the  contrary,  every  childlike  spirit  in 
the  kingdom  of  God  has  in  His  sight  a  priceless  value,  how- 
ever slight  the  instance  by  which  its  character  was  shown. 
The  good  deed  done  to  the  least  of  His  people  is  considered 
as  personal  to  Himself.  Neither  now,  nor  at  any  time, 
does  He  bear  Himself  as  one  to  whom  all  were  to  bow  as 
servants  ;  He  takes  His  place  in  the  midst  of  the  little  band 
round  Him,  as  one  who  shares  with  them  the  highest  and 
holiest  joys.  Within  this  circle  we  ever  find  Him  strength- 
ening and  encouraging  each  to  surrender  himself  for  the  good 
of  the  rest,  and  to  cheer  and  honour  especially,  the  humblest, 
the  least  esteemed,  the  most  unpretentious ;  or,  it  may  be, 
the  mere  workers  who  could  not  push  themselves  into  notice. 
Meek  and  lowly  in  heart,  He  was  no  less  of  an  infinite  pity. 
The  New  Society,  taught  by  His  example  and  words,  learned 
that  they  were  to  reproduce  the  spirit  of  little  children,  in 
that  hitherto  unimagined  grandeur  of  humility  which  almost 
rejoices  to  suffer  because  it  gives  an  opportunity  to  forgive. 


CHAPTER  XLIX. 
AT  THE  FEAST  OF  TABEBNACLES. 

seventh  month,  Tisri,  part  of  our  September  and 
October,  "  the  month  of  the  full  streams,"  and  the 
autumnal  equinox,  had  now  come.  Nisan,  "  the  flower 
month,"  known  of  old  as  Abib,  "  the  earing  month,"  had 
seen  the  Passover  go  by  without  the  presence  of  Jesus.1  Ijjar, 
"  the  beautiful  month,"  with  its  blossoming  trees ;  Siwan, 
"  the  bright ;  "  Tammuz  ;  Ab,  "  the  fruit  month  ; "  and  Elul, 
"  the  month  of  wine  ;  "  had  gone  by  in  the  journey  to  Tyre 
and  Sidon  and  to  Caesarea  Philippi.  Jesus  had  now  been 
well-nigh  half  a  year  little  better  than  an  outlawed  fugitive, 
hiding,  in  unsuspected  districts,  from  His  enemies.  The 
fifteenth  day  of  Tisri  was  the  first  of  the  great  harvest  feast 
of  the  year,  that  of  Tabernacles  ;  a  time  all  the  more  joyful 
from  its  coming  only  four  days  after  the  Day  of  Atonement 
— the  close  of  the  Jewish  Lent.  Galilee  was  no  longer  open 
to  Him,  and  the  Kingdom  was  yet  to  be  proclaimed  in  Jeru- 
salem, the  haughty  city  of  the  Temple  and  of  David.  He 
knew  that  to  go  there  would  be,  sooner  or  later,  to  die ;  but, 
with  this  clearly  before  Him,  He  calmly  resolved,  at  the  sum- 
mons of  duty,  to  transfer  the  sphere  of  His  activity  from  the 
remote  and  secluded  security  of  the  North  to  the  head-quarters 
of  the  Rabbis  and  priests.  He  had  come  into  the  world  to  be 
the  Lamb  of  God,  bringing  salvation  to  His  people  and  man- 
kind by  the  proclamation  of  the  New  Kingdom,  sealed  with 
His  blood ;  and  Jerusalem  alone,  the  seat  of  the  dispensation 
He  came  to  supersede,  was  the  fitting  scene  for  inaugurating 
the  economy  that  was  to  take  its  place. 

He  was  still  in  Capernaum  when  the  great  caravan  of 
pilgrims  began  to  pass  to  the  feast.  His  relations,  who  as 
yet  had  declared  neither  for  nor  against  Him,  had,  appar- 
ently, come  over  from  Nazareth  to  get  Him  to  go  up  to  Jeru- 
salem with  them.  They  could  not  have  felt  any  hostility  to 

1  John  vii.  2-10.     Luke  x.  1-16;  xvii.  11-19. 


THE   LIGHT   OP   THE   WOELD.  263 

One  whose  holy  life  had  passed  under  their  eyes,  but,  like 
the  nation  at  large,  they  clung1  to  what  they  had  always  been 
taught  by  the  Rabbis, — that  the  Messiah  was  to  restore  Israel 
to  national  glory,  and  to  transfer  the  sceptre  of  universal 
power  from  Rome  to  Jerusalem.  In  their  worldly  wisdom 
they  could  not  understand  Him.  It  seemed  fro  them  unwise 
that  He  should  stay  in  a  corner  of  the  land,  if  he  wished  to 
establish  the  kingdom  of  the  Messiah.  The  Rabbis,  as  He 
knew,  taught  that  it  was  to  be  set  up  in  Jerusalem,  and  it 
was  clear  that  it  could  be  extended  best  from  the  Holy  City, 
as  a  centre.  Why  did  He  not  go  up  with  them  now,  they 
asked,  to  the  feast,  that  all  who  were  friendly  to  Him,  or 
who  might  become  so,  might  see  His  miracles,  and  thus  be 
constrained  to  support  Him  ?  "  Nobody,"  they  urged,  "  who 
aimed  at  being  a  great  national  leader,  as  they  fancied  He 
did  by  His  claiming  to  be  the  Messiah,  could  hope  for  success 
if  all  the  '  signs '  which  were  to  rally  the  people  round  Him, 
were  wrought  in  an  out-of-the-way  place  like  Galilee.  He 
had  not  been  at  the  last  Passover,  or  at  Pentecost,  when  the 
people  were  gathered  in  the  Holy  City  from  all  the  land,  and, 
indeed,  from  all  the  world  ;  but  He  might,  perhaps,  repair  this 
error  even  yet,  if  He  went  up  now  and  displayed  His  power 
to  the  assembled  myriads  of  Israel.  If  they  accepted  Him 
as  Messiah,  their  very  numbers  would  sweep  away  the 
heathen  like  chaff  before  the  wind,  especially  when  supported 
by  miraculous  help.  It  was  unwise  to  keep  back  in  this 
obscure  and  hidden  district ;  He  should  show  Himself  openly 
to  the  Jewish  world,  which  He  could  only  do  in  Jerusalem." 

"  You  think  the  present  the  fit  moment  for  carrying  out 
my  plans,"  said  Jesus.  "  You  err.  It  is  not  yet  the  divinely 
appointed  time  for  my  doing  this.  You  may  go  up  openly 
before  all  Israel,  at  any  time,  because  you  and  they  are  at 
one  in  not  receiving  me.  They  have  no  reason  to  hate  you, 
nor  have  the  priests  and  Rabbis,  their  leaders  ;  but  they 
hate  me,  because  I,  the  Light  of  the  World,  the  true  Messiah, 
on  whom  all  should  believe,  am  a  standing  protest  against 
them,  that  they  sin  in  hating  and  persecuting  me  as  a  trans- 
gressor \>f  the  Law  and  a  blasphemer,  because  I  have  wit. 
nessed  against  their  corruption  and  hypocrisy.  They  wish 
a  political  Messiah;  I  seek  only  spiritual  ends.  Go  up,  your- 
selves. The  present  time  does  not  suit  me  to  go  with  you." 
Their  hope  that  He  would  lift  the  family  to  the  highest 
honour,  by  heading  a  national  Messianic  movement,  had 
come  to  nothing. 
55 


264  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

The  object  of  His  delay  was  to  avoid  going  with  the  great 
Galilaean  caravan,  which  entered  the  Holy  City  with  public 
rejoicings.  He  would  be  recognised  at  once,  and  the  multi- 
tude, in  the  excitement  of  the  time,  might  again  try  to  force 
Him  into  political  action.  Publicity  and  popular  enthusiasm 
would  have  drawn  the  attention  of  those  in  power,  and  this 
He  at  present  earnestly  wished  to  avoid.  His  work  was  not 
to  be  rashly  broken  off  by  any  imprudent  act,  for  He  needed 
all  the  opportunities  that  remained,  to  devote  Himself  to  the 
Twelve  and  to  His  other  followers.  He  could  go  up  a  few 
days  later,  and  thus  avoid  the  caravan.  The  feast  lasted 
seven  days,  closing  with  the  eighth  as  the  greatest,  and  thus, 
even  if  He  started  later,  He  could  mingle  with  the  multi- 
tudes, and  find  out  how  men  felt  towards  Him  and  His  work, 
and  proclaim  the  New  Kingdom  as  He  saw  fit.  The  danger 
would  be  averted,  and  His  great  end  better  served.  It  was 
more  in  keeping  with  His  spirit  to  avoid  all  appearance  of 
courting  popularity,  and  peacefully  deliver  His  great  message 
of  love ;  leaving  its  reception  to  its  own  charms,  and  to  the 
lowly  humility,  self-denial,  and  gentleness  with  which  it  was 
delivered. 

Waiting,  therefore,  for  some  days,  till  things  were  quiet, 
He  started  with  the  Twelve,  and  a  number  of  disciples,  for 
Jerusalem.1  Crossing  Esdraelon,  now  stripped  of  its  harvest, 
Engannim,  the  "  fountain  of  gardens,"  saw  Him  once  more 
on  Samaritan  soil,  The  caravans  had  perhaps  gone  over  the 
Jordan,  to  travel  down  its  eastern  bank,  and  thus  avoid  the 
pollution  of  the  direct  route  through  hated  Samaria. 

He  had  been  kindly  received  in  the  alien  district  on  His 
former  passage  through  it,  northwards ;  but  He  was  now 
going  towards  Jerusalem  instead  of  leaving  it,  and  this  was 
enough  to  rouse  the  bitterness  of  the  Samaritans.  As  was 
His  custom,  He  had  sent  on  messengers  before  Him  to  secure 
hospitality  for  the  night,  but  it  was  at  once  refused.  John 
and  James,  "  the  Sons  of  Thunder,"  who  had  perhaps  been 
the  messengers,  were  especially  indignant,  and  showed  how 
little  they  had  profited  by  the  lessons  of  meekness  they  had 
so  long  been  receiving.  With  the  harsh  Jewish  "feeling, 
which  regarded  every  one  except  a  Jew  as  accursed  and 
hateful  to  God,  and  sought  to  establish  the  New  Kingdom, 
not  by  mildness  and  love,  but  by  force,  they  would  fain  have 
had  fire  called  down  from  heaven  to  consume  the  unfriendly 

1  John  vii.  1-10. 


JEWISH   BIGOTRY.  265 

village.'  They  had  perhaps  spoken  of  Jesus  as  the  Messiah, 
but,  in  any  case,  His  fame  had,  no  doubt,  already  crossed  the 
border.  But  the  Samaritans  expected  from  the  Messiah 
that  he  would  restore  the  Temple  on  Mount  Gerizim,  and 
instead  of  that,  Jesus  was  going  up  to  a  feast  in  Jerusalem. 
John  and  James,  however,  could  make  no  allowance.  Elijah 
had  once  called  fire  from  heaven  in  his  own  honour : 1  how 
much  more  should  men  perish  who  had  rejected  the  Messiah. 
The  teaching  of  Jesus  had  not  as  yet  softened  the  fierce 
Jewish  spirit  of  the  Twelve.  Fanatical  bitterness  had  struck 
its  roots  into  their  deepest  nature.  How  utterly  were  they 
still  wanting  in  patience  towards  the  erring,  and  filled  only 
with  the  thought  of  wrath  and  destruction !  They  had  not 
yet  realized  that  the  Kingdom  of  Jesus  is  one  of  faith  alone ; 
that  it  cannot  be  spread  by  compulsion  and  violence,  but 
must  spring  from  humility  and  love  ;  that  it  must  rest  on 
free  and  honest  conviction,  and  can  grow  strong  and  abiding 
only  when  received  and  obeyed  in  a  child-like  spirit. 

Deeply  troubled,  and  no  less  offended,  Jesus  turned 
towards  the  fierce  zealots,  and  rebuked  their  foolish  and 
cruel  harshness.  They  had  heard  Him  say  that  He  came 
to  serve,  not  to  reign ;  to  suffer  for  others,  not  to  inflict 
suffering  on  any  ;  and  He  had  but  lately  told  them,  once  and 
again,  how  He  was  about  to  give  Himself  up  to  death  for 
the  good  of  the  world.  But  though  their  ears  had  heard, 
and  their  conscience  approved,  their  hearts  had  not  willingly 
accepted  the  intimation,  and  hence  they  were  ever  ready  to 
flame  out  into  Jewish  fanaticism.2  Rebuking  them  sternly, 
He  taught  them  a  needed  lesson,  by  merely  passing  to 
another  village. 

It  was  hard  for  the  disciples  to  realize  that,  to  be  followers 
of  Jesus,  they  must  surrender  themselves  unconditionally  to 
the  will  of  God,  and  devote  themselves  to  the  work  of  the 
Kingdom,  without  a  lingering  tie  to  the  world  they  had  left. 
The  circumstances  demanded  explicit  statements  of  all  that 
discipleship  thus  involved,  and  hence,  when  fresh  applicants 
for  the  honour  presented  themselves,  Jesus  was  more  frank 
and  earnest,  if  possible,  than  ever  before,  in  setting  the  cost 
before  them.  A  Samaritan  had  come  forward  asking  leave 
to  follow  Him,  as  if  to  show  that  all  were  not  like  the 
villagers  who  had  treated  Him  so  unkindly.  It  may  be  ho 
had  very  imperfect  ideas  of  what  his  wish  implied,  but  Jesus 

1  2  Kings  i.  9-18.  2  Schenkcl,  p.  172. 


2G6  THE   LIFE    OF   CHEIST. 

did  not  leave  him  in  doubt.  He  told  him  His  own  position, 
and  all  that  awaited  His  disciples ;  that  He  had  forsaken 
house  and  home  for  ever,  and  that  the  birds  of  the  air  and 
the  beasts  of  the  field  had  a  lot  to  be  envied  compared 
with  His. 

The  seeming  harshness  of  His  replies  to  two  others,  per- 
haps  Samaritans,  who  also  asked  leave  to  follow  Him,  is 
explained  by  these  facts.  From  the  first  He  had  held  out 
no  rewards,  but  predicted  only  privation  and  suffering  to 
His  disciples ;  but  these  were  closer  at  hand  now  than  they 
had  been  when  He  called  the  Twelve.  To  follow  Him  had 
come  to  mean,  literally,  to  leave  all,  and  to  make  up  one's 
mind  to  the  worst.  He  was  a  mark  for  the  fiercest  hatred  of 
those  in  authority,  and  His  followers  could  not  escape  suffering 
with  their  Master.  The  most  utter,  unqualified  devotion,  the 
purest  spirit  of  self-sacrifice,  were  required.  "  Let  the  dead, 
those  who  will  not  receive  the  preaching  of  the  Kingdom, 
bury  their  dead,"  said  He,  to  one  who  wished  to  bury  his 
father.  "  Surrender  yourself  utterly  to  •  God."  Another, 
whose  want  of  the  supreme  resolution  demanded,  showed 
itself  in  a  request  to  be  allowed  to  bid  farewell  to  his  friends, 
was  told  that  it  could  not  be.  "  The  prayers,  the  tears  of 
your  circle  at  home,  might  shake  your  decision  to  consecrate 
yourself  wholly  to  the  kingdom  of  God." l 

It  was  now  many  months  since  the  sending  out  of  the 
Twelve  on  their  first  missionary  journey.  It  had  been  neces- 
sary to  confine  them  to  strictly  Jewish  ground,  to  avoid 
offence,  and  from  their  own  defective  sympathy  with  other 
populations.  Both  difficulties  were  now,  however,  in  part 
removed :  the  openly  hostile  attitude  of  the  leaders  of  the 
nation  made  it  unnecessary  to  consider  their  prejudices  ;  the 
Apostles  had,  in  some  degree,  gained  broader  charity ;  and, 
above  all,  the  near  approach  of  the  end  made  it  desirable 
that  the  full  grandeur  of  the  New  Kingdom,  as  intended  for 
all  men  alike,  should  be  clearly  shown  before  its  Founder's 
death,  that  there  might  be  no  possible  misconception  after- 
wards. Jesus  had  always  yearned  to  proclaim  the  words  of 
life  to  the  different  races  whom  He  saw  around  Him.  A 
boundless  field  opened  itself  for  the  missionary  labours  of 
any  number  of  disciples,  and  He  now  had  round  Him  a 
larger  number  than  formerly,  whom  He  could  thus  employ. 
He  determined,  therefore,  to  send  out  no  fewer  than  seventy, 

1  Schenkel,  p.  173. 


THE   SEVENTY.  267 

which,  in  Jewish  opinion,  was  the  number  of  the  nations 
of  the  world.  The  lesson  could  not  be  doubtful.  It  was  a 
significant  announcement  that,  for  the  first  time  in  the 
history  of  man,  a  universal  religion  was  being  proclaimed. 

Samaria,  through  which  He  was  passing,  had  naturally 
the  first  claim  on  the  new  enterprise,  and  that  all  the  more 
from  the  proof  of  its  need  of  spiritual  light,  furnished  by  the 
inhospitality  shown  to  Him  who  was  bringing  that  light  to 
its  borders. 

The  Seventy,  journeying  two  and  two,  were  directed  to  carry 
the  message  of  peace  to  all  the  habitations  of  the  race  they 
had  formerly,  as  Jews,  so  hated.  They  had  grown  up  from 
childhood  in  the  narrowest  Pharisaic  spirit,  and  were  still, 
in  some  measure,  under  its  spell.  The  Rabbis  did  not  permit 
any  close  intercourse  of  Jews  with  heathen  or  Samaritans ; 
they  were  forbidden  to  enter  their  houses,  or  return  their 
greetings,  and,  still  more,  to  join  them  in  a  common  meal. 
But  the  grand  maxims  of  charity  and  love,  which  Jesus  had 
so  often  taught,  were  now  to  be  put  in  practice.  Jewish 
exclusiveness  was  to  be  done  away  for  ever,  by  the  proclama- 
tion of  a  SAVIOUR  OF  MANKIND.  His  messengers,  therefore, 
while  losing  no  time  on  the  way  by  long  and  formal  saluta- 
tions, were  to  bear  themselves  with  loving  trust  even  among 
hostile  populations,  taking  neither  purse  nor  Avallet,  and 
wearing  only  the  sandals  of  the  poor — to  show  their  lowly 
spirit,  and  humble  personal  claims.  The  instructions  given 
formerly  to  the  Twelve,  were,  in  fact,  repeated  ;  instructions 
then  as  amazing  as  if  Hindoo  Brahmins  of  to-day  were  sent 
forth  with  orders  to  care  nothing  for  caste,  and  associate 
freely,  and  even  eat,  with  abhorred  Pariahs  and  Sudras. 
The  Seventy  were  to  join,  without  hesitation  or  reserve,  in 
the  household  life  of  the  hated  Samaritans,  and  eat  with  them 
at  their  tables  !  No  other  condition  of  spiritual  brotherhood 
was  to  be  required  than  that  of  a  believing  reception  of  the 
salvation  through  Jesus.1 

Only  one  incident  of  the  journey  of  Jesus  Himself  is  re- 
corded, but  it  is  wondrously  significant.  His  repulse  at  the 
border  village  had  changed  His  route ;  for  now,  instead  of 
going  straight  south,  He  turned  eastwards,  and  followed 
the  road  that  runs  between  Samaria  and  Galilee,2  b  down  the 
ravines,  to  the  fertile  meadows  of  Bethshean  or  Scythopolis, 
where  a  ford  or  bridge  led  over  the  Jordan.  The  route 
stretched  thence  southwards  to  Jericho. 

1  Schenkel,  vol.  i.  p.  162.  2  Luke  xvii.  11-19. 


268  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

The  calm  rebuke  of  John  and  James  for  their  anger  and 
revengeful  spirit,  and  the  return  of  good  for  evil  in  the 
sending  forth  the  Seventy  to  preach  the  Kingdom  throughout 
the  Samaritan  region,  had  shown  that  the  rudeness  He 
had  received  had  not  ruffled  His  spirit.  He  was  now  to  add 
another  proof  of  His  serene  and  loving  nature.  As  they 
approached  a  border  village,  a  dismal  spectacle  was  pre- 
sented. Ten  men,  hideous  with  leprosy,  ranged  themselves 
at  a  distance  from  the  road,  as  similar  sufferers  still  do 
before  their  huts  at  the  Zion  Grate  at  Jerusalem.  It  was  a 
law  in  Samaria  that  no  leper  could  enter  a  town,1  and  hence 
the  unfortunate  creatures  accosted  Jesus  while  He  was  still 
outside  the  village.  Misery  had  broken  down  all  prejudice 
of  race  or  faith,  and  had  brought  together  even  Jew  and 
Samaritan,  as  it  still  does  in  the  leper  haunts  of  Jerusalem 
and  Nablous.  The  ten  had  heard  of  Jesus,  and  the  wonderful 
cures  He  had  performed  on  such  as  they,  and  no  sooner  saw 
Him  than  they  broke  out  with  the  common  cry — "  Tame ! 
Tame !  Unclean,  unclean !  Jesus,  Master,  have  mercy  on 
us."  It  was  a  sight  that  might  have  touched  any  heart,  for 
it  must  have  been  like  that  which  still  repeats  itself  to  passers- 
by  at  the  leper  quarters  elsewhere — a  crowd  of  beggars 
without  eyebrows,  or  hair  on  their  faces  or  heads ;  the  nails 
of  their  hands  and  feet,  and  even  a  hand  or  a  foot  itself, 
gone  from  some  ;  the  nose,  the  eyes,  the  tongue,  the  palate, 
more  or  less  wanting  in  others.2  As  they  stood  afar  off, 
their  lips  covered  with  their  abbas,  like  mourners  for  the 
dead — for  they  were  smitten  with  a  living  death,  which  cut 
them  off  from  intercourse  with  their  fellows — the  pity  of 
Jesus  was  excited,  and  without  even  waiting  to  come  near, 
sent  hope  to  them  in  the  words,  "  Go,  show  yourselves  to  the 
priests."  They  knew  what  the  command  meant,  for  no  one 
who  was  not  cleansed  could  approach  a  priest,  and  as  they 
moved  off,  the  disease  left  them.  The  Samaritan  would 
have  to  show  himself  to  a  Samaritan  priest ;  the  nine  Jews 
needed  to  go  up  to  the  Temple  at  Jerusalem  for  an  official 
certificate  of  health ;  but  it  was  the  least  either  the  one  or 
the  others  could  do,  when  they  felt  their  cure,  to  return,  if 
only  for  a  moment,  to  thank  their  benefactor  for  a  deliver- 
ance from  worse  than  death.  The  nine  Jews,  however,  were 
too  concentrated  on  themselves  to  think  of  this.  Only  one, 
the  Samaritan,  had  natural  gratitude  enough  to  come  back  and 

1  Ant.,  ix.  4,  6.  3  Eohr  Palastina,  p.  83.      Thomson,  p.  651. 


THE   FEAST   OF   TABEENACLES.  269 

throw  himself  at  the  feet  of  Jesus  in  humble  acknowledgment 
of  the  goodness  shown  him.  "  Were  there  not  ten  cleansed  ?  " 
asked  Christ ;  "  where  are  the  nine  ?  The  only  one  who  has 
returned  to  give  glory  to  God  is  this  Samaritan,  whom 
Jews  call  a  heathen  and  an  alien  from  Israel .  Arise,  go  thy 
way,  thy  faith  hath  made  thee  whole."  The  Twelve  had 
received  another  lesson  of  universal  charity. 

The  Feast  of  Tabernacles  was  one  of  the  three  great  feasts 
which  every  Jew  was  required  to  attend.  It  was  held  from 
the  fifteenth  of  Tisri  to  the  twenty-second,  the  first  and  last 
days  being  Sabbaths — the  latter  "  the  great  day  of  the  feast." 
It  commemorated,  in  part,  the  tent-life  of  Israel  in  the 
wilderness,  but  was  also,  still  more,  a  feast  of  thanks  for  the 
harvest,  which  was  now  ended  even  in  the  orchards  and 
vineyards.  Every  one  lived  in  booths  of  living  twigs — 
branches  of  olive,  myrtle,  fir,  and  the  like — raised  in  the 
open  courts  of  houses,  on  roofs,  and  in  the  streets  and  open 
places  of  the  city.  All  carried  in  the  left  hand  a  citron,"  and 
in  the  right  the  lulab — a  branch  of  palm  woven  round  with 
willow  and  myrtle.  On  each  of  the  seven  feast  days  the 
priests  went  out  with  music  and  the  choir  of  Levites,  and 
the  shouts  of  vast  multitudes,  to  draw  water  in  a  golden 
vessel,  from  the  spring  of  Siloah  ;  to  be  poured  out  at  the 
time  of  the  morning  offei-ing,  as  a  libation,  on  the  west  side 
of  the  great  altar,1  amidst  great  joy,  singing  and  dancing, 
such  as  was  not  all  the  year  besides.  On  the  evening  of  the 
first  day  a  grand  illumination,  from  huge  candelabra,  which 
shed  light  far  and  near  over  the  city,  began  in  the  Court  of 
the  Women,d  and  torch  dances  of  men  were  kept  up,  in  the 
court,  with  music  and  songs,  till  the  Temple  gates  closed.2 

The  Jewish  authorities  kept  looking  for  Jesus,3  for  they 
had  counted  on  His  attending  the  great  national  holiday,  and 
thus  coming  within  their  reach ;  but.  to  their  disappointment, 
He  appeared  not  to  be  in  Jerusalem.  So,  their  officers 
reported.  His  absence  had,  indeed,  been  noted  by  the 
multitude,  and  everywhere  He  was  the  subject  of  conversa- 
tion and  discussion.  The  Rabbis  and  higher  Temple  digni- 
taries had  shown  themselves  so  hostile  to  Him  that  no  one 
dared  to  mention  His  name,  except  in  whispers,  for  fear  cf 
excommunication  but  He  was  more  or  less  the  one  engrossing 

1  John  vii.  37. 

8  Bibel  Lex.  and  Winer,  B.  W.  B,,  Laubhuttenfest.  Lightfoot,  vol.  iii 
pp.  310  ff. 

a  cfjTovv  avrfo. 


270  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

topic  of  the  bazaars  and  the  booths  of  the  feast.  Opinions 
were  divided.  Some,  who  judged  for  themselves,  main- 
tained that  He  was  a  good  man,  and  that  it  would  be  well 
for  all  to  follow  what  He  taught ;  others,  and  they  no  doubt 
the  great  majority,  who  took  their  opinions  from  their  re- 
ligious leaders,  hotly  and  loudly  denounced  Him  as  unsafe 
and  dangerous,  a  breaker  of  the  Sabbath,  for  had  He  not, 
on  His  last  visit,  healed  a  blind  man  on  the  holy  day  ? 

Meanwhile,  when  the  feast  was  at  its  height,  Jesus  sud- 
denly made  His  appearance  in  the  Temple  porch,  where  the 
Rabbis  taught,  and,  calmly  taking  His  seat,  began  to  teach 
the  crowd  that  soon  gathered  round  Him.  It  is  not  told 
us  when  He  had  arrived,  or  whether  He  lived  for  the  week, 
like  the  crowds,  in  a  succah  or  booth  of  His  own  or  of  a 
friend ;  or  whether  He  carried  the  lulab  and  citron,  as  others 
did,  round  the  great  altar,  or  attended  only  to  the  graver 
matters  of  His  New  Kingdom.  We  only  know  that  He 
showed  Himself  openly  in  the  city  and  in  the  Temple  courts, 
under  the  very  eyes  of  His  enemies.  Loyalty  to  His  work 
had  demanded  His  delay  in  coming,  for  His  life  was  still 
needed  to  proclaim  the  New  Kingdom  in  Jerusalem  as  well 
as  in  Galilee,  if  it  were  permitted  Him.  He  had  lived  mostly 
in  the  latter,  but  Jerusalem  was  the  religious  centre  of  the 
nation,  and  all  that  happened,  or  was  spoken  publicly  during 
one  of  the  great  feasts,  would  be  wafted,  like  seeds,  to  every 
land.  As  a  Jew,  moreover,  He  had  a  tender  love  for  the 
City  of  David,  the  chosen  seat  of  Jehovah,  His  Heavenly 
Father — a  spot  dear  then,  as  now,  beyond  expression,  to  every 
Israelite.  Before  it  was  for  ever  too  late,  He  would  fain 
bring  its  children  to  listen  to  the  things  of  their  peace,  Avhich 
He  alone  could  tell  them. 

The  Jewish  authorities  were  astounded,  and  hardly  knew 
what  course  to  take.  Some  of  them  who  approached,  to 
listen  to  the  fearless  intruder,  were  still  more  amazed  at  what 
they  heard.  They  could  now  understand  how  it  had  been 
said  of  Him,  that  He  taught  as  one  who  had  a  commission 
direct  from  God ;  and  not  like  the  Rabbis,  who  never  spoke 
without  quoting  an  authority ;  and  how  He  had  made  so 
great  a  popular  impression.  Art  and  study  of  effect  had  no 
place  in  His  discourses,  for  the  copiousness  and  finish  of  a 
mere  rhetorician  were  wanting.  His  resistless  power  lay 
as  much  in  Himself  as  in  His  words ;  His  calm  dignity,  and 
His  look  of  mingled  purity  and  tenderness,  confirming  all 
He  said,  as  by  a  holy  sanction.  He  did  not  merely  treat  of 


CHRIST   AS  A  DISPUTANT.  271 

general  religious  and  moral  truths,  but  spoke  of  quickening 
facts  and  realities.  The  advent  of  the  Kingdom  of  God,  its 
nature  and  its  glorious  future,  but  above  all,  His  own  posi- 
tion in  it,  as  its  Head  and  King,  as  He  in  whom  the  Father 
revealed  Himself,  and  in  whom  men  were  to  find  salvation, 
were  the  substance  of  His  addresses.  They  were,  in  fact, 
essentially  a  testimony  respecting  Himself,  and  a  self-revela- 
tion. There  were  no  sudden  and  violent  bursts,  no  brilliant 
flashes,  but  an  atmosphere  of  more  than  earthly  peace  rested 
over  both  speaker  and  words,  from  first  to  last.1  The  most 
amazing  claims  were  uttered,  not  only  without  a  trace  of 
self -consciousness,  but  with  the  lowliest  humility.  It  seemed 
as  if  all  He  said  was  only  what  became  Him. 

But  with  His  humility,  and  in  addition  to  His  trans- 
cendent dignity,  the  fulness  of  His  knowledge  was  no  less 
remarkable.  He  was  intimately  familiar  with  the  sacred 
books,  and  even  with  the  honoured  extra-canonical  writings. 
He  met  and  confuted  opinions  of  the  Rabbis  by  the  subtlest 
and  most  original  references  to  Scripture ;  He  pierced  be- 
neath its  letter  to  the  spirit ;  He  distinguished  with  the 
keenest  acuteness  between  the  Law,  as  given  by  God,  in  its 
scope  and  essence,  and  the  Pharisaic  traditions  ;  and  He 
clothed  in  the  simplest  language,  the  profoundest  spiritual 
truths  of  both  the  Law  and  the  Prophets.2  Such  a  pheno- 
menon was  inexplicable. 

The  authorities,  in  amazement,  could  only  ask,  themselves 
how  he  could  have  such  learning,  when  he  had  never  studied 
in  the  schools.  Where  could  He  have  got  this  power  of 
handling  the  Scriptures  like  a  great  Rabbi?  He  was  a 
Galiljean,  and  had  never  attended  any  teacher.  Like  the 
old  prophets,  He  must  have  been  "  taught  of  God,"  and  it 
was  evident  that  the  people  did  not  hesitate  to  recognise 
Him  as  one,  though  the  official  classes  were  fain  to  decry 
Him,  and  knew  the  effect  of  a  harsh  and  contemptuous  name. 
"  How  could  a  common  man  like  this,"  said  they,  "  who  has 
never  been  educated  as  a  Rabbi,  possibly  understand  the 
Scriptures  ? "  Against  their  consciences,  they  tried  to  de- 
preciate both  Him  and  His  teaching. 

Had  they  shown  only  curious  or  friendly  wonder,  Jesus 
would,  perhaps,  have  remained  silent.  But  it  was  different 
when  they  were  trying  to  excite  doubt  and  suspicion  against 
Himself  and  His  words,  as  it  was  clear  they  were  doing,  from 

1  Ullmann,  pp.  168,  169.  2  Keim's  Cliristus,  p.  12. 


272  THE   LIFE    OF   CHEIST. 

what  He  saw  and  heard.  A  deputation  from  the  chief  priests 
having  at  last,  by  a  direct  interrogation,  given  Him  an  op- 
portunity of  speech,  He  seized  it  at  once.  "  Beyond  doubt," 
said  He,  to  paraphrase  His  words  slightly,1  "I  have  not 
learned  in  yo  nr  schools  what  I  teach.  But  my  doctrine  is  not 
a  riere  invention  of  my  own ;  it  is  not  mine  at  all,  but  His 
who  has  sent  me.  I  only  repeat  what  He  instructs  me  to 
make  known  in  His  name.  You  speak  as  if  religious  truth 
were  a  mere  matter  of  tedious  study.  But  it  is  to  be  learned 
by  obedience,  rather  than  from  books,  as  your  own  Wisdom 
of  Sirach  tells  you,  '  He  that  keepeth  the  law  of  the  Lord 
getteth  the  understanding  thereof.'2  It  needs  a  heart 
willing  to  be  taught  of  God,  to  comprehend  it ;  a  heart  at 
one  with  Him,  and  eager  to  do  His  will,  however  contrary  to 
one's  own.  He  whose  soul  has  no  love  of  truth,  no  oneness 
with  God,  cannot  recognise  His  truth  even  when  he  hears  it. 
If  you  had  true  love  to  Him  and  desired  to  know  His  revealed 
will,  and  to  carry  it  out  in  your  lives,  you  would  know  from 
whom  I  have  received  the  doctrine  I  teach,  by  its  power 
to  purify  and  calm  the  heart,  and  by  the  hopes  it  gives  for 
the  world  to  come.  That  I  do  not  advance  a  doctrine  of  my 
own  invention  is,  moreover,  clear  from  this,  that  if  I  did  so 
I  should  seek  my  own  honour  and  advantage.  But  if  I  seek 
no  honour  for  myself,  but  only  for  Him  by  whom  I  have 
been  sent,  it  shows  that  I  am  worthy  of  trust.  To  strive 
only  for  the  glory  of  God  is  in  itself  a  proof  of  being  His 
true  mouthpiece  and  messenger,  and  I  leave  you  to  say 
whether  this  does  not  apply  to  me.  Have  I  ever  sought 
honour  from  men,  and  not  rather  the  honour  of  my  Father 
alone  ?  Have  I  not  always  professed  to  have  received  all 
from  my  Father  ?  I  have  had  no  personal  end,  and  it  is, 
therefore,  incredible  that  I  should  be  a  deceiver,  seeking  to 
lead  men  astray." 

The  cavil  of  the  Rabbis  thus  answered,  Jesus  forthwith 
took  the  offensive.  "You  charge  me,"  said  He,  "with  not 
knowing  the  Law ;  you  do  not  keep  it.  You  boast  of  your 
zeal  for  it,  and  affect  indignation  for  my  having,  as  you 
assert,  broken  it  by  healing  a  blind  man  on  the  Sabbath  ; 
an  indignation  so  real  that  you  would  put  me  to  death  if  you 
could.  But  this,  itself,  is  a  violation  of  the  Law,  for  the  Law 
commands  love  to  our  neighbour  above  even  the  Sabbath, 

1  Meyer,  LutJiardt,  Tholuck,  Luckc,  Rosenmiiller,  et  al.,  in  loo. 
8  Ecclus.  xxi.  11. 


CHABGE   OF   SABBATH-BBEAKING.  273 

and  that  should  be  my  perfect  defence."  He  knew  that  the 
authorities  had  never  forgiven  Him  His  answer,  at  His 
former  visit,  to  their  charge  of  having  broken  the  Sabbath 
by  the  miracle  at  the  pool  of  Bethesda,  and  that  they  were 
plotting  His  death,  even  now,  on  account  of  it. 

Meanwhile,  the  crowd,  perhaps  knowing  less  than  He 
of  the  secret  designs  of  the  hierarchy,  or  affecting  to  deny 
them,  believed,  or  feigned  to  believe,  Him  in  no  danger, 
and  broke  out  in  angry  repudiation  of  such  a  charge.  They 
had  heard  the  Rabbis  often  ascribe  His  works  to  Beelzebub, 
and  fell  back  on  their  blasphemous  slander  as  an  explanation 
of  His  language.  He  must  have  a  devil.1  The  Rabbis  were 
right.  He  was  crazed.  The  evil  spirit  that  spoke  through 
Him  was  trying  to  stir  them  up  against  their  spiritual  guides. 

Without  noticing  the  interruption,  Jesus  continued  ad- 
dressing the  crowd  at  large  :  "  Your  leaders  are  plotting  to 
kill  me  for  doing  an  act  of  mercy  on  the  Sabbath.  But  all 
of  yon  are  in  a  measure  guilty,  by  your  sympathy  with  them ; 
for  you  are  offended  with  me  at  the  miracle,  on  the  same 
unrighteous  ground.  But  that  you  may  see  the  injustice  of 
your  charge,  let  me  remind  you  of  what  often  takes  place 
in  regard  to  circumcision.  That  rite  was  commanded  by 
Moses,  though  it  dates  from  Abraham,  and  you  are  so  strict 
in  performing  it  at  the  prescribed  time,  the  eighth  day,  that 
you  circumcise  a  child  even  on  the  Sabbath,  if  necessary, 
that  the  law  of  Moses  in  this  particular  be  not  broken.  Do 
you  think  the  Sabbath  was  first  instituted  at  Sinai,  and  hence 
give  the  law  of  circumcision  the  preference  as  older  ?  Or, 
rather,  have  you  not,  of  yourselves,  decided  that  in  some 
cases  the  law  of  the  Sabbath  must  give  way  to  other  parts 
of  the  Law  ?  You  accept  the  saying  of  the  Rabbis,  that 
*  circumcision  drives  away  the  Sabbath.'  But,  if  you  perform 
circumcision,  with  all  the  work  it  involves,  on  the  Sabbath, 
without  breaking  the  day,  how  can  you  be  angry  at  me,  as 
if  I  had  broken  it  by  a  work  of  mercy  so  much  more  bene- 
ficial as  the  making  a  blind  man  whole  ?  Never  judge 
by  appearance,  but  look  beneath  the  surface  and  judge 
righteously." 

But  now  some  joined  the  crowd  who  knew  of  the  plots  of 
the  authorities  against  His  life,2  and  could  not  understand 
how  He  should  be  allowed  to  teach  thus  openly  without 
interference.  His  words  anl  demeanour  had  softened  their 

»  John  vii.  20.  8  Verse  25. 


274  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

prejudice,  and  made  it  seem  possible  that  the  authorities 
had  become  convinced  that  He  was,  in  reality,  the  Messiah, 
and  sanctioned  this  course.  But  the  mere  suggestion,  in  the 
shape  of  a  question,  was  enough  to  raise  a  hot  dispute 
among  theologians  so  keen.  "  Do  not  the  Rabbis  tell  us," 
said  some,  "  that  the  Messiah  will  be  born  at  Bethlehem, 
but  that  He  will  be  snatched  away  by  spirits  and  tempests 
soon  after  His  birth,  and  that  when  He  returns  the  second 
time  no  one  will  know  from  whence  He  has  come  ?  1  But 
we  know  that  this  man  comes  from  Nazareth.  Our  chief  men, 
if  they  choose,  may  accept  Him  as  the  Messiah ;  we  will  not." 

Jesus  was  still  sitting  in  the  Temple  porch,  teaching,  but, 
on  hearing  what  was  thus  openly  said  in  disparagement  of 
His  Messiahship,  He  broke  off  His  discourse,  and  called  out 
to  the  noisy  disputants  in  a  louder  voice  than  He  had  hitherto 
used, — "  You  do  certainly,  in  your  own  sense,  know  who 
I  am,  and  whence  I  come,  but  in  a  higher  sense  you  know 
neither.  I  come  forward  as  the  Messiah,  not  of  myself ;  I 
am  sent  by  One  whom  you  cannot  truly  know,  so  long  as  you 
cling  to  your  worldly  ideas  of  the  Messiah — by  One  who, 
alone,  has  the  right  and  power  to  send  forth  the  Messiah, 
and  has  exercised  them  in  sending  me.  I  know  Him,  though 
you  do  not,  for  I  have  come  forth  from  Him,  and  no  other 
than  He  has  sent  me." 

His  hearers  at  once  saw  what  was  implied  in  this.  It  was 
no  less  than  a  claim  to  have  come  forth  from  God,  and  was 
equivalent  to  asserting  Divine  dignity,  for  He  said  nothing 
of  being  only  an  angel,  or  embodied  heavenly  spirit,  or 
prophet  raised  from  the  dead.  He  had  once  before,  after  the 
very  miracle  for  which  He  had  been  so  assailed,  justified 
Himself  by  saying,  "  My  Father  worketh  hitherto,  and  I 
work,"  2  and  the  words  had  sounded  so  blasphemous,  that 
the  authorities  had  sought  to  kill  Him,  because  He  had  not 
only  broken  the  Sabbath,  but  had  said  that  God  was  His 
Father,  making  Himself  equal  with  God.  The  hostile  part 
of  the  crowd  rightly  saw  a  similar  claim  repeated  now,  and 
with  the  wild  fanaticism  of  their  race  in  that  age,  proposed 
to  lay  hold  of  Him,  and  hurry  Him  outside  the  city  on  the 
instant,  to  stone  Him,  as  the  law  against  blasphemy  enjoined. 
But  His  hour  had  not  yet  come,  and  whether  from  fear  of 
the  Galileans  at  the  feast,  or  from  other  reasons,  their  rage 
died  away  in  words. 

1  Lightfoot  on  Matt.  ii.  1,  *  John  v.  46. 


THE  GEEAT  DAT  OF  THE  FEAST.        275 

The  fame  of  His  miracles  in  the  north  had  preceded  Him 
to  Jerusalem,  and  being  now  further  spread  by  the  reports  of 
the  Galilaean  pilgrims,  deepened  the  effect  of  His  cure  of 
the  blind  man  at  His  last  visit — the  very  bitterness  of  His 
enemies  having  kept  it  from  being  forgotten.  Numbers  had 
thus  been  impressed  in  His  favour,  even  before  His  appear- 
ance at  the  feast,  and  not  a  few  of  these  were  so  far  won 
over  by  the  still  higher  evidence  of  His  wondrous  words, 
and  whole  air  and  tone,  that  many  felt  constrained  to 
admit  His  claim  to  be  the  Messiah.  Miracles  had  always 
been  held  a  characteristic  of  the  Messiah's  advent,  and  even 
the  bitterest  enemies  of  Jesus  did  not  deny  His  supernatural 
power.  It  was  evident  that  He  was  rapidly  gaining  ground, 
and  the  hierarchy  knew  that  if  He  rose  they  must  fall.  If 
they  could  arrest  Him,  while  His  adherents  had  not  as  yet 
ventured  on  an  open  movement  in  His  support,  all  might  be 
well.  The  Pharisees,  therefore,  and  the  Sadducean  chief 
priests — mortal  enemies  at  all  other  times — hastily  issued  a 
warrant  to  apprehend  Him,  and  sent  some  of  the  Temple 
police  to  carry  it  out. 

The  sight  of  the  well-known  dress  of  these  officials,  on  the 
outskirts  of  His  audience,  told  the  whole  story  to  the  quick 
intelligence  of  Jesus,  and  with  that  readiness  which  always 
marked  Him,  He  forthwith  began  a  calm  and  clear  antici- 
pation of  His  death  as  near  at  hand. 

"  I  shall  be  with  you,"  said  He,  "  only  a  short  time  longer, 
for  I  shall  soon  return  to  my  Father  in  Heaven,  who  sent 
me.  Then  the  days  will  come  when  sore  distress  will  fall 
upon  this  city  and  land  for  rejecting  me,  and  you  will  seek 
help  and  deliverance  from  the  Messiah,  that  is,  from  me,  but 
ye  will  not  find  me  then.  Persecuted  and  put  to  death  nowj 
ye  will  then  long  for  me  in  vain,  when  for  ever  gone  from! 
you,  for  where  I  shall  then  be  you  cannot  go,  to  fetch  me 
from  thence  as  your  Saviour." 

"  What  does  He  mean  ?  "  asked  those  around ;  "  will  He  go 
to  our  Greek-speaking  brethren — the  Hellenists  in  Egypt,  or 
Asia  Minor,  or  some  other  of  the  lands  of  the  Gentiles  ?  " e 

The  day  passed  without  any  attempt  to  lay  hold  of  Him,  nor 
was  He  disturbed  again  during  the  week.  The  last  day  of 
the  Feast,*  known  as  "  the  Hosanna  Babba,"  and  the  "  Great 
Day,"  found  Him,  as  each  day  before  doubtless  had  done,  in 
the  Temple  arcades.  He  had  gone  thither  early,  to  meet 
the  crowds  assembled  for  morning  prayer.  It  was  a  day  of 
special  rejoicing.  A  great  procession  of  pilgrims  marched 


276  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

seven  times  round  the  city,  with  their  lulabs,  music  and  loud- 
voiced  choirs  preceding,  and  the  air  was  rent  with  shouts  of 
Hosanna,  in  commemoration  of  the  taking  of  Jericho,  the 
first  city  in  the  Holy  Land  that  fell  into  the  hands  of  their 
fathers.  Other  multitudes  streamed  to  the  brook  of  Siloah, 
after  the  priests  and  Levites,  bearing  the  golden  vessels, 
with  which  to  draw  some  of  the  water.  As  many  as  could 
get  near  the  stream  drank  of  it  amidst  loud  chanting  of  the 
words  of  Isaiah — "  Ho,  every  one  that  thirsteth,  come  ye  to 
the  waters,"  "  With  joy  shall  we  draw  water  from  the  wells 
of  salvation  " — which  rose  in  jubilant  harmony  from  the  lips 
of  all.  The  water  drawn  by  the  priests,  was,  meanwhile, 
borne  up  to  the  Temple,  amidst  boundless  excitement.  Such 
a  crowd  was,  apparently,  passing  at  this  moment. 

Rising,  as  the  crowds  went  by,  His  spirit  was  moved  at 
such  honest  enthusiasm,  yet  saddened  at  the  moral  decay 
which  mistook  a  mere  ceremony  for  religion.  It  was  burning 
autumn  weather,  when  the  sun  had  for  months  shone  in  a 
cloudless  sky,  and  the  early  rains  were  longed  for  as  the 
monsoons  in  India  after  the  summer  heat.  Water  at  all 
times  is  a  magic  word  in  a  sultry  climate  like  Palestine,  but 
at  this  moment  it  had  a  double  power.  Standing,  therefore, 
to  give  His  words  more  solemnity,  His  voice  now  sounded 
far  and  near  over  the  throng,  with  soft  clearness,  which 
arrested  all : 

"  If  any  man  thirst,  let  him  come  unto  me  and  drink,1  for 
I  will  give  him  the  living  waters  of  God's  heavenly  grace,  of 
which,  as  your  Rabbis  tell  you,  the  water  you  have  now 
drawn  from  Siloah  is  only  a  type.  He  who  believes  in  me 
drinks  into  his  soul  from  my  fulness,  as  from  a  fountain,  the 
riches  of  Divine  grace  and  truth.  Nor  do  they  bring  life  to 
him  alone  who  thus  drinks.  They  become  in  his  own  heart, 
as  the  whole  burden  of  Scripture  tells,2  a  living  spring,  which 
shall  flow  forth  from  his  lips  and  life  in  holy  words  and 
deeds,  quickening  the  thirsty  around  him."  e  He  meant,  adds 
St.  John,  that  this  quickening  missionary  zeal  and  power 
would  first  show  itself  after  the  descent  of  the  Holy  Spirit, 
when  He  Himself  had  entered  on  His  glory.  Streams  of 
holy  influence,  like  rivers  of  living  water,  would  go  forth 
from  His  Apostles  through  the  Spirit's  overflowing  fulness  in 
their  souls. 

1  Lightfoot,  vol.  ii.  p.  323. 

*  Isaiah  xliv.  3 ;  Iv.  1 ;  Iviii.  11.  Ezek.  xlvii.  1,  12.  Zech.  xiii.  1 ; 
xiv.  8.  Joel  iii.  1  -23. 


THE   JEWISH   COUNCIL  DELIBERATES.  277 

The  whole  discourse  was  now  ended.  The  impressions  it 
had  left  were  various.  Many  who  had  listened  to  it,  whis- 
pered to  their  neighbours  that  they  were  sure  "  This  was  the 
Prophet  to  come  before  the  Messiah."  Others  maintained 
He  was  the  Messiah  Himself ;  but  this  opinion  led  to  hot 
dispute.  "  Does  the  Messiah,  then,  come  out  of  Nazareth  ?  " 
asked  the  incredulous  Rabbinists.  "  Does  not  the  Scripture 
say  that  the  Christ  comes  of  the  seed  of  David,  and  from 
Bethlehem,  the  village  where  David  was  ?"  But  the  division 
in  the  crowd  was  the  safety  of  Jesus ;  for  those  who  were 
fiercest  to  lay  hands  on  Him  as  a  blasphemer  and  Sabbath- 
breaker,  were  afraid  to  do  so,  so  strong  did  the  party  seem 
which  supported  Him. 

The  Temple  police  sent  to  arrest  Him  had  remained  near, 
to  the  close,  to  watch  their  opportunity.  But  the  power  and 
majesty  of  His  discourse,  which  had  spell-bound  so  many 
others,  had  overawed  and  impressed  even  them,  so  that  they 
dared  not  touch  him,  and  went  back  to  their  masters  empty- 
handed.  To  the  angry  demand  for  an  explanation,  they 
could  only  answer,  "  Never  man  spake  as  this  man  speaks." 
The  Pharisees  in  the  Council,  the  special  guardians  of  the 
public  orthodoxy,  professed  themselves  shocked  at  such  dis- 
loyalty on  the  part  of  men  entrusted  with  the  commission  of 
the  high  ecclesiastical  court.  "  How  can  you  be  so  led  away  ? 
Do  you  not  see  that  only  some  of  the  ignorant  rabble  believe 
in  Him  ?  Have  any  men  of  position,  any  members  of  the 
Council,  or  any  Rabbis,  done  so  ?  They  are  qualified  to 
judge  on  such  matters ;  but  as  for  the  common  people,  who 
have  accepted  such  a  transgressor  as  the  Messiah,  it  shows 
that  they  do  not  know  the  Law,  and  are  therefore  accursed 
of  God."  _ 

One  faint  voice  only  was  heard  in  the  Council  in  hesitating 
defence  of  Jesus.  It  was  that  of  Nicodemus,  His  visitor 
by  night  on  His  first  appearance.  "  I  know,  sirs,  you  are 
zealous  for  the  Law,  and  rightly  condemn  those  who  are 
ignorant  of  it.  But  does  the  Law  sanction  our  thus  con- 
demning a  man  before  it  has  heard  Him,  and  found  exactly 
what  He  has  done  ?  "  He  had  not  moral  courage  to  take  a 
side,  but  could  not  withhold  a  timid  word.  Like  all  weak 
men,  he  found  little  favour  for  his  faint-hearted  caution. 
"  Are  you,  also,  like  Jesus,  out  of  Galilee,"  they  asked,  "  that 
you  believe  in  Him  ?  only  ignorant  Galilaaans  do  so.  Search 
the  Scriptures,  and  you  will  see  that  no  Galiloean  was  ever 
inspired  as  a  prophet  by  God ;  the  race  is  despised  of  the 


278  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

Highest,    and    is    it    likely   it    should   give    Jerusalem    the 
Messiah  ?  " 

In  their  blind  rage  they  forgot  that,  at  least,  Jonah  and 
Hosea  and  Nahum  were  Galilasans,  and  they  ignored  the 
fact  that  if  the  followers  of  Jesus  were  mostly  from  tho 
illiterate  North,  He  had  also  not  a  few  even  from  the  sons  of 
bigoted  Jerusalem. 


CHAPTER  L. 
AFTER  THE   FEAST. 

ALL  who  attended  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles  were  required 
to  sleep  in  the  city  the  first  night  at  least,  but  were  free 
afterwards  to  go  any  distance  outside,  within  the  limit  of  a 
Sabbath  day's  journey.  Jesus,  accustomed  to  the  pure  air 
of  the  hills  and  open  country,  and  with  little  sympathy  for 
the  noise  and  merriment,  or  for  the  crowds  and  confusion,  of 
the  great  holiday,  was  glad  to  avail  Himself  of  this  freedom, 
and  went  out,  each  night,  after  leaving  the  Temple,  to  seek 
sleep  in  the  house  of  some  friend  on  the  Mount  of  Olives  ; 1 
perhaps  to  that  of  the  family  of  Bethany,  of  which  we  hear 
so  much  soon  after  this.  The  early  morning,  however,  saw 
Him  always  at  His  post  in  the  Temple  courts ;  now  in  the 
royal  porch,  now  in  the  Court  of  the  Women,  through  which 
the  men  passed  to  their  own. 

The  vast  concourse  of  people  from  all  countries,  and  the 
general  excitement  and  relaxation  of  the  season,  had  gradu- 
ally led  to  abuses.  Pilgrimages,  in  all  ages,  have  had  an 
indifferent  name  for  their  influence  on  morals,  and  the  yearly 
feasts  at  Jerusalem  were  probably  no  exception. 

A  large  number  of  people  had  already  gathered  round 
Jesus,  when  a  commotion  was  seen  in  the  Court  of  the  Women, 
where  He  had  sat  down  to  teach.  A  woman  of  the  humbler 
class  had  been  guilty  of  immorality,  and  the  scribes,  on  the 
moment,  saw  in  her  sin  a  possible  snare  for  the  hated  Galilaeaii. 
It  was  not  their  business,  but  that  of  her  husband,  to  accuse 
her ;  nor  could  she  be  legally  punished,  except  by  divorce,  if 
he,  himself,  were  not  a  man  of  pure  life.  It  was  the  custom, 
however,  in  cases  of  difficulty,  to  consult  a  famous  Rabbi, 
and  advantage  was  taken  of  this,  to  entrap  Jesus,  if  possible, 
by  asking  Him  to  adjudicate  on  the  case.  If  he  condemned 
her,  and  insisted  that  she  should  be  stoned  to  death,3  it  would 

1  John  viii.  1-11.  *  Lev.  xx.  10.    Deut.  xxii.  24. 

56 


280  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

injure  Him  in  the  eyes  of  the  people,  for  the  Law,  in  this 
particular,  had  long  been  obsolete,  from  the  very  common- 
ness of  the  offence.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  he  simply 
dismissed  her,  they  could  charge  Him  with  slighting  the 
Law,  for  it  was  still  formally  binding.  To  condemn  her  to 
death  would,  moreover,  bring  Him  under  the  Roman  law, 
as  an  invasion  of  the  right  of  the  governor. 

Leading  forward  their  trembling  prisoner,  unveiled,  and 
exposed  before  the  crowd  of  men — the  bitterest  degradation 
to  an  Eastern  woman — they  set  her  before  Jesus,  and  asked 
with  feigned  humility  : 

"  Teacher,  this  woman  has  been  guilty  of  sin.  Now  Moses, 
in  the  Law,  charged  us  that  such  should  be  stoned.  What  is 
your  opinion  ?  " 

.  Knowing  their  smooth  dissimulation,  He  instinctively  felt 
that  this  mock  respect  was  a  mere  cloak  for  sinister  designs. 
Yet  the  incident  threw  Him  into  a  moment's  confusion. 
His  soul  shrank  from  the  spectacle  thus  brought  before  Him, 
and  in  His  stainless  purity  He  could  not  bear  to  look  on  the 
fallen  one.  Stooping  down,  therefore,  at  once  to  hide  the 
blush  He  could  not  prevent,  and  to  show  that  He  would 
have  nothing  to  do  with  such  a  matter,  He  began  to  write 
on  the  dust  before  Him — most  likely  the  very  words  He 
was  presently  to  utter.  Had  they  chosen  to  read  them,  they 
might  have  spared  themselves  the  open  exposure  that 
followed.  But  they  were  too  occupied  with  their  plot  to 
read  the  warning,  and  again  and  again  repeated  the  question, 
to  force  Him  to  answer.  At  last,  raising  His  face  for  a 
moment  and  looking  straight  at  them,  He  said  : 

"  Let  him,  among  you,  who  is  free  from  sin  of  a  like  kind, 
cast  the  first  stone  at  her,  as  is  required  of  the  chief  witness, 
by  Moses."  1 

It  was  an  age  of  deep  immorality,  and  the  words  of  Jesus 
went  to  their  consciences.  He  had  again  stooped  and  begun 
to  write,  as  soon  as  He  had  spoken,  perhaps  to  remind  them 
how  sin,  when  followed  by  penitence,  is  effaced  for  ever,  like 
characters  written  in  dust.  Meanwhile,  their  own  bosoms 
became  their  judges.  One  after  another,  beginning  at  the 
oldest  among  them,  moved  off,  to  the  very  last,  and  Jesus 
was  left  alone,  with  the  woman,  in  the  midst  of  the  crowd. 


1  Deut.  xiii.  9,  10  ;  rvii.  7.  Acts  vii.  58.  Liicke  thinks  the  reference 
would  not  be  to  a  sin  of  like  kind  only,  else  it  would  have  set  Ler  life  too 
much  on  the  cast. 


GO  AND   SIN   NO   MOKE.  281 

Rising  once  more,  and  finding  only  the  woman  left.  He 
asked  her : 

"  Woman,  where  are  thine  accusers  ?  Did  no  one  con- 
demn thee,  by  casting  a  stone  at  thee  ?  " 

"  No  one,  Lord." 

"Neither,"  said  He,  "shall  I.  I  come  not  to  condemn, 
but  to  save.  I  am  no  criminal  judge,  either  to  sentence  or 
acquit.  Go,  repent  of  thy  guilt,  and  sin  no  more."  l 

His  enemies  had  often  murmured  at  the  pity  and  favour 
He  had  shown  to  the  fallen  and  outcast.  They  knew  how 
He  had  allowed  one  sinful  woman  to  wash  His  feet  with  her 
tears,  and  wipe  them  with  her  loose  hair ;  how  He  had  eaten 
with  publicans  and  sinners,  and  how  He  even  had  a  publican 
among  His  disciples.  They  had  hoped  to  use  all  this  against 
Him,  but,  once  more,  their  schemes  had  only  turned  to  their 
own  shame.  He  had  given  no  opinion  for  the  obsolete  Law, 
or  against  it;  their  own  consciences  had  set  the  offender 
free.* 

This  incident  past,  He  began  His  discourse  again  to  those 
round  Him.  He  still  sat  in  the  Court  of  the  Women,  or,  as 
it  was  sometimes  called,  "  the  treasury,"  from  the  thirteen 
brazen  chests  for  offerings,  with  their  trumpet-like  mouths 
opening  through  the  wall  of  its  buildings.2  The  court  was 
the  great  thoroughfare  to  that  of  the  Israelites,  which  was 
reached  from  it  by  the  fifteen  steps  leading  to  the  great 
gate. 

In  the  address  of  the  day  before,  He  had  spoken  of 
Himself  as  alone  having  the  water  of  life  for  the  thirst  of  the 
soul.  "  To  give  water  to  drink,"  was  a  common  phrase  for 
teaching  and  explaining  the  Law,  and  hence  its  meaning, 
when  used  by  our  Lord,  was  familiar  to  all  His  hearers.3 
Water,  in  such  a  climate,  was  the  first  necessary  of  life,  and 
flowing  or  living  waters  pictured  at  once  every  image  of 
jo 7  and  prosperity.  But  the  mighty  light,  filling  the  heavens, 
tha  first-born  creation  of  God,  lifts  the  thoughts  from  in- 
dividual benefit  to  that  of  the  whole  race,  for  light  is  the 
condition  and  source  of  blessing,  alike  to  nature  and  man.  It 
was  the  characteristic  of  Jesus  to  make  everything  round 
Him,  in  creation  or  common  life,  His  texts  and  illustrations. 
The  shouts  of  the  multitude,  as  they  brought  up  the  golden 

1  Paulus,  vol.  i.  p.  410.  Sepp,  vol.  v.  p.  176.  Lightfoot,  vol.  iii.  p.  328. 
Rosewmiiller,  Lucke,  Tholuck,  Luthardt,  in  loc.  Ewald,  vol.  v.  p.  480. 
Bibel  Lex.,  vol.  ii.  p.  63. 

*  Godicyn,  p.  66.  •  Nork,  p.  168. 


282  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

vessel  of  water  from  Siloam,  had  introduced  the  discourse  on 
the  living  waters.  Round  the  court  in  which  He  now  sat, 
ros/3  the  great  candelabra,  in  whose  huge  cups  were  kindled 
tho  illuminations  of  the  feasts  that  banished  night  from  the 
city,  and  in  whose  brightness  the  multitudes  found  darkness 
changed  to  day,  and  these  He  now  used  as  a  text. 

Pointing  to  them,  and  from  them  to  the  glorious  sun,  just 
risen  over  the  Mount  of  Olives,  and  shining  with  dazzling 
splendour  on  the  white  houses  of  the  city  and  the  marble  and 
gold  of  the  Temple  walls  and  gates,  He  began  a  new  discourse, 
in  language,  which,  from  the  lips  of  a  Jew,  was  a  direct  claim 
to  be  the  Messiah.b 

"  I  am  the  Light  of  the  "World,"  said  He  ;  "  that  is,  of  the 
whole  race  of  man  !  "  Such  words  from  One  who  was  humi- 
lity itself — One  acknowledged  by  all  to  have  unbounded  super- 
natural power  at  his  command,  yet  so  self-restrained  that 
He  never  used  it  for  His  own  advantage,  and  so  unassuming 
and  lowly  that  even  the  weakest  and  poorest  felt  perfectly 
free  to  approach  Him — were  uttered  with  a  calm  dignity 
which  vouched  their  truth.  "  In  me  dwells  Divine  truth," 
He  continued,  "  and  from  me  it  shines  forth,  like  the  light, 
to  all  mankind.  He  who  becomes  my  true  disciple,  and 
follows  me  sincerely,  will  no  longer  walk  in  the  darkness  of 
ignorance  and  sin,  which  is  the  death  of  the  soul,  but  in  the 
light  of  everlasting  life,  given  to  the  children  of  the  Messiah's 
kingdom." 

Some  adherents  of  the  Rabbinical  party,  who  remained  to 
watch  Him,  listened  with  eager  attention  to  every  word. 
Enraged  at  the  failure  of  the  last  attempt  to  entrap  Him, 
the  language  they  had  now  heard,  which  was  far  beyond 
what  any  prophet  had  ever  claimed  for  Himself,  deepened 
their  bitterness. 

"  You  make  yourself  judge  in  your  own  favour,"  said  they. 
"  You  require  us  to  believe  you,  on  your  own  word.  It  is 
too  much  to  ask.  A  man's  witness  on  his  own  behalf  is 
worthless." 

"  I  do  not  make  myself  witness  in  my  own  favour,"  replied 
Jesus.  "  Your  rule  does  not  apply  to  me,  for  I  speak  not  for 
myself  alone,  but  as  the  mouthpiece  of  Him  from  whom  I 
came,  and  to  whom  I  shall  soon  return.  If  you  knew  who 
He  was,  you  would  be  forced  to  receive  His  testimony  to  me. 
But  you  do  not  know  Him,  and  therefore  you  reject  it,  for 

fou  know  neither  whence  I  came  nor  whither  I  shall  return, 
know,  and  must  know,  best,  whose  messenger  I  am,  and 


THE   WITNESS  FOE   CHEIST.  283 

what  commission  He  has  given  me.  You  have  no  right  to 
accuse  me  as  a  deceiver,  for  you  are  not  in  a  position  to  judge 
of  me,  since  you  know  nothing  of  my  mission.  You  look  at 
me  with  jaundiced  eyes,  and  judge  only  by  my  lowly  out- 
ward  appearance,  and  are  thus  misled.  I,  by  myself,  judge 
neither  in  my  own  favour,  nor  against  any  one,  for  I  have 
come  not  to  condemn,  but  to  save.  If,  indeed,  in  any  case  I 
seem  to  judge,  as  in  this  instance  respecting  my  commission, 
it  is  not  I,  alone,  who  do  so,  but  I  and  my  Father  who  has 
sent  me  judge  together,  and  thus  the  judgment  must  be  true. 
I  am  not  alone ;  the  Father  who  sent  me  is  with  me,  and 
thus,  even  by  your  own  Law,1  by  which  the  testimony  of  two 
men  is  received  as  true,  that  which  I  offer  for  myself  is  more 
than  sufficient,  for  I  offer  you  my  own  word,  and  no  one  can 
convict  me  of  untruthfulness,  and  also  the  witness  of  My 
Father.  He  witnesses  for  me  by  the  very  truths  I  utter, 
and  by  the  miracles  you  admit  I  perform." 

"  Where  is,  then,  this  second  witness,  Thy  Father  ?  "  re- 
torted His  adversaries.  "  We  do  not  see  Him.  He  must  be 
here,  if,  as  you  say,  He  is  a  witness  for  you  ?  "  He  had  too 
often  spoken  of  God  as  His  Father  to  permit  of  any  mistake 
as  to  His  meaning,  but  they  affected  to  misunderstand  Him. 
With  perfect  calmness,  Jesus  replied,  "  You  ask  who  is  my 
Father,  and  do  not  know  me,  myself.  I  cannot  answer  you 
till  you  have  juster  conceptions  of  me.  If  you  looked  at  me, 
my  teaching,  and  my  deeds,  in  a  right  light,  you  would  know 
who  my  Father  is,  for  He  reveals  Himself  in  me.  But  your 
hearts  are  now  so  prejudiced,  that  you  would  not  understand 
what  I  might  tell  you,  either  of  myself  or  of  Him,  were  I  to 
attempt  it." 

These  were  bold  words  in  such  a  place,  the  very  strong- 
hold of  His  enemies  ;  but  as  He  finished  and  rose  to  depart, 
no  one  laid  hands  on  Him.  His  hour  was  not  yet  come. 

A  fragment  of  another  discourse  delivered  like  this  in  the 
Temple,  on  one  of  the  following  days,  has  been  preserved.2 
The  immediate  circumstances  preceding  are  not  recorded,  but 
there  must  have  been  another  dispute  with  His  opponents.  A 
fresh  attempt  to  win  them,  followed  ;  with  solemn  warnings 
of  the  results  of  their  finally  rejecting  Him. 

"  The  time  approaches,"  said  He,  in  effect,  "  when  I  shall 
leave  you,  and  when  I  am  gone  you  will  seek  me,  that  is,  you 
will  cry  out  for  the  Messiah,  but  in  vain,  and  will  look  for 

1  Deut.  xvii.  6.  3  John  viii.  21. 


284  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

Him  without  success  ;  yon  will  fain  be  delivered  from  the 
calamities  that  will  come  on  yon  ;  bnt  yon  will  die,  unpar- 
doned  and  nnsanctified,  with  your  sins  on  yonr  sonls — die 
here,  and  die  for  ever ;  for  yonr  seeking  me,  that  is,  the 
Messiah,  will  not  be  from  faith  and  repentance,  bnt  only  a 
despairing  cry  for  deliverance  from  temporal  distress.  Yon 
cannot  hope  to  be  able  to  go  np  to  heaven,  to  find  and  bring 
me  down  as  yonr  Saviour.  I  shall  be  gone  from  you  for 
ever." 

"  Will  He  kill  Himself  ?  "  asked  one  of  the  bitterest  among 
the  bystanders,  with  blasphemous  irony.  "  In  that  case, 
certainly,  we  shall  not  be  either  able  or  willing  to  follow 
Him,  to  where  He  will  go  !  " 

Taking  no  notice  of  the  coarse  insulting  jest,  Jesus  went 
on  to  point  out,  calmly,  and  with  surpassing  dignity,  that  they 
spake  as  they  did  only  because  they  could  not  comprehend 
Him  or  His  sayings,  coming  as  He  did  from  above.  "  You 
spring  from  the  earth,  I  from  heaven ;  your  natures  and 
hearts,  in  keeping  with  yonr  origin,  are  without  the  higher 
wisdom  and  Divine  life  of  those  who  are  born  of  God.  You 
have  the  thoughts  and  ideas  of  this  age  ;  I  speak  those  of  the 
New  Kingdom  of  God.  It  was  on  this  ground  I  said  to  you, 
that  you  would  die  in  your  sins,  for  only  faith  in  me  as  the 
Messiah,  can  raise  those  who  are  not  born  from  above — gross 
fleshly  souls,  born  only  of  the  flesh — to  higher  Divine  life,  in 
time  and  eternity.  If  you  do  not  believe  that  I  am  He,  you 
shall  certainly  die  in  your  sins." 

"  I  am  He,"  was  the  sum  of  Jehovah's  self -proclamation  in 
the  Old  Testament,  and  it  was  now  repeated,  in  its  lofty 
majesty,  by  Jesus,  of  His  own  Messianic  dignity.  He  could 
assume  that  the  question  of  the  Messiah  was  the  ever-present 
and  supreme  thought  of  all  His  hearers.  The  one  point  was 
whether  He,  or  another  yet  to  come,  were  the  expected  One. 

The  Rabbinists  perfectly  understood  Him,  but  would  not 
acknowledge  that  they  did  so,  and  asked  Him  contemptuously, 
"  Who  art  Thou,  then  ?  " 

"  I  am  what  I  have  said  from  the  beginning  of  my  minis- 
try I  was — how  can  you  still  ask  ?  I  have  much  to  say 
respecting  you,  much  especially  to  blame  ;  but  I  refrain,  and 
confine  myself  to  my  immediate  mission — to  proclaim  to 
mankind  what  I  have  received  from  Him  who  sent  me." 
Strange  as  it  might  seem,  though  He  had  used  similar  terms 
so  often  that  the  allusion  to  God  was  generally  recognised  at 
once,  His  hearers  did  not  in  this  instance  understand  Him. 


THE   SINLESSNESS   OF   CHKIST.  285 

Seeing  their  hesitation,  He  went  on  :  "  Had  yon  acknow- 
ledged me  as  the  Messiah,  yon  would  have  nnderstood  what 
[  have  said  of  my  Father.  Bnt  when  yon  have  crucified  me, 
yon  will  know  that  I  am  He,  and  that  I  never  act  alone,  bnt 
speak  only  what  I  have  heard  from  my  Father  before  I  came 
into  the  world.  My  glory,  which  will  be  revealed  after  I  die, 
will  force  yon  to  realize  this."  He  referred  to  the  fntnre 
descent  of  the  Holy  Spirit  after  His  resurrection,  the 
miracles  of  the  Apostles,  the  spread  of  His  Kingdom,  the 
judgment  of  God  on  the  nation,  and  His  final  return  in  the 
clouds  of  heaven  at  the  last  day.  "  My  Father  who  sent  me," 
He  continued,  "  has  not  left  me  alone,  though  yon  do  not  see 
Him,  bnt  have  before  yon  only  a  lowly  man,  in  the  midst  of 
enemies  ;  He  is  ever  with  me,  for  I  do  always  the  things  that 
please  Him." 

These  lofty  words  must  have  been  wondrously  borne  out 
by  His  whole  air,  and  by  the  calm  truth  and  heavenliness  of 
His  tone  and  looks ;  for,  instead  of  repelling  His  hearers 
by  the  contradiction  between  claims  so  awful,  and  Him  who 
made  them,  which  we  instinctively  feel  there  must  have 
been  had  they  been  uttered  by  sinful  men  like  ourselves, 
they  won  many  to  believe  in  Him,  there  and  then,  as  the 
Messiah. 

It  is  impossible  not  to  feel  that  such  words  were  a  distinct 
claim  of  absolute  sinlessness,  on  which  no  mere  man  could 
for  a  moment  venture.  Yet  in  His  mouth  they  seemed  only 
the  fitting  expression  of  evident  truth.  Kor  is  it  possible 
to  exaggerate  their  importance.  When  we  remember  how 
entirely  His  whole  life  was  devoted  to  the  enforcement  of 
the  purest  morals,  even  in  the  domain  of  thought  and  con- 
science they  acquire  a  significance  that  awes  the  mind. 
Such  an  absolute  purity  implied  the  keenest  discrimination 
between  good  and  evil,  holiness  and  sin.  "  To  please  God," 
was  with  Him  no  empty  phrase,  but  implied  a  Divine  holi- 
ness in  the  very  fountains  of  being ;  pure  as  the  light  of  a 
morning  without  clouds.  Yet  His  language  respecting  Him- 
self was  always  the  same.  The  greatest  saints  are  most 
ready  to  bewail  their  nnworthiness ;  but  He  never  for  a 
moment  humbles  Himself  before  God  for  sin ;  never  asks 
pardon  for  it ;  and  not  only  makes  no  approach  to  expressing 
a  sense  of  needing  repentance  and  forgiveness,  but  calmly 
takes  on  Himself  the  Divine  prerogative  of  forgiving  the  sins 
of  men.  The  Ideal  of  humility  and  truth  and  holy  life,  He 
must  have  known  His  own  spiritual  state  with  exact  fidelity, 


286  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

for  the  passing  of  even  an  unworthy  thought  over  such  a 
soul,  would  have  instantly  clouded  its  peace  and  joy.  Yet, 
with  this  perfect  self-knowledge,  He  could  calmly  claim  that 
His  Father  saw  in  Him  only  His  own  image  of  perfect  holi- 
ness, which  alone  can  please  Him.1 

The  overpowering  impression  produced  on  His  hearers, 
was,  however,  too  sudden  and  superficial  for  permanence. 

Resuming  His  discourse,  therefore,  He  went  on  address- 
ing those  who,  for  the  moment,  in  spite  of  themselves, 
believed  on  Him — "  If  your  present  professions  be  deep  and 
lasting,  and  you  continue  permanently  in  the  same  mind, 
acknowledging  me  as  the  Messiah,  and  carrying  out  my 
teaching  in  your  hearts  and  lives,  you  will  be  my  disciples 
indeed.  You  will  then,  by  experience,  know  the  power  and 
worth  of  the  Divine  truths  of  my  Person  and  teaching,  for 
my  words  are  the  truth,  and  the  truth  will  make  you 
free."2" 

He  spoke,  of  course,  of  spiritual  freedom  ;  of  emancipation 
from  a  sinful  life  by  the  elevating  and  purifying  influence  of 
their  new  faith ;  but,  like  Nicodemus  with  the  new  birth,  or 
the  Samaritan  woman  with  the  living  water,  or  the  Twelve 
with  the  leaven  of  the  Pharisees,  they  understood  the  word 
only  of  political  liberty,  and  in  a  moment  showed  how  little 
they  comprehended  their  new  Master's  spirit.  Their  fierce 
Jewish  pride  was  instantly  in  a  blaze. 

"  Free !  what  do  you  mean  ?  "  said  they.  "  We  are  the 
descendants  of  Abraham ;  the  race  to  whom  God  gave  the 
promise  of  being  the  first  of  nations,  His  chosen  people. 
We  have  never  been  in  bondage  to  any.  What  do  yon 
mean  ?  "  They  conveniently  forgot  the  episodes  of  Egypt 
and  Babylon,  and  thought  of  the  shadow  of  political  liberty 
they  enjoyed  under  the  prudent  Romans,3  by  the  retention 
of  their  own  laws,  as  in  the  protected  States  of  India  under 
Britain.  It  was  an  offence  punishable  with  excommunica- 
tion for  one  Jew  to  call  another  a  slave,4  and  part  of  their 
morning  prayer,  even  when  under  a  foreign  yoke,  ran  thus— 
"  Blessed  be  the  Lord  our  God,  King  of  the  Universe,  who 
has  made  me  a  free  man." 

But  Jesus  answered,  "With  all  earnestness,  let  me  tell 
you  that  every  one  who  commits  sin  is  under  the  power  of 

1  Vllmann,  pp.  73,  166. 

*  Bibel  Lex.,  vol.  ii.  p.  296.     Melvill's  Sermons,  vol.  i.  p.  148.    New- 
man's Plain  Sermons,  vol.  ii.  p.  44.   Robertson's  Sermons,  vol.  i.  pp.  2,  65« 

*  Bell  Jud.,  vi.  6.  2.  *  Eisenmeiiyer,  vol.  i.  p.  576. 


CHILDEEN   OF  ABRAHAM.  287 

Bin — a  slave  under  that  of  his  master.  I  speak  of  spiritual 
Liberty,  not  of  political.  Yon  have  need  of  the  help  I  can 
and  will  give  yon,  if  yon  desire  to  free  yourself  from  this 
moral  slavery — the  bondage  to  yonr  own  sinfnl  inclinations 
and  habits.  Yon  are  slaves  in  the  great  household  of  God, 
not  sons,  and  the  slave  has  no  claim  to  remain  always  in 
the  household;  it  is  in  the  power  of  his  lord  to  sell  him 
to  another,  or  to  put  him  out,  when  he  pleases.  All  men, 
whether  Jews  or  others,  are  sinners,  and  as  such,  slaves  of 
their  sin,  and  must  be  made  free,  before  they  can  claim,  as 
yon  do,  to  belong  of  right  to  the  household  of  God.  He 
will  not  treat  the  slaves  of  sin  as  His  sons,  but  will  turn 
them  out  of  His  kingdom  as  a  lord  drives  out  an  unworthy 
slave.  But  I,  the  Son  of  God,  abide  in  God's  household,  as 
His  Son,  for  ever,  and  hence  if  by  the  truth  I  proclaim, 
and  the  grace  I  secure  you,  I  free  yon  from  slavery  to  sin, 
you  will  be  really  free ;  not  outwardly  only,  and  in  name,  as 
now.  Were  I  not  to  be  always,  as  His  Son,  in  the  House- 
hold of  God,  my  Father,  yon  might  doubt  my  power,  or 
fear  because  of  my  absence ;  but  my  presence  there  for  ever 
gives  you  perfect  security  that  the  freedom  I  offer  will  be 
real  and  abiding.  I  know  that  yon  are  descended  from 
Abraham,  but  it  is  only  in  a  bodily  sense.  If  yon  were  his 
spiritual  sons,  yon  would  believe  in  me ;  but,  now,  in  spite 
of  yonr  passing  belief,  I  see  that  you  have  turned  against 
me  already,  and  gone  back  to  those  who  would  kill  me. 
Need  I  say  that  you  act  thns  only  because  my  teaching  had 
no  real  hold  on  your  hearts  ?  I  have  told  yon  what  I  have 
seen  when  I  was  still  with  my  Father ;  but  yon  act  accord- 
ing to  the  teaching  of  your  father." 

"  Our  father,"  interrupted  some,  "  is  Abraham," — for  they 
saw  that  He  meant  something  else.  "  If  ye  were  in  the 
true  sense,"  replied  Jesus,  "  not  in  mere  outward  descent, 
the  sons  of  Abraham,  you  would  imitate  Abraham;  to  do  so 
is  the  only  descent  from  him  of  worth  before  God.  But  yon 
seek  to  kill  Me,  a  man  who  has  spoken  to  yon  the  truth, 
which  I  have  received  from  God,  for  your  good,  becanse  it 
humbles  your  pride  and  self -righteousness.  Abraham  would 
never  have  acted  thus.  He  received  and  rejoiced  in  the  truth 
as  revealed  to  him,  though  it  was  far  less  clear  than  my 
words  have  made  it  to  you.  The  fact  is,  I  repeat,  with 
unutterable  sadness,  you  act  as  your  father  teaches  you." 

"  What  do  you  mean  ? "  cried  out  a  number  at  once. 
'*  You  say  that  Abraham  is  not  our  father ;  who  is  our 


288  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

father,  then  ?  Do  you  mean  that  Sarah,  onr  mother,  was 
unfaithful  to  Abraham,  and  that  he  was  only  our  father 
in  name,  not  in  fact  ?  We  have  only  one  father,  not  two,  as 
they  who  are  born  from  adultery,  and  if  you  deny  it  is 
Abraham,  it  must  be  God." 

"  If  God  were  your  father,  you  would  love  ME,"  quietly 
replied  Jesus,  "  for  I  am  the  Very  Son  of  God,  proceeding-, 
in  my  Being,  from  Him,  and  descending  from  heaven  to 
mankind.  I  have  not  come  from  any  personal  and  private 
act  of  my  own,  but  as  the  Messiah  sent  forth  by  the  Father. 
You  cannot  understand  what  I  say,  because  your  hearts  are 
so  gross  that  you  have  no  ears  for  my  teaching ;  it  is  dark 
to  you  because  you  are  morally  blind.  So  far  from  being 
the  spiritual  children  of  Abraham,  far  less  of  God,  you  are 
children  of  the  devil ;  and,  true  to  your  nature,  ye  copy  your 
father.  From  the  beginning  of  the  human  race  he  was  a 
murderer,  and  put  away  the  truth  from  him,  because  there 
is  no  truth  in  him.  The  devil  is  a  liar  by  nature,  and  lives 
in  lies,  and  knows  nothing  of  truth,  and  his  children  are  liars 
like  their  father — that  is,  they  thrust  away  the  truth  from 
them,  as  you  are  doing  now. 

"  Because  I  speak  the  truth,  and  do  not  seek,  like  Satan, 
to  win  you  to  evil,  by  flattering  your  self-deception  and  sins, 
you  do  not  believe  me.  Yet  would  I  deceive  you  ?  Who 
of  you  can  convict  me  of  sin  ?  But  if  I  be  sinless,  I  can 
have  no  untruthfulness,  no  lie,  in  me,  and,  therefore,  what 
I  speak  must  be  truth  and  truth  only.  Hence  I  am  right  in 
saying  you  cannot  be  the  children  of  God,  for  he  that  is  of 
God  hears  God's  words,  that  is,  hears  me,  for  I  speak  the 
words  of  God.  That  you  are  not  really  the  children  of  God, 
though  you  call  yourselves  such,  explains  why  you  do  not 
believe  in  Me."  l 

"  That  proves  what  we  said  of  you,"  interrupted  some  of 
the  crowd.  "  Such  language  about  your  own  nation  shows 
that  we  were  right  in  saying  that  you  were  a  Samaritan,d 
an  enemy  of  the  true  people  of  God,  and  possessed  with  a 
devil." 

"  I  have  not  a  devil,"  replied  Jesus ;  "  I  honour  my  Father 
by  these  very  words,  for  they  tend  to  the  glory  of  God.  As 
He  has  taught  me,  so  I  teach  you,  when  I  say  that  the 
wicked  are  servants  and  children  of  the  devil.  Yet,  though 
I  speak  not  from  my  own  authority,  but  that  of  God,  you  do 

1  Ullmann,  p.  166. 


"  BEFORE   ABRAHAM  WAS,   I   AM."  289 

me,  His  messenger,  the  great  dishonour  of  saying  1  have  a 
devil.  Bnt  I  shall  not  attempt  to  refute  the  slander,  for 
I  care  nothing  for  either  your  approval  or  praise.  There  is 
one  here — my  Father — who  cares  for  my  honour,  and  will 
judge  those  who  contemn  Me.  Would  that  none  of  you 
expose  yourselves  to  His  wrath  !  May  you  rather  receive 
from  Him  life  eternal !  Once  more,  let  me  repeat,  He  that 
believes  in  me,  and  obeys  my  words,  shall  never  taste 
death." 

As  usual,  the  hearers  put  a  material  sense  on  these  words, 
and  understood  them  of  natural  death  ;  taking  it  as  a  proof 
of  their  assertion  as  to  His  having  a  devil,  that  He  could  pro- 
mise any  one  that  He  should  never  die.  "  Even  Abraham 
died,"  said  they,  "  and  so  did  the  prophets.  Whom  do  you 
make  yourself  ?  You  put  yourself  above  all  men,  even  the 
greatest.  Abraham  could  not  ward  off  death,  nor  could  the 
prophets.  Do  you  claim  to  be  greater  than  they  ?  " 

"  Were  I,  for  mere  desire  of  glory,"  replied  Jesus,  "  to 
boast  of  being  greater  than  Abraham,  such  glory  would  be 
idle.  If  what  I  have  said  tend  to  exalt  me,  it  is  not  I  who 
honour  myself,  but  my  Father,  by  whose  authority  I  act  and 
speak,  that  honours  me — my  Father,  of  whom  you  say  He 
is  your  God.  If  you  fail  to  see  that  He  constantly  does  so, 
it  is  because,  in  spite  of  your  calling  yourselves  His  people, 
you  have  not  known  Him.  But  I  know  Him,  as  only  His 
Son  can.  If  I  were  to  say  that  I  did  not  know  Him,  and 
speak  His  words,  I  should  be,  like  yourselves,  untruthful ;  but 
I  both  know  Him,  and  keep  all  His  commands,  for  my  whole 
life  is  obedience  to  Him. 

"  But  that  you  may  know  that  I  really  am  greater  than 
even  Abraham,  the  Friend  of  God ;  let  me  tell  you  that 
Abraham,  when  he  received,  with  such  joy,  the  promise  that 
the  Messiah  should  come  from  his  race,  and  bless  all  nations, 
was  rejoicing  that  He  would,  hereafter,  from  Heaven,  see 
My  day,  and  He  has  seen  My  appearing,  from  His  abode  in 
Paradise,  and  exulted  at  it." 

The  crowd,  gross  as  usual,  understood  these  words  to  refer 
to  Abraham's  earthly  life,  and  fancied  that  Jesus  was  now 
claiming  to  have  been  alive  so  long  ago  as  the  time  of 
Abraham,  and  to  have  known  him. 

"  It  is  two  thousand  years  ago  since  Abraham's  day," 
broke  in  a  voice,  "  and  you  are  not  fifty  years  old  yet ;  do 
you  mean  to  say  you  have  seen  Abraham  ?  " 

"  I  mean  to  say,"  replied  Jesus,  "  far  more  than  even  that. 


290  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

Let  Me  tell  you,  with  the  utmost  solemnity,  before  Abraham 
was  born,  I  AM." 

This  was  the  very  phrase  in  which  Jehovah  had  announced 
Himself  to  Israel  in  Egypt.1  It  implied  a  continuous 
existence  from  the  beginning,2  as  if  the  speaker,  Himself, 
claimed  to  be  the  Uncreated  Eternal.  Abraham  had  come 
into  being,  but  HE  had  independent  existence,  without  a 
beginning. 

His  hearers  instantly  took  it  in  this  august  meaning,  and 
Jesus,  the  Truth,  made  no  attempt,  then  or  afterwards,  to 
undeceive  them.  Utterly  turned  against  Him,  they  rushed 
hither  and  thither,  in  wild  fanaticism,  for  stones,  with  which 
to  put  Him  to  death  as  a  blasphemer.  Many  of  those  used 
in  the  building  of  parts  of  the  Temple,  still  incomplete,  lay 
in  piles  at  different  spots.3  But  Jesus  hid  Himself  among 
the  crowd,  some  of  whom  were  less  hostile,  and,  in  the  con- 
fusion, passed  safely  out  of  the  sacred  precincts. 

1  Exod.  iii.  14. 

2  Liicke  and  Meyer  in  loa,  Winer,  p.  250.     Ullmann^  p.  179. 
»  A*t.,  xni.  9.  3. 


CHAPTER  LI. 
THE  LAST  MONTH  OF  THE  YEAB. 

"PRUDENCE  demanded  that  Jesus  should  for  a  time  with- 
-*-  draw  from  Jerusalem,  after  the  outbreak  of  murderous 
fanaticism  in  the  Temple  courts,  and  He  would  be  the  more 
inclined  to  this  because  Judea  had,  as  yet,  enjoyed  so  small  a 
share  of  His  ministry.  The  unmeasured  religious  pride, 
which  had  resisted  any  impression  in  His  first  lengthened 
visit,  might  possibly  yield,  in  some  cases,  after  the  incidents 
of  His  work  in  Galilee  and  Jerusalem,  and  doubtless  did  so  ; 
perhaps  in  more  instances  than  we  suspect.  But  whatever 
the  success,  He  could  not  leave  the  special  home-land  of 
Israel  without  one  more  attempt  to  win  it  to  the  New  King- 
dom of  God.  Hence  the  next  months,  till  after  the  Feast  of 
Dedication  in  December,  were  spent  either  in  Jerusalem  or 
Judea. 

In  these  last  weeks  of  His  life  Jesus  found  a  home,  from 
time  to  time,  in  the  bosom  of  a  village  family  in  Bethany,  on 
the  east  side  of  the  Mount  of  Olives.  When  He  first  came  to 
know  them  is  not  told ;  perhaps  they  were  among  the  few 
fruits  of  his  former  sojourn  in  Judea ;  possibly  the  family  of 
him  who  is  known  in  the  Gospels  as  Simon  the  Leper ; l  whom 
Christ  had  cured  during  His  early  Judean  labours,  and  thus 
won  to  the  Faith.  Bethany  is  easily  reached  from  Jeru- 
salem. The  flight  of  steps  on  the  east  side  of  the  Temple, 
before  the  Golden  Gate,  led  to  the  quiet  valley  of  the  Kedron. 
A  bridge  over  the  sometimes  dry  channel  of  the  stream 
opened  into  a  camel  path,  rising,  past  Gethsemane,  in  a  slow 
and  gentle  ascent,  over  the  brow  of  the  hill  which  lies  between 
the  Mount  of  Olives  and  that  which  Pompey  had  defiled  by 
his  camp, — called,  from  this,  the  Hill  of  Offence.  To  save 
distance,  however,  a  footway  ran  from  Gethsemane  over 
the  top  of  Olivet,  and  this,  travellers  like  Jesus  for  the 
most  part  preferred  to  the  other,  easier,  but  more  circuitous 

1  Mark  xiv.  3.     Malt.  xxvi.  2.     John  xii.  1. 


292  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

road.  Descending  the  eastern  slope,  a  few  steps  led  from  the 
bare  hill-side,  with  its  scattered,  prickly  shrubs,  to  a  sweet 
hollow,  rich  in  fig,  almond,  and  olive  trees,  through  which 
wound  a  road,  here  and  there  cut  out  in  the  side  of  the  hill. 
Ascending  the  east  end  of  this  dell,  Bethany  lay  close  in 
sight,  only  three-quarters  of  an  hour's  distance  from  Jeru- 
salem, but  hidden  from  it  by  a  spur  of  the  Mount  of  Olives. 
The  ruins  of  a  tower  rise,  now,  over  the  highest  point  of  the 
village,  but  they  are  of  later  date  than  the  days  of  our  Lord. 
The  houses,  whitewashed  and  flat-roofed,  lie  hidden  among 
the  surrounding  heights,  amidst  green  fields  and  trees  of 
many  kinds  ;  all  the  more  charming,  as  the  eastern  side  of 
Mount  Olivet,  the  background  to  the  picture,  is  much  more 
barren  and  dreary  than  the  western. 

In  this  sequestered  spot,  on  the  edge  of  the  great  wilder- 
ness of  Judea,  Jesus  found  a  delightful  retreat  in  the  vine- 
covered  cottage  of  Martha  and  Mary  and  their  brother 
Lazarus.  Loving  and  beloved,  it  always  offered  a  peaceful 
retirement  from  the  confusion  and  danger  of  the  Temple 
courts,  or  the  still  more  exhausting  circuits  of  His  wider 
southern  journeys.  It  was  the  one  spot,  so  far  as  we  know, 
that  He  could  call  home  in  these  last  months,  but  it  was 
apparently  the  sweetest  and  best  loved,  He  had  ever  had. 

The  household  consisted  of  two  sisters  and  a  brother — 
Martha,  Mary,  and  Lazarus — names  which  mark  the  trans- 
ition character  of  the  times ;  for,  while  "  Martha  "  was  the 
unchanged  native  equivalent  of  "  lady,"  "  Mary "  and 
"  Lazarus  "  were  Greek  forms  of  the  old  Hebrew  "  Miriam  " 
and  "  Eleazer."  May  we  trace,  in  this  superiority  to  narrow 
conservatism,  a  liberality  in  their  parents,  which  led  both 
them  and  their  children  to  receive  the  Galilsean  teacher  so 
readily  and  so  fondly  ?  They  had  evidently  been  disciples 
before  this  last  stay  in  Judea ;  probably  from,  the  time  of 
their  now  dead  father,  who  must  often  have  talked  over  with 
them  his  reasons  for  loving  trust  in  Christ. 

Martha  appears  to  have  been  the  head  of  the  little  house- 
hold, and  may  have  been,  as  many  have  believed,  a  widow.1 
The  family  seems  to  have  had  a  good  social  position,  and  to 
have  been  above  the  average  in  circumstances.-  The  cha- 
racter of  the  two  sisters  shows  itself  vividly  in  the  first  notice.8 

1  Ewald  thinks  that  Mary  was  the  elder.     Geschichte,  vol.  v.  p.  481. 

*  John  xi.  38.     Matt.  xxvi.  7.     John  xii.  2,  3.     John  xi.  33. 

•  Luke  x.  38-42. 


ONE   THING  IS   NEEDFUL.  293 

Martha  shares  the  piety  of  her  sister,  but  fails,  at  first,  to 
rise  to  such  a  high  conception  of  the  nature  and  dignity 
of  their  wondrous  Friend  as  Mary,  and  is  busied  with  the 
practical  cares  of  life  to  an  extent  that  seems  to  Him  exces- 
sive. Amiably  anxious  for  the  comfort  of  her  guest,  she  is 
absorbed  in  every  detail  of  hospitality  which  she  thinks  likely 
to  please  Him,  while  Mary  sits  at  His  feet,  to  listen  to  His 
words  and  watch  His  every  look.  The  busy,  motherly 
Martha,  seeing  her  sister  thus  seemingly  idle,  feels  a  passing 
jealousy  and  annoyance,  unworthy  of  her  calmer  self — for  a 
word  or  a  look  would  doubtless  have  been  enough — and 
comes  impatiently  to  Jesus  with  a  complaint,  not  free  from 
irreverence.  "Lord,"  says  she,  "do  you  not  care  that  my 
sister  has  left  me  to  do  all  the  work  alone  ?  If  you  speak  to 
her,  she  will  help  me."  As  if  to  imply  that  she  would  pay 
no  attention  to  Martha's  words. 

The  gentle  calmness  of  Jesus,  too  grateful  to  both  for 
their  loving  tenderness  to  overlook  the  good  in  either,  made 
only  the  tenderest  reply.  "  Martha,  Martha,"  said  He,  "  my 
wants  are  easily  satisfied,  and  it  is,  besides,  better,  like  Mary, 
to  choose  the  one  thing  needful  above  all — supreme  concern 
for  the  things  of  God — for  it  alone  can  never  be  taken 
from  us."  Of  Lazarus,  before  his  death,  we  only  know  that 
his  spirit  and  temper  were  such  that  Jesus  made  him,  in  an 
especial  manner,  His  friend.* 

An  incident  of  this  period  is  preserved  by  St.  Luke.  In 
one  of  our  Lord's  journeys  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Jeru- 
salem, a  Rabbi,1  skilled  in  the  Mosaic  Law,  and,  as  such,  a 
public  teacher  and  interpreter  of  the  Rabbinical  rules,  rising 
from  his  seat  among  his  students,  as  Jesus  passed,  resolved 
to  show  his  wisdom  at  the  expense  of  the  hated  Galilsean, 
and  trap  Him,  if  possible,  into  some  doubtful  utterance. 
"  Teacher,"  asked  he,  "  what  shall  I  do  to  inherit  eternal 
life?  We  know  what  the  Rabbis  enjoin,  but  what  sayest 
Thou?" 

"  What  is  written  in  the  Law  ?  "  replied  Jesus,  "  how 
readest  thou  ?  For  the  law  of  God  alone  can  determine 
such  a  matter." 

Quoting  a  passage  which  every  Jew  repeated  in  each  morn- 
ing and  evening's  prayer,  and  wore  in  the  little  text-boxes 
of  his  phylactery,  he  answered  glibly,  "  Thou  shalt  love  the 
Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy  heart,  and  with  all  thy  soul,  and 

1  Luke  x.  25-37. 


294  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

with  all  thy  strength,  and  with,  all  thy  mind,"  and  added,  in  a 
Jewish  sense,  "  and  thy  neighbour  as  thyself."  l 

"  You  are  quite  right,"  said  Jesus ;  "  do  this,  and  you  shall 
live." 

The  answer  hardly  left  room  for  anything  further ;  but 
the  questioner  would  not  be  balked  of  an  opportunity  of 
showing  his  acuteness,  and,  perhaps,  of  drawing  Jesus  into 
a  difficulty.  No  command  was  so  plain  as  not  to  furnish 
subjects  for  dispute  to  hair-splitting  theologians  of  his  class  ; 
and,  in  this  case,  there  had  been  endless  wrangling  in  the 
Rabbinical  schools  on  the  definition  of  the  word  "  neighbour." 
Jesus,  moreover,  as  was  well  known,  held  very  broad  views 
on  the  subject ;  views  utterly  heterodox  in  the  eyes  of  the 
schools.  Determined  not  to  let  conversation,  drop,  the 
questioner,  therefore,  opened  it  afresh. 

"  But  you  have  not  told  me,"  said  he,  "  who  is  my  neigh- 
bour. Pray  do  so,  else  I  may  fail  in  my  duty." 

Instead  of  answering  him  directly,  Jesus  replied,  in  the 
fashion  of  the  Rabbis  themselves,  by  a  parable,  which  I 
amplify  for  its  clearer  understanding. 

"  A  certain  man,"  said  He,  "  went  down  from  Jerusalem  to 
Jericho.  You  know  the  way,  so  steep,  wild,  and  dangerous  : 
well  called  the  Bloody  Road,  for  who  can  tell  how  many 
robberies  and  murders  have  happened  on  it  in  these  unsettled 
times,  when  the  country  is  full  of  men  driven  from  their 
homes  by  oppression  and  misery  ?  2  As  he  went  on,  a  band 
of  robbers  from  the  wild  gorges  through  which  the  road 
sinks,  rushed  out  upon  him  ;  stripped  him,  for  he  was  a  poor 
man,  with  only  his  clothes  to  take  from  him  ;  beat  him  when 
he  resisted,  and  then  made  off,  leaving  him  half  dead. 

"  As  he  lay  bleeding,  insensible,  and  naked  on  the  rough 
stones,  a  priest,  who,  like  so  many  more,  lived  at  Jericho,  and 
had  finished  his  course  at  the  Temple,  went  past.  He  was 
busy  reading  the  copy  of  the  Law,  which  all  priests  carry 
with  them;  but  as  he  came  near  and  saw  the  wounded  and 
seemingly  dying  man,  he  hastily  crossed  over  and  passed  on 
the  other  side  of  the  road,  afraid  of  defiling  himself  by  blood, 
or  by  the  touch  of  one  perhaps  unclean. 

"  Soon  after,  a  Levite,  also  from  the  Temple,  came  by,  and 
he,  when  he  saw  the  injured  man,  stepped  over  to  him,  and 
stood  for  a  time  looking  at  him,3  but  presently  crossed  the 

1  Deut.  vi.  5.     Lev.  xix.  18. 

3  Bell.  Jud.,  iv.  8.  3.     Hieron.  ad  Jer.,  iii.  2. 

*  See  a  fine  Sermon  of  Sterne,  Sermons,  vol.  i.  p.  57. 


THE   GOOD   SAMAEITAN.  295 

road  again,  as  if  he  had  been  polluted,  and  went  on  in  all 
haste,  lest  the  like  should  happen  to  himself. 

"  But  a  Samaritan,  travelling  that  way,  came  where  the 
poor  man  lay,  and,  when  he  saw  him,  was  moved  with  com- 
passion at  his  misery  ;  and  went  to  him,  and,  lighting  from 
his  ass,  bound  up  his  wounds,  after  pouring  oil  mixed  with 
wine1  on  them,  to  assuage  the  pain  and  soften  the  injured 
parts ;  and  set  him  on  his  own  beast,  never  thinking  whom 
he  might  be  helping — whether  Jew,  heathen,  or  fellow- 
countryman,  or  of  his  own  danger  in  such  a  spot;  and 
brought  him  to  the  khan,  which,  you  know,  stands  at 
the  road-side,  amidst  the  bare  walls  of  rocks,  three  hours 
from  Jerusalem.2  There  he  had  every  care  taken  of  him, 
and  stayed  with  him,  tending  him  through  the  night.  His 
own  business  forced  him  to  leave  next  day;  but  before 
doing  so,  he  went  to  the  keeper  of  the  khan,  and  gave  him 
two  denarii,3  telling  him  to  take  care  of  him,  and  adding, 
that  if  more  were  needed,  he  would  give  it  when  he  came 
back. 

"  Which  of  these  three,  do  you  think,  was  neighbour  to 
him  that  fell  among  the  robbers  ?" 

The  Rabbi,  true  to  his  national  hatred,  would  not  utter 
the  abhorred  word,  "the  Samaritan."  "  He  that  had  mercy 
on  him,  no  doubt,"  said  he. 

"  Go  and  do  thou  in  like  manner,"  replied  Jesus,  and  left 
him,  it  may  be  humbled  and  mortified,  but  it  is  to  be  hoped, 
a  wiser  and  better  man. 

A  fragment  of  the  familiar  instructions  of  these  months, 
by  which  Jesus  daily  trained  His  disciples,  is  preserved  to 
us  by  St.  Luke.4  At  an  earlier  period,  He  had  given  the 
Twelve  and  His  other  hearers  a  model  of  prayer,  in  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount,  but.  now,  one,  perhaps  of  the  later 
disciples,  asked  for  such  a  form  as  other  Rabbis,  and  as 
John,  taught  their  followers.  With  the  gentle  repetition 
we  so  often  find  in  the  Gospels,  Jesus,  forthwith,  once  more 
recited  the  model  He  had  already  prescribed,  and  took 
advantage  of  the  request,  to  enforce  the  value  of  prayer  by 
similar  assurances  of  answer  from  God  as  He  had  given 

1  Isaiah  i.  6.  2  Furrer,  p.  148. 

3  Equal,  in  purchasing  value,  to  from  six  to  seven  of  our  shillings. 
Dr.  S.  Davidson's  New  Test.,  Table.  Five  denarii  were  the  estimate  of 
the  value  of  rations  of  wheat  for  a  month,  for  one  man,  in  Borne.  Fried' 
lander,  Sittcnfjeschichte  Rums,  vol.  i.  p.  32. 

*  Luke  xi.  1-13. 

57 


296  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

before.  In  one  detail,  however,  He  varied  His  language,  by 
adding  a  brief  and  pointed  parable. 

"  You  know,"  said  He,  "  how  it  is  with  men.  If  any  of 
you  have  a  friend,  and  having  gone  to  him  in  the  middle  of  the 
night,  call  through  the  door,  '  Friend,  lend  me  three  loaves, 
for  a  friend  of  mine  has  just  come  to  my  house  from  a 
journey ;  the  weather  was  so  hot,  he  could  not  start  till  tho 
cool  of  the  day,  and  this  has  made  him  late,  and  I  have 
nothing  to  set  before  him ; '  most  likely  he  whom  you  thus 
disturb  will  say  to  you  from  within,  '  Trouble  me  not ;  the 
door  is  locked  for  the  night,  and  my  children  are  with  me 
in  bed,  and  I  cannot  wake  them.  I  cannot  get  up  and  give 
you  what  you  ask.'  Yet,  if  you  refuse  to  leave,  and  keep 
renewing  your  request,  he  will,  in  the  end,  rise  and  give 
you  as  many  loaves  as  you  need,  yielding  to  your  importu- 
nity, what  he  would  not  do  for  you  as  his  friend. 

"  If,  now,  selfish  men  listen  to  those  who  thus  will  not  take 
a  denial,  how  much  more  surely  will  the  God  of  love  listen 
to  humble  and  persistent  prayer  ?  Be  sure,  therefore,  that 
they  who,  with  earnest,  believing  souls,  seek  the  supply  of 
spiritual  wants  for  themselves  or  others,  will  assuredly  have 
their  petitions  heard." 

While  He  was  still  in  Jerusalem  and  its  neighbourhood, 
the  Seventy,  having  fulfilled  their  mission,  made  their  way 
back  to  Him.1  Like  the  Twelve,  they  returned  in  great 
joy  at  their  success,  and  reported  that  even  the  devils  had 
been  subject  to  them,  through  their  Master's  name,  though 
they  had  received  no  such  special  power  over  them  as  He 
had  given  to  the  Twelve.  It  was  a  moment  of  calm  triumph 
to  Jesus,  as  the  sure  anticipation  of  infinitely  greater  results 
hereafter.  His  spirit  caught  the  contagion  of  their  gladness, 
and  gloom  and  despondency  were  forgotten  in  the  vision  of 
the  future  triumph  of  the  New  Kingdom — His  one  all- 
absorbing  thought.  But  there  was  a  danger  lest  their  very 
success  might  injure  them.  The  consideration  they  had  won 
by  it  might  tend  to  unworthy  pride.  It  was  needful  to 
warn  them,  and  moderate  their  self-confidence. 

"  You  need  not  wonder,"  said  He,  "  that  Satan  is  not  able 
to  withstand  you.  Long  ere  now,  I  foresaw,  in  spirit,  that 
he  would  fall  like  a  lightning-flash  from  the  height  of  his 
power,  at  my  coming,  and  the  putting  forth  of  my  might. 
He  has  fallen,  now,  to  the  earth,  where  his  craft  and  designs 

1  Luke  x.  17-24. 


THE  EETUEN  OF  THE  SEVENTY.        297 

can  be  seen  and  met.  His  sway  is  already  broken  by  the 
new-begun  Kingdom  of  God.  It  has  struck  him  down,  as  it 
were,  from  the  sky,  with  its  secrecy  and  sudden  surprises  ; 
and  he  is,  now,  as  if  seen  and  easy  to  shun.  I  have  broken 
his  sceptre,  and  made  it  possible  for  you  to  do  what  you 
have  done.  Take  heed,  therefore,  not  to  think  too  much  of 
yourselves,  as  if  the  success  were  your  own.  I  now  give 
you  far  greater  power  than  any  you  have  yet  enjoyed.  You 
will,  hereafter,  tread  all  satanic  powers — the  serpents  and 
scorpions  of  hell1 — under  your  feet,  as  victors  tread  under 
foot  their  conquered  foes,  and  nothing  will  be  suffered  to 
hinder  your  triumph  as  my  servants.  You  need  not,  there- 
fore, fear  Satan. 

"  Yet  success  over  the  enemy  of  souls  is  not  that  in  which 
you  should  rejoice  most.  It  may  raise  pride,  and  make  you 
too  secure.  Rather  rejoice  that  your  names,  as  my  disciples, 
are  in  the  roll  of  citizens  of  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven.  It  is 
an  infinitely  greater  honour  than  any  outward  respect  these 
wonders  could  bring  you."2 

The  murderous  outburst  from  which  Jesus  had  fled,  was 
now  a  thing  of  the  past,  so  that  He  could  once  more  venture 
into  Jerusalem,  and  even  into  the  Temple.  The  spacious 
porches  were  a  favourite  haunt  of  the  afflicted  poor,  and 
among  those,  of  a  man  blind  from  his  birth.  Surrounded 
and  followed,  as  usual,  by  a  number  of  disciples,  Jesus 
was,  one  day,  passing,  when  this  man  attracted  His  notice. 
It  is  not  said  that  He  spoke  to  him;  but  the  mere  fact 
of  His  paying  any  heed  to  him,  suggested  a  question  to 
some  of  those  around.  "  Rabbi,"  they  asked,  "  we  have 
been  taught  that  children  are  born  lame,  crooked,  maimed, 
blind,  or  otherwise  defective,  for  some  sin  of  their  parents, 
or  for  some  sin  committed  by  themselves  before  birth.  Who 
sinned,  in  this  case ;  this  man,  or  his  parents,  that  he  was 
born  blind  ?" 

That  there  was  a  strict  system  of  rewards  and  punish- 
ments during  the  present  life,  according  to  the  merits  or 
sins  of  individuals,  had  been  the  original  doctrine  of  Jewish 
theology.  It  had  gradually,  however,  been  modified,  though 
still  held  by  the  multitude ;  and  it  was  superseded  in  the 
New  Kingdom  by  the  transfer  of  final  retribution  to  the 
future  world.  The  Rabbinical  theology,  sedulously  taught 

1  A  Babbinical  phrase.     See,  also,  Ps.  xci.  18. 

'  Ewald,  vol.  v.  p.  436.     Hess,  vol.  ii.  p.  216.     John  ix.  1-41. 


298  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

in  every  synagogue,  sought  to  reconcile  the  contradiction 
between  the  hereditary  belief  and  the  facts  of  life,  by  laboured 
and  unsatisfactory  theories.  The  words  were  put  into  the 
mouth  of  God  Himself,  in  one  of  the  ctlrrent  apologues  so 
much  in  vogue,  that  "  the  good  man,  if  prosperous,  was  so 
as  the  son  of  a  righteous  man ;  while  the  unfortunate  good 
man  suffered  as  the  son  of  a  sinful  parent.  So,  also,  the 
wicked  man  might  be  prosperous,  if  the  son  of  a  godly 
parent ;  but  if  unfortunate,  it  showed  that  his  parents  had 
been  sinners."1  It  was  further  believed  that  a  child  might 
sin  before  its  birth,  though  it  is  a  question  whether  there 
was  any  general  idea  of  the  transmigration  of  souls,  to 
account  for  suffering  as  the  punishment  of  sin  in  some 
earlier  existence.2 

"  The  affliction  of  this  man,"  replied  Jesus,  "  has  been 
caused  neither  by  his  own  sin,  nor  by  that  of  his  parents ; 
but  his  being  born  blind  offers  an  opportunity  for  the  dis- 
play of  the  Divine  power  and  goodness  in  his  person.  It  is 
on  such  sufferers  as  he  that  I  must  show  the  mighty  works 
vjf  uch  God  has  given  me  to  do  as  the  Messiah.  In  His 
service  I  must  labour  unweariedly,  for  God,  my  Father,  never 
ceases  to  do  good.  Like  Him  with  His  work,  I  cannot  inter- 
mit mine  even  on  this  day,  though  it  be  a  Sabbath.  I  am 
like  one  who  cannot  leave  his  task  till  the  night,  when  no 
one  can  work.  Night  is  coming  erelong  to  me,  when  I  shall 
cease  from  all  such  labours,  as  the  workman  does  at  the 
close  of  day.  As  long  as  I  am  in  the  world,  I  must  be  the 
light  of  men  ;  when  I  depart,  the  light  will  be  withdrawn." 

He  might  have  opened  the  eyes  of  the  poor  man  by  a 
word,  but  a  great  lesson  was  to  be  taught  His  enemies.  He 
wished  to  protest  once  more  against  the  hypocritical  strict- 
ness of  the  Rabbinical  observance  of  the  Sabbath,  which  so 
entirely  destroyed  the  true  significance  of  the  holy  day.  He 
would  show  that  it  was  in  full  accordance  with  the  office 
ofthe  Messiah,  not  only  Himself  to  do  what  the  dominant 
party  denounced  as  WORK,  on  the  Sabbath,  but  to  require  it 
also  from  him  whom  He  cured. 

It  was  the  belief,  in  antiquity,  that  the  saliva  of  one  who 
was  fasting  was  of  benefit  to  weak  eyes,  and  that  clay  re- 
lieved those  who  suffered  from  tumours  on  the  eyelids.  It 
may  be  that  Jesus  thought  of  this  ;  at  any  rate,  stooping 
to  the  ground,  and  mixing  saliva  with  some  of  the  dust,  He 

1  Berachoth.  Rab.  7  a.  *  Liglitfoot,  vol.  iii.  p.  338. 


THE   MAN   BOEN   BLIND.  299 

touched  the  eyes  of  the  blind  man  with  it,  and  then  sent  him 
to  wash  it  oft  in  the  pool  of  Siloam.  It  was  impossible  that 
the  clay  or  the  water  could  restore  the  eyesight ;  but  Jesus 
had  once  more  asserted  His  right  to  do  works  of  mercy  on 
the  Sabbath,  in  opposition  to  the  narrow  pretences  of  the 
Pharisees,  and  the  faith  of  the  man  himself  was  put  to  the 
test.  He  forthwith  did  as  commanded,  and  his  sight  was  at 
once  made  perfect. 

Full  of  childish  delight  at  the  possession  of  the  new 
amazing  sense,  the  man  must  have  attracted  attention,  even 
where  the  change  wrought  in  his  appearance  prevented  his 
being  recognised.  He  was  well  known  in  the  city  as  a 
beggar,  blind  from  his  birth.  Presently,  some  asked,  doubt- 
ing their  senses,  "if  this  were  not  he  who  sat  every  day 
begging  ?  "  "  It  is  he,"  said  one.  "  It  is  some  one  like,  him," 
said  others.  "  I  am  he,"  said  the  man.  "  How  did  you  get 
your  sight,  then  ?  "  asked  a  number  at  once.  The  man  told 
them.  "  Where  is  this  Jesus  ?  "  they  asked  again  ;  but  he 
could  not  tell. 

It  was  clear  that  another  great  miracle  had  been  performed 
by  the  Teacher  whom  the  authorities  denounced ;  and,  hence, 
from  whatever  motive,  the  man  was  taken  before  them.  The 
sight  of  him  might  change  their  feelings  towards  Jesus,  for 
even  they  did  not  pretend  to  deny  the  supernatural  power  of 
their  hated  opponent,  though  they  tried  to  attribute  it  to  the 
help  of  the  Prince  of  Devils. 

Brought  before  the  dignitaries  of  the  Law  and  Temple, 
the  man  had  to  repeat  the  story  of  his  cure.  The  miracle 
could  not  be  denied ;  but  the  character  of  Christ  might,  at 
least,  be  discredited,  for  it  appeared  that  he  had  dared  to 
break  the  Sabbath  both  in  act  and  wo-rd.  "  This  man  is  not 
of  God,"  said  some  of  the  Council,  "  for  does  not  the  Law 
expressly  forbid  the  anointing  of  the  eyes  with  saliva  on  the 
Sabbath,  as  work  ? l  And,  besides,  no  healing  is  permitted 
on  the  Sabbath  except  when  life  is  in  danger."  2 

"  How  could  a  man  that  commits  sin  work  such  miracles  ?  " 
replied  some  of  the  more  liberal-minded.  "  God  would  never 
give  such  power  to  such  a  person.  There  is  something 
special  that  needs  looking  into  in  this  case  of  what  you  call 
Sabbath-breaking,  before  you  decide  so  confidently." 

They  were  hopelessly  divided,  and  at  last,  like  Orientals, 

1  Naimon  Schabb.,  21.    Buxtorf,  Syn.  Jud.,  c.  16. 
•  Schottg.,  ad  Matt.  xii.  9. 


THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

resolved  to  get  the  opinion  of  the  man  himself.  They  asked 
him,  therefore,  what  he  thought  of  Him  who  had  cured  him. 
"  I  think  Him  a  prophet,"  answered  the  sturdy  confessor. 
But  it  would  never  do  to  admit  this,  for  even  the  Rabbis 
owned  that  a  prophet  might  dispense  with  the  laws  of  the 
Sabbath. 

The  hostile  party  in  the  Council  were  in  a  strait,  and 
•would  fain  deny  the  fact  of  the  miracle  altogether.  They 
•would,  at  least,  require  more  evidence  than  the  man's  own 
word.  Sending  the  officers  for  his  parents,  therefore,  they 
had  them  brought  before  them,  and  asked  them : 

"  Is  this  your  son,  who,  as  you  say,  was  born  blind  ?  How 
comes  he  to  see,  if  that  were  so  ?  "  But  the  question  brought 
no  relief,  for  the  parents  shrewdly  refused  to  commit  them- 
selves beyond  the  bare  acknowledgment  that  he  was  their 
son,  and  that  he  had  been  born  blind.  "  He  is  of  age — ask 
him,"  added  they.  Nor  was  their  caution  unjustified,  for 
they  had  heard  that  if  any  one  acknowledged  Jesus  as  the 
Messiah,  he  would  be  "  put  out  of  the  synagogue  ;  "  a  punish- 
mentinvolving  the  direst  consequences  socially  and  religiously. 
It  was,  in  fact,  the  lesser  excommunication,  which  lasted 
thirty  days,  but  might  be  lengthened  for  continued  im- 
penitence, or  curtailed  by  contrition.  It  shut  a  person 
utterly  from  the  synagogue,  for  even  if  he  entered  it,  he  was 
reckoned  as  not  present ;  no  mourning  for  the  dead,  and  no 
rite  of  circumcision  could  take  place  in  his  house,  and  no 
one  but  his  wife  or  child  could  come  within  four  cubits  of 
him.1 

The  discomfited  Council  could  only  fall  back  on  the  man 
himself.  "  He  must,"  they  told  him,  "  take  care  of  himself, 
else  they  would  have  to  deal  with  him.  He  had  better  tell 
the  whole  truth,  and  confess  what  he  knew  about  this  Jesus, 
and  thus  show  that  he  feared  God,  by  giving  Him  the  glory  ; 
for  we  know  very  well,"  said  th'ey,  "that  this  man  is  a 
sinner."  But  he  was  neither  to  be  brow-beaten  nor  dragooned, 
and  would  not  yield  an  inch  to  either  threats  or  persuasions. 
"  It  is  a  very  strange  thing,"  said  he,  "  that  you  talk  about 
Him  so.  I  can  say  nothing  about  His  being  a  sinner;  I 
only  know  that  whereas  I  was  blind,  now  I  see." 

Foiled  once  more,  they  fell  back  on  their  first  question. 
"  What  is  it  you  say  He  did  to  you  ?  How  was  it  He 
opened  your  eyes  ?  "  But  they  had  to  do  with  one  of  sterner 

1  Bilel  Lex.,  Art.  Bann. 


THE  BLIND  MAN  BEFOEE  THE  COUNCIL.    301 

and  manlier  stuff  than  most.  "  I  told  you  all  that  already," 
replied  he,  "  and  you  did  not  listen ;  why  do  you  wish  to 
hear  it  again  ?  Are  you,  also,  like  me,  inclined  to  become 
His  disciples  ?  " 

The  court  was  not  accustomed  to  be  treated  with  so  little 
deference  and  awe ;  their  pride  and  dignity  were  sadly 
flustered,  and  they  forgot  both  in  their  excitement.  With 
the  passionate  heat  of  Orientals,  they  stooped  to  insult  and 
wrangle  with  the  humble  creature  at  their  bar.  As  they 
could  get  nothing  against  Jesus  from  him,  they  branded  him 
as  His  disciple.  "  You  are  a  disciple  of  this  Galilsean ;  we 
are  the  disciples  of  Moses,  the  man  of  God :  we  know  that 
God  spoke  to  Moses,  but  as  for  this  fellow,  we  know  not 
who  has  sent  Him — it  must  have  been  Beelzebub,  at  best." 

Unabashed,  and  true-hearted,  the  man  was  not  to  be  put 
down  by  either  priest  or  Rabbi.  "  Well,  this  is  very  strange," 
retorted  he.  "  You  say  you  don't  know  who  has  sent  Him, 
and  yet  He  has  opened  my  eyes  !  A  man  who  has  done  that, 
must,  as  you  know,  have  come  ^rom  God,  and  be  no  sinner ; 
for  every  one  knows  that  God  alone  can  give  power  to  work 
such  a  miracle,  and  He  does  not  hear  sinners,  but  only  those 
who  worship  Him  truly,  and  do  His  will.  So  wonderful  an 
instance  of  the  power  of  God  being  granted  to  any  man  has 
never  been  heard  of,  as  that  which  has  been  granted  to  this 
Jesus  ;  for,  from  the  beginning  of  the  world  such  a  thing 
was  never  known,  as  the  opening  of  the  eyes  of  a  man  born 
blind,  even  by  the  greatest  of  the  prophets.  There  is  no 
such  thing  in  any  part  of  the  Law  or  the  Prophets.  If  this 
man  were  not  from  God,  He  could  do  nothing." 

"  What !  "  screamed  several  voices  at  once.  "  You,  a 
creature  tainted  to  your  very  soul  with  sin,  before  your  birth, 
and  born  with  its  miserable  punishment  on  you — you,  an 
out-and-out  worthless  wretch — do  you  venture  to  teach  us  ? 
You  are  excommunicated."  And  so  they  cast  him  out  of  the 
synagogue,  there  and  then. 

The  report  of  this  incident  soon  reached  Jesus.  The  blind 
beggar  was  the  first  confessor  in  the  New  Kingdom,  and  its 
Lord  lost  no  time  in  acknowledging  and  strengthening  one 
who  had  owned  Him  fearlessly  before  the  very  Council 
itself.  Seeking  him  out,  and  telling  him  He  had  heard  of 
His  grateful  fidelity,  He  added,  "  You  believe  on  the  Son  of 
God,  do  you  not?"  The  name,  as  that  of  Jesus  Himself, 
had  not  reached  him,  but  he  knew  it  as  one  of  the  titles 
of  the  expected  Messiah.  "  Who  is  He,  Lord,"  asked  he, 


302  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

instantly,  "  that  I  may  believe  on  Him  ?  "  "  Thou  hast  seen 
Him,  even  now,"  answered  Jesus,  "  and  it  is  He  who  talks 
with  thee."  It  was  enough.  The  healed  one  had  before 
him  the  mysterions  Being  whose  power  towards  himself  had 
shown  him  to  be  "  the  messenger  sent  of  God,"  Him  whom 
he  had  only  now  confessed.  "  Lord,"  said  he,  "  I  believe," 
and  rendered  Him,  forthwith,  the  worship  due  to  the  Messiah, 
God's  anointed.b 

Meanwhile,  a  crowd  had  gathered,  as  the  beggar,  now  seeing 
not  only  with  bodily  but  spiritual  eyes,  threw  himself  at  His 
feet.  It  was  a  moment  of  deep  emotion.  Addressing  Him- 
self to  those  around,  among  whom,  as  usual,  were  some  of 
the  ever- watchful  Rabbis,  Jesus  seized  the  opportunity  for  a 
few  more  words  of  warning. 

"  I  am  come  into  the  world,"  said  He,  "  fan  in  hand,  to 
separate  the  wheat  from  the  chaff,  and  to  bring  a  judgment- 
like  division  among  men.  The  poor  in  spirit  who  feel  their 
need  of  Divine  truth,  and  mourn  their  spiritual  blindness, 
are  enlightened  by  me,  but  1;hose  who  think  they  see,  and 
fancy  they  know  the  truth,  are  shown  to  be  blind,  and  are 
shut  out  from  my  kingdom,  to  the  blindness  they  have 
chosen." 

"  Are  we  blind,  then  ?  "  asked  some  of  the  Rabbis  in  the 
crowd.  He  had  classed  them  as  those  who  fancied  they 
alone  saw,  and  their  pride  was  roused  by  His  venturing  to 
speak  of  them,  the  teachers  of  the  nation,  as  blind — language 
so  opposed  to  the  servility  shown  them  as  a  rule. 

"  Blind  ?  "  replied  Jesus,  "  it  would  be  well  if  you  were 
so;  for,  in  that  case,  your  disbelief  in  me  would  not  be  sinful. 
It  would  not  show  a  wilful  resistance  to  Divine  truth,  but 
only  that  you  had  not  yet  attained  the  knowledge  of  it. 
But  since  you  claim  to  see,  it  makes  your  unbelief  criminal, 
and  deepens  your  guilt ;  for  it  is  your  spiritual  pride  which 
leads  you  to  reject  me,  and  thus  keeps  you  from  believing, 
and  so  receiving  pardon." 

In  the  East,  as  in  lonely  mountainous  districts  of  our  own 
country,  the  relation  of  a  shepherd  to  his  flock  is  very 
different  from  the  mechanical  and  indifferent  one  of  some 
other  parts.  The  loneliness  of  pastoral  life  in  these  coun- 
tries throws  man  and  the  creatures  he  tends  so  much  together 
• — binds  them  so  to  each  other  by  a  sense  of  companionship, 
of  dangers  shared,  and  pleasures  mutually  enjoyed — that  the 
Eastern  shepherd,  like  his  counterpart  on  our  own  mountains, 
forgets  the  distance  between  himself  and  his  flock,  and 


THE   GOOD   SHEPHERD.  303 

becomes  their  friend.  Nor  is  the  sense  of  dependence  only 
on  his  side.  The  sheep  are  drawn  to  their  protector  as  much 
as  he  to  them.  They  are  all  to  each  other.  They  share  in 
common  the  silence  and  lonely  magnificence  of  the  moun- 
tains or  the  desert.  We  learn  to  love  that  for  which  we 
brave  peril ;  and  the  dangers  of  torrents,  of  robbers,  of 
wolves,  of  thirst,  or  of  straying,  endear,  to  the  Oriental,  the 
flock  for  which  they  are  borne,  as  the  dangers  of  winter 
storms,  or  mountain  mists,  and  the  thousand  incidents  of 
pastoral  life  in  wild  districts,  do  with  our  Highland  shep- 
herds. 

Nothing,  therefore,  could  be  more  touching,  in  a  pastoral 
country  like  Palestine,  than  images  of  care  or  tenderness 
drawn  from  shepherd  life,  and  such  Jesus  now  introduced 
with  surpassing  beauty.1 

"  I  have  come  into  the  world,"  said  He,  in  effect,  "  to 
gather  together  into  a  great  fold  the  new  Israel  of  God. 
He  who  enters  by  the  door  is  a  true  and  authorized  under- 
shepherd,  but  any  who  enter  otherwise  are  not  true  leaders 
and  shepherds,  but  are  like  thieves  and  robbers,  who  climb 
over  the  wall  for  evil  ends. 

"  When  the  true  shepherd  thus  enters  by  the  door,  the 
sheep  he  tends  hear  his  voice,  and  he  calls  them  by  name, 
and  leads  them  out.  And  when  he  has  led  forth  all  his  own, 
he  goes  before  them,  as  the  shepherds  before  their  sheep,  and 
his  flock  follow  him,  because  they  know  his  voice.2  And,  as 
a  stranger,  who  is  not  the  shepherd  known  by  a  flock, 
scatters  it  in  alarm,  as  soon  as  the  sheep  hear  his  voice,  so, 
while  true  shepherds  are  recognised  as  such  by  the  spiritual 
Israel,  pretenders  are  known  by  their  words,  and  shunned." 
The  drift  of  this  parable,  or  allegory,  was  sufficiently  trans- 
parent, but  those  at  whom  it  was  pointed  were  too  self- 
satisfied  to  recognise  it.  They  declared  it  unintelligible. 

Jesus,  therefore,  felt  Himself  necessitated  to  repeat  the 
main  thought,  and  thus  enforce  it  on  their  attention. 

"  I  see,"  said  He,  "  that  you  do  not  understand  the  parable 
J  have  just  delivered :  let  me  explain  it.  I  tell  you  with 
the  utmost  solemnity,  I  am  the  one  only  Door  of  the  fold  of 
the  flock  of  God.  Other  teachers  have  sought  to  lead  you 
in  your  day,  but  all  who  have  done  so,  before  my  coming, 

1  See   Sermon  by  F.  W.  Eobertson.       Sermons,  2nd  series,  p.   283. 
John  x.  1-21. 

2  Land  and  Boak,  pp.  202-4.     Tristram,  pp.  140,   141.     Bibel  Lex., 
Vol.  iii.  p.  .1^5. 


304  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

are  like  the  thieves  and  robbers  who  enter  a  fold  over  the 
wall.  I  frankly  tell  you  I  mean  the  priests  and  Rabbis,  my 
enemies.  They  have  refused  to  enter,  through  me,  the  Door, 
and  have  rejected  me.  But  the  true  sheep  of  God  —  the 
spiritual  Israel  —  have  not  listened  to  them.  Note  well,  as  I 
repeat  it  —  I,  alone,  am  the  Door  of  the  true  fold  of  the  flock 
of  God.  If  any  one  enter  by  me  into  the  fold,  as  a  shepherd 
or  teacher  and  leader  of  the  flock,  he,  himself,  will  be  saved 
in  the  world  to  come,  and  preserved  to  life  eternal,  and  will 
have  free  entrance  to  the  sheep  here,  to  lead  them  out  to 
pasture.  He  who  does  not  thus  enter  through  me,  seeks  the 
sheep  only  for  selfish  and  evil  ends  ;  like  the  thief,  who, 
avoiding  the  door,  climbs  over  into  the  fold,  to  steal,  kill, 
and  destroy.  I  may  call  myself,  in  opposition  to  such  false 
shepherds,  not  only  the  Door,  but  the  Good  Shepherd,  for  I 
have  come,  not  to  destroy  the  flock  of  God,  but  to  give  them 
true  abiding  life  in  my  kingdom,  and  that  with  all  fulness 
and  delight  of  spiritual  joys. 

"  I  am,  indeed,  the  Good  Shepherd,  for  I  come  to  lay  down 
my  life  for  the  sheep.  But  he  who  is  a  hireling  and  not 
a  true  shepherd  —  he  who  seeks  to  lead  and  teach  the  flock 
of  God,  not  from  love  and  self-sacrifice,  but  for  gain  ;  the 
hypocrite  who  pretends  to  be  a  shepherd  —  sees  the  powers  of 
evil  coming  like  a  ravening  wolf,  to  tear  the  flock  by  perse- 
cutions ;  and  flees,  and  leaves  it  to  its  fate,  so  that  they 
snatch  off  many,  and  scatter  all.  He  thus  flees  because  he 
is  only  a  hireling,  thinking  of  himself  and  caring  nothing 
for  the  sheep. 

"  I,  once  more,  am  the  Good  Shepherd,  and  no  hireling, 
for  I  know  my  sheep,  and  they  kno\r  me  with  such  deep 
communion  of  love  and  spiritual  life  as  there  is  between  my 
heavenly  Father  and  myself  ;  and  I  shall  presently  lay  down 
my  life  for  them.  Yet  not  for  those  of  Israel  alone.  I 
have  other  sheep,  of  other  lands,  and  them  also  I  must  lead 
into  the  one  fold,  that  there  may  be  but  one  flock,1  under 
me,  the  one  Shepherd. 

"  But  this  triumphal  issue  can  be  reached  only  by  my 
death  and  resurrection  ;  yet  I  rejoice  to  die  thus  for  the 
sheep,  since  the  love  of  my  heavenly  Father  rests  on  me, 
because  I  give  myself  for  them.  I  die  freely,  of  my  own 
choice,  a  willing  self-sacrifice.  No  one  takes  my  life  from 


1  Not  fold.    The  word  is  irol^vi},  a  flock,  not  aii\i],  a  fold,  as  in  the 
earlier  part  of  the  verse. 


DISPUTES   RESPECTING   CHRIST.  305 

me,  but  I  lay  it  down  of  myself.1  I  am  sent  forth  by  my 
Father,  as  the  Messiah,  and,  as  such,  lay  down  my  life  and 
take  it  again,  not  to  carry  out  any  purpose  of  my  own,  but 
to  complete  the  great  plan  of  salvation  God  has  designed. 
It  is  in  obedience  to  His  Divine  command  I  thus  freely  give 
myself  up  to  death,  and  it  is  to  complete  the  gracious  plan 
of  mercy  towards  the  flock  which  my  death  will  redeem,  that 
I  tihall  rise  again  from  the  grave  as  their  Great  Shepherd,  to 
guide  them  to  heaven." 

Had  the  bigoted  crowd  known  the  full  significance  of 
some  of  these  words,  they  would  have  risen  against  Jesus 
once  more ;  for  the  future  admission  of  the  heathen  into  the 
New  Kingdom  of  God  was  more  distinctly  intimated  than 
ever  before.  As  the  end  of  His  work  drew  nearer,  the 
narrow  prejudices  even  of  the  Twelve  were  ever  more  con- 
stantly kept  in  view,  and  the  thought  that  the  kingdom  He 
was  founding  must  embrace  all  nations,  daily  enforced. 

Bat  neither  this  wide  catholicity,  which  a  Jew  would  have 
held  as  treason  to  his  nation,  nor  the  mysterious  allusions  to 
His  own  future,  were  rightly  understood.  The  old  slander 
that  "  He  had  a  devil,  and  was  mad  in  consequence,  and  not 
worthy  to  be  listened  to,"  rose  from  the  lips  of  some,  and 
the  best  tha't  even  the  most  liberal  among  the  crowd  could 
say,  was  the  negative  praise — "  These  are  not  the  words 
of  one  who  is  possessed."  Besides,  though  a  devil  might, 
perhaps,  work  some  miracles  through  man  as  its  instru- 
ment, it  was  impossible  to  believe  that  it  either  would  or 
could  work  one  so  beneficent  and  stupendous  as  the  opening 
of  the  eyes  of  one  who  had  been  born  blind. 

1  Schleiermacher's  Predigten,  vol.  iv.  p.  65. 


CHAPTER  LH. 
A    WANDERING    LIFE. 

TT  was  now  near  the  end  of  Chislev,  "the  cold  month," 
-*-  equivalent  to  part  of  our  November  and  December. 
The  twenty-fifth  of  the  month,  which,  according  to  Wieseler, 
fell,  this  year,  on  the  20th  December,  was,  with  the  next 
seven  days,  a  time  of  universal  rejoicing  ;  l  for  the  Dedication 
Festival,  in  commemoration2  of  the  renewal  of  the  Temple 
worship,  after  its  suspension  under  Antiochus  Epiphanes,3 
was  held  through  the  week.* 

Jesus,  ever  pleased  to  mingle  in  innocent  joys,  and  glad 
to  seize  the  opportunity  for  proclaiming  the  New  Kingdom, 
which  the  gatherings  of  the  season  afforded,  once  more  re- 
turned to  Jerusalem  to  attend  it.  He  had  been  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood since  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles,  nearly  three 
months  before,  and  this  visit  would  be  the  last,  till  His  final 
entry,  to  die.4 

The  weather  had  been  wet  and  rough,5  so  that  He  was 
fain  to  avail  Himself,  like  the  crowds,  of  the  shelter  of  the 
arcade  running  along  the  east  side  of  the  Temple  enclosure, 
known  as  Solomon's  Porch,  from  the  fragment  of  the  first 
Temple,  left  standing  by  Nebuchadnezzar.6 

The  rain  drove  the  people  from  the  open  courts,  and 
Jesus,  like  others,  was  in  the  porch,  apparently  without  His 
disciples.  The  time  was  fitted  to  wake  the  old  temptation 
of  ambition,  had  it  had  any  charms.  How  easily  might  He 
eclipse  the  hero  of  all  this  rejoicing,  and  by  His  super- 
natural power  achieve  victories,  compared  with  which  those 
of  Judas  Maccabseus  would  be  nothing  !  But  His  aims  were 
far  nobler. 

Such  secret  thoughts  may  have  risen  among  the  Pharisaic 
party,  themselves,  respecting  Him.  Be  this  as  it  may,  they 


1  Lightfoot,  on  John  x.  22.     Ewald,  vol.  iv.  p.  356.  *  rb.  e 

•  B.C.  175-163.     The  profanation  of  the  Temple  was  B.C.  167-104. 

*  John  x.  22-42.       *  Augusti  und  De  Wette's  Bibel.       •  Ant.,  xx.  9.  7 


CHAKGE   OF  BLASPHEMY.  307 

now  suddenly  came  and  began  to  ask  Him  if  He  would  not, 
at  last,  relieve  their  minds  by  some  direct  and  express  de- 
claration whether  He  were  the  Messiah  or  not.  It  may  be, 
He  could  read  in  their  looks  that  He  needed  only  to  speak  a 
word  to  have  their  support,  and  He  knew  that  both  they 
and  the  nation,  at  such  a  time,  were  ready  to  flame  into 
universal  enthusiasm  for  any  chief  who  would  undertake 
to  lead  them  against  Rome.  But  earthly  ambition  had  no 
attractions  for  His  pure  spirit. 

"  We  have  waited  long  and  anxiously,"  said  they,  "  for 
some  decisive  word.  If  Thou  art  the  Messiah,  tell  us 
openly." 

"  I  have  already  told  you,"  answered  Jesus,  "  both  by  the 
witness  of  the  miracles  I  have  done  in  my  Father's  name, 
and  in  words ;  but  you  have  not  believed  me,  because,  as  I 
said  not  long  ago,  you  are  not  my  disciples,  or,  as  I  love  to 
call  them,  my  sheep.  If  you  had  been,  you  would  have  be- 
lieved in  me.1  You  may,  yourselves,  see  that  you  are  not 
of  my  flock,  for  those  who  are  so  listen  to  my  voice,  and  I 
know  them,  and  they  follow  me,  as  sheep  know  and  listen 
to  the  voice  of  their  shepherd,  and  are  known  by  him,  and 
follow  him.  Nothing,  indeed,  can  be  more  close  and  abiding 
than  my  relations  to  them,  for  I  lead  them  not  to  mere  earthly 
good,  but  give  them  eternal  life,  and  am  their  shepherd 
hereafter  as  well  as  here  ;  taking  care  that  they  shall  never 
perish,  and  that  no  one,  even  beyond  death,  shall  snatch 
them  out  of  my  hand.  Moreover,  being  in  my  hand,  they 
are,  in  reality,  in  that  of  my  Father,  for  He  is  ever  with  me, 
and  works  by  me.  He  gave  them  to  me  at  first,  and  He 
still  guards  them,  nor  can  any  one  snatch  them  from  His 
hands,  for  He  is  greater  than  all  the  powers  of  earth  and 
hell.  Wonder  not  that  I  speak  of  their  being  both  in  my 
Father's  hands  and  in  mine,  for  I  and  the  Father  are  One." 

The  excitable,  fanatical  crowd  had  listened  patiently  till 
the  last  words,  which  seemed  the  most  audacious  blasphemy 
— a  claim  of  essential  oneness  with  the  Almighty.  Scatter- 
ing themselves  in  a  moment  once  more  in  search  of  stones, 
with  which  to  kill  Him  for  what  they  deemed  His  crime, 
they  presently  gathered  round  Him  again  with  them,  to  fell 
Him  to  the  earth.  But  Jesus  remained  undismayed.  "  I 
have  done  many  great  works  of  mercy,"  said  He,  calmly, 
"  which  show  that  the  Father  is  with  me,  because  they  could 

1  Join  x.  22-42. 


308  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

only  come  from  the  presence  of  His  power.  They  are 
enough  to  show  you  that  He  thinks  me  no  blasphemer.  For 
which  of  these  mighty  works  will  you  stone  me  ?  " 

"  We  would  not  think  of  stoning  Thee  for  a  good  work," 
answered  the  crowd ;  "  it  is  for  your  blasphemy  ;  that  you, 
a  man,  should  make  yourself  God." 

"Is  it  not  written  in  your  Law,"1  replied  Jesus,  "of  the 
rulers  of  Israel,  the  representatives  and  earthly  embodiments 
of  the  majesty  of  Jehovah,  your  invisible  King,  '  J  said,  Ye 
are  gods  ? '  If  God  Himself  called  them  gods,  to  whom  this 
utterance  of  His  came  2 — and  you  cannot  deny  the  authority 
of  Scripture — how  can  you  say  of  me, — whom  the  Father 
has  consecrated  to  a  far  higher  office  than  ruler,  or  even 
prophet,  to  that  of  Messiah ;  and  whom  He  has  not  only 
thus  set  apart  to  this  great  office,  but  sent  into  the  world 
clothed  with  the  mighty  powers  I  have  shown,  and  the  ful- 
ness of  grace  and  truth  you  now  see  in  me, — that  I  blaspheme, 
because  I  have  said  I  am  God's  Son  ?  Your  unbelief  in  me, 
which  is  the  ground  of  the  charge,  would  have  some  excuse 
if  I  did  not  perform  such  works  as  prove  me  to  have  been 
sent  by  my  Father.  But  if  I  do  such  works,  then  believe 
them,  if  you  will  not  believe  me ;  that  you  may  thus  learn 
and  know  b  that  what  I  have  said  is  true,  that  the  Father 
is  in  me,  and  I  in  the  Father." 

They  had  waited  for  a  retractation,  but  had  heard  a  defence. 
Instantly,  hands  were  thrust  out  on  every  side,  to  lay  hold  on 
Him,3  and  lead  Him  outside  the  Temple,  to  stone  Him ;  but 
He  shrank  back  into  the  crowd,  and  passing  thrpugh  it, 
escaped. 

Jerusalem  and  Judea  were  evidently  closed  against  Him, 
as  Galilee  had  been  for  some  time  past.  There  seemed  only 
one  district  in  any  measure  safe — the  half -heathen  territory 
of  Perea,  across  the  Jordan.  The  ecclesiastical  authorities 
and  the  people  at  large,  instead  of  accepting  Him,  and  the 
epiritual  salvation  He  offered,  had  become  steadily  more 
obdurate  and  hostile.  It  was  necessary  at  last  to  give  up  ail 
attempts  to  win  them,  and  to  retire,  for  the  short  time  that 
yet  remained  to  Him,  to  this  safer  district.  He  chose  the 
part  of  it  in  which  John  had  begun  his  ministrations ;  per- 
haps in  hopes  of  a  more  hopeful  soil,  from  the  cherished 
remembrance  of  His  predecessor, — perhaps  as  a  spot  sacred 
to  holy  associations  of  His  own. 

1  Ps.  Ixxxii.  6.        *  Meyer,  De  Wette,  and  Augusti.        3  John  x.  39. 


THE   FAMILY  OF  BETHANY.  309 

Here,  with  His  wonted  earnestness,  He  once  more  pro- 
claimed the  New  Kingdom,  and  was  cheered  by  a  last  flicker 
of  success  ;  for  crowds  once  more  resorted  to  Him,  many  of 
whom  became  His  disciples.1  "  John,"  said  they,  "  did  no 
miracles,  great  though  he  was,  but  his  testimony  to  this 
Man,  who  was  to  come  after  him,  that  He  was  greater  than 
himself,  is  true ;  for  not  only  does  He  teach  us  the  words  of 
truth,  He  confirms  them  by  mighty  wonders,  which  show 
Him  to  be  the  Messiah."  Jesus  was  reaping,  as  Bengel  says, 
the  posthumous  fruit  of  the  Baptist's  work. 

The  quiet  retreat  of  Perea  was,  however,  soon  to  be  broken. 
The  family  of  Bethany,  to  whom  Jesus  owed  so  many  happy 
hours,  had  been  in  health  when  He  left,  but  a  message  sud- 
denly reached  Him  from  the  two  sisters,  Mary  and  Martha, 
the  very  simplicity  of  which  still  touches  the  heart :  "  Lord, 
he  whom  Thou  lovest,  our  brother  Lazarus,  is  sick."  His 
love,  they  felt,  would  need  nothing  more.2  The  messengers 
doubtless  expected  that  He  would  have  returned  with  them  at 
once ;  but  He  saw  things  in  a  higher  light,  and  moved  on  a 
different  spiritual  plane.  Instead  of  going  with  them  there- 
fore, He  dismissed  them,  with  the  intimation  that  the  sickness 
would  not  really  end  in  death,  but  would  be  overruled  by 
God  to  His  own  glory,  by  disclosing  that  of  His  Son — Jesus 
Himself.  It  was  from  no  indifference  that  He  thus  delayed, 
though  it  left  His  friends  to  bitter  disappointment,  and 
Himself  to  the  suspicion  of  neglect.  "  He  loved  Martha  and 
her  sister,  and  Lazarus,"  says  John.  But  still  He  delayed,  in 
obedience  to  a  higher  counsel  than  that  of  man. 

The  messengers  had  taken  a  day  to  come,  and  it  would 
take  another  for  Jesus  to  go  to  Bethany ;  but  though  He 
knew  this,  He  remained  two  days  more  in  the  place  where 
the  sad  news  had  reached  Him.  On  the  third  day,  however, 
He  surprised  His  disciples,  who  had  fancied  that  He  hesitated 
from  fear  of  His  enemies,  by  telling  them  that  He  was  about 
to  return  to  Judea. 

"  The  Rabbis  and  priests  were  seeking  only  the  other  day 
to  stone  Thee,  Rabbi,"  said  they  in  amazement ;  "  and  art 
Thou  really  going  back  into  the  very  jaws  of  danger  ?  " 

"  The  time  allotted  me  by  God  for  my  work,"  replied 
Jesus,  "  is  not  yet  done,  and  so  long  as  it  lasts  no  one  can 
harm  me.  The  time  appointed  for  a  man  is  like  the  hours 
of  light  given  to  a  traveller  for  his  journey.  There  is  no  fear 

i  John  x.  40-42.  s  John  xi.  1-46. 


310  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

of  his  stumbling  in  the  day,  because  he  sees  the  sun ;  but  as 
He  stumbles  when  it  has  set,  so  man,  though  he  walk  safely 
till  the  appointed  time  ends,  can  do  so  no  longer  when  it  is 
over.  Till  mine  is  over,  I  am  safe." 

Pausing  a  few  minutes,  He  went  on  to  tell  them  why  He 
was  going  to  Bethany,  in  spite  of  all  danger.  "  Our  friend 
Lazarus,"  said  He,  "  has  fallen  asleep,  but  I  go  that  I  may 
awake  him  out  of  sleep."  Unwilling  to  expose  themselves 
or  their  Master  to  unnecessary  peril,  their  wishes  read  in 
these  words  a  cause  for  remaining  where  they  were.  "  To 
sleep  is  good  for  the  sick,"  said  they,  thinking  He  spoke 
of  natural  sleep.  But  their  hopes  were  speedily  dashed. 
"  Lazarus,"  said  He,  now  openly,  "  is  dead,  and  I  am  glad 
for  your  sakes,  that  I  was  not  there  to  heal  him  from  mere 
sickness.  The  far  greater  proof  of  my  Divine  glory,  which 
you  will  see  in  my  raising  him  from  the  grave,  would  not 
have  been  given,  and  thus  you  would  have  lost  the  aid  to 
still  firmer  trust  in  me,  which  is  so  necessary  now  I  am  so 
soon  to  leave  you." 

Such  words  might  have  at  once  quieted  their  fears  and 
kindled  their  zeal ;  but  they  still  saw  in  His  return  to  Judea 
only  a  journey  to  His  own  death.  Thomas  the  Twin  at  last 
broke  silence:  "It  becomes  us  to  do  all  that  our  Master 
commands,  even  when  He  asks  us  to  risk  our  lives.  Let  us 
go  with  Him,  that  we  may  show  our  love  and  fidelity  by 
dying  with  Him."  A  true-hearted  but  sad  man  ! 

It  is  clear  that  Jesus  feared  violence,  for  as  He  approached 
Bethany,  He  lingered  outside  the  village,  as  if  to  learn  how 
matters  stood,  before  venturing  farther.  Nor  was  it  without 
cause,  for  notwithstanding  their  friendship  with  Jesus,  the 
family  of  Lazarus,  moving  in  good  society  as  they  did,  had 
many  friends  and  connections  amongst  those  hostile  to  Him, 
and  a  number  of  these  had  come  to  pay  the  customary  visit 
of  condolence  to  the  two  sisters. 

The  four  days  since  the  death  had  been  sad  ones  in  the 
little  household.  They  had  fasted  all  the  day  after  it,  and 
had  since  eaten  nothing  but  an  occasional  egg,  or  some 
lentils  ;  for  that  was  the  only  food  allowed  mourners  for 
the  first  seven  days.  The  corpse,  which  had  had  a  lamp 
burning  beside  it  from  the  moment  of  death,  as  a  symbol  of 
the  immortality  of  the  soul,  had  been  borne  to  the  grave  after 
a  few  hours,1  an  egg  had  been  broken  as  a  symbol  of  mor- 

1  Generally  abont  three  hours  after. 


LAZARUS   SLEEPETH.  311 

fcality,  and  the  cottage  left  to  the  two  survivors.  The  funeral 
procession  had  been  sad  enough,  with  its  dirge  flutes,  and 
hired  wailing  women ;  the  two  sisters  and  their  relations 
following,  and  then  the  neighbours  and  friends ;  for  it  was 
held  a  religious  duty  in  all  who  could,  to  attend  a  corpse  to 
the  grave.  At  the  grave's  mouth,  the  men  had  chanted  the 
sublime  ninetieth  Psalm  in  a  slow  circuit  of  seven  times 
round  the  bier,  on  which  lay  the  dead  wrapped  in  white  linen. 
The  long  procession,  headed  by  the  women  veiled,  had  stopped 
thrice  on  the  way  to  the  grave,  while  the  leader  spoke  words 
of  comfort  to  the  bereaved  ones,  and  tender  exhortations  to 
passers  by, — "  Comfort  ye,  comfort  ye,  ye  dear  ones  !  Lift 
up  your  souls,  lift  up  your  souls !  Come  to  me,  all  ye  who 
are  of  sad  and  troubled  heart,  and  take  part  in  the  sorrow 
of  your  neighbours."1 

Once  more  in  their  desolate  home,  the  sisters,  with  veiled 
heads,  even  in  their  own  chamber,  and  with  unsandalled  feet, 
sat  down  on  the  earth,  in  the  midst  of  a  circle  of  at  least  ten 
friends  or  professional  mourners  with  rent  clothes  and  dust 
on  their  heads.  None  spoke  till  the  bereaved  ones  had  done 
so,  but  every  sentence  of  theirs  was  followed  by  some  word 
of  sympathy  and  comfort,  and  by  the  wails  of  the  mourners.2 
And  thus  it  would  be  for  seven  days,  and  had  been  for  four, 
before  Jesus  arrived,  for  many  friends  had  come  from  Jeru- 
salem to  comfort  the  two  sisters. 

Word  was  presently  brought  to  the  house,  that  Jesus  had 
come,  and  forthwith,  Martha,  true  to  her  character  as  the 
more  active  of  the  two  sisters,  rose  from  the  ground,  where 
she  and  Mary  had  been  sitting,  and  went  out,  wrapped  in 
her  mourning  dress  and  deeply  veiled,  to  go  to  Him ;  but 
Mary  remained  where  she  was,  for  she  had  not  heard  the 
good  news. 

"  Lord,"  said  Martha,  when  she  saw  Him,  "  if  Thou  hadst 
been  here,  my  brother  would  not  have  died,"  as  if  she 
thought,  "  Why  did  He  then  delay  ?  "  But  as  she  looked  at 
Him  her  faith  revived,  and  she  added,  "  Yet  though  he  bo 
dead,  I  know  that  God  will  grant  you  your  utmost  prayer, 
even  if  it  be  to  receive  back  Lazarus  from  the  dead." 

"  Your  brother  will  rise  again,"  replied  Jesus,  in  designedly 
ambiguous  words,  to  lead  Martha's  faith  from  mere  personal 
interest  to  higher  thoughts.  Martha  understood  Him  only  of 
the  resurrection  at  the  last  day,  in  which  she  felt  assured 

»  Dukes,  p.  247  *  Sepp,  vol.  v.  pp.  349-351.     Li</hifoot,  in  loo. 

58 


312  THE   LIFE   OF   CHKIST. 

Lazarus  would  have  part,  and  had  hoped  for  something  so 
much  nearer  and  greater,  that  so  vague  an  answer  disap- 
pointed her.  She  could  only  find  words  to  say,  with  sad 
resignation,  that  "  she  knew  that  he  would  rise,"  as  Jesus 
had  seemed  to  say,  "  at  the  last  day." 

It  was  well  she  answered  thus,  for  Jesus  presently  used 
her  words  to  turn  her  from  mere  personal  interests  to  Him- 
fielf,  and  in  doing  so,  uttered  that  wondrous  sentence  which 
has  carried  hope  and  triumph  to  millions  of  the  dying  and 
the  bereaved,  and  will  do  so  while  time  and  mortality  endure. 
"  I  " — and  no  other  but  I — "  am  the  Resurrection  and  the 
Life.  He  that  believeth  on  me,  though  He  were  dead,  yet 
shall  he  live,  and  whosoever  liveth  and  believeth  on  me  shall 
never  die  " — words  which  we  may  paraphrase  thus  : — "  I  am 
He  whose  is  the  power  to  raise  from  the  dead,  and  make 
alive  for  evermore.  He  that  believeth  in  me,  though  his 
body  die,  will  yet  continue  to  live  without  break  or  inter- 
ruption ;  for,  till  the  resurrection,  he  will  be  in  paradise,  and 
after  it,  and  by  its  means,  he  will  enter  on  the  fulness  of  life 
eternal.  And  every  one  who  is  still  alive,  and  believes  in 
me,  will  never  die,  in  any  true  sense ;  for  the  death  of  the 
body  is  not  really  death,  but  the  open  gate  into  life  eternal. 
Believest  thou  this  ?  " 

"  Yea,  Lord,"  sobbed  out  the  stricken  heart.  "  I  believe 
that  Thou  art  the  King-Messiah,  the  Son  of  God,  who  was 
to  come  into  the  world ; "  and  having  made  this  great  con- 
fession, she  went  away  to  call  her  sister  secretly,  for 'fear 
of  those  hostile  to  Him  among  her  own  friends.  "  Mary," 
whispered  she,  "  the  Teacher  is  here,  and  calls  for  thee." 
She  would  not  mention  the  name,  for  caution. 

It  was  enough.  The  next  "instant  Mary  was  on  the  road 
to  Jesus,  who  was  still  outside  the  village,  in  the  place  where 
Martha  had  met  Him.  The  way  to  the  grave  was  in  that 
direction,  and  the  friends,  concluding  she  had  gone  thither 
to  weep,  kindly  rose  and  followed  her,  thac  she  might  not  be 
left  to  her  lonely  grief.  Jesus  could  no  longer  remain  hidden, 
but  the  presence  of  hostile  witnesses  confirmed  the  more 
strikingly  the  great  miracle  that  was  to  follow. 

Falling  in  tears  at  the  feet  of  Jesus,  and  embracing  them, 
Mary's  full  heart  overflowed  in  the  same  lament  as  her 
sister's,  for  they  had  often  spoken  the  same  words  to  each 
other  :  "  Lord,  if  Thou  hadst  been  here,  my  brother  had  not 
died."  The  presence  of  her  friends,  who  she  knew  were  no 
friends  of  His,  hindered  more.  It  was  a  moment  fitted  to 


THREE   DAYS  IN   THE   GRAVE.  313 

move  even  a  strong  heart,  for  those  around,  with  true  Orien- 
tal demonstrativeness,  wept  and  lamented  aloud,  along  with 
Mary.  But  the  sight  of  men  who  were  filled  with  the  bit- 
terest enmity  to  Himself,  joining  in  lamentations  with 
Mary,  His  true-hearted  friend — men  with  no  sympathy  for 
the  highest  goodness,  but  ready  to  chase  it,  in  His  person,  from 
the  earth,  because  it  condemned  their  cold  religious  hypocrisy 
— showing  natural  tenderness  while  such  malignity  was  in 
their  hearts,  roused  his  indignation,  so  that  he  visibly  shud- 
dered with  emotion,1  and  had  to  restrain  Himself  by  an 
earnest  effort.  Yet  the  cloud  of  righteous  anger  passed  off 
in  a  moment,  and  sorrow  for  His  friend,  and  for  the  grief  of 
the  loved  one  at  His  feet,  asserted  itself.  Silent  tears  trickled 
down  His  cheeks,  for,  though  He  was  the  son  of  God,  He  was, 
also,  no  less  truly  than  ourselves  a  man  moved  by  the  sight 
of  human  sorrow. 

The  group  of  mourners  were  variously  affected,  the  most 
kindly  remarking  how  dearly  he  must  have  loved  the  dead 
man,  that  He  should  now  weep  so  at  His  death.  But  the 
more  malicious  and  hardened  only  saw  in  His  tears  a  wel- 
come proof  of  His  helplessness,  for  had  it  been  otherwise, 
could  He  not  as  well  have  cured  Lazarus  of  his  illness  as 
give  sight  to  the  blind  ?  The  healing  of  the  blind  man  must 
surely  have  been  a  cheat,  for  certainly  He  would  have  come 
to  Bethany  sooner,  had  He  been  able  to  do  anything  for  His 
sick  friend.  The  muttered  words  reached  the  ear  of  Jesus, 
and  roused  anew  His  indignation ;  and  thus,  with  mingled 
anger  and  sorrow,  He  reached  the  grave. 

Like  most  tombs  in  the  limestone  districts  of  Palestine,  it 
was  a  recess  cut  in  the  side  of  a  natural  cave,  and  closed  by 
a  huge  stone  fitted  into  a  groove.2 

In  this  gloomy  niche  lay  Lazarus,  swathed  from  head  to 
foot  in  loose  linen  wrappings,  and  now  four  days  dead. 

"  Take  away  the  stone,"  said  Jesus. 

But  Martha,  with  her  plain  matter-of-fact  nature,  shrank 
at  the  words,  for  she  thought  of  the  awful  spectacle  of  her 
brother,  now  hastening  to  corruption.  Christ's  words  about 
the  resurrection  had  taken  away  any  hope  of  seeing  Lazarus 
alive  again  till  the  great  day,  and  she  would  rather  the  sacred 
remains  were  left  undisturbed.  A  gentle  reproof  from  Jesus 
was,  however,  enough  to  let  her  leave  Him  to  His  will. 
"  Did  not  I  send  word  to  thee  by  thy  messenger,  that  if  thou 

1  De  Wette  and  Meyer.     2  Capt.  Wilson,  Pal.  Fund  Repts.,  1870,  p.  66. 


814  THE   LIFE   OF   CHBIST. 

wouldst  only  believe  thou  shouldst  see  the  glory  of  God  ?  ** 
So  they  took  away  the  stone. 

Jesus  had  already,  in  the  stillness  of  His  own  breast,  com- 
muned with  the  Father,  and  knew,  in  Himself,  that  His 
prayer  that  Lazarus  might  be  restored  to  life  had  been  heard. 
Lifting  up  His  eyes  to  heaven,  He  now  uttered  His  thanks 
that  it  had  been  so.  "  Father,  I  thank  Thee  that  Thou  hast 
heaid  me — yet  I  knew  that  Thou  hearest  me  always,  for 
Thy  will  is  ever  mine,  and  mine  is  ever  Thine.  But  I  thank 
Thee  thus,  for  the  sake  of  those  who  stand  around,  that  they 
may  be  convinced  that  what  I  do  is  done  in  Thy  power,  and 
that  I  am  assuredly  sent  forth  from  Thee." 

What  followed  is  best  given  in  the  words  of  St.  John. 
"  And  when  He  had  thus  spoken,  He  cried  with  a  loud  voice, 
LAZARUS,  COMB  FORTH.1  And  he  that  was  dead  came  forth, 
bound  hand  and  foot  with  grave-clothes ;  and  his  face  had 
been  bound  about  with  a  napkin  (that  had  tied  up  his  jaw 
four  days  before,  when  it  fell,  in  death).  Jesus  saith  unto 
them,  '  Loose  him,  and  let  him  go  (home)  : '  "  and  he  who 
had  been  dead,  now  freed  from  his  grave-clothes,  himself 
returned,  in  the  fulness  of  youthful  strength  and  health,  to 
the  cottage  from  which  he  had  been  carried  forth  on  a  bier 
four  days  before. 

Of  the  after-history  of  Lazarus,  with  one  momentary  ex- 
ception, we  know  nothing,  for  none  of  the  numerous  tradi- 
tions and  legends  respecting  him  are  reliable.  He  is  said  to 
have  been  thirty  years  old  when  he  was  raised  from  the  dead, 
and  to  have  lived  for  thirty  years  after ;  to  have  been  of 
royal  descent ;  to  have  owned  a  whole  quarter  of  Jerusalem, 
and  to  have  been,  by  profession,  a  soldier.  His  bones  were 
said  to  have  been  found  in  the  year  A.D.  890,  with  those  of 
Mary  Magdalene,  in  the  island  of  Cyprus !  and  the  remains 
thus  honoured  were  carried  to  Constantinople.  Other  tradi- 
tions take  him  to  Marseilles,  and  speak  of  him  as  the  first 
Christian  Bishop  of  that  city.2  But  the  very  extravagance 
of  these  legends  shows  their  worthlessness  as  history. 

The  results  of  the  miracle  were  momentous  to  Jesus  Himself. 
Many  of  the  party  of  the  Rabbis  who  had  come  to  comfort  the 
sisters,  found  themselves  constrained  to  believe  in  one  whose 
claims  were  attested  by  an  act  so  transcendent  and  so  indis- 
putable. But  some  justified  all  that  Jesus  had  said  of  their 
malignity,  by  not  only  shutting  their  eyes  to  what  they  were 

1  John  xi.  43,  44.  *  Hoffmann,  pp.  357,  358. 


THE   SANHEDEIM.  315 

determined  not  to  admit,  but  by  playing  the  informer  to  the 
ecclesiastical  authorities. 

The  great  ecclesiastical  court  of  the  nation,  known  in  the 
Talmud  as  the  "  Sanhedrim,"  had  been  in  abeyance  for  many 
years,  for  there  is  no  trace  of  it  during  the  whole  period  of 
the  Herods,  or  of  the  Romans.1  The  name,  indeed,  occurs 
in  the  New  Testament,  but  it  is  simply  as  the  Greek  word  for 
"  an  assembly,"  c  which  was  adopted  by  the  Rabbis  at  a  later 
period.  Herod  had  broken  up  the  great  Rabbinical  council, 
and,  henceforth,  the  only  authorities  recognised  as  the  foun- 
tains of  Jewish  Law  were  the  schools  of  such  Rabbis  as 
Hillel  and  Shammai.  There  was  no  such  thing  as  a  legal 
Jewish  court  which  had  power  to  enforce  its  decisions.  The 
authority  granted  to  the  leading  schools  was  only  a  tribute 
of  confidence  in  their  soundness  and  wisdom.  Hence,  in  the 
days  of  Christ,  there  was  no  legal  Jewish  court  in  existence, 
and  the  criminal  processes  mentioned  in  connection  with  Him, 
were  only  acts  of  assemblies  which  the  high  priest  for  the 
time,  the  only  representative  of  the  old  Theocracy  recognised 
by  the  supreme  Roman  authority,  called  together  in  angry 
haste,  informally,  and  which  acted  by  no  judicial  rules  of 
procedure.1* 

Such  an  illegal  gathering  was  summoned  by  the  Sadducean 
chief  priests  and  the  leading  Pharisaic  Rabbis,  to  discuss 
what  should  be  done  respecting  Jesus,  now  that  the  incon- 
testable fact  of  the  resurrection  of  Lazarus  had  crowned  all 
His  preceding  miracles.  Having  no  idea  of  a  Messiah  apart 
from  political  revolution  to  be  inaugurated  by  Him,  it  seemed 
likely  that,  if  something  were  not  done  to  put  Him  out  of 
the  way,  the  excitement  of  the  people,  through  His  miracles, 
would  become  irresistible,  and  lead  to  a  national  rising, 
fiercer  even  than  that  of  Judas  the  Gralilaean.  To  the  popular 
party,  represented  by  the  Pharisees  present,  this  would  be  no 
undesirable  issue ;  but  the  courtly  Sadducees  shrank  from 
any  disturbance,  fearing  that,  in  the  end,  the  Romans  would 
crush  it  with  their  legions,  and,  as  a  punisment,  abolish  the 
hierarchical  constitution,  which  gave  them  their  wealth  and 
position ;  and,  with  it,  the  ecclesiastical  and  civil  laws  which 
flattered  the  nation  with  an  illusory  independence. 

The  Temple,  and  all  the  far-reaching  vested  interests 
bound  up  with  it,  had  long  existed  only  on  sufferance,  and 
would  at  once  perish  in  the  storm  of  a  national  insurrection ; 

1  Jost,  vol.  i.  p.  278.  *  Ibid. 


316  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

and  the  nation,  stripped  of  its  local  laws,  so  vital  to  a  theo- 
cracy, would  be  secularized  into  a  part  of  Rome,  with  the 
hated  imperial  heathen  law,  instead  of  the  laws  of  God  and 
the  Rabbis. 

The  acting  high  priest  at  this  time  was  Joseph  Caiaphas. 
He  had  been  appointed  by  the  procurator,  Valerius  Gratus, 
shortly  before  that  governor  left  the  province,  in  A.D.  25, 
when  Jesus  was  about  twenty  years  of  age,  and  he  continued 
to  hold  his  great  office  till  the  year  A.D.  36,  when  he  was 
removed  by  the  proconsul  Yitellius,  shortly  after  the  recall  of 
Pilate.  He  was,  in  every  way,  a  creature  of  the  Romans, 
and,  as  such,  received  little  respect  from  the  nation,  though 
his  dignity  secured  him  official  authority. 

Rising  in  the  meeting,  which  had  been  hitherto  very 
divided  and  irresolute  as  to  the  wisest  course  to  be  taken, 
Caiaphas  begged  to  give  his  opinion  : 

"You  know  nothing  at  all,"  said  he,  "  else  you  would  not 
have  so  much  questioning  and  discussing.  You  have  not 
considered  that  it  is  expedient  for  you,  in  view  of  your  in- 
terests as  priests  and  Rabbis,  that  this  one  man  should  die, 
to  save  Israel  from  the  certain  destruction  that  threatens 
it,  if  you  let  Him  stir  up  a  Messianic  revolt ;  for,  in  that 
case,  the  whole  nation  must  perish.  The  Romans  will  come 
with  their  legions  and  close  our  Temple,  annul  our  inde- 
pendence by  abolishing  our  laws,  and  waste  us  with  fire  and 
sword." 

There  could  be  no  misconception  of  words  so  plain.  They 
were  a  distinct  advice  to  those  present  to  put  Jesus  to  death, 
as  the  one  way  to  save  themselves,  and  maintain  things  as 
they  were  in  Church  and  State.1  Words  so  momentous,  for 
they  decided  the  fate  of  Jesus,  might  well  seem  to  St.  John 
no  mere  human  utterance,  but  the  involuntary  expression, 
through  unworthy  lips,  of  the  near  approach  of  the  supreme 
act  in  the  Divine  plan  of  mercy  to  mankind. 

From  that  day  the  death  of  Jesus  was  only  a  question  of 
time  and  opportunity.  Henceforth,  the  Jewish  primate  and 
his  suffragans  kept  steadily  in  view — in  concert  with  their 
hereditary  and  deadly  enemies,  the  Rabbis — the  arrest  of 
Jesus,  and  His  subsequent  death.  Their  officers,  or  any  one 
hostile  to  Him,  might  apprehend  Him  at  any  moment.  It 
was  clearly  no  longer  possible  for  Him  to  show  Himself 
openly,  and  He,  therefore,  retired  with  His  disciples  to  a  city 

1  John  xi.  47-54. 


FLIGHT  FROM   BETHANY.  317 

called  Ephraim,  now  difficult  of  identification.  It  seems  to 
have  been  in  the  wild  uncultivated  hill-country,  north-east  of 
Jerusalem,  between  the  central  towns  and  the  Jordan  valley, 
A  village  now  known  as  El  Taiyibeh,  on  a  conical  hill,  com- 
manding a  view  of  the  whole  eastern  slope  of  the  country, 
the  valley  of  the  Jordan,  and  the  Dead  Sea,  though  only 
sixteen  miles  from  Jerusalem,  has*  been  thought  by  Dr. 
Robinson  the  site.1  It  answers  at  least  in  its  secluded 
privacy,  and  the  ready  access  it  offers  to  the  still  wilder 
regions  beyond. 

Only  a  few  weeks  remained  of  our  Saviour's  life,  and  these 
He  had  to  spend  as  a  fugitive,  to  whom  no  place  was  safe. 
He  had,  however,  the  joy  of  seeing  the  old  enthusiasm  of  the 
multitudes  revived,  for  Matthew  and  Mark  both  speak  of 
the  great  numbers  who  followed  Him  in  this  closing  period,3 
attracted,  doubtless,  more  by  the  fame  of  His  past  miracles, 
and  by  continuous  displays  of  the  same  supernatural  power 
towards  the  diseased  of  every  kind,  than  by  His  teaching. 
Yet  there  must  have  been  not  a  few  "  sheep  "  in  such  vast 
gatherings.  The  clouds  were  parting  as  the  day  closed,  and 
were  being  lit  with  sunset  colours,  before  the  night  dark- 
ened all. 

From  Ephraim  He  soon  passed  over  the  Jordan,  to  what, 
for  the  moment,  seemed  a  safer  retreat.  The  lesser  excom- 
munication, which  had  driven  Him  from  the  synagogues  of 
Galilee  and  Judea,  had  perhaps  expired,  or  the  bann  may  not 
have  been  effective  in  Perea ;  for  He  once  more  had  access  to 
these  assemblies  on  the  Sabbaths,  and  was  allowed,  as  before, 
to  teach  the  people,  who  were  thus  most  easily  reached.  It 
was  impossible,  however,  that  He  could  long  avoid  collision 
with  some  or  other  of  the  countless  Rabbinical  laws  which 
fettered  every  movement  of  free  spiritual  life,  and,  as  in  the 
past,  the  fanatical  Sabbath  laws  offered  the  first  occasions 
of  trouble.  Two  instances  are  recorded  by  St.  Luke.3 

As  He  was  teaching  on  a  Sabbath  in  the  synagogue  of  one 
of  the  outlying  towns  of  Perea — half  Jewish,  half  heathen 
— He  noticed  in  the  audience,  behind  the  lattice  which  sepa- 
rated the  women  from  the  men,  a  poor  creature  drawn 
together  by  a  rheumatic  affection,  which  had  bowed  her 
frame  so  terribly  that  she  could  not  raise  herself  erect.  As 
she  painfully  struggled  into  her  place,  Jesus  saw  her,  and 

1  Diet,  of  Bible,  Art.  Ephraim.         2  Matt.  xix.  1,  2.     Mark  x.  1. 
3  Luke  xiii.  10-21 ;  xiv.  1-6. 


318  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

doubtless  read,  in  her  supplicating  looks,  and  in  the  very 
fact  that  she  had  come  to  the  House  of  God  in  spite  of  such 
physical  infirmity,  an  evidence  that  she  was  a  fit  subject  for 
His  pitying  help.  Rising,  and  calling  across  the  congrega- 
tion to  her,  the  welcome  words  fell  on  her  ears — "  Woman, 
thou  art  loosed  from  thine  infirmity."  The  cure  was  instan- 
taneous. In  a  moment  she  was  once  more  straight  and 
whole,  after  eighteen  years  of  deformity,  and 'her  irrepres- 
sible thanks  to  God  for  the  mercy  vouchsafed  her,  rang 
through  the  synagogue,  and  made  a  great  commotion. 

The  head  of  the  congregation,  however,  was  a  cold 
Rabbinical  pedant.  Intensely  professional,  he  could  see  no- 
thing but  an  irregularity.  It  was  the  Sabbath  day,  and 
the  Rabbis  had  decided  that  no  cure  was  lawful  on  the 
Sabbath  except  where  death  was  imminent.  "  Silence," 
cried  he,  indignantly,  "  there  are  six  days  in  which  men 
ought  to  work ;  it  would  be  much  more  becoming  if  this 
person  were  to  remember  that ;  and  if  you,  for  your  part, 
want  to  be  healed  by  Him,  see  that  you  come  on  a  week-day, 
so  that  He  have  no  excuse  for  breaking  the  holy  Sabbath, 
by  doing  the  work  of  curing  you  on  it."  d 

Indignation  flashed  from  the  eyes  of  Jesus,  and  turning 
to  the  speaker,  He  denounced  his  heartless  formalism,  so 
utterly  opposed  to  the  true  religion  of  which  He  was  the 
official  representative.  "  You,  and  the  whole  class  who  think 
with  you,  are  hypocritical  actors,"  said  He ;  "  your  words 
prove  it,  for  they  are  contradicted  by  your  daily  conduct. 
Do  you  not  on  the  Sabbath  loose  your  asses,  or  your  oxen, 
from  the  manger,  where  they  are  tied,  and  lead  them  away  to 
water  them  ?  And  if  so,  ought  not  this  woman,  a  daughter 
of  Abraham,  and,  as  such,  one  of  God's  own  people — who 
is  of  unspeakably  greater  worth  than  any  ox  or  ass — to  be 
loosed  to-day,  though  it  be  the  Sabbath,  from  this  bond  with 
which  Satan  has  chained  her,  for  now,  eighteen  years  ?  " 

There  could  be  no  reply  to  such  a  vindication.  The  ruler 
and  his  party  were  silenced  and  put  to  shame  before  the 
quick-witted  audience.  The  worship  of  the  letter  had  re  - 
CPived  another  deadly  blow. 

A  second  incident,  very  similar,  occurred  soon  after.  One 
of  the  leading  Pharisees  had  invited  Jesus  to  dine  with  him 
on  the  Sabbath,  as  the  day  specially  devoted  to  social  en- 
tertainments by  the  Rabbis,1 — with  the  sinister  design  of 

1  Lightfoot,  in  loo. 


IN  THE   HOUSE   OF  A  PHAEISEE.  319 

watching  Him  and  reporting  to  those  in  authority.1  A 
number  of  Rabbis  and  Pharisees  had  been  invited  to  meet 
Him,  but  they  had  not  yet  lain  down  to  their  meal,2  when  a 
man,  who  had  the  dropsy,  entered  the  open  door  of  the  house 
with  others,  who  dropped  in,  with  Oriental  freedom,3  to  look 
on  and  stand  about.  In  his  case,  no  donbt,  the  motive  of 
his  coming  was  that  he  might  attract  the  notice  of  Jesus. 
He  was  afraid,  however,  to  speak,  for  fear  of  those  present, 
and  patiently  waited  to  see  if  Jesus  wonld,  of  His  own  accord, 
cure  him.  He  had  not  long  to  wait.  Looking  at  him, 
Jesus  turned  to  the  guests  with  the  question  He  had  asked 
before,  in  similar  circnmstances :  "  Is  it  lawful  to  heal  on 
the  Sabbath,  or  is  it  not  ?"  In  their  consciences  they  could 
not  say  it  was  not ;  but  few  men  have  the  courage  of  their 
opinions  when  current  sentiment  runs  the  other  way,  so 
they  said  nothing.  But  silence  was  a  virtual  affirmative,  for, 
if  it  were  wrong,  it  was  their  bounden  duty,  as  the  public 
guardians  of  religion,  to  say  so.  Passing  over,  therefore,  to 
the  swollen  and  wretched  being,  He  put  His  hand  on  Him, 
cured  him  at  once,  and  sent  him  away.  Then,  turning  to  the 
confused  and  baffled  company,  He  completed  their  discom- 
fiture by  an  appeal  similar  to  that  which  He  had  made  in 
the  case  of  the  woman  healed  shortly  before.  "  Which  of 
you,  let  me  ask,  if  his  son,6  or  even  only  his  ox,  had  fallen 
into  a  pit,  would  not  immediately  draw  him  out,  on  discover- 
ing it — even  on  the  Sabbath  ?  "  No  wonder  that  nothing 
further  was  said  on  the  subject. 

The  couches  on  which  the  guests  reclined  at  meals  were 
arranged  so  as  to  form  three  sides  of  a  square,  the  fourth 
being  left  open,  to  allow  the  servants  to  bring  in  the  dishes. 
The  right-hand  couch  was  reckoned  the  highest,  and  the 
others,  the  middle  and  the  lowest,  respectively,  the  places 
on  each  couch  being  distinguished  in  the  same  way,  from 
the  fact  that  the  guest  who  reclined  with  his  head,  as  it 
were,  in  the  bosom  of  him  behind,  seemed  to  be  the  lower  of 
the  two.  The  "  highest  place  "  on  the  highest  couch,  was,  thus, 
the  "  chief  place  ;"  and  human  nature,  the  same  in  all  ages, 
inevitably  made  it  be  eagerly  coveted,  while,  as  precedence 
was  marked  by  nearness  to  it,  there  was  an  almost  equal 
anxiety  to  get  as  close  to  it  as  possible.  With  the  vanity  and 
self-righteousness  of  a  moribund  caste,  there  was  no  little 

»  Luke  xiv.  1-24.  2  Verse  7. 

3  Stephen's  Incidents  of  Travel  in  Egypt,  etc.,  vol.  i.  p.  32. 


320  THE   LIFE    OF   CHEIST. 

scheming  among  the  Rabbis  for  the  best  position,  and  mucli 
anxiety  on  the  part  of  the  host  not  to  give  offence  ;  for  to 
place  a  Rabbi  below  any  one  not  a  Rabbi,  or  below  a  fellow- 
Rabbi  of  lower  standing,  or  younger,  was  an  unpardonable 
affront,  and  a  discredit  to  religion  itself.  The  intolerable 
pride  that  had  made  one  of  their  order,  in  the  days  of  Alex- 
andej  JannaBus,  seat  himself  between  Alexander  and  his 
queen,  on  the  ground  that  "wisdom  "  made  its  scholars  sit 
among  princes,  remained  unchanged.  Such  petty  ambition, 
so  unworthy  in  public  teachers  of  morals  and  religion,  and  so 
entirely  in  contrast  with  His  own  instructions  to  His  disciples, 
to  seek  no  distinction  but  that  of  the  deepest  humility,  did 
not  fail  to  strike  the  GKEAT  GUEST,  who  had  calmly  taken  the 
place  assigned  Him.  Addressing  the  company,  He  told  them, 
"  You  are  wrong  in  revealing  your  wishes,  and  obtruding 
your  self-assertion  in  such  a  way.  Let  me  counsel  you  how 
to  act.  If  invited  to  a  marriage  feast,  never  take  the  chief 
place  on  the  couches,  lest  some  one  of  higher  standing  for 
learning  or  piety  come,  and  your  host  ask  you  to  go  down 
to  a  lower  place,  to  make  room  for  the  more  honoured  guest. 
Take,  rather,  the  lowest  place,  when  you  enter,  that  your 
host,  when  he  comes  in,  may  invite  you  to  take  a  higher, 
and  thus  honour  you  before  all.  Pride  is  its  own  punish- 
ment in  this,  as  in  far  graver  matters  ;  for,  whether  before 
God  or  man,  he  who  exalts  himself  will  be  humbled,  and  he 
who  humbles  himself  will  be  exalted." 

It  was  an  old  custom  in  Israel  to  invite  the  poorer  neigh- 
bours to  the  special  meals  on  the  consecrated  flesh  of  offer- 
ings not  used  at  the  altar,  and  on  similar  half-religious 
occasions,  to  brighten  their  poverty  for  the  moment  by  kindly 
hospitality.  This  beautiful  usage  was,  in  the  time  of  Jesus, 
among  the  things  of  the  past,  for  the  priest  or  Rabbi  of  His 
day  would  have  trembled  at  the  thought  of  being  defiled  by 
contact  with  people  whose  position  made  it  impossible  to  be 
as  scrupulous  in  the  observance  of  the  endless  legal  injunc- 
tions demanded,  as  themselves. 

The  meal  at  which  Jesus  was  now  present  was  very 
possibly  one  to  which,  in  old  times,  such  very  different  guests 
would  have  been  asked.  Or,  it  may  be,  the  luxury  dis- 
played drew  the  attention  of  one  so  simple  in  His  habits. 
Not  a  few  neighbours,  in  very  different  circumstances  from 
the  guests,  had  probably  entered,  to  look  on  and  listen,  but 
caste  looked  at  them  askance,  as  if  they  were  an  inferior 


THE   FEAST   OF   MEKCY.  321 

race.  Noticing  this,  our  Lord  addressed  Himself  to  the  host 
in  a  friendly  way  : 

"  Have  you  ever  thought  what  hospitality  would  yield  you 
most  pleasure  ?  When  you  wish  on  special  occasions  to  give 
a  dinner  or  supper,  there  is  one  course  on  which  you  would 
look  back  upon  with  the  purest  joy.  Do  not  invite  your 
rich  friends  to  it,  or  your  family  or  kinsmen,  or  well-to-do 
neighbours.  They  will  invite  you  in  return,  and  this  will 
destroy  the  worth  of  your  act,  for  which  you  expect  a  re- 
compense from  God  at  the  resurrection.  Instead  of  such 
guests,  invite  the  poor,  the  hungry,  the  lame,  the  maimed, 
and  the  blind.  If  you  entertain  such,  they  will  reward  vou 
richly  by  their  gratitude,  and  if  you  have  invited  them  from 
an  honest  heart,  as  a  duty,  God  Himself  will  remember  it  at 
the  resurrection  of  the  righteous." 

One  of  the  guests  had  listened  attentively.  The  mention 
of  the  resurrection  of  the  righteous,  naturally,  under  the 
circumstances,  raised  the  thought  of  the  heavenly  banquet 
which  the  Rabbis  expected  to  follow  that  event.  "  Blessed 
are  those,"  said  he,  "who  shall  eat  bread  at  the  great  feast 
in  the  Kingdom  of  God,  after  the  resurrection.  It  would, 
indeed,  be  well  to  give  such  entertainments  as  Thou  hast 
named,  which  would  be  thus  so  richly  repaid  in  the  world 
to  come." 

This  remark  gave  Jesus  an  opportunity  of  delivering  a 
parable  which  must  have  run  terribly  counter  to  the  pre- 
judices of  the  company.  The  spirit  of  caste  that  prevailed 
in  the  hierarchical  party,  and  their  utter  want  of  sympathy 
for  the  down-trodden  masses,  were  abhorrent  to  His  whole 
nature.  It  was  daily  clearer  that  the  religious  and  moral 
impulse  by  which  He  was  to  revolutionize  the  world,  would 
never  come  from  Israel  as  a  nation.  The  opportunity  had 
been  offered,  and  even  pressed,  but  it  had  been  rejected,  and 
hence  He  was  free  to  proclaim  the  great  truth,  which,  for  a 
time,  He  had  held  back,  that  the  heathen,  as  well  as  the 
Jew,  was  invited,  on  equal  terms,  to  the  privileges  of  the 
New  Kingdom  of  God.  It  was  specially  necessary  in  these 
last  months  of  His  life  to  make  this  prominent,  that  the 
minds  of  the  disciples,  above  all,  might  be  prepared  for  a 
revolution  of  thought  so  momentous  and  signal.  He  there- 
fore, now,  took  every  opportunity  of  showing  that  the  invi- 
tations of  the  New  Kingdom,  in  fulfilment  of  the  eternal  pur- 
pose of  God,  were  to  be  addressed  as  freely  to  the  heathen  as 
to  Israel,  and  that  the  religion  He  was  founding  was  one  of 


322  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

spirit,  and  truth,  and  liberty,  for  the  WHOLE  WORLD.  This 
revelation,  so  transcendent  in  the  historj  of  the  race,  He 
once  more  disclosed,  had  they  been  able  to  understand  Him, 
at  the  Pharisee's  table. 

"A  certain  man,"  said  He,  as  if  in  answer  to  the  last 
speaker,  "  made  a  great  supper,  and  sent  out  invitations  to 
many  guests ; 1  giving  them  ample  time  to  prepare,  and  to 
keep  themselves  free  from  other  engagements.  When  the 
night  fixed  for  the  banquet  came,  he  sent  his  servant, 
moreover,  once  more,  as  is  usual,  to  those  invited,  to  say  that 
all  was  ready,  and  to  pray  them  to  come.  But  though  they 
had  had  ample  time  to  make  all  arrangements,  they  were  still 
alike  busy  and  unconcerned  about  the  invitation,  and,  as  if 
by  common  agreement,  each  in  turn  excused  himself  from 
accepting  it.  '  I  have  just  bought  a  field,'  said  one,  '  and 
must  go  and  see  it ;  I  beg  your  master  will  hold  me  excused,' 
and  went  off  to  his  land.  '  It  is  impossible  for  me  to 
come,'  said  another,  'for  I  have  just  bought  five  yoke  of 
oxen,  and.  am  on  the  point  of  starting  to  try  them.'  A 
third  begged  to  be  excused  because  he  had  just  been  married, 
and  could  not  come,  as  he  had  a  feast  of  his  own. 

"  The  servant  had,  therefore,  to  return  to  his  master  with 
this  sorry  list  of  excuses,  each  of  which  was  a  marked  affront. 
'  I  shall  see  that  my  feast  has  not  been  prepared  for  nothing,' 
said  the  intending  host ;  '  go  out,  at  once,  to  the  streets  and 
lanes  of  the  city,  and  bring  in  all  the  poor,  the  maimed, 
the  blind,  and  the  lame  you  can  find,  that  my  table  may  be 
filled.' 

"  There  being  still  room,  however,  after  this  had  been  done, 
the  householder  further  ordered  the  servant  to  go  outside 
the  city  to  the  country  roads  and  hedgeways,  and  gather  any 
waifs  and  beggars  he  found,  and  compel  them  to  come  in, 
for  his  house  must  be  filled,  and  none  of  the  men  he  invited 
to  his  supper  should  taste  it." 

Had  the  hearers  but  known  it,  this  parable  was  a  deadly 
thrust  at  their  most  cherished  prejudices.  The  priests  and 
Rabbis,  leaders  of  the  nation,  had  been  invited  again  and 
again,  by  Jesus  and  His  disciples,  to  the  spiritual  banquet  of 
tho  New  Kingdom,  but  they  had  despised  the  invitation, 
on  any  excuse,  or  on  none.  The  poor  and  outcast  people, 
the  sinners  and  publicans,  and  the  hated  multitude,  who  ne- 
glected the  Rabbinical  rules,  had  then  been  summoned,  and 

1  Luke  xiv.  15,  24. 


A  UNIVEESAL   RELIGION.  323 

had  gladly  come,  and,  now,  the  invitation  was  to  go  forth  to 
those  outside  Israel — the  abhorred  heathen — and  they,  too, 
were  to  come  freely,  and  sit  down  at  the  great  table  of  the 
kingdom  of  the  Messiah,  with  no  conditions  or  disabilities ; 
while  those  who,  in  their  pride,  had  refused  the  invitation, 
were  finally  rejected. 

It  was  the  proclamation,  once  more,  of  the  mighty  truth 
which  might  well  be  too  hard  for  those  who  first  heard  it, 
to  understand,  since  it  is  imperfectly  realized  after  nineteen 
centuries ;  that  external  rites  and  formal  acts  are  of  no 
value  with  God,  in  themselves ;  that  He  looks  at  the  con- 
science alone;  that  neither  circumcision  nor  sacrifices,  nor 
legal  purifications,  nor  rigid  observance  of  Sabbath  laws,  nor 
fasts,  but  the  state  of  the  heart,  determines  the  relation  of 
man  to  God. 

Before  leaving  the  world,  our  Lord  would  put  it  beyond 
question  that  His  religion  knew  no  caste  or  national  privi- 
lege ;  that  it  was  independent  of  the  cumbrous  machinery 
of  rite  and  ceremony,  which  had  crushed  the  life  out  of  the 
religion  of  the  Old  Testament ;  and  that  it  could  reign,  in 
its  Divine  perfection,  in  any  human  heart  that  opened  itself 
to  the  Spirit  of  God. 


CHAPTER  LIIL 
IN  PEREA. 

rTlHE  incident  of  the  Sabbath  meal,  in  the  house  of  the 
-*-  Pharisee,1  had  occurred  as  Jesus  was  journeying  by  slow 
stages  towards  Jerusalem.  He  had  long  ago  felt  that  to  go 
thither  would  be  to  die ;  but  His  death,  in  whatever  part  of 
the  country  He  might  be  apprehended,  was  already  deter- 
mined by  His  enemies,  and  it  was  necessary  for  the  future 
of  His  Kingdom  that  He  should  not,  like  John,  perish  ob- 
scurely in  some  lonely  fortress,  but  with  such  publicity,  and 
so  directly  by  the  hands  of  the  upholders  of  the  old  Theo- 
cracy, as  to  leave  their  deliberate  rejection  of  His  teaching 
in  no  doubt,  and  to  bring  home  to  them  the  giiilt  of  His 
death. 

Yet  He  was  in  no  hurry.  It  was  still  some  time  to  the 
Passover,  and  He  advanced  leisurely  on  His  sad  journey, 
through  the  different  villages  and  towns,  teaching  in  the 
synagogues  on  the  Sabbaths,  and  anywhere,  day  by  day, 
through  the  week.  Meanwhile,  the  miracles  which  He 
wrought  before  continually  increasing  multitudes,  excited 
in  Herod,  the  local  ruler,  the  same  fear  of  a  political  rising 
as  had  led  him  to  imprison  the  Baptist. 

In  spite  of  our  Lord's  earnest  effort  to  discourage  excite- 
ment, by  damping  every  worldly  hope  or  ambition,  in  the 
crowds  that  followed  Him,  and  leaving  no  question  of  His 
titter  refusal  to  carry  out  the  national  programme  of  a 
political  Messiah,  Herod  was  so  alarmed  that  he  made  efforts 
to  apprehend  Him.  Had  the  throngs  increased  with  His 
advance  from  place  to  place,  as  they  well  might,  so  shortly 
before  the  Passover,  He  would  have  entered  Jerusalem  with 
a  whole  army  of  partisans,  and  compromised  Himself  at  once 
with  the  Roman  authorities. 

He,  therefore,  spared  no  efforts  to  discourage  and  turn 
back  to  their  homes  those  whom  He  saw  attracted  to  Him 

i  Luke  xiv.  25-35. 

324 


CONDITIONS   OF  DISCIPLE  SHIP.  325 

from  other  than  spiritual  motives.  He  wished  none  to 
follow  Him  who  had  not  counted  the  cost  of  doing  so, 
and  had  not  realized  His  unprecedented  demands  from  His 
disciples.  Instead  of  courting  popular  support,  now  that 
His  life  was  in  such  danger,  He  raised  these  demands,  and 
refused  to  receive  followers  on  any  terms  short  of  absolute 
self- surrender  and  self-sacrifice  to  His  cause,  though  He  had 
nothing  whatever  to  offer  in  return  beyond  the  inward 
satisfaction  of  conscience,  and  a  reward  in  the  future  world, 
if  the  surrender  had  been  the  absolutely  sincere  and  dis- 
interested expression  of  personal  devotion  to  Himself. 

"  Consider  well,"  said  He,  "  before  you  follow  me  farther. 
I  desire  no  one  to  do  so  who  does  not  without  reserve  devoto 
himself  to  me  and  my  cause.  He  must  tear  himself  from  all 
his  former  connections  and  associations,  and  offer  up,  as  a 
willing  sacrifice,  the  claims  of  father,  mother,  wife,  children, 
brother,  or  sister,  and  even  his  own  life,  if  necessary,  that 
he  may  be  in  no  way  hindered  from  entire  devotion  to  me 
and  my  commands.  Short  of  this,  no  one  can  be  my  dis- 
ciple. Nor  can  he  who  is  not  willing  to  bear  shame  and 
suffering  for  my  sake.  You  cannot  be  my  disciples  unless 
you  are  ready  to  be  virtually  condemned  to  die  for  being  so  ; 
unless,  as  it  were,  you  already  put  on  your  shoulders  the 
weight  of  the  cross  on  which  you  are  to  be  nailed  for  con- 
fessing my  name. 

"  It  is,  indeed,  no  light  matter,  but  needs  the  gravest  con- 
sideration. You  know  how  men  weigh  everything  before- 
hand in  affairs  of  cost  or  danger ;  much  more  is  it  needful 
to  do  so  in  this  case.  No  man  would  be  so  foolish  as  to 
begin  building  a  house  without  first  finding  out  the  cost, 
and  seeing-if  he  can  meet  it.  He  will  not  lay  the  foundation, 
unless  he  be  able  to  finish  the  whole  structure,  for  he  knows 
that  to  do  so  would  make  him  the  scoff  of  his  neighbours. 
Nor  would  any  king  or  prince,  at  war  with  another,  march 
out  against  him,  without  thinking  whether  he  could,  with 
ten  thousand  men,  overcome  an  enemy  coming  with  twice 
as  many.  If  he  feel  that  the  chances  are  against  him,  he 
will  seek  to  make  peace  before  his  enemy  come  near,  and 
will  send  an  embassy  to  him  to  propose  conditions.  No  less, 
but  rather  much  more,  careful  consideration  of  the  dangers 
you  run,  of  the  greatness  of  my  demands,  of  the  losses  you 
must  endure,  of  the  shame  and  suffering  certain  to  follow — • 
are  needed  before  casting  in  your  lot  with  me. 

"  Yet,  as  1  have  repeatedly  said  before,  it  is  the  noblest  of 


326  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

all  callings  to  be  my  disciple,  if  yon  really  can  accept  my 
conditions.  For  to  him  who  is  truly  my  follower,  it  is  given 
of  God  to  keep  alive  and  spread  the  spiritual  life  of  men,  as 
salt  keeps  sonnd  and  fresh  that  which  is  seasoned  by  it.  My 
disciples  are  designed  by  God  to  be  the  spiritual  salt  of  the 
earth.  But  if  the  honour  be  greater,  so  much  the  greater 
is  the  responsibility ;  for  if  a  follower  of  mine,  through 
hankering  after  worldly  interests,  lose  his  spiritual  life  and 
thus  lose  his  power  to  further  my  cause,  how  can  he  hope  to 
regain  it  ?  He  is  like  salt  that  has  lost  its  strength,  and,  as 
such  worthless  salt  is  cast  out  by  men,  so  he  will  be  cast  out 
of  God,  from  the  kingdom  of  the  Messiah,  at  the  great  day. 
He  who  is  thoughtful,  let  him  ponder  of  all  this  ! " 

A  great  English  writer  has  pictured  an  imaginary  cha- 
racter as  having  a  sweet  look  of  goodness,  which  drew  out 
all  that  was  best  in  others.  There  must  have  been  some 
such  Divine  attraction  to  the  poor  and  outcast  in  the  looks 
and  whole  person  of  our  Lord.  India  is  not  more  caste- 
ridden  than  the  Judea  in  which  He  lived.  The  aristocracy 
of  religion  regarded  the  masses  of  their  own  nation  with  hatred 
and  disdain,  and  all  men  of  foreign  birth  with  bitterness 
still  deeper.  The  ruin  of  long,  disastrous  years  of  civil 
war  and  foreign  domination,  had  covered  the  land  with 
misery.  The  reign  of  the  Herods  had  been  a  continued 
effort  to  rebuild  burned  towns,  and  restore  exhausted 
finances ;  but  the  Roman  tax-gatherer  had  followed,  vam- 
pire-like, and  had  drained  the  nation  of  its  life-blood,  till  it 
was  sinking,  as  all  Roman  provinces  sank,  sooner  or  later, 
into  general  decay.  In  a  land  thus  doubly  afflicted  by  social 
proscription,  and  by  ever-increasing  social  distress — a  land 
of  mutual  hatreds  and  wrongs — the  suffering  'multitudes 
hailed  with  instinctive  enthusiasm  one  who,  like  Jesus, 
'ignored  baleful  prejudices;  taught  even  the  sunken  and  hope- 
less to  regain  self-respect,  by  showing  that  He,  at  least,  still 
spoke  kindly  and  hopefully  to  them,  in  all  their  sinf illness 
and  misery ;  and  by  His  looks  and  words,  no  less  thau  by 
His  acts,  seemed  to  beckon  the  unfortunate  to  gather  round 
Him  as  their  friend.  It  must  have  spread  far  and  wide, 
from  His  first  entrance  on  His  ministry,  that  He  had  chosen 
a  publican  as  one  of  His  inmost  circle  of  disciples,  and  that 
He  had  not  disdained  to  mingle  with  the  most  forlorn  and 
degraded  of  the  nation,  even  in  the  friendliness  of  the  table 
or  the  cottage.  From  many  a  windowless  hovel,  where  the 
smoke  of  the  household  fire  made  its  way  out  only  by  the 


THE   DESPISED   COMMON   PEOPLE.  327 

door,  and  the  one  earth-floored  apartment  was  shared  by  the 
wretched  family,  with  the  fowls,  or  even  beasts  they  chanced 
to  own1 — a  hovel  which  the  priest  or  Rabbi  would  have 
died  rather  than  defile  himself  by  entering — the  story  spread 
how  the  great  Galilsean  teacher  had  not  only  entered,  but 
had  done  so  to  raise  the  dying,  and  to  bless  the  living.  All 
over  the  land  it  ran  from  mouth  to  mouth  that,  for  the  first 
time,  a  great  Rabbi  had  appeared  who  was  no  respecter  of 
persons,  but  let  Himself  be  anointed  by  a  poor  penitent 
sinner,  and  sat  in  the  booth  with  a  hated  publican,  and 
mingled  freely  in  the  market-place  with  the  crowds  whose 
very  neighbourhood  others  counted  pollution.  Still  more,  it 
was  felt  by  the  proscribed  millions,  the  Cagots  and  Pariahs 
of  a  merciless  theocracy,  that  He  was  their  champion,  by 
the  very  fact  that  He  was  deemed  an  enemy  by  the  dominant 
caste  ;  for  opposition  to  it  was  loyalty  to  them. 

Hence,  the  multitudes  who,  on  this  last  journey  especially, 
gathered  round  Jesus  with  friendly  sympathy  and  readiness 
to  receive  His  instructions,  were  largely  composed  of  the 
degraded  and  despised — the  "  publicans  and  sinners  "  from 
far  and  near.  The  Rabbis  enjoined2  that  a  teacher  should 
keep  utterly  aloof  from  such  people,  "  even  if  he  had  the 
worthy  design  of  exhorting  them  to  read  the  Law  " — that  is, 
even  with  the  view  of  reclaiming  them.  It  was  a  sign  that 
'  wisdom  did  not  dwell  with  one '  if  he  went  near  the  thief 
or  the  usurer,  even  when  they  had  turned  from  their  evil 
ways.3  The  superstitious  reverence  demanded  for  those 
who  kept  the  Rabbinical  laws  strictly,  was  only  equalled 
by  the  loathing  felt  towards  the  ignorant  commonalty.  No 
Rabbi,  or  Rabbi's  scholar,  might  on  any  account  marry  a 
daughter  of  the  Am-ha-aretzin,  or  unlearned,  for  the  gross 
multitude  were  an  abomination,  and  their  wives  loathsome 
vermin;  and  the  most  repulsive  crime  known  to  the  Law4 
was  no  worse  than  to  marry  among  them.5  No  one  might 
walk  on  a  journey  with  a  "  common  man."  It  was  sternly 
forbidden  to  pollute  the  Law  by  being  seen  to  read  it  before 
one.  Their  witness  was  refused  in  the  Jewish  courts,  and  it 
was  prohibited  to  give  testimony  in  their  favour ;  no  secret 
was  to  be  told  them ;  they  could  not  be  guardians  of  orphans, 
nor  allowed  to  have  charge  of  the  alms-box  of  the  synagogue; 
and  if  they  lost  anything,  no  notice  was  to  be  given  them  of 
its  having  been  found. 

1  Furrer,  p.  222.  8  Mechilta,  f.  37  c.  8  Tanchuma,  fol.  3.  2. 

4  Deut.  xxvii.  21.  •  PesacMm,  fol.  49.  2. 

59 


328  THE   LIFE   OP   CHEIST. 

No  wonder  that  the  Rabbis,  and  the  hierarchical  party 
at  large,  owned  that  "  the  hatred  of  the  common  people 
towards  the  'wise'  was  greater  than  that  of  the  heathen 
towards  Israel,  and  that  their  wives  were  even  more  fierce  in 
their  hatred  of  them  than  their  husbands."1 

That  Jesus  should  outrage  the  established  laws  of  privi- 
lege and  exclusiveness,  by  permitting  those  to  follow  Him 
whom  Rabbis  would  not  allow  to  approach  them,  and,  still 
worse,  by  receiving  them  kindly  and  eating  with  them,  was 
a  bitter  offence  to  the  Pharisees  and  scribes.  In  their  eyes, 
He  was  degrading  Himself  by  consorting  with  the  "  unclean 
and  despicable."  Nor  could  they  say  anything  more  fitted 
to  excite  the  mortal  hatred  of  their  class  against  Him. 

The  storm  of  bitter  murmurings  erelong  reached  the  ears 
of  our  Lord,  and  He  at  once  seized  the  opportunity  to  define 
His  position  unmistakably,  and  show  that  the  course  He 
took  was  in  keeping  with  His  whole  aim. 

"  Let  me  ask  you,"  said  He,  to  some  irritated  Rabbis,  who 
murmured  at  seeing  Him,  on  one  occasion,  surrounded  by 
"  publicans  and  sinners,"2  "  who  of  you,  if  he  had  a  flock  of 
a  hundred  sheep,  and  one  of  them  were  to  go  astray,  would 
not  leave  the  ninety  and  nine  on  the  pastures,  and  go  off 
after  the  one  that  was  lost,  till  he  found  it  ?  And  when  he 
had  done  so,  would  he  not  lay  it  on  his  shoulders  gladly, 
and  carry  it  back  to  the  flock  ?  and,  when  he  had  come 
home,  would  he  not  call  together  his  friends  and  neighbours, 
to  rejoice  with  him  at  his  having  found  the  sheep  that  was 
lost  ? 

"  You  scribes  and  Pharisees,  Rabbis,  lawyers,  think  you 
are  so  righteous  that  you  need  no  repentance.  You  speak 
of  some  of  your  number  as  having  never  committed  a  sin 
in  their  lives  ;  of  some  whose  only  sin  has  been  such  a  thing 
as  having  once  put  on  the  phylactery  for  his  forehead  before 
that  for  his  arm ;  and  call  some  the  '  perfectly  righteous.' 3 
Let  me  tell  you,  that  the  great  flock  of  God  includes  all  man- 
kind, for  all  are  His  sons,  and  that  when  one  who  has  gone 
astray  and  has  lived  in  sin,  comes  to  himself  and  repents, 
there  is  greater  joy  in  heaven  over  his  return,  than  over 
ninety  and  nine,  who,  like  you,  think  they  have  no  need  of 
repentance.  A.nd  if  this  be  the  case  in  heaven,  how  much 
more  ought  1,  here  on  earth,  to  rejoice  that  many  such  peni- 

1  Eisenmonger,  vol.  i.  pp.  340,  341.  s_Luke  xv.  1-32. 

*  Hor.  Heb.,  vol.  iii.  p.  154.     Eisenmenyer,  vol.  i.  p.  343. 


THE   PRODIGAL   SON.  329 

tent  ones  come  to  me,  than  at  your  self-sufficient  boasting 
that  you  need  nothing  at  my  hand." 

"  Or,"  continued  He,  "  I  ask  you,  suppose  a  poor  woman 
who  had  only  ten  drachmae,"  were  to  lose  one  in  any  of  the 
dark  windowless  hovels,  in  which  so  many  of  our  people  in 
these  evil  days  live,  would  she  not  light  a  lamp  and  sweep 
the  floor  over,  and  spare  no  pains  in  seeking  till  she  found 
it  ?  And  when  she  had  found  it,  would  she  not  call  together 
her  friends  and  neighbours,  and  ask  them  to  rejoice  with  her 
for  having  found  the  drachma  that  was  lost  ?  In  the  same 
way,  I  tell  you,  there  is  joy  in  the  presence  of  the  angels  of 
God,  in  the  highest  heaven,  over  one  such  sinner  as  those 
you  so  bitterly  despise,  who  turns  and  repents.  Well,  there- 
fore, may  I  gladly  receive  them,  and  mingle  with  them,  when 
they  come  to  me  to  learn  the  way  back  to  God. 

"  Let  me  tell  you  a  parable. 

"  A  certain  man  had  two  sons.  And  the  younger  of  these 
said  to  his  father, — '  Father,  give  me,  I  pray  you,  the  portion 
of  the  property  that  falls  to  me.  I  am  the  younger  son,  and 
inherit  only  half  as  much  as  my  elder  brother,1  bat  I  pray 
you  let  me  have  it.'  The  father,  on  this,  divided  between  the 
two  all  his  living,  retaining,  however,  in  his  hands  till  his 
own  death,  the  larger  share  of  the  elder  son  as  he  might  have 
done  with  that  of  the  younger  son  also.  His  share,  however, 
he  gave  into  the  young  man's  own  hands. 

"  But  before  long,  the  younger  son  began  to  dislike  the 
restraint  of  his  father's  house,  and  gathering  all  together, 
set  off  for  a  distant  country,  and  there  gave  his  passions 
the  reins,  and  lived  in  such  riot,  that  his  whole  means  were 
very  soon  exhausted.  But,  now,  when  he  had  spent  his  all, 
a  great  famine  arose  in  the  country,  and  he  began  to  be  in 
distress.  At  last  it  went  so  hard  with  him,  that  he  was  glad 
to  ask  one  of  the  citizens  to  give  him  some  employment, 
however  humble,  to  get  bread.  He  was,  thereupon,  sent  into 
the  man's  fields,  to  be  his  swineherd,  a  sadly  shameful  occu- 
pation for  a  Jew !  Yet,  after  all,  he  did  not  as  much  as  get 
the  food  for  which  he  had  bargained,  for  neither  his  master 
nor  any  one  else  heeded  him,  and  he  was  left  to  starve.  He 
even  longed  to  fill  himself  with  the  pods  of  the  carob-tree, 
eaten  only  by  the  very  poorest,2  and  mostly  given  to  swine, 
but  no  man  gave  him  even  these. 

1  Deut.  xxi.  17.    De  Wette's  Heb.  Jild.  Archaologic,  p.  158. 
8  Tristram,  p.  360.     Land  and  Book,  p.  21. 


330  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

"In  Ms  loneliness  and  sore  trouble,  he  began  to  reflect 
'  How  many  labourers  and  household  servants  of  my  father,' 
said  he  to  himself,  '  have  more  bread  than  they  can  eat, 
while  I,  his  son,  am  dying  here  of  want.  I  will  arise,  and 
go  back  to  my  father,  and  will  confess  my  guilt  and  un- 
worthiness,  and  tell  him  how  deeply  I  feel  that  I  have  sinned 
against  heaven  and  done  great  wrong  towards  him.  I  will 
say  that  I  am  no  longer  worthy  to  be  called  his  son,  and 
will  ask  him  to  treat  me  like  one  of  his  hired  labourers,  and 
tell  him  that  I  willj  gladly  work  with  them  for  my  daily 
bread,  so  that  he  receive  me  again.' 

"  He  had  no  sooner  resolved  to  do  this,  than  he  rose  to 
return  to  his  father's  house.  But  when  he  Avas  yet  a  great 
way  off,  his  father  saw  him,  and  knew  him,  and  ran  out  to 
meet  him,  full  of  loving  compassion,  and  fell  on  his  neck 
and  kissed  him  tenderly.  And  the  son  said  to  him,  '  I  have 
sinned  against  God  and  against  thee,  and  am  not  worthy  that 
thou  shouldest  any  longer  call  me  thy  son.'  He  could  not 
say  what  he  had  intended  besides,  when  he  saw  how  fondly 
his  father  bent  over  him,  notwithstanding  his  sins  and  folly. 
Nor  was  more  needed ;  for  his  father  called  out  to  his  ser- 
vants, '  Bring  me  out  quickly  the  best  robe,  and  put  it  on 
him  instead  of  his  rags ;  and  put  a  ring  on  his  finger, 
and  sandals  on  his  feet ;  he  shall  no  longer,  like  a  slave,  be 
without  either;  and  bring  the  fatted  calf  and  kill  it.  We 
shall  have  a  feast  to-day  and  be  merry,  for  my  son,  lost  and 
dead,1  as  I  thought,  in  a  strange  land,  is  once  more  home ; 
dead  by  his  sins,  he  is  alive  again  by  repentance  ;  a  lost 
wanderer,  he  has  returned  to  the  fold.' 

"  The  elder  son,  meanwhile,  had  been  in  the  field  with  the 
labourers,  but  now  came  towards  home.  And  as  he  drew 
near,  he  heard  music  and  dancing.  Calling  one  of  the  ser- 
vants, he  thereupon  asked  what  had  happened,  and  was  told 
that  his  brother  had  come  home,  and  that  his  father  was  so 
glad  to  have  him  once  more  safe  and  sound,  that  he  had  had 
the  best  calf  killed,  and  given  for  a  feast  to  the  household. 

"  But  now,  instead  of  rejoicing  over  his  brother's  return, 
the  elder  son  took  amiss  such  gladness  of  his  father,  at 
having  the  wanderer  safely  back,  and  would  not  go  into 
the  house  or  take  any  part  in  the  rejoicings.  The  father, 
therefore,  ever  kind  and  gentle,  went  out  to  him  to  soothe 
him,  and  to  beg  him  to  come  in.  All  he  could  say,  however, 

1  The  ungodly  are  called  "  the  dead."    Jalkut  Ruleni,  fol.  177,  c.  3. 


THE   DISHONEST   STEWAED.  331 

failed  to  soften  his  heart,  and  he  vented  his  discontent  in 
angry  reproaches  :  '  I  have  served  yon  for  many  a  year,  more 
like  a  slave  than  a  son,  and  have  obeyed  you  in  every  parti- 
cnlar,  and  yet  you  never  gave  me  a  kid,  far  less  a  fatted  calf, 
that  I  might  have  a  little  enjoyment  with  my  friends.  But 
when  this  fellow,  who  is  indeed  your  son,  though  I  will  not 
call  him  my  brother — when  this  fellow  who  has  spent  your 
money  on  harlots — has  come  back,  you  have  killed  the  fatted 
calf  for  him.' 

"  '  My  son,'  replied  the  father,  mildly,  '  have  you  forgotten 
that  you  have  been  always  by  my  side,  while  your  brother 
has  been  far  away  from  me,  or  that  all  that  I  have  belongs 
to  you  as  my  heir  ?  Surely  all  this  should  raise  you  above 
such  hard  judgments  and  jealous  thoughts.  What  could  we 
do  but  rejoice  when  a  long-lost  son  has  come  back  again  to 
his  father's  house  ?  ' ' 

The  parables  of  the  Lost  Sheep  and  of  the  Lost  Piece  of 
Silver  had  taught  the  same  lesson  as  this,  the  noblest  uttered 
by  Christ.  Henceforth,  for  all  ages,  it  was  proclaimed  be- 
yond the  possibility  of  misconception,  that  the  Eternal 
Father  looks  with  unspeakably  greater  favour  on  the  peni- 
tent humility  of  "  the  sinner,"  with  its  earnest  of  gratitude 
and  love,  than  on  cold  self-righteous  correctness  in  which 
the  heart  has  no  place. 

We  are  indebted  to  St.  Luke  for  some  other  fragments  of 
the  teaching  of  these  last  weeks. 

Among  the  great  multitudes  who  had  thronged  after  Him, 
the  publicans  of  the  district  were  especially  noticeable.1 
Many  of  them  were,  doubtless,  in  a  good  position  in  life, 
and  some  even  rich,  but  all  were  exposed  to  peculiar  tempta- 
tions in  their  hated  calling.  Not  a  few  seemed  to  have 
listened  earnestly  to  the  first  Teacher  who  had  ever  treated 
them  as  men  with  souls  to  save,  and  it  was  of  the  greatest 
importance  to  them  that  they  should  have  wise  and  true  prin- 
ciples for  their  future  guidance.  The  following  parable  seems 
to  have  been  delivered  specially  to  them,  .as  part  of  an  address 
when  they  had  gathered  in  more  than  usual  numbers. 

"  A  certain  rich  man  had  a  steward,  to  whom  he  left  the 
entire  charge  of  his  affairs.  He  learned,  however,  from  some 
sources,  that  this  man  was  acting  dishonestly  by  him,  and 
scattering  his  goods ;  so  he  called  him  and  let  him  know 
what  he  had  heard,  telling  him,  at  the  same  time,  to  make 

1  Luke  xiv.  25 ;  xv.  1 ;  xvi.  1-13. 


332  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

out  and  settle  all  his  accounts,  as  he  could  no  longer  hold  his 
office. 

"  The  steward,  knowing  that  he  was  guilty,  was  at  a  loss 
what  to  do.  '  I  cannot  dig,'  said  he,  to  himself,  '  for  I  have 
not  been  accustomed  to  it,  and  I  am  ashamed  to  beg.'  At 
last  he  hit  on  a  plan  which  he  thought  would  serve  his  end, 
and  at  once  set  himself  to  carry  it  out.  Going  to  all  his 
master's  tenants,  one  by  one,  he  asked  each  how  much  rent  or 
dues  he  had  to  pay,  though,  in  fact,  he  knew  all  this  before- 
hand. When  told,  he  pretended  to  have  been  commissioned, 
in  compliance  with  his  own  suggestion,  to  lower  the  amount 
in  each  case  ;  and  he  thus  secured  the  favour  of  all.  For 
example,  he  went  to  one  and  asked  him,  '  How  much  owest 
thou  to  my  lord  ?  '  and  when  told  '  A  hundred  pipes  of  oil,' 
bade  him  take  back  his  bill,  and  write  another,  instead,  for 
fifty.  A  second,  who  owed  a  hundred  quarters  of  wheat,  he 
told  to  make  out  a  fresh  writing  with  only  eighty.  In  this 
way,  by  leading  them  to  think  him  their  benefactor,  he  made 
sure  of  friends,  who  would  open  their  houses  to  him  when  he 
had  been  dismissed. 

"  Some  time  after,  when  his  master  heard  how  cleverly  he 
had  secured  his  own  ends,  he  could  not  help  admiring  his 
shrewdness.  And,  in  truth,  it  is  a  fact,  that  bad  men  like 
this  steward — the  sons  of  this  world,  not  of  the  next — 
are  wiser  in  their  dealings  with  their  fellows,  than  the  sons 
of  light,  my  disciples,  are  in  theirs  with  their  brethren, 
like  themselves,  sons  of  my  heavenly  Kingdom. 

"  As  the  master  of  that  steward  commended  him  for  his 
prudence,  though  it  was  so  worldly  and  selfish,  I  also  must 
commend  to  you  a  prudence  of  a  higher  kind  in  your  relations 
to  the  things  of  this  life.  By  becoming  my  disciples,  you 
have  identified  yourselves  with  the  interest  of  another  Master 
than  Mammon,  the  god  of  this  world,  whom  you  have 
hitherto  served  and  have  before  you  another  course  and  aim 
in  life.  You  will  be  represented  to  your  former  master  as 
no  longer  faithful  to  him,  for  my  service  is  so  utterly  opposed 
to  tnat  of  Mammon  that,  if  faithful  to  me  you  cannot  be 
faithful  to  him,  and  he  will,  in  consequence,  assuredly  take 
your  stewardship  of  this  world's  goods  from  you — that  is, 
sink  you  in  poverty,  as  I  have  often  said.  I  counsel  you, 
therefore,  so  to  use  the  goods  of  Mammon — the  worldly  means 
still  at  your  command — that,  by  a  truly  worthy  distribution 
of  them  to  your  needy  brethren,  and  my  disciples  are  mostly 
poor,  you  may  make  friends  for  yourselves,  who,  if  they  die 


THE   TRUE   USE   OF  BICHES.  333 

before  you,  will  welcome  you  to  everlasting  habitations  in 
heaven,  when  you  pass  thither,  at  death.  Prepare  yourselves, 
by  labours  of  love  and  deeds  of  true  charity,  as  my  followers, 
to  become  fellow-citizens  of  the  heavenly  mansions  with 
those  whose  wants  you  have  relieved  while  they  were  still  in 
life. 

"  If  you  be  thus  faithful  in  the  use  of  your  possessions 
on  earth,  you  will  be  deemed  worthy  by  God  to  be  entrusted 
with  infinitely  greater  riches  hereafter,  in  heaven  ;  for  he  that 
is  faithful  in  this  lesser  stewardship,  has  shown  that  he  will 
be  so  in  a  higher,  but  he  who  has  misused  the  lesser,  cannot 
hope  to  be  entrusted  with  a  greater.  If  you  show,  in  your 
life,  that  you  have  been  unfaithful  to  God  in  the  use  of  this 
world's  goods,  entrusted  to  you  by  Him  to  administer  for 
His  glory,  how  can  you  hope  that  He  will  commit  to  your 
keeping  the  unspeakably  grander  trust  of  heavenly  riches  ? 
If  you  have  proved  faithless  in  the  stewardship  of  what 
was  not  yours — the  worldly  means  lent  you  for  a  time  by  God 
— how  can  you  hope  to  be  honoured  with  the  great  trust 
of  eternal  salvation,  which  would,  have  been  yours  had  you 
proved  yourself  fit  for  it  ? 

"  Be  assured  that  if  you  do  not  use  your  earthly  riches 
faithfully  for  God,  by  dispensing  them  as  I  have  told  you, 
you  will  never  enter  my  heavenly  Kingdom  at  all.  You  will 
have  shown  that  you  are  servants  of  Mammon,  and  not  the 
servants  of  God ;  for  it  is  impossible  for  any  man  to  serve 
two  masters."  l 

Such  unworldly  counsels,  so  contrary  to  their  own  spirit, 
were  received  with  contemptuous  ridicule  b  by  the  Pharisees 
standing  round,  as  the  mere  dreams  of  a  crazed  enthusiast. 
The  love  of  money  had  become  a  characteristic  of  their 
decaying  religiousness,  and  it  seemed  to  them  the  wildest 
folly  to  advise  the  rich,  as  their  truest  wisdom,  to  use  their 
wealth  to  make  friends  for  the  future  world,  instead  of 
enjoying  it  here.  It  is  quite  possible,  indeed,  that  some  of 
them  felt  the  words  of  Christ  as  a  personal  reproof,  and  were 
all  the  more  embittered. 

Patient  as  He  was  in  the  endurance  of  personal  wrongs 
and  insults,  the  indignation  of  Jesus  was  roused  at  such  sneers 
at  the  first  principles  of  genuine  religion,  and  He,  at  once, 

1  Trench  on  Parables,  pp.  423  ff.  Meyer,  in  loc.  Neander's  Life  oj 
Christ,  p.  801.  Kosenmiiller's  Scholia,  in  loc.  Hess,  Lebcn  Jesu,  pp 
380  ff.  Pressel,  Lebcn  Jesu,  pp.  274  ff.  Luke  xvi.  14-31. 


334  THE   LIFE   OF  CHRIST. 

with  the  calm  fearlessness  habitual  to  Him,  exposed  their 
hypocrisy  and  nnsafeness  as  spiritual  guides. 

"  You  hold  your  heads  high,"  said  He,  "  and  affect  to  be 
saints,  before  men — such  perfect  patterns  of  piety,  indeed, 
that  you  may  judge  all  men  by  yourselves. 

"  Yet  God,  who  knows  all  things,  and  judges  not  by  thii 
outward  appearance,  but  by  the  heart,  knows  how  different 
you  are  in  reality  from  what  you  make  men  believe.  Your 
pretended  holiness,  which  is  so  highly  thought  of  by  men, 
is  an  abomination  before  God.  You  ignore,  or  explain 
away  the  commands  of  His  Law  when  they  do  not  suit  you, 
and  thus  are  mere  actors  ;  for  true  godliness  honours  the 
whole  Law.  I  condemn  you  on  the  one  ground  on  which  you 
claim  to  be  most  secure.  You  demand  honour  for  your  strict 
obedience  to  the  Law  ;  I  charge  you  with  hypocrisy,  for  your 
designed  and  deliberate  corruption  of  that  Law  to  suit 
yourselves. 

"  Sincerity  is  demanded  from  those  who  wish  to  serve  God. 
That  which  Moses  and  the  Prophets  so  long  announced — 
tba-t  to  which  all  the  Scriptures  point,  the  Kingdom  of 
the  Messiah — has  come.  From  the  time  when  the  Baptist 
preached,  that  kingdom  is  no  longer  future,  but  is  set  up  in 
your  midst,  and  with  what  success  !  Every  one  presses  with 
eagerness  into  it.  But,  as  you  know,  I,  its  Head  and  King, 
make  the  most  searching  demands  from  those  who  would 
enter  it,  and  open  its  citizenship  only  to  those  who  are 
•willing  to  overcome  all  difficulties  to  obtain  it.  You  charge 
mo  with  breaking  the  Law :  but,  so  far  from  doing  so,  I 
require  that  the  whole  Law,  in  its  truest  sense,  be  obeyed  by 
every  one  who  seeks  to  enter  the  New  Kingdom.  Belie  ve  me, 
it  is  easier  for  heaven  and  earth  to  pass  away,  than  for  one 
tittle  of  the  Law  to  lose  its  force.  But  how  different  is  it 
with  you !  Take  the  one  single  case  of  divorce.  What  loose 
examples  does  not  the  conduct  of  some  of  your  own  class 
supply  ?  what  conflicting  opinions  do  you  not  give  on  the 
question  ?  I  claim  that  the  words  of  the  Law  be  observed  to 
the  letter,  and  maintain,  in  opposition  to  your  hollow  morality, 
that  any  one  who  puts  away  his  wife,  except  for  adultery,  and 
marries  another,  himself  commits  adultery,  and  that  he  who 
marries  the  woman  thus  divorced  is  also  guilty  of  the  same 
crime.  Judge  by  this  whether  you  or  I  most  honour  t^e  Law 
— whether  you  or  I  are  the  safer  guides  of  the  people.  How 
God  must  despise  your  boasts  of  special  zeal  for  His  glory  ! 

"  But   that,  notwithstanding  your  sneers     you   may   feel 


DIVES  AND  LAZAEUS.  335 

the  truth  of  what  I  have  just  said  as  to  the  results  of  the 
possession  of  riches,1  when  they  are  not  employed  as  I  have 
counselled — to  make  friends  for  yourselves,  who  will  welcome 
you  to  heaven  hereafter — hearken  to  a  parable. 

"  There  was  a  certain  rich  man,  who  dressed  in  robes 
of  fine  purple — the  raiment  of  princes — over  garments  of  the 
costliest  Egyptian  cotton,  which  only  the  most  luxurious  can 
buy. 

"There  was  also,  in  the  same  place,  a  poor  diseased  beggar 
named  Lazarus,2  who  had  been  brought  and  set  down,  as  an 
object  of  charity,  before  the  gates  of  the  great  man's  mansion, 
where  he  lay  helpless,  day  after  day;  so  abject,  that  he 
longed  to  be  fed  with  what  fell  from  the  rich  man's  table. 
But  the  rich  man,  though  he  often  saw  him,  and  knew  his 
case,  showed  him  no  kindness,  and  instead  of  relieving  the 
sufferer,  and  thus  making  with  his  money  a  friend  who 
should  help  him  hereafter,  as  I  advise,  had  no  thought  except 
of  himself,  and  of  his  own  pleasure.  The  poor  man's  case 
was  indeed  pitiful ;  he  could  not  even  drive  away  the  unclean 
dogs,  which,  day  by  day,  came  and  increased  his  pain  by 
licking  his  sores. 

"  It  came  to  pass,  after  a  time,  that  Lazarus  died,  and  was 
carried  by  the  angels  to  Paradise,  and  there  laid  down  next 
to  Abraham  on  the  banqueting  couches,  at  the  feast  in  the 
Kingdom  of  God,  with  his  head  in  the  great  patriarch's  bosom 
— the  highest  place  of  honour  that  Paradise  could  give. 

"  Soon  after,  the  rich  man,  also,  died,  and,  unlike  Lazarus — 
whom  men  had  left  uncared  for,  even  in  his  death — he  was 
honoured  with  a  sumptuous  funeral. 

"  He,  also,  passed  to  Hades  ;  not,  however,  to  that  part  of 
it  where  Paradise  is,  but  to  Gehenna,  the  place  of  pain  and 
torment  in  the  world  of  shades.  And  in  Hades  he  lifted 
up  his  eyes,  and  saw  Abraham  in  the  far  distance,  in  the 
banqueting  hall  of  bliss,  with  Lazarus  reclining  next  him,  in 
his  bosom,  as  his  most  honoured  friend.  And  he  knew  them 
both,  and  remembered  how  Lazarus  had  lain  at  his  gate,  and 
thought  of  this  as  a  bond  between  them.  '  0  Father  Abra- 
ham,' cried  he,  in  his  torments,  '  have  mercy  on  my  agony,  I 
beseech  thee,  and  send  Lazarus,  that  he  may  dip  the  tip  of 
his  finger  in  water,  and  cool  my  tongue,  for  I  am  'tormented 
in  this  flame.'  So  great  had  been  the  change  in  their 
positions,  that  the  despised  beggar  was  now  entreated  to  do 

1  Luke  xvi.  19  S.  a  God  (is  my)  help. 


336  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

even  so  small  a  favour  to  him  from  whom  he  himself  had  once 
looked  for  any  favour  in  vain !  Dives  would  fain  make 
friends  with  Lazarus,  but  could  not  bethink  him  of  any  kind- 
ness he  had  ever  shown  him,  to  urge  it  on  his  own  behalf. 

"  Of  this  Abraham  now  reminded  him.  '  Son,'  said  he 
'  wonder  not  that  you  and  Lazarus  are  in  such  opposite  con- 
ditions here,  from  those  you  had  when  in  life.  You,  then, 
had  as  much  earthly  happiness  as  you  could  enjoy ;  yon 
had  it,  and  set  your  heart  on  it,  and  lived  only  for  yourself. 
Had  you  used  your  wealth  as  a  godly  man,  in  doing  good 
to  those  who,  like  Lazarus,  needed  pity,  instead  of  lavishing 
it  on  splendour  and  self-indulgence,  you  would  have  had 
good  laid  up  for  you  now.  But  you  lived  only  for  earth, 
and  the  good  you  chose  has  been  left  behind  you.  You  had 
your  portion  in  your  lifetime,  and  have  none  here.  But 
Lazarus  endured,  while  still  alive,  the  sufferings  allotted 
him,  and  he  has  none  in  this  state.  Penitent  and  lowly, 
he  bore  them  patiently,  as  a  child  of  God,  .and  is  now  re- 
ceiving the  reward  of  the  poor  in  spirit.  His  position  and 
yours  are  reversed,  for  he  finds  consolation  and  joy  in 
exchange  for  his  earthly  misery,  but  you,  pain  and  sorrow, 
instead  of  your  self-indulgence.' 

"  '  Besides  all  this,'  added  he,  'between  this  happy  abode 
and  yours,  there  is  a  great  space,  across  which  no  one  can 
pass,  either  from  us  to  you,  or  from  you  to  us,  so  that  it 
is  impossible  that  you  should  have  any  share  in  our  joy,  or 
that  we  can  in  any  way  lessen  your  pain.' 

"  Now,  for  the  first  time,  the  rich  man  saw  the  full  extent 
of  his  misery,  and  its  cause,  '  Would  that  I  had  acted  differ- 
ently,' cried  he,  ;  when  in  life.  Would  that,  instead  of  living 
for  myself — hard,  impenitent,  selfish — I  had  been  lowly  and 
penitent,  using  my  wealth  as  God  enjoined,  in  blessing  the 
wretched.  I  should  then  have  been  welcomed  by  Lazarus, 
and  such  as  he,  into  the  everlasting  habitations  of  Para- 
dise !  ' 

" '  But,  0  Father  Abraham,'  he  continued,  '  let  me  be 
the  only  one  of  my  race  to  come  into  this  doleful  place. 
Send  Lazarus,  I  beseech  thee,  back  to  earth,  to  my  father's 
house,  for  I  have  five  brethren,  who  live  as  I  lived.0  It 
would  add  unspeakably  to  my  pain  if  they  also  came  to  this 
abode  of  woe.  Oh !  let  Lazarus  go  and  warn  them  of  what 
has  befallen  me,  their  brother.' 

" '  To  escape  your  sad  doom,'  replied  Abraham,  '  they 
must  needs  repent,  and  live  the  life  of  the  godly.  But  for 


OFFENCES  MUST   COME  !  337 

this  the  Law  and  the  Prophets  are  the  appointed  means ; 
let  them  listen  to  them.' 

"  '  Nay,  Father  Abraham,'  answered  the  lost  one,  '  that  is 
not  enough.  It  did  not  move  me  to  repentance.  But  if  a 
dead  man  returned  again  from  the  grave,  and  came  to  them, 
and  told  them  how  it  was  with  me  here,  they  would  be 
alarmed,  and  reform.' 

"  '  You  err,  my  unhappy  son,'  said  Abraham,  closing  the 
scene.  '  It  would  not  move  them  in  the  least,  for  so  amply 
are  the  Scriptures  fitted  to  persuade  men  to  repentance,  that 
those  whom  they  do  not  win  to  it  would  not  be  persuaded 
even  if  one  rose  from  the  dead.' " 

The  Rabbis  had  listened  to  the  parable,  but  it  touched 
their  own  failing  too  pointedly,  to  make  them  care  for  any 
longer  conference  with  Jesus.  When  they  were  gone — it 
may  be  while  He  was  resting  with  the  Twelve  in  the  cool  of 
the  evening — the  incidents  of  the  whole  day  were  passed  in 
review,  and  Jesus  noticed  that  the  words  and  bearing  of  His 
opponents,  respect  for  whom,  as  the  teachers  of  the  nation, 
was  instinctive  with  every  Jew,  had  not  been  without 
their  effect  even  on  His  disciples.  It  was  evident  that  the 
very  nature  of  His  demands,  the  trials  and  persecutions 
to  come,  and  the  weakness  of  human  nature,  would  raise 
moral  hindrances  to  the  full  and  abiding  loyalty  of  not  a 
few. 

By  way  of  caution,  therefore,  He  now  warned  them  on 
this  point.1  "  It  is  impossible,"  said  He,  "  to  prevent  divi- 
sions, disputes,  and  even  desertion  and  apostasy,  on  the  part 
of  some  of  you,  in  the  evil  times  to  come.  Misrepresen- 
tation, prejudice,  the  bent  of  different  minds,  the  weakness 
of  some,  and  the  unworthiness  of  others,  will  inevitably 
produce  their  natural  results.  The  progress  of  my  Kingdom 
will,  I  foresee,  be  hindered  more  or  less  from  this  cause ; 
but  it  cannot  be  avoided.  Yet,  woe  to  him  who  thus 
hinders  the  spread  and  glory  of  the  Truth.  It  were  better 
for  him,  if,  like  the  worst  criminal,  he  were  bound  -to  a 
heavy  millstone,  and  cast  into  the  sea,  than  that  he  should 
cause  a  single  simple  child-like  soul,  who  believes  in  me,  to 
stumble.  Take  heed  that  you  neither  mislead  nor  are  misled  ! 
Remember  my  words — that  offences  must  be  prevented  or 
removed  by  a  lowly  forgiving  spirit  on  your  part.  You 
know  how  far  you  are  yet  from  this ;  how  strong  pride,  love 

1  Luke  xvii.  1-4. 


338  THE   LIFB   OF   CHRIST. 

of  your  own  opinion,  harshness,  and  impatience,  still  are  in 
your  hearts.  To  further  my  Kingdom,  when  I  am  gone, 
strive  above  all  things  for  peace  and.  love  among  yourselves. 

"  The  one  grand  means  of  avoiding  these  causes  of  offence 
and  spiritual  ruin,  is  unwearied,  forgiving  love ;  that 
frame  of  mind  which  you  see  so  wholly  wanting  in  the 
Rabbis,  that  they  have  even  now  murmured  at  my  so  much 
aa  speaking  to  sinners,  from  whom  such  simple,  lowly 
brethren  are  to  be  gathered.  If  such  an  one  sin  against 
you,  and  turn  away  from  your  fellowship,  rebuke  him  for 
his  sin ;  but  if  he  see  his  error  and  repent  of  it,  and  come 
back,  forgive  him ;  aye,  even  if  he  wrong  you.  seven  times 
in  a  day,  and  feel  and  acknowledge  his  error,  and  promise 
amendment  as  often,  you  must,  each  time,  forgive  him  freely." 

The  Twelve  had  listened  to  these  counsels  with  intense 
interest,  but  their  moral  grandeur  almost  discouraged  them.1 
They  felt  that  nothing  is  harder  than  constant  patience 
and  loving  humility — never  returning  evil  for  evil,  but  ever 
ready  to  forgive,  even  when  repeatedly  injured  without 
cause.  It  needed,  as  they  feared,  stronger  faith  than  they 
yet  had,  to  create  such  an  abiding  spirit  of  tender  meekness. 
They  had  talked  over  the  whole  matter,  and  saw  only  one 
source  of  strength.  Coming  to  their  Master,  full  of  con- 
fidence in  His.  Divine  power  to  grant  their  request,  they 
openly,  and  with  a  sweet  humility,  prayed  Him  that  He 
would  increase  their  faith. 

"  This  request,"  answered  Jesus,  "  shows  that  faith,  in  a 
true  and  worthy  sense,  is  yet  to  be  begun  in  your  hearts. 
If  you  had  it,  even  in  a  small  measure,  or,  to  use  a  phrase 
you  often  hear,  as  a  grain  of  mustard-seed  ;  instead  of  finding 
obedience  to  these  counsels  too  difficult,  you  would  under- 
take and  perform  even  apparent  impossibilities — acts  of  trust 
which  demand  the  highest  spiritual  power  and  strength. 
In  the  words  of  the  Rabbis,  familiar  to  you  as  an  illustration 
of  acts  naturally  impossible,  you  would  say  to  this  sycamore 
or  mulberry-tree,2  '  Be  thon  plucked  up  by  the  roots  and 
planted  in  the  Bea,'  and  it  would  obey  you — that  is,  you 
would  be  able  to  do  what,  without  divine  help,  is  as  much 
beyond  human  power.3 

"  To  such  efficiency  and  eminence  in  my  service  will  true 
faith  in  ME  lead  you  ;  but  beware,  amidst  all,  of  any  thought 

1  Luke  xvii.  5-10.  *  Tristram's  Nat.  Hist,  of  Liblc,  p.  363. 

3  Rosenmiiller,  in  loo. 


HOSTILITY  OF  THE   RABBIS.  339 

of  merit  of  your  own.  Your  faith,  must  grow,  and  cannot 
be  given  as  a  mere  bounty  from  without ;  it  is  a  result  of 
your  own  spiritual  development  and  true  humility,  which 
looks  away  from  self  to  me,  as  the  one  condition  of  this 
advancement.  You  shall  have  the  increased  faith  you  seek, 
but  it  will  be  only  by  your  continued  loving  dependence 
on  me,  your  Master.  If  any  of  you  had  a  servant  ploughing 
or  tending  your  flock,  would  you  say  to  him,  when  he  comes 
home  from  the  field  in  the  evening,  '  Come  near  immedi- 
ately, and  sit  down  to  meat  ?  '  Would  you  not  rather  say, 
'  Prepare  my  supper,  and  make  yourself  fit  to  wait  on  me  at 
table,  and  after  I  have  supped,  you  shall  eat  and  drink  ?  ' 
Would  you  think  yourself  under  obligation  to  the  servant, 
because  he  has  been  working  for  you,  or  because  he  waits 
on  you  as  required  ?  Assuredly  not,  for,  at  most,  he  had 
only  done  what  it  was  right  he  should  do  as  a  servant.  Be 
you  such  servants.  There  is  a  daily  work,  with  prescribed 
tasks,  required  from  you.  The  great  supper  will  not  be  till 
this  life  is  ended ;  but  when  it  has  come,  you  must  not  think 
of  yourselves,  on  account  of  your  labours  here,  except  as 
becomes  servants ;  and  should  you  be  rewarded  or  honoured, 
yon  must  not  forget,  that  it  is  only  from  my  free  favour,  not 
in  payment  of  any  claim ;  because,  in  fact,  you  have  done 
only  what  it  was  your  duty,  as  servants,  to  do.  The  servant 
who  does  less  than  his  duty,  is  guilty  before  his  master,  but 
he  who  has  done  his  duty,  though  he  has  avoided  blame, 
has  no  reason  to  think  himself  entitled  to  reward.  In  any 
case,  therefore,  your  work  has  not  been  beyond  your  right- 
ful duty,  and,  though  you  have  escaped  condemnation,  you 
have  no  claim  for  any  merit."  l 

The  hostility  of  the  Rabbis  was  growing  daily  more  bitter, 
after  each  fruitless  attack.  At  every  town  or  village  they 
gathered  round  Him,  and  harassed  him  by  continual  attempts 
to  compromise  Him  with  the  authorities. 

On  one  of  these  last  days  of  His  journey  towards  Jeru- 
salem, a  knot  of  Pharisees  had  thus  forced  themselves  on 
Him,  and  sought  to  elicit  something  that  might  serve  them, 
by  asking  Him. : 

"  Master,  you  have  often  represented  yourself,  both  by 
word  and  by  mighty  deeds,  as  the  Messiah,  but  we  see  no 
signs  as  yet  of  the  coming  of  the  kingdom  of  God.  When 
will  it  come  ?  It  has  been  long  promised."  2 

1  Luke  xvii.  5-11.  *  Luke  xvii.  20-37. 


340  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

"  The  kingdom  of  God,"  answered  Jesus,  "  is  something 
entirely  different  from  what  yon  expect.  You  look  for  a 
great  political  revolution,  and  the  establishment  of  a  Jewish 
empire,  with  its  capital  in  Jerusalem.  Instead  of  this,  it  is 
a  spiritual  kingdom,  in  the  hearts  and  consciences  of  men, 
and,  as  such,  cannot  come  with  the  outward  display  and 
circumstance  of  earthly  monarchy,  so  that  men  may  say, 
*  Lo,  here  is  the  Kingdom  of  God,'  or,  '  Lo,  there.'  The 
coming  of  the  kingdom  develops  itself  unobserved.  I  can- 
not, therefore,  give  you  any  moment  when  it  may  be  said  to 
have  come,  for,  in  fact,  it  is  already  in  your  midst.  I,  the 
Messiah,  live  and  work  amongst  you,  and  where  the  Messiah 
is,  there  is  His  Kingdom.  There,  already,  is  it  steadily 
advancing,  after  its  nature,  like  the  seed  in  the  ground,  like 
the  grain  of  mustard-seed,  or,  like  the  leaven  in  a  woman's 
measure  of  meal." 

The  malevolent  question  thus  met  a  reply  which  at  once 
balked  curiosity,  and  laid  the  most  solemn  responsibilities 
on  all ;  for  if  the  Messiah  was  really  among  them,  how 
imperative  to  fit  themselves  for  entering  His  Kingdom  ! 
The  interrogators,  finding  their  sinister  effort  vain,  presently 
left,  and,  when  alone,  Jesus  resumed  the  subject  with  His 
disciples. 

"  I  have  only  spoken  to  these  men,"  said  He,  "  of  the 
growth  and  development  of  my  Kingdom,  unseen,  and 
silently,  in  the  hearts  of  men.  To  you  I  would  now  speak 
of  the  future.  Days  will  come  when  trouble  shall  make 
men's  hearts  long  for  the  return  of  one  of  the  days  of  the 
Son  of  man,  and  false  Messiahs  will  rise,  pretending  to  bring 
deliverance.  But  when  they  say  to  you,  '  Lo,  there  is  the 
Messiah  come  at  last,'  or,  '  Lo,  here  He  is,'  go  not  out  after 
them ;  do  not  follow  them.  For  the  coming  of  the  Son  of 
man  will  be  as  sudden,  as  striking  to  all  eyes,  as  mighty  in 
its  power,  as  when  the  lightning  leaps  from  the  cloud  and 
suddenly  sets  the  whole  heavens  in  flame.  There  is  no  need 
of  asking  of  the  lightning  *  Where  is  it  ?  '  or  for  any  to  tell 
you  of  it. 

"  But  this  coming  will  not  be  now.  I  must  first  suffer 
many  things  from  this  generation,  and  be  rejected  by  it. 
Instead  of  approaching  with  slow  royal  pomp,  seen  and  wel- 
comed from  afar ;  instead  of  the  world  hailing  my  coming, 
and  preparing  for  it,  as  for  that  of  an  expected  king ;  they 
will  be  busied  in  their  ordinary  affairs  when  it  is  nearest ; 
till,  suddenly,  wide  ruin  and  judgment  burst  on  them,  as 


THE   COMING   OF  THE    SON   OF   MAN.  341 

the  flood  on  the  men  of  the  days  of  Noah,  and  the  fire  from 
heaven  on  Sodom  in  the  days  of  Lot,  bringing  destruction 
on  all.  Men  lived  in  security  then ;  they  ate  and  drank, 
they  married  and  gave  in  marriage,  with  no  thought  or 
preparation  for  the  impending  catastrophe. 

"  It  will  be  the  same  at  my  coming.  Men  will  be  as 
secure ;  the  day  will  burst  on  them  as  suddenly,  when  I 
shall  be  revealed  in  'my  glory.  When  it  comes,  there  will 
be  an  awful  and  instant  separation  of  man  from  man.  The 
good  and  evil  will  no  longer  be  mixed  together.  He  who 
would  save  himself  must,  on  the  moment,  part  from  those 
whom  the  peril  threatens.  He  who  lives  in  a  town,  must, 
as  the  destruction  approaches,  so  hasten  his  flight,  that  if  he 
be  on  the  housetop  when  it  draws  near,  he  must  not  think  of 
going  into  the  house  to  save  anything,  but  must  flee,  at  the 
loss  of  all  earthly  possessions.  He  who  is  in  the  open  field, 
must  not  turn  back  to  his  house  for  his  goods,  but  must 
leave  all  behind  him,  and  escape  with  his  life.  You  hear 
my  words ;  see  you  give  heed  to  them  in  that  day. 
Remember  Lot's  wife,  who  perished  for  looking  back  in 
disobedience  to  the  Divine  command.  Whosoever,  in  that 
day,  shall  seek  to  preserve  his  life,  by  unfaithfulness  to  me, 
shall  lose  life  eternal,  and  he  who  loses  this  life  for  my  sake, 
will  secure  heaven  for  ever. 

"  The  separation  of  men,  at  my  coming,  will,  indeed,  be 
solemn  !  Those  who  spent  this  life  together,  will  then  find 
themselves  parted  for  ever !  I  tell  you,  in  that  night  there 
will  be  two  men  in  one  bed;  one  will  be  taken,  and  the  other 
left :  two  poor  slaves  will  be  grinding  flour  for  the  household 
together ;  one  will  be  taken  and  the  other  left." 

The  Twelve  had  listened  with  breathless  attention  to  this 
vision  of  the  future.  They  had  heard  much  that  was  new, 
grand,  and  fearful,  and  they  trembled  with  a  natural  alarm  at 
the  awful  picture  set  before  them.  "  Where,  Lord,"  asked 
they,  "  will  the  Messiah  gather  His  own,  that  they  may  be 
safe  ?  Where  will  those  who  love  Thee  find  a  refuge  in  that 
day?" 

"  Who  tells  the  eagle,"  replied  Jesus,  "  where  the  carcase 
is  ?  His  keen  eyes  see  it  from  afar.  My  faithful  ones  will 
at  once  discover  where  the  Messiah  is,  and  where  their 
gathering  place  has  been  appointed,  and  with  swift  flight 
will  betake  themselves  thither." 

The  momentous  earnestness  with  which  Jesus  had  so  often 
spoken  of  the  difficulty  of  being  truly  His  disciple  had  sunk 


342  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

into  the  hearts  of  many  who  heard  it,  and  the  free  access  to 
Himself  He  permitted,  must  often  have  been  nsed  to  seek 
counsel  on  a  point  so  momentous.  It  was,  moreover,  a 
passion  with  the  Jew  to  speculate  on  every  question  of 
theology,  as  is  seen  in  the  vast  system  elaborated  by  the 
Rabbis.  The  mysteries  of  the  future  world  especially  en- 
grossed them.  By  the  multitude  it  was  taken  for  granted 
that  every  Israelite  would,  of  right,  have  a  portion  in 
heaven,1  but  there  were  not  a  few  others  who,  like  Esdras, 
fancied  that  "  The  Most- High  had  made  this  world  for  many, 
but  the  world  to  come  for  few :  as  He  had  made  much 
common  earth,  but  little  gold."  One  in  whom  His  Avords 
had  raised  such  questions,  took  advantage,2  about  this  time, 
of  His  readiness  to  listen  to  their  doubts  and  inquiries,  to 
ask  Him  if  more  than  a  few  only  would  be  saved,  since  He 
had  said  it  was  so  hard  to  be  His  follower.  Instead  of 
answering,  directly,  a  question  which  could  only  gratify 
curiosity,  Jesus,  ever  practical,  gave  His  reply  a  turn  which 
was  much  more  useful. 

"  It  would  benefit  you  little,"  said  He,  "  if  I  answered 
your  question  as  you  wish  ;  the  great  matter  for  you  is  that 
many  will  not  be  saved,  so  that  it  becomes  you  to  strive, 
with  intense  earnestness,  to  enter  in  through  the  narrow 
door  that  leads  to  eternal  life ;  for  many,  I  say  unto  you, 
who  would  like  to  enter  at  last,  but  do  not  thus  strive  now, 
will  seek  to  do  so  when  too  late,  and  will  not  be  admitted.11 
If  once  you  be  shut  out  from  the  kingdom  of  the  Messiah, 
you  will  in  vain  plead  your  present  external  connection  with 
me.  When  the  great  banquet  of  heaven  begins,  the  Mes- 
siah will  cause  the  door  of  the  banqueting  hall  to  be  shut. 
If  you,  then,  come  to  it  and  knock  at  the  door,  saying  '  Lord, 
open  to  us,'  He  will  answer  from  within,  '  I  know  you  not, 
whence  you  are.'  If  you  urge  that  He  has  forgotten  you, 
and  that,  if  He  will  bethink  Him,  He  will  recollect  that 
you  ate  and  drank  in  His  presence,  as  companions  at  the 
same  table,  and  that  He  had  taught  in  your  streets,  He  will 
only  answer,  '  I  tell  you  I  know  you  not,  whence  ye  are. 
Depart  from  me,  all  ye  workers  of  unrighteousness.' 

"  What  weeping  and  gnashing  of  teeth  will  be  there  as  ye 
stand  thus,  and  see  Abraham,  and  Isaac,  and  Jacob,  and  all 
the  prophets,  in  the  kingdom  of  God,  and  yourselves  cast 
out!  What  wailing,  when  you  see,  instead  of  yourselves, 

1  Lightjoot,  in  loc.     2  Esdras  viii.  1-3.  2  Luke  xiii.  22-30. 


THE   DESIGNS   OF  ANTIPA8.  343 

the  heathen  you  have  so  despised,  come  from  the  east,  and 
west,  and  north,  and  south,1  and  sit  down  at  the  great  feast 
of  heaven.  Believe  me,  many  who  now,  before  the  setting 
up  of  my  Kingdom,  are  first,  will  be  last,  after  it  is  set  up  ; 
many,  like  the  heathen,  who  shall  enter  to  the  feast,  though 
they  have  become  my  disciples  only  after  Israel  has  rejected 
my  Kingdom,  will  yet  take  a  first  place  in  it.  See  that  ye 
press  on  while  the  door  is  still  open  to  admit  you." 

Jesus  had  now  been  for  some  time  in  Perea,2  in  the  ter- 
ritory of  Antipas,  the  murderer  of  John.  The  intense  un- 
popularity of  the  crime  had,  doubtless,  been  a  protection  to 
Him  ;  but,  besides  the  fact  that  Antipas  personally  feared  the 
great  Miracle- worker,  thinking  He  was  perhaps  the  murdered 
Baptist,  risen  from  the  dead,  there  were  many  other  reasons 
why  he  should  wish  Him  fairly  out  of  his  dominions.  Un- 
willing to  appear  in  the  matter,  he  used  the  Pharisees,  count- 
ing on  their  readiness  to  further  his  end.  Some  of  their 
number,  therefore,  came  to  Christ,  with  the  air  of  friends 
anxious  for  His  safety,  and  warned  Him  that  it  would  be 
well  for  Him  to  leave  Perea  as  quickly  as  possible,  as  Herod 
desired  to  kill  Him. 

Jesus  at  once  saw  through  the  whole  design,  as  a  crafty 
plan  of  Herod  for  His  expulsion.  But  He  was  on  His  way 
to  Jerusalem,  and  contented  Himself  with  showing  that  He 
gave  no  grounds  for  political  suspicion,  and  that  He  quite 
well  understood  how  little  friendship  there  was  in  the  advice 
the  Pharisees  had  given  Him. 

"  Go  and  tell  that  crafty  fox,"  said  He,  "  that  I  know  why 
he  is  afraid  of  me,  and  wishes  me  out  of  his  land.  Tell  him 
there  is  no  cause  for  his  alarm,  for  I  do  nothing  to  wake 
his  alarm.  I  have  no  designs  that  can  injure  him,  but 
confine  myself  to  driving  demons  from  poor  men  possessed 
with  them,  and  to  healing  the  sick.  These  harmless  labours 
I  shall  not  intermit  till  the  time  I  have  fixed  to  give  to  them 
is  over.  It  will  take  three  days  more  to  pass  quite  out  of 
Perea,  and  for  these  three  days  I  shall  be  in  his  territory, 
but  on  the  third  day  I  leave  it,  for  I  am  now  on  my  way  to 
Jerusalem,  to  die  there.  Herod  will  not  need  to  trouble 
himself  to  kill  me,  for  it  would  be  unfitting  for  a  prophet  to 
die  outside  the  Holy  City."  Such  a  message  was  virtually 
an  intimation  that  He  knew  it  would  be  by  the  hands  of 
those  who  pretended  kindly  to  warn  Him,  and  their  allies, 
that  he  should  perish,  and  not  by  those  of  Antipas. 
i  Luke  xiii.  22-30.  *  Luke  xiii.  31-35. 

60 


344  THE  LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

The  word  Jerusalem,  and  the  thought  of  the  guilt  of  the 
city  so  tenderly  loved  by  Him — guilt  soon  to  be  increased  by 
His  violent  death  at  its  hand — filled  His  heart  with  deep, 
irrepressible  emotion. 

"  0  Jerusalem !  Jerusalem,"  cried  He,  in  a  louder  voice, 
trembling  with  sadness,  "  it  is  thou,  the  City  of  the  Temple, 
the  City  of  the  Great  King,  who  killest  the  prophets,  and 
stonest  those  whom  God  sends  unto  thee  !  Thou  art  still  true 
to  thine  evil  repute  !  How  often,  oh  how  often,  thou  mother 
of  many  children,  would  I  have  gathered  them  all  round  me 
safely,  from  the  dangers  before  them,  as  the  careful  hen  calls 
together  her  brood,  and  spreads  her  wings  over  them,  when 
the  shadow  of  evil  falls  near  and  guards  them  from  every 
harm !  But  thou  wouldst  not  let  me  do  thee  this  service. 
For  what  shall  come  on  thee  thou  must,  thyself,  bear  the 
blame  !  The  Divine  protection  I  would  have  given  thee  thou 
hast  refused  and  hast  lost,  nor  will  I  appear  in  thy  desola- 
tion as  thy  helper.  Thou  wilt  not  see  me  till  I  come  to  set 
up  in  thee  my  Kingdom,  and  receive  thy  homage,  no  longer 
to  be  denied,  as  the  Messiah,  the  Blessed,  who  comes  in  the 
name  of  the  Lord !  " 


CHAPTER  LIV. 

IN  PEKEA— (CONTINUED). 

rpHE  lofty  demands  of  Jesus  from  His  followers  had  filled 
-*-  the  Twelve  with  doubts  and  misgivings  of  their  power 
to  fulfil  them.  A  continuous  self-denial  which  thought  only 
of  their  Master,  and  a  patient  love  which  returned  meekness 
and  good  for  evil  and  injury,  were  graces  slowly  attained ; 
how  much  more  so  when  they  could  only  strike  root  in  the 
heart  after  the  dislodgment  of  hereditary  prejudices  and 
modes  of  thought  ? 

A  sense  of  weakness  had  already  led  them  to  ask  that  their 
faith  in  Jesus  as  the  Messiah,  able  to  aid  them  in  all  their 
straits  and  trials,  might  be  strengthened,  The  utterance  of 
that  faith  in  prayer  was  no  less  necessary,  at  once  to  obtain 
the  grace  needed  to  bear  them  through  difficulties,  and  to 
raise  them  to  a  steadfast  confidence  in  the  triumphant  mani- 
festation of  their  Master's  Kingdom,  of  which  He  had  more 
than  once  spoken.  Lest  they  should  grow  slack  in  this  great 
duty,  He  reminded  them  that  their  whole  frame  of  mind 
should  be  one  of  habitual  devotion,  to  keep  them  from  be- 
coming faint-hearted,  and  giving  way  before  the  trials  they 
might  have  to  suffer,  or  at  the  seeming  delay  in  His  coming. 
His  words,  as  usual,  took  the  form  of  a  parable. 

"  There  was  in  a  city,"  said  He,  "  a  judge  who  neither 
feared  God  nor  reverenced  man.1  And  there  was  also  a 
widow  in  that  city  who  had  an  enemy  from  whom  she  could 
hope  to  get  free  only  by  the  interposition  of  the  judge.  So 
she  came  often  to  him,  asking  him  to  do  justice  to  her,  and 
maintain  her  right  against  her  adversary.2  But  he  paid  no 
attention,  for  a  long  time,  to  her  suit.  At  last,  however,  he 
could  bear  her  constant  coming  no  longer,  and  said  within 
himself,  '  Though  I  should  do  it  as  my  duty,  that  does  not 
trouble  me,  for  I  do  not  pretend  to  fear  God,  and  care  nothing 

1  Luke  xviii.  1-8.          a  Ullmann,  p.  65.     Bibel  Lax.,  vol.  ii.  p.  341, 


346  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

for  man  ;  yet  this  widow  torments  me.  I  shall  therefore  do 
•what  is  right  in  her  case  for  my  own  sake,  for  otherwise  she 
will  weary  me  out  by  her  constant  appeals.'  * 

"  So  the  widow,  by  her  importunity,  obtained  her  end  at 
last. 

"  Hear  what  the  unjust  judge  says  !  But  if  men  thus  get 
what  is  right,  even  from  the  worst,  if  they  urge  their  suit 
long  enough,  with  sufficient  earnestness ;  how  can  any  one 
doubt  that  God,  the  Righteous  One,  will  give  heed  to  the 
cry  of  His  saints  for  all  they  have  to  suffer  ?  Will  He  not 
much  rather, — though  He  let  the  enemy  rage  for  what  seems 
a  long  time, — surely,  at  the  great  day,  avenge  the  wrongs  of 
His  elect  who  are  so  dear  to  Him,  and  thus  cry  in  prayer 
night  and  day  ? 

"  I  tell  you,  He  will  be  patient  towards  them,  though  they 
thus  cry  to  Him  continually,  for  He  is  not  wearied  with 
their  complaints,  as  the  unjust  judge  was  with  those  of  the 
widow  ;  and  He  will  deliver  them  from  their  enemies,  with- 
out and  within,  and  give  them  a  portion  in  the  Kingdom  of 
the  Messiah,  and  that  speedily.  For  when  the  Messiah  comes 
it  will  seem  as  if  the  waiting  for  Him  had  only  been  brief. 
But  when  He  thus  comes,  will  He  find  any  who  still  look  for 
Him  and  believe  that  the  promise  of  His  return  will  be 
fulfilled  ?  Will  my  disciples  endure  to  the  end ;  or  can  it 
be  that  they  will  fall  away  before  all  their  trials  ?  " 

To  one  of  these  last  days  in  Perea  we  are  indebted  for  the 
parable  of  the  Pharisee  and  the  Publican.  Jesus  had  spoken 
much  of  prayer,  but  the  religion  of  the  day  was  so  largely 
mechanical,  that  they  were  in  danger  of  mistaking  the  out- 
ward form  for  the  substance.  Only  repeated  lessons  could 
guard  them  from  the  lifeless  formality  of  the  Rabbis  with 
whom  the  most  sacred  duties  had  sunk  to  cold  outward  rites. 
Self-righteous  pride,  moreover,  was  the  characteristic  of  much 
of  the  current  religiousness,  and  was,  in  fact,  a  natural  result 
of  the  externalism  prevailing.  To  show  the  true  nature  of 
devotion  pleasing  to  God,  He  related  the  following  parable  : — 

"  Two  men,"  said  He,  "  went  up  to  the  Temple  to  pray 
at  the  same  time,  the  hour  of  prayer.1  The  one  was  a 
Pharisee,  the  other  a  Publican.  The  Pharisee,  who  had  seen 
the  Publican  enter  the  Temple  with  him,  stood  apart,  his 

1  Luke  xviii.  9-14.  Schenkel's  CharaJcterlild,p.  196.  Schiirer,  p.  505. 
Godwyn,  pp.  37,  41,  73.  Bibd  Lex.,  vol.  ii.  p.  398.  Dukes,  p.  181. 
Kcim,  vol.  ii.  p.  340. 


THE   PHAEISEE   AND   THE   PUBLICAN.  347 

eyes  towards  the  Holy  of  holies,  and  began  to  pray  thus : 
*  O  God,  I  thank  Thee  that  I  do  not  belong  to  the  common 
multitude  of  mankind,  whom  Thou  hast  rejected — to  the 
covetous,  the  unjust,  the  adulterous.  I  thank  Thee  that  I 
am  not  what  so  many  men  are,  what  this  Publican  here  before 
Thee,  is.  He  knows  nothing  of  fasting  or  of  tithes,  but  I  fast 
every  Monday  and  every  Thursday,  and  I  give  the  Priests 
and  Levites  the  tenth  not  only  of  all  I  have,  but  of  all  I 
may  gain,  which  is  more  than  the  Law  requires.' 

"  The  Publican  meanwhile,  feeling  that  He  was  a  sinner, 
stopped  far  behind  the  Pharisee,  coming  no  farther  into  the 
sacred  court  than  its  very  edge ;  for  he  shrank  from  a  near 
approach  to  God.  Nor  could  he  dare,  in  his  lowly  penitence, 
to  lift  up  so  much  as  his  eyes  to  heaven,  far  less  his  head 
and  his  hands,  but,  with  bent  head,  smote  on  his  breast  in 
his  sorrow,  and  said,  '  God  be  merciful  to  me  the  sinner.' x 

"  The  Pharisee  had  offered  only  a  proud,  cold  thanks- 
giving for  his  own  merits ;  the  Publican  a  humble  cry  for 
mercy. 

"  Believe  me,  this  Publican,  whom  the  Pharisee  gave  a 
place  among  the  extortionate,  the  unjust  and  the  impure, 
received  favour  from  God,  and  returned  to  his  home  forgiven 
and  accepted  ;  but  the  Pharisee  went  away  unjustified.  For, 
as  I  have  often  said,  every  one  who  thinks  highly  of  himself 
in  religious  things  will  be  humbled  before  God,  and  he  who 
humbles  himself  will  be  honoured  before  Him."  2 

Among  the  questions  of  the  day  fiercely  debated  between 
the  great  rival  schools  of  Hillel  and  Shammai,  no  one  was 
more  so  than  that  of  divorce.  The  school  of  Hillel  contended 
that  a  man  had  a  right  to  divorce  his  wife  for  any  cause  he 
might  assign ;  if  it  were  no  more  than  his  having  ceased  to 
love  her,  or  his  having  seen  one  he  liked  better,  or  her  having 
cooked  a  dinner  badly.3  The  school  of  Shammai,  on  the 
contrary,  held  that  divorce  could  be  issued  only  for  the  crime 
of  adultery  and  offences  against  chastity.  If  it  were  possible 
to  get  Jesus  to  pronounce  in  favour  of  either  school,  the 

1  The  article  makes  the  expression  equal  to  "  The  chief  of  sinners." 
*  The  same  sentiment  is  quoted  by  Dukes  from  the  Talmud  (p.  181) : 
"  God  exalts  him  who  humbles  himself  :  God  humbles  him  who  exalta 
himself." 

3  Tholuck.  Bfrrjpredigt.  Matt.  v.  31.  Hor.  Heb.,  vol.  ii.  p.  231. 
Michaelis'  Mas.  Recht,  vol.  ii.  p.  325.  Schiirer,  p.  509.  Bibel  Lex.,  vol.  iii. 
p.  271.  Schleiermacher's  Predigten,  vol.  i.  p.  568.  Schenkel's  Charak* 
terbild,  p.  202.  Newman's  Sermons,  voL  ii.  pp.  247,  131.  Hausrath, 
vol.  i.  p.  369.  Jesus  und  HUM,  p.  27.  Godwyn,  p.  265. 


348  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

hostility  of  the  other  would  be  roused,  and,  hence,  to  "broach 
this  subject  for  His  opinion,  seemed  a  favourable  chance  for 
compromising  Him. 

Some  of  the  Pharisees,  therefore,  took  an  opportunity  of 
raising  the  question.  "  Is  it  lawful,"  they  asked,  "  to  put 
away  one's  wife,  when  a  man  thinks  fit,  for  any  cause  he  is 
pleased  to  assign  ?  Or,  do  you  think  there  are  exceptions  to 
this  rule  ?  " 

There  could  be  no  doubt  that  the  lofty  morality  of  Jesus 
would  condemn  a  mere  human  custom  which  was  corrupting 
the  whole  civil  and  domestic  life  of  the  nation,  and  under- 
mining all  honour,  chastity,  and  love.  He  had  already 
answered  the  question  fully,  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  in 
which  He  had  taught  that  arbitrary  divorce  was  not  per- 
mitted; but  that  was  long  since,  and  He  was  now  in  a 
different  part  of  the  country.  In  was  quite  in  accordance 
with  the  habit  of  the  day  to  appeal  to  any  Rabbi  on  a  dis- 
puted religious  question  or  scruple,  on  lighter  or  weightier 
points ;  it  gratified  the  universal  love  for  controversy,  and 
gave  an  opportunity  for  showing  dialectical  wit  and  sharp- 
ness. But  the  questioners  gained  little  by  trying  their  skill 
on  Jesus. 

"  Have  you  never  read,"  answered  He,  "  that  the  Creator 
of  men  made  man  and  woman  at  the  same  time,  in  the  very 
beginning  of  our  race,  and  gave  them  to  each  other  as  hus- 
band and  wife  P1  And  do  you  not  know  that  so  intimate 
was  the  relation  thus  instituted,  that  close  though  the  con- 
nection be  between  parents  and  children,  God  has  said  that 
that  between  man  and  wife  is  so  much  closer,  that  a  son, 
who,  before,  was  under  his  parents,  and  was  bound  more 
closely  to  them  than  to  any  other  persons  in  the  world,  is  to 
separate  himself  from  his  father  and  mother  when  he  marries, 
and  to  form  a  still  nearer  relationship  with  his  wife — such  a 
relationship  that  the  two  shall  become,  as  it  were,  one.  As 
soon  as  a  man  and  woman  are  married,  therefore,  the  two 
make,  together,  only  one  being.  But  since  it  is  God  who  has 
joined  them  thus,  divorce  is  the  putting  asunder  by  man  of 
what  God  has  made  into  one.  Marriage  is  a  sacred  union, 
and  man  is  not  to  regard  it  as  something  which  he  can  undo 
at  his  pleasure." 

Nothing  could  be  said  against  this  from  natural  grounds, 
but  the  objection  lay  ready  that  the  Law  of  Moses  was  not 

1  Matt.  xix.  3-12.     Mark  I.  2-12. 


MAEBIAGE   AND   DIVORCE .  349 

so  strict,  and  a  prospect  offered  of  forcing  Jesus  either  to 
contradict  Himself,  or  to  pronounce  openly  against  the  great 
founder  of  the  nation.  "  If  this  be  so,"  said  they,  "  how- 
comes  it  that  Moses  permitted  a  man  to  divorce  his  wife  ?  for 
you.  know  that  he  says  that  writings  of  divorcement  might  be 
given  where  a  divorce  was  wished,  and  these  dissolved  the 
marriage/' 

"  Moses,"  replied  our  Lord,  "  did,  indeed,  suffer  you  to 
put  away  your  wives,  to  prevent  a  greater  evil.  He  did  so 
as  a  statesman  and  a  law-giver,  from  the  necessities  of  the 
age,  which  made  any  better  law  impracticable.  Our  fathers 
were  too  rude  and  headstrong  to  permit  his  doing  more. 
But,  though  he  did  not  prohibit  divorce,  because  the  feelings 
of  the  times  did  not  allow  him  to  do  so,  it  does  not  follow 
from  this  that  his  action  in  this  matter  was  the  original  law 
of  the  Creator,  or  that  conscience  and  religion  sanction  such 
separations.  I  say,  therefore,  that  whoever  puts  away  his 
wife,  except  for  fornication — which  destroys  the  very  essence 
of  marriage  by  dissolving  the  oneness  it  had  formed — and 
shall  marry  another,  commits  adultery ;  and  whoever  marries 
her  who  is  put  away  for  any  other  cause  commits  adultery, 
because  the  woman  is  still,  in  God's  sight,  wife  of  him  who 
has  divorced  her." 

This  statement  was  of  far  deeper  moment  than  the  mere 
silencing  of  malignant  spies.  It  was  designed  to  set  forth 
for  all  ages  the  law  of  His  New  Kingdom  in  the  supreme 
matter  of  family  life.  It  swept  away  for  ever  from  His 
Society  the  conception  of  woman  as  a  mere  toy  or  slave  of 
man,  and  based  true  relations  of  the  sexes  on  the  eternal 
foundation  of  truth,  right,  honour,  and  love.  To  ennoble 
the  House  and  the  Family,  by  raising  woman  to  her  true 
position,  was  essential  to  the  future  stability  of  His  Kingdom, 
as  one  of  purity  and  spiritual  worth.  By  making  marriage 
indissoluble  He  proclaimed  the  equal  rights  of  woman  and 
man  within  the  limits  of  the  family,  and,  in  this,  gave  their 
charter  of  nobility  to  the  mothers  of  the  world.  For  her 
nobler  position  in  the  Christian  era,  compared  with  that 
granted  her  in  antiquity,  woman  is  indebted  to  Jesus  Christ. 

When  an  opportunity  offered,  the  disciples  asked  fuller 
instruction  on  a  matter  so  grave.  Customs  or  opinions,  sup- 
ported, apparently,  by  a  national  law,  and  that  law  Divine — 
customs,  the  rightness  of  which  has  never  before  been 
doubted — are  hard  to  uproot,  however  good  the  grounds  on 
which  they  are  challenged.  Hence,  even  the  Twelve  felt  the 


350  THE   LIFE   OP   CHRIST. 

strictness  of  the  new  law  introduced  by  their  Master  respect- 
ing marriage,  and  frankly  told  Him,  that  if  a  man  were  bound 
to  his  wife  as  He  had  said,  it  seemed  to  them  better  not  to 
marry. 

"  With  respect  to  marrying  or  not  marrying,"  replied 
Christ,  "  your  saying  that  it  is  good  for  a  man  not  to  do  so 
is  one  which  cannot  be  received  by  all  men,  but  only  by 
those  to  whom  the  moral  power  to  act  on  it  has  been  given 
by  God.  Some  do  not  marry  from  natural  causes,  and  there 
are  some  who  voluntarily  keep  in  the  single  state,  that  they 
may  give  themselves  with  an  entire  devotion  to  the  service  of 
my  Kingdom.  Let  him  among  you  who  feels  able  to  act  on 
the  lofty  principle  of  denying  himself  the  nobility  and  holi- 
ness of  family  life,  that  he  may  with  more  entire  devotion 
consecrate  himself  to  my  service,  do  so."  Self-sacrifice,  in 
this,  as  in  all  things,  was  left  by  Jesus  to  the  conscience  and 
heart.  Even  His  apostles  were  left  free  to  marry  or  remain 
single,  as  they  chose,1  nor  can  any  depreciation  of  the  married 
state  be  wrung  from  His  words,  except  by  a  manifest  per- 
version of  their  spirit. 

It  is  significant  that  in  the  South,  as  in  Galilee,  the  mothers 
of  households,  though  not  expressly  named,  turned  with 
peculiar  tenderness  and  reverence  to  the  new  Prophet  and 
Rabbi.  They  were  doubtless  encouraged  to  do  so  by  the 
sight  of  the  women  who  now,  as  always,  accompanied  Him 
on  His  journeys  ;  but  the  goodness  that  beamed  in  His  looks, 
and  breathed  in  His  every  word,  drew  them  still  more.  In- 
different to  the  hard  and  often  worthless  disputes  and  ques- 
tions which  engaged  the  other  sex,  they  sought  only  a  bless- 
ing on  the  loved  ones  of  their  hearts  and  homes,  contented 
if  Jesus  would  lay  His  hands  on  their  infants,  and  utter  over 
them  a  word  of  blessing. 

A  beautiful  custom2  led  parents  to  bring  their  children 
at  an  early  age  to  the  synagogue,  that  they  might  have  the 
prayers  and  blessings  of  the  elders.  "  After  the  father  of 
the  child,"  says  the  Talmud,  "  had  laid  his  hands  on  his 
child's  head,  he  led  him  to  the  elders,  one  by  one,  and  they 
also  blessed  him,  and  prayed  that  he  might  grow  up  famous 
in  the  Law,  faithful  in  marriage,  and  abundant  in  good 
works." 3  Children  were  thus  brought,  also,  to  any  Rabbi 

1  1  Cor.  ix.  5. 

2  Matt,  six.  13-15.    Mark  x.  13-16.    Luke  xviii.  15-17.    Newman's 
Sermons,  vol.  i.  p.  443.     Keim,  vol.  iii.  p.  22.     Bibcl  Lex.,  vol.  ii.  p.  154. 

'  Buxtorfg  Syn.  Jud.,  p.  138. 


CHILDEEN  BROUGHT   TO   CHRIST.  351 

of  special  holiness,  and  hence  they  had  been  presented  already 
more  than  once  before  Jesns.  Now,  on  this,  His  last  journey, 
little  children  were  again  brought  to  Him  that  He  might  put 
His  hands  on  them,  and  pray  for  a  blessing  on  their  future 
life.  To  the  disciples,  however,  it  -seemed  only  troubling 
their  Master,  and  they  chid  the  parents  for  bringing  them. 
But  the  feeling  of  Christ  to  children  was  very  different  from 
theirs.  To  look  into  their  innocent  artless  eyes  must  have 
been  a  relief  after  enduring  those  of  spies  and  malignant 
enemies.  He  Himself  had  the  ideal  childlike  spirit,  and  He 
delighted  to  see  His  own  image  in  little  ones.  Purity, 
truthfulness,  simplicity,  sincerity,  docility,  and  loving  de- 
pendence, shone  out  on  Him  from  them,  and  made  them  at 
all  times  His  favourite  types  for  His  followers.  The  Apostles 
needed  the  lessons  their  characteristics  impressed,  and  though 
He  had  enforced  them  before,  He  gladly  took  every  oppor- 
tunity of  repeating  them. 

"  Let  the  little  children  come  to  me,"  said  Jesns,  "  and  do 
not  forbid  them,  for  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  is  given  only 
to  such  as  have  a  childlike  spirit  and  nature  like  theirs." 
Instead  of  being  too  young  for  the  bestowal  of  His  blessing, 
He  saw  in  their  simplicity  and  innocence  the  fond  earnest 
of  the  character  he  sought  to  reproduce  in  mankind.  The 
citizens  of  His  Kingdom  must  become  like  them  by  change  of 
heart  and  a  lowly  spiritual  life.  Stooping  down,  therefore, 
He  took  them  up  in  His  arms,  put  His  hands  on  them,  and 
blessed  them.  Even  the  least  incidents  were  thus  ever 
turned  to  the  highest  uses. 

The  need  of  this  childlike  spirit,  and  the  sad  results  of  its 
absence,  must  have  been  brought  home  to  the  Apostles  by 
an  occurrence  in  their  next  day's  journey.  Starting  south- 
wards, on  the  way  to  Jerusalem,  a  young  man,  whose 
exemplary  character  had  already  made  him  a  ruler  of  the 
local  synagogue,  came  running  after  Him,1  and,  approaching 
Him  with  great  respect,  kneeled  before  Him,  as  was  usual 
before  a  venerated  Rabbi.2  "  Teacher,"  said  he,  "  I  shall 
greatly  thank  Thee  if  thou  wilt  ease  my  mind.  I  have 
laboured  diligently  to  do  good  works  of  all  kinds  prescribed 
by  the  Law,  but  I  do  not  feel  satisfied  that  I  have  done 

1  Matt.  xix.  16-30 ;  xx.  1-16.     Mark  x.  17-31.    Lnke  xiii.  18-30. 

2  Hor.  Heb.     Mark  x.  17.     Keim's  Christus,  pp.  31,  93,  184.     Keim's 
Jttu  von  Nazara,  vol.  iii.  p.  30.     Ullmann,  pp.  109,  216.     Jiid.  Hand- 
icerkerleben,  p.  80.    Posenmiiller,  Meyer,  Godet,  Ewald,  Paulus,  Lange, 
Le  Wettf,  et  al.  in  loc. 


352  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

enough  ;  I  am  not  sure,  after  all,  that  I  shall  inherit  eternal 
life  in  the  Kingdom,  of  the  Messiah.  Pray,  tell  me  what 
special  good  work  can  I  do  to  secure  this." 

"Why  do  you  ask  me  what  is  right  to  do?"  answered 
Jesus.  "  Your  question  is  superfluous,  for  it  answers  itself. 
There  is  only  one  Absolute  Good — that  is,  God.  The  gtod 
act  respecting  which  you  inquire  can  be  nothing  else  than 
perfect  obedience  to  His  holy  will.  If  you  really  would 
enter  into  life  eternal,  you  must  keep  the  Commandments 
given  you  by  Him." 

The  young  man  expected  to  hear  some  new  and  special 
commands,  requiring  unwonted  pains,  and  securing  corre- 
spondingly great  merit  by  faultless  obedience.  The  answer 
of  Jesus  was  too  general  to  help  him  in  this.  He,  therefore, 
asked,  What  commands  Christ  particularly  meant. 

To  his  astonishment  and  mortification,  instead  of  naming 
some  ceremonial  injunctions,  as  the  Rabbis  would  have  doie, 
Jesus  simply  quoted  some  of  the  well-known  commandments 
of  the  Second  Table  :  "  Thou  shalt  not  kill,"  "  Thou  shalt 
not  commit  adultery,"  "  Thou  shalt  not  steal,"  "  Thou  shalt 
not  bear  false  witness,"  "  Honour  thy  father  and  thy  mother," 
closing  the  list  with  the  greatest  of  all :  "  Thou-  shalt  love 
thy  neighbour  as  thyself,"  which  was  thus  put  last  as  the 
one  by  which  He  intended  to  bring  the  young  man  to  the 
test. 

These  were  only  the  common  duties  required  of  all  men, 
and,  as  such,  had  a  conventional  fulfilment  which  satisfied 
human  standards.  Their  scope  was  very  different,  however, 
in  the  eyes  of  Jesus,  and  this  the  young  man  presently  felt. 

His  upright  and  honest  life  brought  no  blush  at  the  enu- 
meration. Humbly,  except  for  the  secret  pride  of  self- 
righteousness,  and  with  all  reverent  docility,  he  replied  : 

"  I  believe  I  can  say  that  I  have  strictly  kept  all  these 
commands.1*  In  what  respect  do  I  still  come  short?  " 

The  question  itself  revealed  his  spiritual  deficiencies.  It 
showed  that,  however  sincere  in  his  efforts  after  such  a  life 
as  would  secure  heaven,  he  had  not  risen  above  the  outward 
service  of  the  letter,  and  had  realized  neither  the  spirit  of  the 
commandments  as  a  whole,  nor,  in  particular,  the  infinite 
breadth  of  that  which  enjoined  love  to  his  neighbour.  Had 
he  seen  this  in  its  true  grandeur,  it  would  have  hinted  a 
higher  moral  task  than  merely  legal  conceptions  of  duty  had 
taught  him,  and  have  supplied,  at  the  same  time,  an  impulse 
towards  its  fulfilment. 


ONE   THING   THOU   LACKEST.  353 

Jesus  read  his  heart  in  a  moment,  and  was  won  by  the 
guilelessness  of  his  answer  and  question,  and  by  the  evident 
worth  of  his  character.  As  He  looked  at  him,  so  earnest,  so 
humble,  so  admirable  in  his  life  and  spirit,  He  loved  him. 
Could  he  only  stand  the  testing  demand  that  must  now  be 
made,  he  would  pass  into  the  citizenship  of  the  kingdom  of 
God. 

"  You  lack  one  thing  yet,"  said  Jesus,  therefore,  "  if  you 
really  wish  to  be  perfect.  Had  you  understood  the  com- 
mands of  God  in  their  depth  and  breadth,  you  would  not 
have  asked  if  you  could  do  anything  more  than  you  had 
done ;  their  living  power  in  you  would  have  suggested  con- 
tinually fresh  duties.  When  you  ask  me  to  tell  you  what 
next  to  do,  it  shows  that  you  think  only  of  tasks  imposed 
from  without,  and  do  m>t  act  from  a  principle  in  your  own 
soul.  If  your  desire  for  eternal  life  be  supreme,  as  it  ought 
to  be,  go  home,  sell  all  that  you  have,  and  give  what  you. 
get  for  it  to  the  poor,  and  instead  of  the  earthly  riches  thus 
given  in  charity,  you  will  have  treasure  in  heaven.  Then, 
come  to  me,  be  my  disciple,  and  bear  your  cross  after  me, 
as  I  bear  mine." 

The  demand,  great  though  it  seems,  was  exactly  suited  to 
the  particular  case.  It  was  a  special  test  in  a  special  instance, 
though  underneath  it  lay  the  unconditional  self-sacrifice  and 
self-surrender  for  Christ,  required  from  all  His  disciples.  It 
could  not  fail  to  bring  the  young  man  to  a  clearer  self- 
knowledge,  and  thus,  to  a  wholly  new  conception  of  what 
true  religion  demanded.  The  only  way  to  lead  him  to  a 
healthier  moral  state  was  to  humble  him,  by  a  disclosure 
of  weakness  hitherto  unsuspected.  He  had  fancied  himself 
willing  to  do  whatever  could  be  required ;  he  could  now  see 
if  he  really  were  so.  He  had  thought  he  cared  for  nothing 
in  comparison  with  gaining  heaven ;  he  could  now  judge  for 
himself  if  he  had  not  erred. 

It  might  have  been  hoped  that  this  lofty  counsel,  the 
repetition  of  that  which  had  been  so  often  given  to  others 
before,  would  have  roused  one  so  earnest  to  a  noble  enthu- 
siasm, before  which  all  lower  thoughts  would  have  lost  their 
power.  The  love  he  had  inspired  in  Jesus  must  have  shown 
itself  towards  him  in  every  look  and  tone  ;  there  must  have 
been  every  desire  to  attract  and  win,  none  to  repel.  But 
the  one  absolute,  constant  condition  of  acceptance  demanded 
from  all — supreme,  unrestricted  devotion  to  Himself  and  Hia 
cause,  and  willingness  to  sacrifice  all  human  ties  and  posses- 


354  THE   LIFE   OF   CHKIST. 

sions,  or  even  life,  for  His  sake — could  in  no  case  be  lowered. 
Poor,  friendless,  outlawed,  Jesus  abated  no  jot  of  his  awful 
claims,  loftier  than  human  monarch  had  ever  dreamed  of 
making,  on  all  who  sought  citizenship  in  His  Kingdom. 

The  test  exacted  was  fatal,  at  least  for  the  time.  It  was 
precisely  that  which  the  young  man  had  least  expected,  and 
was  a  thousand  times  harder  than  any  legal  enforcements ; 
painful  and  protracted  even  as  those  by  which  the  highest 
grade  of  ceremonial  holiness  was  attained.1  Had  Jesus 
invited  him  to  be  His  disciple  without  requiring  the  condition 
He  had  so  often  declared  indispensable,  there  would  have 
been  instant,  delighted  acceptance.  But  that  could  not  be. 
He  could  not  say  "  Be  my  disciple,"  till  He  had  secured  his 
supreme  devotion. 

Rich,  and  already  a  magistrate— for  Church  and  State 
with  the  Jews  were  identical — the  demand  staggered  and 
overwhelmed  the  young  man.  A  moment's  thought,  and  his 
broad  acres  and  social  position,  which  he  must  give  up  for 
ever  if  he  would  follow  Jesus,  raised  a  whole  army  of  hin- 
drances and  hesitations.  The  condition  imposed  had  no 
limitation,  but  neither  had  his  own  question  to  which  it  was 
a  reply.  He  had  been  touched  where  weakest,  but  this  was 
exactly  what  his  repeated  request  demanded.  Why  should 
Jesus  have  asked  less  from  him  than  from  other  disciples  ? 
It  was,  doubtless,  harder  for  a  rich  than  for  a  poor  man  to 
leave  all,  but  there  must,  in  no  case,  be  room  for  doubt  of 
the  entire  sincerity  of  those  admitted  as  disciples,  and  this 
could  be  tested  only  by  their  readiness  to  sacrifice  all  to 
become  so.  It  was  less,  besides,  to  demand  this,  as  things 
were,  for  discipleship  would  only  too  surely  involve,  very 
soon,  not  only  loss  of  all  earthly  goods,  but  life-long  trials, 
and  even  death. 

But  the  world  got  the  better  in  the  young  man's  heart,  and 
he  went  away  sorrowful,  at  the  thought  that  he  was  volun- 
tarily excluding  himself  from  the  Kingdom  of  the  Messiah. 
Yet,  the  wide  fields,  the  rich  possessions — how  could  he 
give  them  up  ? 

"  How  hardly  shall  they  that  have  riches  enter  into  the 
Kingdom  of  God  !  "  said  Jesus,  as  the  candidate  for  dis^ci pie- 
ship  went  away,  evidently  in  great  mental  distress.2  "  It  is 
easier,"  continued  He,  "  to  use  a  proverb  you  often  hear,  for 
a  camel  to  go  through  the  eye  of  a  needle,  than  for  a  rich 
man  to  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  God."  ' 

1  See  vol.  i.  p.  239.     J  Matt.  xix.  23-30.  Mark  x.  23-31.  Luke  xviii.  30, 


SELL  ALL   THAT  THOU  HAST!  355 

The  words  fell  with  a  new  and  perplexing  sonnd  on  the 
ears  of  the  apostles.  Like  all  Jews,  they  had  been  accustomed 
to  regard  worldly  prosperity  as  a  special  mark  of  the  favour 
of  God — for  their  ancient  Scriptures  seemed  always  to  con- 
nect the  enjoyment  of  temporal  blessings  with  obedience  to 
the  Divine  law.1  They  still,  moreover,  secretly  cherished  the 
hope  of  an  earthly  kingdom  of  the  Messiah,  in  which  richea 
would  be  showered  on  His  favourites,  and,  even  apart  from 
all  this,  if  it  were  hard  to  enter  this  "  Kingdom  of  Heaven," 
except  by  stooping  to  absolute  poverty,  it  seemed  as  if  very 
few  could  be  saved  at  all. 

"  Children,  how  hard  is  it  for  them  that  trust  in  riches  to 
enter  into  the  kingdom  of  God,"  d  repeated  Jesus,  seeing  their 
wonder  and  evident  uneasiness.  "  It  is  easier  for  a  camel  to 
go  through  the  eye  of  a  needle  than  for  a  rich  man,  who 
clings  to  his  riches,  to  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  God." 

"  Who,  then,  can  be  saved?  "  asked  some  of  them. 

"  With  men  it  is  impossible,"  replied  Jesus,  fixing  His  eyes 
earnestly  on  them,  "  but  not  with  God ;  for  with  God  all  things 
are  possible.  He  can  bestow  heavenly  grace  to  wean  the 
heart  from  worldly  riches ;  apart  from  this,  the  world  will 
prevail." 

Peter,  especially,  had  listened  with  deep  attention  to  all 
that  had  passed,  and  had  been  mentally  applying  it  to  the 
case  of  his  fellow-disciples  and  himself.  Their  minds  were 
still  full  of  the  Jewish  idea  of  merit  before  God,  and  of  a  claim 
to  corresponding  reward.  When  Jesus  summoned  them  to 
follow  Him,  they  had  been  exactly  in  the  young  man's  position, 
though  they  had  not  had  so  much  to  surrender.  They  had  given 
up  everything  for  Him,  at  His  first  invitation — their  families, 
houses,  occupations,  and  prospects.  However  little  in  them- 
selves, these  had  been  the  whole  world  to  them.  It  seemed 
only  natural,  therefore,  that  they  should  have  a  proportion  of 
that  treasure  which  Jesus  had  promised  the  young  man,  if  he 
forsook  all  for  His  sake. 

In  keeping  with  his  natural  frank  impulsiveness,  Peter 
could  not  restrain  his  thoughts,  and  asked  Jesus  directly  what 
he  and  his  fellow- Apostles  would  have  for  their  loyalty  to 
Him? 

Knowing  the  honest  simplicity  of  the  Twelve,  their  Master, 
instead  of  reproving  their  boldness,  cheered  them  with  words 
which  must  have  sounded  inconceivably  grand  to  Galilsean 
fishermen. 

1  Deut.  xxviii. 


856  THE   LIFE   OF  CHRIST. 

"  Be  assured  that  at  the  final  triumph  of  my  Kingdom, 
•when  all  things  shall  be  delivered  from  their  present  cor- 
ruption, and  restored,  through  me  and  my  work,  to  the  glory 
they  had  before  sin  entered  the  world ;  when  I,  the  now 
despised  Son  of  man,  shall  come  again,  seated  on  the  throne 
of  my  glory,  you  who  have  followed  me  in  my  humiliation, 
will  be  exalted  to  kingly  dignity,  and  shall  sit,  each  of  you, 
on  his  throne,  to  judge  the  twelve  tribes  of  Israel.  Yea, 
more ;  every  one  who  gives  up  his  brethren,  or  sisters,  or 
father,  or  mother,  or  children,  or  lands,  or  houses,  that  he 
may  the  more  unreservedly  spread  my  Gospel  and  honour 
my  name,  will  be  rewarded  a  hundredfold.  Even  in  this 
present  life  he  will  receive  back  again  richly  all  he  has  left—- 
houses, and  brethren,  and  sisters,  and  mothers,  and  children  ; 
for  he  will  find  among  those  who  believe  in  me,  a  compen- 
sation for  all ;  he  will  regard  and  be  allowed  freely  to  use 
their  means  as  his  own,  and  be  welcomed  by  them  with  more 
than  brotherly  friendship.  But,  with  all  this,  he  will  have 
to  bear  persecution.1  In  the  future  world,  moreover,  he  will 
have  a  still  greater  reward,  for  there  he  will  inherit  ever- 
lasting life. 

"  But,"  added  He,  by  way  of  warning,  "  Do  not  trust  to 
your  having  been  the  first  to  follow  me.  For  the  rewards  of 
the  kingdom  of  heaven  will  be  like  those  given  by  a  house- 
holder who  had  a  vineyard,  and,  needing  labourers  for  it, 
went  out  early  in  the  morning  to  hire  them.  Having  found 
some,  he  agreed  to  give  them  a  denarius  a  day,  and  sent  them 
into  the  vineyard.  Going  out  again  about  the  third  hour — 
nine  o'clock — he  saw  others  standing  idle  in  the  market-place, 
and  sent  them  also  into  the  vineyard,  making  no  bargain  with 
them,  however,  but  bidding  them  trust  him  that  he  would 
give  them  what  was  just.  He  did  the  same  at  the  sixth  and 
at  the  ninth  hours.  Finally,  he  went  out  at  the  eleventh 
hour,  and  found  still  others  standing  about,  and  asked  why 
they  had  stayed  there  all  the  day,  idle.  '  Because  no  one 
has  hired  us,'  replied  they,  '  Go  ye  also  into  the  vineyard,' 
said  he,  '  and  you  shall  receive  whatever  is  right.' 

"  When  the  evening  was  come,  the  lord  of  the  vineyard 
bade  his  overseer  call  the  labourers,  and  pay  them  all  the 
same  sum — the  denarius,  for  which  he  had  agreed  with  the 
first.  He  was  also  to  begin  with  those  who  came  into  the 
vineyard  last. 

1  Acts  iv.  82. 


THE   LABOURERS  IN  THE   VINEYARD.  357 

"When  they  came,  therefore,  who  were  hired  at  the 
eleventh  hour,  they  received  each  a  denarius.  But  when 
the  first  came,  they  supposed  they  should  have  received 
more ;  but  they  also  received,  each,  only  the  same  amount. 
And  when  they  received  it,  they  murmured  against  the  house- 
holder, saying,  '  Those  who  came  in  last  did  only  one  hour's 
work,  and  thoii  hast  made  them  equal  to  us,  who  bore  the 
scorching  wind  from  the  desert  at  sunrise,1  and  the  heat  of 
the  day.'  But  he  answered  one  of  them,  '  Friend,  I  do  thee 
no  wrong ;  didst  not  thou  agree  with  me  for  a  denarius  ? 
Take  what  is  yours,  and  go ;  I  desire  to  give  the  same  to  those 
who  came  in  last,  as  unto  thee.  Is  it  not  lawful  for  me  to  do 
what  I  will  in  my  own  affairs  ?  Is  thine  eye  evil  because  I 
am  good  ?  ' 

"  The  householder  thus  made  the  first  last,  and  the  last 
first,  because  the  first  had  been  working  for  hire,  while  the 
others  had  simply  trusted  his  promise.  He  who  works  in  my 
kingdom  for  the  sake  of  a  reward  hereafter,  may  do  his  work 
well,  but  he  honours  me  less  than  others  who  trust  in  me 
without  thinking  of  future  gain.  The  spirit  in  which  you 
labour  for  me  gives  your  service  its  value.  He  who  is  called 
late  in  life,  and  serves  me  unselfishly,  will  stand  higher  at  the 
great  day  than  he  who  has  served  me  longer,  but  with  a  less 
noble  motive.  Many  are  called  to  join  my  kingdom  and 
work  in  it,  but  few  show  themselves  especially  worthy  of 
honour  by  their  spirit  and  zeal.2  If  the  first  find  themselves 
last,  it  will  be  their  own  fault ;  for  though  no  one  can  claim 
reward  as  his  due  in  the  Kingdom  of  God,  yet  I  give  it,  of 
favour,  to  those  first  who  serve  me  most  purely.  He,  I  re- 
peat, who  works  most  devotedly,  without  thought  of  reward, 
will  be  first,  though,  perhaps,  last  to  be  called ;  he  will  be 
chosen  to  honour,  while  others,  less  zealous  and  loving,  though 
earlier  called,  will  remain  undistinguished." 

Nothing  could  have  been  more  fitted  to  check  any  tendency 
to  self-importance  and  pride,  so  natural  in  men  raised  to  a 
position  so  inconceivably  above  their  original  station.  Nor 
was  there  room,  henceforth,  for  any  mercenary  thoughts,  even 
of  future  reward,  for  the  discharge  of  their  duty.  They 
could  not  forget,  that,  though  first  to  enter  the  vineyard  of 
the  New  Kingdom,  they  were  yet,  so  far,  on  a  footing  with 

1  Stanley's  Apostolic  Age,  p.  94. 

2  Newman's  Sermons,  vol.  vi.  p.  313.    Godicyn,  p.  81.  See  EosenmUUer, 
De  Wette,  Meyer,  Lange,  Paulut,  and  others,  in  loo. 


358  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

all  who  should  follow  them,  that  the  spiritual  worth  of  their 
work  alone  determined  their  ultimate  honour.  The  special 
reward  promised  by  their  Master  was  a  free  gift  of  God,  not, 
the  payment  of  a  debt,  and  depended  on  their  own  spirit  and 
zeal. 

They  were  now  approaching  the  end  of  their  journey,  for 
they  were  near  Jericho,  at  which  the  road  struck  directly 
west  to  Jerusalem.  Nisan,  the  month  of  the  Passover,  had 
already  come,  and  only  a  few  days  more  remained  of  our 
Saviour's  life.  Nature  was  putting  on  its  spring  beauty, 
and  tlirongs  of  early  pilgrims  were  passing  to  the  Holy  City. 
All  around  was  joy  and  gladness,  but,  nevertheless,  a  deep 
gloom  hung  over  the  little  company  of  Jesus.  Everything 
on  the  way — the  constant  disputes  with  the  Kabbis,  the 
warning  about  Antipas,  the  very  solemnity  of  the  recent 
teachings — combined  to  fill  their  minds  with  an  undefined 
terror.  They  had  shrunk  from  visiting  Bethany,  because  it 
was  near  Jerusalem;  for  they  knew  that  the  authorities  were 
on  the  watch  to  arrest  their  Master,  and  put  Him  to  death. 
He  had  had  to  flee  from  that  village,  first  to  Ephraim,  and 
then,  over  the  Jordan,  to  Perea,  and  yet  He  was  now  de- 
liberately walking  into  the  very  jaws  of  danger.  They  had 
marched  steadily  southwards  through  the  woody  highlands 
of  Gilead ;  they  had  passed  the  rushing  waters  of  the  Jabbok 
and  its  tributaries,  and  seen,  for  a  moment,  once  more, 
the  spot  where  John  had  closed  his  mission.  The  distant 
mountains  of  Machaerus  now  threw  their  shadows  over  their 
route,  and,  everywhere,  the  recollections  of  the  great  herald 
of  their  Master  met  them.  Mount  Nebo,  where  Moses  was 
buried,  and  the  range  of  Attaroth,  where  John's  mutilated 
corpse  had  been  laid  to  rest,  were  within  sight.  Everything 
in  the  associations  of  the  journey  was  solemn,  and  they 
knew  their  national  history  too  well  not  to  fear  that,  for 
Jesus  to  enter  Jerusalem,  would  be  to  share  the  sad  fate  of 
the  prophets  of  old,  whom  it  had  received  only  to  murder. 
It  was  clear  that  there  could  be  but  one  issue,  and  no  less 
so  that  He  was  voluntarily  going  to  His  death.  The  calm 
resolution  with  which  He  thus  carried  out  His  purpose  awed 
them ;  for,  so  far  from  showing  hesitation,  He  walked  at 
their  head,  while  they  could  only  follow  with  excited  alarm. 

Yet,  their  ideas  were  sadly  confused,  and  the  hope  that 
things  might  result  very  differently  alternated  with  their 
fears.  The  old  dream  of  an  earthly  kingdom  still  clung  to 
them,  and  they  fancied  that,  though  Jesus  might  expect 


DEEAMS   OF  AMBITION.  359 

to  be  killed  in  the  national  rising  which  He  would,  per- 
haps, bring  about  at  the  approaching  feast,  He  might  be 
more  fortunate,  and  live  to  establish  a  great  Messianic 
monarchy. 

To  dissipate  such  an  illusion,  He  had  already  told  them, 
twice,  exactly  what  was  before  Him ;  but  to  prepare  them, 
if  possible,  for  the  shock  which  the  sad  realization  of  His 
words  was  so  soon  to  bring,  He  once  more  recapitulated, 
with  greater  minuteness  than  ever,  what  He  knew,  with 
Divine  certainty,  awaited  His  entrance  into  Jerusalem. 

"  Behold,"  said  He,  "  we  are  going  up  to  Jerusalem,  and 
the  Son  of  man  will  be  delivered  to  the  chief  priests  and 
scribes,  and  they  will  condemn  Him  to  death  " l — they,  and 
no  others ;  for,  as  heads  of  the  Old  Kingdom  of  God,  now 
corrupt  and  dying,  they  had  rejected  Him — "  and  they  will 
deliver  Him  to  the  Romans,  to  mock,  and  scourge,  and 
crucify,  but  the  third  day  He  shall  rise  again." 

How  hard  it  is  to  uproot  strong  prepossessions  was  shown 
within  a  few  hours.  In  spite  of  such  repeated  warnings, 
not  only  the  Twelve,  but  the  others  who  followed  Him,  did 
not  understand  what  He  meant.  It  is  easy  for  us  to  do  so, 
after  the  event ;  but  to  anticipate  the  explanation  thus  given 
must  have  been  well-nigh  impossible  to  minds  pre-occupied 
with  ideas  so  radically  opposed  to  it. 

The  mention  of  thrones,  as  in  reversion  for  the  Twelve  at 
"  the  Coming  "  of  their  Master  in  His  glory,  had  neutralized 
the  announcement  of  His  death.  His  open  triumph  was 
expected  as  very  near  at  hand ;  His  death  they  did  not 
understand,  and  could  not  reconcile  with  His  other  state- 
ments, for,  indeed,  they  did  not  wish  to  do  so. 

Dreams  of  ambition,  thus  kindled,  had  risen,  especially  in 
the  minds  of  James  and  John,  who,  with  Peter,  were  the 
most  honoured  of  the  Apostles.  They  had  been  in  a  better 
social  position  than  many  of  their  brethren,  and,  with 
Salome,  their  mother,  had  freely  given  all  they  had,  to  the 
cause  of  their  Master.  Ashamed  to  tell  Him  their  thoughts 
directly,  they  availed  themselves  of  Salome,  whom,  per- 
haps, He  might  the  more  readily  hear,  as  older  than 
they ;  as  a  woman ;  perhaps  as  His  mother's  sister,  and 
as  one  who  had  shown  herself,  like  her  sons,  His  true 
friend. 

She  now  came,  therefore,  with  them,  in  secret,  and,  fall- 

»  Matt.  xx.  17-19.     Mark  x.  33.  34.     Luke  xviii.  31  -34. 

fil 


360  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

ing  on  her  knees,  as  was  the  custom  where  reverence  was  in« 
tended,  and  as  was  especially  due  to  one  whom  she  regarded 
as  the  future  great  Messianic  King,  told  Him  she  was  about 
to  ask  a  surpassing  favour.1  "  What  is  it  ?  "  asked  Jesus. 
"  Say,"  answered  she,  "  that  these,  my  two  sons,  may  sit, 
like  the  chief  ministers  of  other  kings,  at  Thy  feet,  on  Thy 
right  hand  and  Thy  left,  on  the  first  step  of  the  throne,  when 
Thou  getfcest  up  the  Kingdom." 

So  different,  as  yet,  were  the  two  from  what  they  were 
afterwards  to  become,  when  they  had  drunk  more  deeply 
of  their  Master's  spirit ! 

"  You  do  not  understand  what  your  request  implies," 
answered  Jesus.  "  The  highest  place  in  my  Kingdom  can 
only  be  gained  by  drinking  the  cup  of  sore  trial,  of  which  I, 
myself,  shall  drink  presently,  and  enduring  the  same  fierce 
baptism  of  sorrow  and  suffering,  even  to  death,  in  which 
I  am  to  be  plunged.  Do  you  think  you  are  able  to  bear 
all  that  ?  " 

In  simple  true-heartedness,  both  answered,  at  once,  that 
they  were. 

"  You  shall,  indeed,"  replied  Jesus,  "  drink  of  my  cup, 
and  be  baptized  with  the  same  baptism  as  I ;  but,  in  my 
Kingdom,  no  honours  can  be  given  from  mere  favour,  as  in 
kingdoms  of  the  world.  They  can  be  obtained  only  by  those 
fitted  for  them  by  spiritual  greatness.  The  one  way  to 
secure  them  is  through  supreme  self-sacrifice  for  my  sake, 
and  they  are  given  by  my  Father  to  those  alone  who  thus 
show  themselves  worthy.  For  such,  indeed,  they  are  pre- 
pared by  Him  already." 

John  and  James  had  striven  to  hide  their  selfish  and 
ambitious  request,  by  coming  to  Jesus  when  He  was  alone, 
but  the  Ten,  as  was  inevitable,  soon  heard  of  it,  and  were 
indignant  in  the  extreme  at  such  an  unworthy  attempt  to 
forestall  them  in  their  Master's  favour.  Their  own  ambition, 
at  best  only  suppressed,  broke  out,  afresh,  in  a  fierce  storm 
of  jealous  passion.  Such  human  weakness  was  sadly  out  of 
place  at  any  time,  among  the  followers  of  the  meek  and 
lowly  Son  of  man,  but  still  more  so,  now,  when  He  stood 
almost  under  the  shadow  of  the  cross,  and  it  must  have 
caused  Him  the  keenest  sorrow.  Calling  round  Him,  there- 
fore, the  whole  Twelve,  offenders  and  offended,  He  pointed 
out  how  utterly  they  had  misapprehended  the  nature  of 

1  Matt.  xx.  20-28.     Mark  x.  33-45. 


THE   CITY  OF  JERICHO.  361 

His  Kingdom,  notwithstanding  all  His  teaching  through  the 
past  years.1 

"You  are  disputing  about  precedence  in  my  Kingdom," 
said  He,  "  as  if  it  were  like  the  kingdoms  of  the  world. 
Once  more,  let  me  warn  you  that  it  is  wholly  different.  The 
kings  of  the  heathen  nations  around  us  lord  it  over  their 
subjects,  and  their  magnates,  under  them,  exercise  authority 
often  more  imperiously  than  their  chiefs.  But  it  is  very 
different  in  my  Kingdom,  and  a  very  different  spirit  must 
find  place  among  you,  its  dignitaries.  He  who  wishes  to  be 
great  in  that  Kingdom  can  only  be  so  by  becoming  the  ser- 
vant of  the  others ;  and  he  who  wishes  the  very  highest 
rank,  can  only  be  so  by  becoming  their  slave.*  You  may 
see  that  it  must  be  so  from  my  own  case,  your  King  and 
Head — for  I,  the  Son  of  man,  came  not  to  be  ministered 
unto,  as  other  kings  are,  but  to  serve,  and  to  give  up  even 
my  life  as  a  ransom  for  many." 

The  upland  pastures  of  Perea  were  now  behind  them,  and 
the  road  led  down  to  the  sunken  channel  of  the  Jordan, 
and  the  "  divine  district  "'of  Jericho.  This  small  but  rich 
plain  was  the  most  luxuriant  spot  in  Palestine.  Sloping 
gently  upwards  from  the  level  of  the  Dead  Sea,  1,350  feet 
below  the  Mediterranean,  to  the  stern  background  of  the 
hills  of  Quarantana,  it  had  the  climate  of  Lower  Egypt,  and 
displayed  the  vegetation  of  the  tropics.  Its  fig-trees  were 
pre-eminently  famous ;  it  was  unique  in  its  groves  of  palms 
of  various  kinds ;  its  crops  of  dates  were  a  proverb ;  the 
balsam-plant,  which  grew  principally  here,  furnished  a 
costly  perfume,  and  was  in  great  repute  for  healing  wounds  ; 
maize  yielded  a  double  harvest ;  wheat  ripened  a  whole 
month  earlier  than  in  Galilee,  and  innumerable  bees  found  a 
paradise  in  the  many  aromatic  flowers  and  plants,  not  a  few 
unknown  elsewhere,  which  filled  the  air  with  odours  and 
the  landscape  with  beauty. 

Rising  like  an  amphitheatre  from  amidst  this  luxuriant 
scene,  lay  Jericho,  the  chief  place  east  of  Jerusalem,  on 
swelling  slopes,  seven  or  eight  miles  distance  from  the 
Jordan,  and  seven  hundred  feet  above  the  river  bed,  from 

1  Authorities  :  Schenkel's  Bibfl  Lex.,  vol.  iii.  p.  259  ;  vol.  iv.  p.  121 ; 
vol.  ii.  p.  152;  vol.  v.  p.  424.  Keim's  Chris'us,  pp.  41,  74,  93.  Haus- 
rath,  vol.  i.  pp.  319,  383,  390.  Schenkel's  Charakterbild,  p.  216. 
Sckleierm  acker's  Predigten,  vol.  i.  p.  425.  Newman's  Sermons,  vol.  iv. 
p.  295  ;  vol.  ii.  p.  320  ;  vol.  i.  pp.  165,  455.  Melvill'a  Sermons,  vol.  ii 
p.  59,  et  fti. 


362  THE   LIFE   OF   CHKIST. 

•which  its  gardens  and  groves,  thickly  interspersed  with 
mansions,  and  covering  seventy  furlongs  from  north  to 
south,  and  twenty  from  east  to  west,  were  divided  by  a  strip 
of  wilderness.1  The  town  had  had  an  eventful  history.  Once 
the  stronghold  of  the  Canaanites,  it  was  still,  in  the  days 
of  Christ,  surrounded  by  towers  and  castles.  Thrax  and 
Taurus,  two  of  them,  at  the  entrance  of  the  city,  lay  in  ruins 
since  the  time  of  Pompey,  but  the  old  citadel  Dock,  towered 
aloft — dark  with  the  recollection  that  its  heroic  builder, 
Simon  Maccabaeus,  and  his  two  sons,  had  been  murdered  in 
its  chambers.  Kypros,  the  last  fortress  built  by  Herod  the 
Great,  who  had  called  it  after  his  mother,  rose  white  in  the 
sun  on  the  south  of  the  town.  The  palace  of  the  Asmonean 
kings  stood  amidst  gardens,  but  it  had  been  deserted 
by  royalty  since  the  evil  genius  of  her  house,  Alexandra, 
the  mother-in-law  of  Herod,  and  mother  of  Mariamne,  had 
lived  in  it.  The  great  palace  of  Herod,  in  the  far-famed 
groves  of  palms,  had  been  plundered  and  burned  down  in 
the  tumults  that  followed  his  death,  but  in  its  place  a 
grander  structure,  built  by  Archelaus,  had  risen  amidst  even 
finer  gardens,  and  more  copious  and  delightful  streams.  A 
great  theatre  and  spacious  circus,  built  by  Herod,  scanda- 
lized the  Jews,  not  less  by  their  unholy  amusements  than 
by  the  remembrance  that  the  elders  of  the  nation  had  been 
shut  up  in  the  latter  by  the  dying  tyrant,  to  be  cut  down  at 
his  death,  in  revenge  for  the  hatred  borne  him.  Nor  was  the 
murder  of  the  young  Asmonean,  Aristobulus,  in  the  great 
pools  which  surrounded  the  old  Asmonean  palace,  forgotten  ; 
nor  the  time  when  Cleopatra  had  wrung  the  rich  oasis  from 
the  hands  of  Herod,  by  her  spell  over  her  lover,  Antony.  A 
great  stone  aqueduct  of  eleven  arches  brought  a  copious 
supply  of  water  to  the  city,  and  the  Roman  military  road 
ran  through  it.  The  houses  themselves,  however,  though 
showy,  were  not  substantial,  but  were  built  mostly  of  sun- 
dried  brick,  like  those  of  Egypt ;  so  that  now,  as  in  the 
similar  cases  of  Babylon,  Nineveh,  or  Egypt,  after  long 
desolation  hardly  a  ti-ace  of  them  remains.2 

A  great  multitude  accompanied  Jesus  as  He  drew  near 
Jericho — pilgrims,  on  foot,  or  on  asses,  or  camels — who  had 
come  from  all  the  side  passes  and  cross  roads  of  Perea  and 

1  Sepp,  vol.  v.  p.  393. 

1  This  description  is  taken  from  Winer,  Herzog,  Smith,  Schtnkel, 
RShr,  Hausrath,  Keim,  and  others. 


BLINDNESS   IN   THE   EAST.  363 

Galilee.  They  met  at  this  central  point  to  go  up  to  the 
Passover,  at  Jerusalem ;  not  a  few  with  an  eye  to  the  trade 
with  foreign  pilgrims,  driven  so  briskly  in  the  Holy  City 
at  this  season,  as  well  as  for  devotion. 

Near  the  gate  of  the  town  one  of  the  last  miracles  of  on  r 
Lord  was  performed.  Like  the  Temple  itself,  all  the  roads 
leading  to  Jerusalem  were  much  frequented  at  the  times 
of  the  feasts,  by  beggars,  who  reaped  a  special  harvest  from 
the  charity  of  the  pilgrims. 

Blindness  is  remarkably  frequent  in  the  East.  While  in 
northern  Europe  only  one  in  a  thousand  is  blind,  in 
Egypt  there  is  one  in  every  hundred ;  indeed,  very  few 
persons  there  have  their  eyes  quite  healthy.  The  great 
changes  of  temperature  at  different  times  of  the  day,  especi- 
ally between  day  and  night,  cause  inflammation  of  the  eyes, 
as  well  as  of  other  parts,  both  in  Palestine  and  on  the  Lower 
Nile  ;  while  neglect  and  stupid  prejudice,  refusing  or  slight- 
ing remedies  in  the  earlier  stages,  lead  to  blindness  in  many 
cases  that  otherwise  might  have  been  easily  cured.1 

Among  the  beggars  who  had  gathered  on  the  sides  of  the 
road  at  Jericho  were  two  who  had  thus  lost  their  sight : 
one  of  whom  only,  by  name  Bar-Timaeus,g  for  some  special 
reason,  is  particularly  noticed  by  two  of  the  Gospels,  in  the 
incident  that  followed.2 

They  had  probably  heard  of  the  cure,  at  Jerusalem, 
of  the  man  who  had  been  born  blind,  and  learning  now 
from  the  crowd  that  the  great  wonder-worker  was  passing 
by,  at  once  appealed  to  Him  as  the  Son  of  David — the 
Messiah — to  have  mercy  on  them.  The  multitude  tried  in 
vain  to  silence  them  :  they  only  cried  the  louder.  At  last, 
Jesus  came  near,  and,  standing  still,  commanded  them  to  be 
brought.  In  a  moment  their  upper  garment,  which  would 
have  hindered  them,  was  cast  aside,  and,  leaping  up,  they 
stood  before  Him  with  their  artless  tale  ;  that  they  believed 
He  could  open  their  eyes,  and  they  prayed  He  would  do  so. 
A  touch  sufficed :  immediately  their  eyes  received  sight 
again,  and  they  joined  in  the  throng  that  followed  their 
Healer. 

Jericho  was  a  Levitical  city,  and  hence  the  residence  of  a 
great  many  priests ;  its  position  as  the  centre  of  an  excep- 
tionally productive  district,  and  also  of  the  import  and 

1  Bibel  Lex.,  Art.  Blindheit. 
2  Matt.  xx.  29-34.    Mark  x.  46-52.     Luke  xviii.  35-43 ;  xix.  1. 


364  THE   LIFE   OF   CHBIST. 

export  trade  between  the  two  sides  of  the  Jordan,  made  it, 
also,  a  city  of  publicans.  It  had  much  the  same  place  in 
Southern  Palestine  as  that  held  in  Galilee  by  Capernaum,  tho 
centre  of  the  trade  between  the  sea-coast  and  the  northern 
interior,  as  far  as  Damascus.  The  transit  to  and  fro  of  so 
much  wealth  brought  with  it  proportionate  work  and  bar- 
vest  for  the  farmers  of  the  revenue.  Hence,  a  strong  force 
of  customs  and  excise  collectors  was  stationed  in  it,  under 
a  local  head,  named  Zacchasus,  whom,  in  our  day,  we  might 
have  called  a  commissioner  of  customs.  In  a  system  so 
oppressive  and  arbitrary  as  the  Roman  taxation,  the  inhabit- 
ants must  have  suffered  heavily  at  the  hands  of  such  a  com- 
plete organization.  To  be  friendly  with  any  of  their  number 
was  not  the  way  to  secure  the  favour  of  the  people  at  large. 

Zacchaeus,  especially,  was  disliked  and  despised,  for,  though 
a  Jew,  he  had  grown  rich  by  an  infamous  profession,  and 
was,  in  the  eyes  of  his  fellow-townsmen,  not  only  an  extor- 
tioner, but,  by  his  serving  the  Romans,  a  traitor  to  his  race, 
and  to  their  invisible  King,  Jehovah.  His  personal  character, 
moreover,  seems  to  have  been  bad,  for  he  owned  to  Jesus 
that  he  had,  at  least  in  some  cases,  wrung  money  from  his 
fellow-townsmen  by  swearing  falsely  against  them  before  the 
magistrates. 

Jesus  had  seldom  passed  that  way,  and  hence  His  person 
was  little  known,  though  report  had  spread  His  name  widely 
Among  others,  Zacchaeus  was  anxious  to  see  Him,1  and, 
being  a  little  man,  he  had  run  before  the  caravan  with  which 
our  Lord  was  entering  the  town,  and  had  taken  his  station 
in  one  of  the  ever-green  fig-trees — a  sycamore — of  which 
some  grew  at  the  wayside,  of  great  size,  a  few  even  fifty 
feet  in  circumference.  They  were  easy  to  climb,  from  their 
short  trunks,  and  wide  branches  forking  out  in  all  direc- 
tions.2 

He  had  never  seen  Jesus ;  and  having  no  idea  that  he  was 
known  to  Him,  must  have  been  astounded  when  the  Great 
Teacher,  as  He  passed  the  spot,  looked  up,  and,  addressing 
him  by  name,  told  him  to  make  haste  and  come  down,  as  He 
intended  to  be  his  guest  that  night.3  A  Divine  purpose  of 
mercy,  as  yet  known  to  Jesus  alone,  had  determined  this 
self -invitation.  Though  all  others  shunned  the  chief  of  the 
publicans  as  specially  disreputable,  he  was  chosen  in  loving 
pity  by  Jesus,  as  His  host.  The  word  was  enough  ;  in  an 

1  Luke  xix.  2-28.  *  Tristram,  p.  399.  3  John  i.  39. 


ZACCH^US   THE   PUBLICAN.  365 

instant  he  was  in  the  road,  and  pressingly  welcomed 
Christ  to  his  hospitality.  That  he,  the  hated  and  despised 
one,  should  have  been  thus  favoured,  in  a  moment  won  his 
heart,  and  waked  the  impulse  of  a  new  and  better  life  ;  but 
it  also  raised  the  hostile  feeling  of  the  multitude.  Voices 
on  every  side  were  heard  mnrnmring  that  "  He  was  gone,  in. 
defiance  of  the  Law,  and  of  public  feeling  and  patriotic  duty, 
to  lodge  with  the  chief  publican." 

They  little  knew  the  mighty  change  His  having  done  so 
had,  instantaneously,  wrought  in  a  sonl  hitherto  degraded  and 
lost,  not  less  by  an  ignoble  life,  than  by  the  social  proscrip- 
tion which  barred  all  hope  of  self-recovery.  Christ  had 
completely  overcome  him,  for  He  had  treated  him  as  a  man, 
with  respect,  and  shown  him  that  the  way  still  lay  open,  even 
to  him,  to  a  new  and  better  future.  The  two  had  meanwhile, 
apparently,  reached  the  court  of  Zacchoeus'  house,  and  the 
crowd  pressed  closely  round  as  Jesus  was  about  to  enter  a 
dwelling,  the  threshold  of  which  no  respectable  Jew  would 
think  of  crossing.  He  was  braving  a  harsh  public  opinion, 
and  incurring  the  bitterest  hatred  of  the  Jewish  religions 
leaders,  by  openly  disregarding  the  laws  of  ceremonial 
defilement,  and  by  treating  with  honour  one  whom  they 
denounced  as  accursed.  Zacchoeus  was  overpowered  with 
a  sense  of  the  unselfish  magnanimity  which  could  prompt 
such  treatment  of  one  who  had  'no  claim  to  it.  He  would 
signalize  the  event  by  an  open  and  public  vow.  Standing 
before  the  crowd,  therefore,  he  addressed  Christ :  "  Lord,  I 
feel  deeply  the  honour  and  loving  service  you  do  me,  and 
T  hereby  vow  that  I  shall  give  one-half  of  my  goods  to  the 
poor,  to  show  how  much  I  thank  Thee.  Andj  still  more,  if, 
as  I  lament  to  think  has  been  the  case,  I  have  ever  taken 
any  money  from  any  one  by  false  accusation,  I  promise 
to  repay  him  four-fold — the  highest  restitution  that  even 
Roman  law  demands  from  one  guilty  of  such  an  offence." 

"  This  day  is  salvation  come  to  this  house,"  said  Jesus,  as 
He  heard  such  words,1  "  for  this  man,  sinner  though  he  be, 
is,  nevertheless,  a  son  of  Abraham,  and  now  shows  himself 
humbled  and  penitent.  I  came  to  seek  and  to  save  that 
which  was  lost,  and  I  rejoice  to  have  won  back  to  the  fold  of 

1  Land  and  Book,  p.  22.  Furrer,  pp.  184,  151,  66.  Bibel  Lex.,  vol.  v. 
p.  424.  Schenkel's  Charaktcrbild,  p.  197.  Bibd  Lex.,  vol.  iv.  p.  295. 
Robertson's  Sermnns,  vol.  i.  p.  70 ;  vol.  ii.  p.  213.  Schleiermacher'a 
Predigten,  vol.  iii.  p.  203.  Keim,  vol.  iii.  p.  47.  Hausrath,  vol.  i.  p. 
366. 


366  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

God,  a  child  of  Israel  who  had  wandered  so  far  from  Him." 
He  had  foreseen  the  whole  incident,  by  His  Divine  power, 
and  calmly  ignored  all  recognition  of  caste  or  class  when  a 
human  soul  was  to  be  saved. 

"  Before  yon  leave,"  He  continued,  still  addressing  the 
crowd  in  the  court-yard,  or  outside  it,  "  let  me  tell  you  a 
parable.  I  know  what  is  in  your  thoughts.  You  see  that  I 
am  near  Jerusalem,  and  suppose  I  shall  take  advantage  of 
the  Passover,  when  such  vast  throngs  of  Jews  are  in  the 
Holy  City,  to  proclaim  the  Kingdom  of  the  Messiah  in  the 
way  you  expect,  by  insurrection  and  force.  Let  me  set 
before  you  the  truth." 

With  that  marvellous  power  of  turning  every  incident  to 
practical  account,  which  marked  His  teaching,  He  proceeded 
to  repeat  a  parable  borrowed,  in  many  particulars,  from  facts 
in  their  recent  or  passing  national  history.1  Archelaus  had 
set  out  for  Rome,  most  likely  from  Jericho  itself,  not  many 
years  before,  to  obtain  investiture  in  the  kingdom  left  to 
him  by  the  will  of  his  father  Herod,  and  the  Jews  had  sent 
a  fruitless  embassy  after  him,  to  prevent  his  obtaining  it. 
All  the  princes  of  the  house  of  Herod  had,  indeed,  been  only 
vassals  of  Borne,  and  had  had  to  go  to  the  imperial  city,  in 
each  case,  to  seek  their  kingdom  as  a  gift  from  the  Roman 
senate. 

"  A  certain  man,"  said  He,  "  of  noble  birth,  went  to  a 
distant  country  to  receive  for  himself  the  dignity  of  king 
over  his  former  fellow-citizens,  and  then  to  return.  Before 
doing  so,  he  called  ten  of  his  servants,  from  whom,  as  such, 
he  had  the  right  to  expect  the  utmost  care  for  his  interests 
in  his  absence.  He  proposed,  in  his  secret  mind,  to  entrust 
them  with  a  small  responsibility,  by  their  discharge  of 
which  he  could  judge,  when  he  returned,  of  their  fitness 
and  worthiness  to  be  put  into  positions  of  greater  con- 
sideration; for  he  wished  to  choose  from  them  his  future 
chief  officers. 

"  In  the  meantime  he  gave  them,  each,  only  a  mina,  one 
hundred  drachmae,11  and  said  to  them,  '  Trade  with  this,  on 
my  account,  till  I  return.'  If  they  proved  to  be  faithful  in 
tlxis  small  matter,  he  would  be  able  to  advance  them  to 
higher  trusts. 

"  It  happened,  however,  that  he  was  so  unpopular,  that 

1  Batimgarten,  p.  268.  Schiirer,  p.  227.  Hausrath,  vol.  i.  pp.  361,  163. 
Keim,  vol.  iii.  pp  54,  212.  Sepp,  vol.  v.  p.  404.  The  Commentaries,  in 
loc. 


THE   TEN   TALENTS.  367 

1m  fellow -citizens,  in  their  hatred  of  him,  sent  an  embassy 
after  him  to  the  supreme  power,  complaining  against  him, 
and  contemptuously  declaring  that  they  would  not  have 
such  a  man  to  rule  over  them.  But  their  embassy  failed ; 
for,  in  spite  of  it,  he  obtained  the  province,  and  was  ap- 
pointed their  king. 

"  On  his  return,  after  he  had  thus  received  the  govern- 
ment, he  ordered  the  servants  to  whom  he  had  given  the 
money,  to  be  called  before  him,  that  he  might  know  what 
each  had  gained  by  trading.  The  first  came  and  said,  '  Lord, 
thy  mina  has  gained  ten.'  'Well  done,  good  servant,'  re- 
plied his  master,  '  because  thou  wast  faithful  in  a  very  little, 
be  thou  governor  of  ten  cities.'  The  second  came,  saying, 
'  Lord,  thy  mina  has  gained  five.'  '  Be  thou  governor  of 
five  cities,'  replied  his  master.  But  another  came,  and  said, 
'  Lord,  here  is  thy  mina,  I  have  kept  it  safely  tied  up  in  a 
napkin ;  thou  wilt  find  it  just  as  I  got  it.  I  did  not  know 
what  to  do  with  it,  and  I  was  afraid  of  thee ;  for  I  know 
thou  art  a  hard  man  in  money  matters,  looking  for  great 
profits  where  thou  hast  laid  out  next  to  nothing, — taking  up, 
as  they  say,  what  thou  hast  not  put  down,  and,  if  needs  be, 
reaping  where  thou  hast  not  sown, — making  good  thy  loss, 
if  there  were  any,  at  his  expense  who  caused  it, — and  so,  to 
keep  myself  safe,  I  thought  it  best  to  run  no  risks  one  way 
or  other.' 

" '  I  will  judge  you  out  of  your  own  mouth,  wicked  ser- 
vant,' replied  his  master.  '  You  say  you  knew  I  was  a  hard 
man  in  money  matters,  seeking  gain  where  I  had  laid  no- 
thing out  to  secure  it,  and  reaping  where  others  have  sown, 
why  then  did  you  not  at  least  give  my  money  to  some  ex- 
changer to  use  at  his  table,  that  thus,  on  my  return,  I  might 
have  got  it  back  with  interest  ? '  Then,  turning  to  the 
servants  standing  by,  he  continued,  '  Take  from  him  the 
mina,  and  give  it  to  him  that  has  ten.'  '  He  has  ten  already,' 
muttered  the  servants,  half  afraid.  But  the  king  went  on  in 
his  anger,  without  heeding  them,  '  I  tell  you  that  to  every 
one  who  shows  his  fitness  to  serve  me,  by  having  already 
increased  what  I  at  first  gave  him,  I  shall  give  more ;  but  I 
shall  take  away  what  I  first  gave,  from  him,  who,  by  adding 
nothing  to  it,  has  proved  his  unfitness  to  use  what  might  be 
put  in  his  hands. 

"  '  As  to  my  enemies,  who  did  not  wish  me  to  reign  over 
them,  bring  them  hither,  and  put  them  to  death  in  my 
presence.' " 


368  THE   LIFE   OF  CHRIST. 

The  lessons  of  the  parable  could  hardly  be  misunderstood. 
To  the  Jewish  people,  who  would  not  receive  Him  as  the 
Messiah,  they  spoke  in  words  of  warning  alarm  ;  but  the 
Twelve,  themselves,  heard  a  solemn  caution.  They  had 
each,  in  being  selected  as  an  Apostle,  received  a  sacred  trust, 
io  be  used  for  his  Master's  interests,  till  the  coming  again 
in  glory.  Well  for  him,  who,  when  his  Lord  returned  to 
reckon  with  them,  could  give  a  good  account  of  his  steward- 
ship ;  woe  to  him  who  had  neglected  his  duty  !  Though 
called  to  the  same  honour  at  first  as  the  others,  as  an  Apostle, 
he  would  be  stripped  of  his  rank,  and  receive  no  share  in 
the  glory  and  dignities  of  the  Messianic  kingdom.  As  to 
the  Jews  who  rejected  Him,  His  coming  would  be  the  signal 
for  the  sorest  judgments. 

Having  finished  His  brief  stay  in  Jericho,  Jesus  set  out, 
once  more,  on  His  journey  of  calm,  self-sacrificing  love,  to 
Jerusalem,  going  on  before  the  multitude,  in  His  grand  con- 
scirfusness  of  victory  beyond  thought.  Many  had  already 
gone  up  to  the  Holy  City,  for  not  a  few  needed  to  be  there 
some  time  before  the  feast,  to  prepare  themselves  to  take 
part  in  it,  by  purifications,  necessary  from  various  causes. 
Lepers,  for  example,  who  had  been  cured,  but  were  not  as  yet 
pronounced  clean  by  the  priests,1  were,  with  many  others,  in 
this  position.  Great  numbers,  moreover,  we  may  be  sure, 
went  up  early,  for  purposes  of  trade  with  the  first  arrivals 
of  pilgrims  from  abroad. 

Meanwhile,  all  classes  alike,  in  Jerusalem,  discussed  the 
probability  of  Christ's  coming  to  the  feast.2  The  excite- 
ment among  the  people  was  evident,  and  increased  the  alarm 
of  the  hierarchical  party,  for  how  could  they  withstand  Him, 
if  He  once  gained  general  popular  support  ?  The  advice  of 
Caiaphas  had,  therefore,  been  accepted  as  the  policy  of  the 
party  at  large,  and  orders  had  been  issued  that  He  should 
be  instantly  arrested,  when  found.  It  was  even  required  that 
any  one  who  knew  where  He  was,  should  report  it,  with  a 
view  to  His  apprehension. 

In  this  midst  of  this  commotion,  Jesus  quietly  entered 
Bethany,3  on  the  sixth  day  before  the  Passover.  It  was, 
however,  impossible  for  Him  to  remain  concealed.  The 
news  passed  from  mouth  to  mouth,  and  the  street  of  the 
village  soon  became  thronged  with  visitors,  who  came,  not 
onlj  to  see  Him,  but  to  see  Lazarus  also,  whom  they  heard 

1  Ewald,  vol.  v.  p.  491.        *  John  xi.  55-57.         •  John  xii.  1.  9-11. 


CONSPIEACY  AGAINST  LAZAEUS.  369 

He  had  raised  from  the  dead.  The  high  priests  began  to 
question  whether  they  could  not  manage  to  put  him,  also, 
to  death.  The  sight  of  him  was  winning  many  disciples 
to  Jesus.  They  would  try. 


CHAPTER    LV. 

PALM  SUNDAY. 

fin  HE  long  caravan  of  pilgrims  that  had  accompanied 
-*-  Jesus  up  the  wild  gorge  of  the  Kedron,  from  Jericho, 
had  been  left  at  Bethany ;  some  pressing  on  to  Jerusalem, 
others  pitching  their  tents,  as  fancy  pleased  them,  in  the 
pleasant  dell  below  the  village,  or  on  the  western  slope  of 
the  Mount  of  Olives,  where  they  could  feast  their  eyes  with 
a  sight  of  the  city.  It  was  the  eve  of  the  Sabbath,  and 
that  night  and  the  next  day  were  sacred.  The  journey  from 
Jericho  had  been  exhausting.  A  steep  and  narrow  bridle- 
path, threading  the  precipitous  defile,  had  been  the  only 
road.  It  was  the  scene  of  the  parable  of  the  Good  Samaritan. 
The  khan,  where  the  wounded  man  was  sheltered,  had  been 
passed  half  way.  Lonely  ascents,  between  bare  rocks,  with 
the  worst  footing,  had  been  left  behind  only  when  Bethany 
and  Bethphage,1  on  the  eastern  spur  of  the  Mount  of  Olives, 
came  in  sight.  The  journey  was  over  before  three  in  the 
afternoon,  for  it  was  the  rule  to  have  three  hours  of  rest 
before  the  Sabbath  began,  at  six.  In  Bethany,  Jesus  was  at 
home.  It  was  the  village  of  Lazarus  and  Martha  and  Mary. 
The  fifteen  miles  from  Jericho  had  been  a  continual  climb  of 
over  three  thousand  feet ;  but  He  could  now  rest  with  His 
friends,  through  the  Sabbath.2  Before  the  next  He  would 
be  crucified.  And  He  knew  it. 

This  glimpse  of  sweet  rest  over — the  last  He  would  enjoy 
before  the  awful  end ;  the  first  act  in  the  great  tragedy, 
His  triumphal  entry  into  Jerusalem,3  fitly  led  the  way  to 
the  great  consummation. 

In  these  last  months  He  had  more  and  more  openly 
assumed  the  supreme  dignity  of  Messiah,  with  wise  caution. 

1  Matt.  xxi.  1-11,  14-17.  Mark  xi.  1-11.  Luke  xix.  29-44.  Jolin  xiL 
16-19. 

3  Friday  sunset  to  Saturday  sunset,  9th  Nisan  (30-31  March). 
1  Saturday  sunset  to  Sunday  sunset,  10th  Nisan  (31st  March  and  1st 
April). 


CHBIST   RESOLVES   TO  ENTER  JERUSALEM.         371 

Refraining  at  first  from  a  sadden  proclamation  of  His  office, 
He  had  carefully  shunned  popular  excitement  even  by  the 
publication  of  His  miracles ;  that  His  words — which  were 
the  true  seed  of  His  kingdom — might  get  time  to  root 
themselves,  and  bear  fruit  among  the  people,  before  the  in- 
evitable opposition  of  the  ecclesiastical  authorities  brought 
His  work  to  a  close.  He  had  never,  however,  refused  tho 
title  when  given  Him,  or  the  honours  from  time  to  time 
paid  him  as  the  Christ.  He  had  even  revealed  Himself  to 
the  woman  of  Samaria ;  to  the  Apostles,  first,  on  the  Sea  of 
Galilee,  and  afterwards,  with  impressive  solemnity,  at  Csesarea 
Philippi ;  and,  latterly,  more  than  once  to  His  enemies,  as 
the  Head  of  the  New  Kingdom  of  God.  But,  as  yet,  He 
had  made  no  public,  or  as  it  were,  official  declaration,  of  His 
claims  and  rights  as  the  Messiah,  and  till  this  was  done, 
there  still  wanted  a  formal  proclamation  of  His  Kingdom 
before  Israel  and  the  world.  Till  then,  moreover,  the  heads 
of  the  moribund  theocracy  could  not  be  said  to  have  had 
the  choice  openly  given  them,  as  the  representatives  of  the 
religious  past,  to  accept  Him  as  the  Messiah,  or  definitely 
to  reject  Him. 

He  determined,  therefore,  with  calm  deliberation,  and  con- 
sciousness of  what  it  involved,  to  enter  Jerusalem  publicly, 
with  such  circumstance  as  would  openly  announce  His  claim 
to  be  the  Christ.  He  would  also  perform  specific  Messianic 
acts,  in  the  very  citadel  of  the  theocracy ;  entering  it  under 
the  eyes  of  the  haughty,  and  yet  alarmed,  hierarchy,1  as  a 
king,  but  as  the  Prince  of  Peace,  giving  no  real  pretence 
for  any  charge  of  political  design,  but  clearly,  as  king  only 
in  a  spiritual  sense.  He  had  no  longer  any  reason  to  con- 
ceal from  the  authorities  what  He  really  was,  and  felt 
Himself  to  be. 

The  companies  of  pilgrims  from  the  various  towns  and 
districts  of  Palestine,  or  from  Jewish  settlements  abroad, 
were  wont  to  make  public  entries  into  the  city  before  the 
great  feasts.  Such  an  entry  Jesus  would  make,  Himself 
its  central  figure.  It  would  be  a  day  of  joy  and  gladness 
to  Him  and  to  others,  as  when  a  king  enters  on  his  king- 
dom. He  would  no  longer  check  the  popular  feeling  in  His 
favonr.  His  last  entry  to  the  Holy  City,  at  the  Feast  of 
Tabernacles,  had  been  designedly  secret ;  but  this  should  be 
in  exact  contrast,  for  He  knew  that  His  kingly  work  was 

1  F.  C.  Baur,  p.  38.     Baumgartcn,  p. 


372  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

now  over,  so  far  as  it  could,  for  the  time,  be  completed,  and 
the  enthusiasm  of  willing  consecration  to  death,  as  His  path  to 
eternal  triumph,  filled  Him  with  a  serene  and  victorious  joy. 
Misconception  of  His  claim  would  be  impossible,  in  honest 
minds,  in  the  face  of  facts.  Israel  should  now  see  Him  come 
openly,  as  He,  who  alone,  if  they  frankly  accepted  Him, 
could  save  them,  by  leading  them  as  a  nation,  to  true  re- 
pentance and  a  higher  spiritual  life.  He  knew  beforehand, 
that  they  would  not ;  but  His  work  could  not  be  said  to  be 
completely  ended  till  He  had  given  them  and  their  leaders 
this  last  public  opportunity. 

Hitherto  He  had  entered  the  Holy  City  on  foot ;  this  day, 
like  David  and  the  Judges  of  Israel,  he  would  ride  on  an  ass, 
the  ancient  symbol  of  Jewish  royalty.  Nor  must  we  think  of 
Western  associations  in  connection  with  the  subject.  In  the 
East,  the  ass  is  in  high  esteem.  Statelier,  livelier,  swifter 
than  with  us,  it  vies  with  the  horse  in  favour.  Among  the 
Jews  it  was  equally  valued  as  a  beast  of  burden,  for  work 
in  the  field  or  at  the  mill,  and  for  riding.  In  contrast  to 
the  horse,  which  had  been  introduced  by  Solomon  from 
Egypt,  and  was  used  especially  for  war,  it  was  the  emblem 
of  peace.1  To  the  Jew  it  was  peculiarly  national,  for  had 
not  Moses  led  his  wife,  seated  on  an  ass,  to  Egypt ;  had  not 
the  Judges  ridden  on  white  asses ;  and  was  not  the  ass  of 
Abraham  the  friend  of  God,  noted  in  Scripture  ?  Every 
Jew,  moreover,  expected,  from  the  words  of  one  of  the 
prophets,  that  the  Messiah  would  enter  Jerusalem,  poor,  and 
riding  on  an  ass.2  No  act  could  be  more  perfectly  in  keeping 
with  the  conception  of  a  king  of  Israel,  and  no  words  could 
express  more  plainly  that  that  King  proclaimed  Himself  the 
Messiah.* 

On  the  early  morning  of  Sunday,  the  tenth  of  Nisan — the 
Jewish  Monday,  therefore — Jesus  and  the  Twelve  left  their 
hospitable  shelter  at  Bethany,  and  passed  out  to  the  little 
valley  beneath,  with  its  clusters  of  fig,  almond,  and  olive 
trees,  soon  to  burst  into  leaf,  and  its  evergreen  palms. 
Somewhere  near  lay  the  larger  village  of  Bethphage ;  like 
Bethany,  so  close  to  Jerusalem  as  to  be  reckoned,  in  the 
Rabbinical  law,  a  part  of  it.  Secret  disciples,  such  as  the 
five  hundred  who  afterwards  gathered  to  one  spot  in  Galilee, 

1  Ewald's  Gesch.,  vol.  ii.   pp.  187,    340 ;   vol.   iv.  p.  414.     Stanley's 
Jewish  Church,  vol.  i.  p.  94. 
1  Zech.  ii.  9.     Talmud  in  Eisenmenger,  vol.  ii.  p.  697.    ^ 


PALM   SUNDAY.  373 

and  the  hundred  and  twenty,  who  met,  after  the  resurrection,1 
in  the  upper  room  in  the  Holy  City,  were  scattered  in  many 
places.  At  least  one  such  lived  in  Bethphage.  Jesns,  there- 
fore, now  sent  two  disciples  thither ;  telling  them  that, 
immediately  on  entering  it,  they  would  find  a  she  ass  tied, 
and  her  colt  standing  by  her.  "  Loose  and  bring  them  to 
me,"  said  He,  "  and  if  any  one  make  a  remark,  say  that  the 
Lord  needs  them,  and  he  will  send  them  at  once."  His 
supernatural  power  had  rightly  directed  them.  The  ass  and 
its  colt  were  found,  and  the  ready  permission  of  their  owner 
• — no  doubt  a  disciple — was  obtained  at  once,  for  their  being 
taken  for  His  use.2 

Meanwhile,  it  had  reached  Jerusalem  that  He  was  about 
to  enter  it,  and  great  numbers  of  the  Galilaean  pilgrims, 
proud  of  Him  as  a  prophet  from  their  own  district,  forthwith 
set  out  to  meet  and  escort  Him,  cutting  fronds,  as  they  came, 
from  the  palm-trees  that  then  lined  the  path,3  to  do  Him 
honour.  The  disciples  showed  equal  enthusiasm,  and  it  was 
forthwith  caught  by  the  crowds  around — for  the  whole  open 
ground  near  the  city  was  filled  with  pilgrims  at  this  season. 
The  former  hastily  threw  their  abbas  on  the  back  of  the  colt, 
to  deck  it  for  their  Master,  and  set  Him  on  it,  the  mother 
walking  at  its  side ;  while  the  pilgrims,  not  to  be  behind, 
spread  theirs  on  the  road,  or  cut  off  the  young  sprouts  from 
the  trees,  and  strewed  them  before  Him.  So  myrtle-twigs 
and  robes  had  been  strewn  by  their  ancestors  before  Mordecai, 
when  he  came  forth  from  the  palace  of  Ahasuerus,4  and  so 
the  Persian  army  had  honoured  Xerxes,  when  about  to  cross 
the  Hellespont,5  and  so  it  is  still  sometimes  done  in  Palestine, 
as  a  mark  of  special  honour.6 

There  were  three  paths  over  the  Mount  of  Olives  ;  on  the 
north,  in  the  hollow  between  the  two  crests  of  the  hill ;  next, 
over  the  summit ;  and  on  the  south,  between  the  Mount  of 
Olives  and  the  Hill  of  Offence,  still  the  most  frequented  and 
the  best.  Along  this  Jesus  advanced,  preceded  and  followed 
by  multitudes,  with  loud  cries  of  rejoicing,  as  at  the  Feast  of 
Tabernacles,  when  the  great  Hallel  7  was  daily  sung  in  their 
processions.  With  the  improvisatorial  turn  of  the  East, 


1  1  Cor.  xv.  6.    Acts  i.  15.  8  Furrer,  p.  147. 

8  Sepp,  vol.   v.  p.  430.       Schleiermacher's  Predigten,  vol.  ii.  p.    5. 
Bibel  Lex.,  vol.  iii.  p.  606. 

4  Targ.,  Esther  x.  15.  6  Herod.,  vii.  54. 

•  Furrer,  Wanderungen,  p.  88.  1  Ps.  cxiii.  1-8 


374  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

their  acclamations  took  a  rhythmical  form,  which  was  long 
chanted  in  the  early  Church  as  the  first  Christian  hymn.1 
*'  Give  (Thon)  the  triumph,    (0  Jehovah),  to  the   Son  of 
David  ! 

Blessed  be  the  kingdom  of  our  Father  David,  now  to  be 
restored  in  the  name  of  Jehovah  ! 

Blessed  be  He  that  cometh — the  King  of  Israel — in  tho 
name  of  Jehovah  ! 

Our  peace  and  salvation  (now  coming)  are  from  God  above  ! 

Praised  bo  He  in  the  highest  heavens   (for  sending  them 
by  Him,  the  Son  of  David)  ! 

From  the  highest  heavens,  send  Thou,  now,  salvation  !  " 

It  was  a  triumph  in  wondrous  contrast  with  that  of 
earthly  monarchs.  No  spoils  of  towns  or  villages  adorned  it ; 
no  trains  of  captives  destined  to  slavery  or  death  ;  the  spoil 
of  His  sword  and  His  spear  were  seen  only  in  trophies  of 
healing  and  love — for  the  lame  whom  He  had  cured  ran 
before,  the  dumb  sang  His  praises,  and  the  blind,  sightless 
no  longer,  crowded  to  gaze  on  their  benefactor.  The  Phari- 
sees among  the  multitude  in  vain  tried  to  silence  the  accla- 
mations. In  their  mortification  they  even  turned  to  Jesus 
Himself,  to  ask  that  He  should  rebuke  those  who  made 
them.  "  No,"  replied  He,  "  I  tell  you  that,  if  these  should 
hold  their  peace,  the  very  stones  will  cry  out." 

As  they  approached  the  shoulder  of  the  hill,  where  the 
roads  bends  downwards  to  the  north,  the  sparse  vegetation 
of  the  eastern  slope  changed,  as  in  a  moment,  to  the  rich 
green  of  gardens  and  trees,  and  Jerusalem  in  its  glory  rose 
before  them.  It  is  hard  for  us  to  imagine,  now,  the  splendour 
of  the  view.  The  City  of  God,  seated  on  her  hills,  shone  at 
the  moment  in  the  morning  sun.  Straight  before  stretched 
the  vast  white  walls  and  buildings  of  the  Temple,  its  courts, 
glittering  with  gold,  rising  one  above  the  other  ;  the  steep 
sides  of  the  Hill  of  David  crowned  with  lofty  walls ;  the 
mighty  castles  towering  above  them  ;  the  sumptuous  palace 
of  Herod  in  its  green  parks,  and  the  picturesque  outlines  of 
the  streets.  Over  all  rested  the  spell  of  a  history  of  two 
thousand  years ;  of  a  present  which  craved  salvation  in  its 
own  perverted  way ;  and  the  mystic  Holy  of  Holies  linked 
the  seen  to  the  invisible.  The  crusaders,  long  centuries  after, 
when  the  only  glory  left  to  the  Holy  City  was  its  wondrous 
memories,  burst  out  into  a  loud  cry — Jerusalem  !  Jerusalem  ! 

1  Ewald  Gesch.,vo\.  Y.  p.  516. 


LAMENT   OVER  JERUSALEM.  375 

—•when  they  first  saw  it,  and  the  enthusiasm  of  the  Jew  could 
not  have  been  less  intense.  The  shouts  and  rejoicing  rose 
higher  than  ever. 

The  whole  scene  was  overpowering,  even  to  Jesus  Himself. 
He  was  crossing  the  ground  on  which,  a  generation  later, 
the  tenth  Roman  legion  would  be  encamped,1  as  part  of  tho 
besieging  force  destined  to  lay  in  ashes  all  the  splendour 
before  Him.  Knowing  the  future  as  He  did,  His  heart 
was  filled  with  indescribable  sadness,  for  He  was  a  patriot 
and  man,  though  also  the  Son  of  God.  Looking  at  the 
spectacle  before  Him,  and  thinking  of  the  contrast  a  few 
years  would  show,  tears  burst  from  His  eyes,  and  His  dis- 
ciples heard  Him  saying — "  Would  that  thou  hadst  known, 
thou,  Jerusalem,  in  this  thy  day,  when  I  come,  who  alone 
can  bring  it — what  would  give  thee  peace  and  safety  !  But 
now,  thou  seest  not  what  only  could  make  them  thine — the 
receiving  me  as  the  Messiah !  Days  will  come  upon  thee, 
when  thine  enemies  will  raise  a  mount  about  thee,  and 
compass  thee  round,  and  invest  thee  on  every  side,  and  level 
thee  with  the  ground,  and  bury  thy  children  under  thy 
ruins,  and  leave  not  one  stone  in  thee  upon  another,  because 
thou  knewest  not  the  time  when  God,  through  me,  offered 
thee  salvation !  " 

Sweeping  round  to  the  north,  the  road  approached  Jeru- 
salem by  the  bridge  over  the  Kedron,  to  reach  which  it  had 
to  pass  Gethsemane.  The  myriads  of  pilgrims  on  the  slopes 
of  Olivet,  and  the  crowd  at  the  eastern  wall  of  the  Temple, 
thus  saw  the  procession  winding  in  slow  advance,  till  it 
reached  the  gate,  now  St.  Stephen's,  through  which  Jesus 
passed  into  Bezetha — the  new  town — riding  up  the  valley 
between  it  and  Mount  Moriah,  through  narrow  streets,  hung 
with  flags  and  banners  for  the  feast,  and  crowded,  on  the 
raised  sides,  and  on  every  roof,  and  at  every  window,  with 
eager  faces.  "  Who  is  this  ?  "  passed  from  lip  to  lip.  "  It  is 
Jesus,  the  Prophet  of  Nazareth,  in  Galilee,"  snouted  back  the 
crowd  of  northern  pilgrims  and  disciples,  glorying  in  the 
vindication  of  the  honour  of  their  province  before  the  proud 
and  contemptuous  sons  of  Jerusalem. 

Leaving  His  beast,  and  entering  the  Temple,  which, 
having  ridden,  He  could  do  without  preparation,  except 
that  of  removing  His  sandals,  though  the  crowd  with  Him,  if 
at  such  times  the  rules  were  enforced,  had  to  stop  behind  to 

1  Jos.,  Bell.  Jud.t  v.  2.  3 ;  vi.  2.  8 ;  v.  12.  2. 


376  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

cleanse  their  dusty  feet,  take  off  their  shoes  or  sandals,  and 
lay  aside  their  walking  staves,  before  entering  a  place  so  holy, 
— He  took  possession  of  it  in  the  name  and  as  the  representa- 
tive of  Jehovah  its  Lord,  and  closed  the  wondrous  day  by 
a  calm  and  prolonged  survey  of  all  around.  Earnest,  sad, 
indignant  hours  thus  passed ;  but  even  they  were  filled  with 
•works  of  pitying  goodness,  for  the  blind  and  the  lame  had 
heard  of  His  coming,  and  hastened  to  Him,  and  were  healed. 
The  courts  and  halls  of  the  Sacred  House — the  very  strong- 
hold of  His  enemies, — re-echoed,  to  their  intense  mortification, 
with  the  shouts  that  had  accompanied  His  entry  to  the  city, 
for  the  miracles  He  wrought  heightened  and  prolonged  the 
enthusiasm,  till  the  very  children  joined  in  the  cry  of 
"  Hosanna  to  the  Son  of  David !  " 

"  Do  you  see  how  powerless  we  are  against  Him  ? " 
muttered  the  Pharisees  ;  "  the  whole  people  have  gone  after 
Him." 

His  bold  appearance  in  the  Temple  itself,  filled  the  priestly 
dignitaries  and  Rabbis  with  indignation,  which  was  all  the 
deeper  because  they  dared  not  arrest  Him  for  fear  of  the 
crowds,  even  when  now  in  their  very  hand.  That  the 
children  should  hail  Him  as  the  Messiah,  also  enraged  them. 
"  Hearest  thou  not  what  these  say  ?  "  asked  some  of  them. 
But  instead  of  disavowing  the  supreme  honour  ascribed  to 
Him,  He  only  replied  that  He  did,  adding,  "have  ye 
never  read  in  your  own  Scriptures — '  Out  of  the  mouths  of 
babes  and  sucklings,  Thou  (Jehovah)  hast  perfected  praise,1 
that  thou  mightest  put  to  shame  thine  enemies,  and  silence 
Thy  foes,  and  those  who  rage  against  Thee.'  "  b 

Never  was  His  presence  of  mind  and  quick  aptness  of 
retort  shown  more  strikingly. 

The  day  was  now  far  spent.  The  end  proposed  had  been 
abundantly  attained.  The  crowds  had  begun  to  retire  after 
evening  prayers,  and  He,  too,  with  the  Twelve,  passed  out 
quietly  with  the  throng,  and  betook  Himself  once  more  to 
the  well-loved  cottage  at  Bethany. 

The  day  in  which  He  had  thus  virtually  consecrated  Him- 
self to  death,  was  that,  by  no  chance  coincidence,  on  which 
the  paschal  lamb  was  selected. 

It  is  easy  to  understand  the  statement  of  the  Gospels, 
that  neither  the  Twelve  nor  the  disciples  at  large  realized 
at  first  the  full  significance  of  what  had  happened.  In  later 

1  Pg.  viii.  3. 


CHEIST  IN   THE   TEMPLE.  377 

times,  however,  after  He  had  risen  and  ascended  to  heaven, 
ifcs  full  grandeur  slowly  broke  on  them  as  they  discoursed 
again  and  again  on  the  whole  strange  history  through  which 
they  had  passed.  They  remembered,  then,  the  words  of  the 
prophet  Zechariah,  and  saw  how  the  triumphal  entry  in 
which  they  had  taken  part,  had  been  the  divinely  designed 
fulfilment  of  ancient  prophecy.1 

The  entry  on  Palm  Sunday,  though,  for  the  moment,  a 
bitter  mortification  to  the  hierarchical  party,  was  presently 
hailed  by  them  as  a  fancied  mistake  on  the  part  of  Jesus.  Till 
now,  all  their  efforts  to  frame  any  capital  charge  against 
Him,  on  plausible  grounds,  had  utterly  failed.  He  had 
slighted  the  Rabbinical  laws ;  but  the  Romans,  with  whom 
lay  the  power  of  life  and  death,  would  take  no  cognizance 
of  such  offences.  His  public  entry  into  Jerusalem,  as  the 
Messiah,  amidst  the  shouts  of  the  people,  seemed  to  give 
them,  at  last,  the  means  of  indicting  Him  for  what  they  could 
represent  as  at  least  constructive  treason — the  claiming  to 
be  king  instead  of  Caesar.  The  Romans  dreaded  nothing 
more  than  assumption  of  the  Messiahship,  for  it  had  often 
cost  them  dear  to  quell  the  insurrections  to  which  it  led, 
and  they  were  stern  to  the  uttermost  against  any  attempt 
to  challenge  the  Emperor's  authority.  But  the  absolutely 
peaceful  bearing  of  Jesus,  throughout ;  His  studied  care  to 
make  no  illegal  use  of  the  popular  enthusiasm ;  the  quiet 
dispersion  of  the  crowds,  and  the  utter  absence  of  any  poli- 
tical character  in  His  whole  life  and  words,  were  fatal  to 
judicial  action  based  on  grounds  so  slender.  They  would 
not,  however,  let  such  a  charge  against  Him  slip,  and  could 
accuse  Him  to  Pilate,  if  other  charges  failed,  of  "  perverting 
the  nation,  and  forbidding  to  give  tribute  to  Coesar,  saying 
that  he,  Himself,  is  Christ,  a  king."  2 

Morning  3  saw  Jesus  once  more  on  His  way  to  the  Temple. 
He  had  not  as  yet  eaten,  for  He  seems  to  have  looked  forward 
to  doing  so  at  the  home  of  some  disciple  in  Jerusalem,  and 
the  keen  air  of  the  early  hours  made  Him  hungry.4  The 
little  valley  of  Bethany  was  famous  for  dates  'and  figs  ; 
tho  very  name  Bethany  meaning  "  the  place  for  dates,"  while 
Bethphage  c  is  "  the  place  for  the  green  or  winter  fig  " — a 
variety  which  remains  on  the  trees  through  the  winter, 
having  ripened  only  after  the  leaves  had  fallen. 

1  Zech.  ix.  9.  2  Luke  xxiii.  2. 

3  llth  Nisan,  Sunday  sunset  to  Monday  sunset  (1st  and  2nd  April). 
4  Sunrise  on  Monday  morning,  5.49  a.m. 


378  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

It  was  not  yet  the  time  of  the  fig  harvest,1  but  some  of 
last  year's  frnit  might,  no  donbt,  be  found  on  the  trees 
growing  about.  One  tree,  especially,  attracted  the  notice 
of  Jesus.  It  grew  at  the  road-side,  as  common  property, 
and,  even  thus  early,  when  other  fig-trees  had  scarcely 
begun  to  show  greenness,  was  conspicuous  by  its  young 
leaves.2  When  He  came  to  it,  however,  they  proved  its  only 
boast ;  there  was  no  fruit  of  the  year  before,  as  might 
have  been  naturally  expected.  It  was,  indeed,  the  very  type 
of  a  fair  profession  without  performance ;  of  the  hypo- 
crisy which  has  only  leaves,  and  no  fruit.  Such  a  realized 
parable  could  not  be  passed  in  silence  by  One  who  drew  a 
moral  from  every  incident  of  life  and  nature.  "  Picture  of 
boastful  insincerity,"  said  He,  loud  enough  for  the  disciples 
to  hear — "  type  of  Israel  and  its  leaders ;  pretentious,  but 
bearing  no  fruit  to  God — let  no  fruit  grow  on  thee  hence- 
forward, for  ever,"  and  passed  on.  They  were  to  learn  that 
profession,  without  performance,  found  no  favour  with  their 
Master. 

Reaching  the  city,  He  once  more  went  to  the  Temple,3  as 
His  Father's  house.  Two  years  before,  He  had  purified  its 
outer  court  from  the  sordid  abuses  which  love  of  gain  had 
dexterously  cloaked  under  an  affectation  of  piously  serving 
the  requirements  of  worship.  Since  then,  they  had  been 
restored  in  all  their  hatefulness.  The  lowing  of  oxen,  the 
bleating  of  sheep,  the  cries  of  the  money-changers,  and  the 
noisy  market  chaffering  of  buyers  and  sellers  of  doves  or 
other  accessories  to  a  ceremonial  worship,  filled  the  air  with 
discordant  sounds  of  the  outside  world,  which  had  no  right 
in  these  sacred  precincts.  The  scene  roused  the  same  deep 
indignation  in  Jesus,  as  when  He  formerly  rose  in  His  grand 
protest  against  it.  He  had  now,  in  His  triumphal  entry, 
formally  proclaimed  His  Kingdom,  and  would,  forthwith, 
vindicate  its  rights,  by  once  more  restoring  the  Temple  to 
its  becoming  purity ;  for  while  it  stood,  it  should  be  holy. 
The  same  fervent  zeal  again  dismayed  and  paralyzed  oppo- 
sition. Pilled,  as  all  minds  were,  with  the  awe  of  the  popular 
enthusiasm  in  His  behalf,  His  command  sufficed  to  clear  the 
spacious  court  of  its  motley  crowd :  the  sellers  of  doves,  at 
His  order,  bore  off  their  cages  ;  the  exchangers  gathered  up 

1  Matt.  xxi.  18,  19.     Mark  xi.  12-14. 

2  Schenkel's  Charaktcrbild,  p.  191. 

»  Matt.  xxi.  12,  13.     Mark  xi.  15-19.     Luke  xix.  45-48. 


THE   CLEANSING  OF   THE   TEMPLE.  379 

their  coin,  and  He  made  the  one  remove  their  benches  and 
counters,  and  overturned  the  empty  booths  of  the  others. 
Nor  would  He  suffer  the  desecration,  of  laden  porters  and 
others  seeking  to  shorten  their  journeys  by  crossing  the 
Temple  spaces,  as  if  they  were  public  streets.  They  might 
carry  them  round  by  what  way  they  chose,  but  must  not 
make  a  thoroughfare  of  the  sacred  courts.1  "  Jehovah  has 
written,"  said  He,  "  My  house  is  the  house  of  prayer  for 
all  nations,  but  ye,  bringing  in  all  the  wiles  and  cheats  of 
unworthy  traffic,  have  made  it  a  den  of  thieves." 

We  cannot  suppose  that  Jesus,  within  a  few  hours  of  His 
death  at  the  hands  of  the  Temple  authorities,  and  imme- 
diately after  His  lament  over  His  rejection  by  them  and 
the  nation,  intended,  by  this  cleansing  of  the  outer  Temple 
spaces,  to  present  Himself  as  a  reformer  of  the  Temple 
service.  He  meant,  rather,  to  show,  among  other  things,  to 
the  multitudes  round  Him,  by  an  act  which  they  could  not 
mistake,  that  the  Holy  House  was  already  desecrated  by  the 
sanctioned  intrusion  of  the  spirit  of  common  gain,  and  made 
no  better  than  a  huge  bazaar,  with  all  its  abuses,  doubly 
unworthy  in  such  a  place.  He  wished  to  teach  them,  by  the 
sight  of  such  insensibility  to  the  ideal  of  a  Temple  of  God, 
that  the  fall  of  the  theocracy,  with  its  scoffing  high  priests 
and  worn-out  ceremonial,  was  a  fact  already  begun.  The 
very  texts  He  had  quoted  2  were  from  lamentations  over  the 
religious  decay  of  the  nation,  which,  the  prophets  predicted, 
would  bring  the  stranger  into  the  House  of  Jehovah,  as 
more  worthy  than  the  Jew  ;  a  decay  which  demanded, 
instead  of  mere  outward  service,  a  reform  of  the  heart  and 
life.  But  the  great  lesson,  also,  was  not  wanting,  that  the 
worship  of  God  must  be  pure  and  earnest,  not  merely  formal, 
and  that  hypocrisy  was  abhorrent  to  Him.  This  truth  sank 
that  day  into  all  hearts,  and  before  a  generation  had  passed, 
it  had  been  repeated  from  the  Euphrates  to  Rome.  It  was 
the  knell  of  the  Jewish  economy  at  its  centre,  for  a  Temple 
thus  publicly  marked  as  given  over  to  greed  and  gain,  under 
pretence  of  zeal  for  religion,  was  doomed  to  perish,  as  aLJ 
hypocrisies  must,  in  the  end. 

The  significance  of  such  an  act  to  Himself,  was  known 
to  none  better  than  to  Jesus.  He  knew  that  His  hour  had 

1  Jost,  vol.  i.  p.  140.    Jud.  Handwerkcrlebcn,  p.  25.     Schleiermacher, 
vol.  i.  p.  437.    Furrer,  p.  172.     Schenkel,  Charakterbild,  p.  228. 
2  Isa.  Ivi.  7.    Jer.  vii.  2  ff. 


380  THE   LIFE   OF  CHRIST. 

come,  and  that  He  would  perish,  a  martyr  to  the  spirit  of 
a  living,  as  opposed  to  the  letter  of  a  worn-out,  faith.  He 
knew  that  He  had  against  Him  the  vast  power  of  great 
vested  interests,  who  passed  off  their  selfish  aims  as  zeal  for 
Church  and  State,  and  thus  won  support  from  unthinking 
thousands.  He  knew,  moreover,  that  the  religious  revolu- 
tion He  had  begun  was  spreading  daily,  and  must  be  crushed 
by  His  opponents,  by  any  measures  that  promised  success,  if 
their  own  authority  were  to  stand.  But,  in  the  face  of  all 
this,  He  went  forward  with  calm  serenity  towards  death,  as 
the  one  purchase  price  of  liberty  and  life  for  the  souls  of  men. 

The  day,  which  had  begun  with  the  symbolic  cleansing  of 
the  Temple,  was  devoted,  in  its  later  hours,  to  His  wonted 
work  of  teaching  all  who  would  listen,  but  none  of  the 
discourses  have  been  preserved.  The  people,  thronging  the 
Court  where  he  sat — for  He  taught  in  the  Temple — were 
greatly  impressed  by  His  words ;  so  new,  so  earnest,  so 
searching  and  practical,  compared  with  the  vapidities  of  the 
Rabbis.  It  was  vain  for  the  Jewish  authorities  to  attempt 
to  arrest  Him  while  He  was  thus  in  favour,  for  all  the 
people  rallied  to  hear  Him,  and  no  one  knew  how  far  they 
might  be  disposed,  with  their  fiery  Eastern  natures,  to  rise 
on  His  behalf,  if  He  were  seized. 

This  day,  therefore,  passed  as  safely  for  Him  as  the  last, 
and  in  the  evening  Bethany  once  more  received  Him.  He 
had  entered  the  city  with  loud  jubilees,  but  the  last  mortal 
struggle,  begun  by  His  lofty  bearing  and  independence,  made 
it  wise  to  retire  unnoticed.  Leaving,  therefore,  privately, 
by  the  flight  of  steps  to  the  Kedron,  He  crossed  Olivet  with 
only  His  disciples. 

The  sensation  caused  by  the  great  act  of  the  day  must 
have  been  profound.1  The  religious  instinct  of  the  masses 
felt  that  it  was  worthy  of  a  true  prophet  of  God,  but  the 
Temple  officials  realized  only  the  public  censure  it  implied 
on  their  own  estimate  and  discharge  of  their  duties.  For 
the  moment  they  were  paralyzed  and  helpless,  rebuked  before 
all,  and  boldly  condemned  by  the  strange  intruder,  in  exactly 
the  point  on  which  they  were  most  sensitive ;  for  it  was  as 
watchful  guardians  of  the  Temple  they  claimed  especially 
the  respect  of  the  nation. 

Next  morning 2  found  him  once  more  on  the  way  to  the 

1  Matt.  xxi.  20-32.     Mark  xi.  20-33.    Luke  xx  1-8 ;  xxi.  37,  38. 
*  12th  Kisan,  Monday  sunset  to  Tuesday  sunset  (April  2-3). 


THE   BAEEEN  FIG-TBEE.  381 


Temple.  "  Rabbi,"  exclaimed  Peter,  in  wonder,  as 
passed  the  tree  on  which  Jesus  had  sought  figs  the  day 
before,  "  The  fig-tree  which  Thou  cursedst  is  withered 
away."  It  had,  indeed,  already  shrivelled  up. 

The  question  gave  another  opportunity  for  impressing  on 
the  Twelve  a  truth,  which,  above  all  others,  He  had  sought 
io  fix  in  their  hearts  daring  His  three  years'  intercourse 
with  them  —  that,  as  His  Apostles,  commissioned  to  establish 
and  spread  His  Kingdom,  they  would  be  able,  if  they  had 
an  unwavering  faith  in  God  and  in  Him,  to  overcome  all 
difficulties,  however  apparently  insuperable. 

"  See,"  replied  He,  "  that  you  learn  from  this  tree  to  have 
firm  trust  in  God.  Believe  me,  if  you  have  such  faith,  and 
let  no  doubt  or  hesitation  enfeeble  it,  you  will  be  able  here- 
after to  do  not  only  such  things  as  you  have  seen  done  to  this 
tree,  but  —  to  use  the  expression  you  so  often  hear  from  the 
Rabbis,  when  they  intend  to  speak  of  overcoming  the  greatest 
difficulties,  or  achieving  the  most  unlikely  ends  —  you  will 
be  able,  as  it  were,  to  bid  this  mountain  rise  and  cast  itself 
into  the  sea.  All  depends,  however,  on  your  faith  being 
simple  and  undoubting;  for  anything  less  dishonours  God. 
He  who  has  such  child-like  trust  in  Him,  may  confidently 
expect  his  prayers  to  be  heard.  When  yon  pray,  believe 
that  prayer  is,  in  very  deed,  answered,  and  your  faith  will 
be  honoured  by  God  granting  what  you  seek  ;  since  as  His 
children,  and  my  disciples,  you  will  ask  only  what  is  in 
accordance  with  His  will.  You  must  however,  in  your 
prayers,  always  be  in  that  frame  of  loving  tenderness  to  your 
fellow-men,  which  true  faith  in  God,  as  His  sons,  never  fails 
to  create.  Strife  and  division  destroy  your  spiritual  life,  and 
weaken  that  faith  by  which,  alone,  you  can  do  great  things. 
As  you  stand  at  your  prayers,  as  your  manner  is,  you  must 
have  no  anger,  no  revenge  in  your  hearts,  else  you  will  not 
be  heard.  The  spirit  of  frank  forgiveness,  which  springs 
from  true  love  to  God,  must,  beforehand,  have  forgiven  all 
who  have  injured  you.  For  how  can  you  hope  that  your 
Father  in  heaven  will  forgive  your  sins  against  Him,  if  you 
do  not  forgive  offences  against  yourselves  ?  "  1 

But  the  moments  were  precious,  for  His  hours  were  num- 
bered. Always,  from  the  first,  intensely  energetic,  He  was 
now,  if  possible,  more  so  than  ever,  that  He  might  utilize 

1  Ullmann,  p.  133.  Bibel  Lex.,  vol.  ii  p.  423.  Keim,  vol.  ii.  pp.  607-* 
610. 


382  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

every  instant  for  His  great  purpose.  With  calm,  undismayed 
resolution,  each  morning  saw  Him  in  the  Temple,  as  soon  as 
it  was  opened.  He  would  show  that  He  was  no  Jacobin,  no 
revolutionist.  Had  He  been  so,  how  easily  might  He  have 
taken  advantage  of  the  popular  enthusiasm,  at  His  entry  to 
the  city,  or  at  His  cleansing  of  the  Temple  courts.  Instead 
of  doing  so,  He  would  proclaim  the  true  nature  of  His  King- 
dom, by  the  one  means  He  employed  to  establish  it — the 
power  of  persuasion.  He  would  devote  His  last  hours,  as  He 
had  all  His  public  life,  to  teaching.  By  His  words  alone 
would  He  prevail,  for  they  had  the  irresistible  and  deathless 
force  of  truth,  and,  as  such,  would  found  in  every  heart  whose 
convictions  they  reached,  a  kingdom  that  must  spread,  and 
could  never  perish. 

Meanwhile,  His  enemies  determined  to  destroy  Him, 
though  undecided  what  course  to  pursue  to  effect  their  pur- 
pose. Afraid  of  the  popular  feeling  they  might  invoke  in 
His  favour,  they  watched  for  any  opportunity  to  facilitate 
decisive  action.  Their  bearing  had  acquitted  Him  of  all 
further  responsibility  towards  them.  He  had  brought  the 
truth  home  to  them  in  their  central  stronghold  ;  had  made 
it  unmistakable  what  He  demanded  in  the  name  of  His 
Father,  that  they  should  begin  the  reform  and  salvation  of 
the  nation  by  reforming  themselves,  its  leaders  ;  that  they 
should  be  true  shepherds,  and  not  hirelings ;  sincere  in  their 
religion,  and  not  actors.  Such  demands,  in  themselves, 
proved  His  Messiahship,  for  they  bore  on  their  front  the 
evidence  that  they  were  from  God,  and  if  accepted,  He  also 
must  be,  who  had  thus  been  sent  from  God  to  proclaim  them. 
The  internal  evidence  of  His  acts  and  words  thus  established 
His  highest  claims ;  for  truth  and  goodness  are  their  own 
witness  in  the  universal  conscience.  But  the  hierarchy  had 
shown  themselves  incapable  of  reform.  Like  the  barren  fig- 
tree,  they  bore  only  leaves,  and  must  be  left  to  the  righteous 
indignation  of  God. 

He  had  not  been  long  instructing  the  people,  who  flocked 
to  see  and  hear  Him,1  before  some  of  the  Temple  authorities 
came  to  Him,  determined  to  bring  Him  to  account  for  His 
act  of  the  day  before,  which  had  been  an  intrusion  on  their 
duties  as  Temple-inspectors  ;  and  for  His  assuming  to  teach 
as  a  Rabbi,  without  any  licence  from  the  schools,2  which 
was  contrary  to  established  rule.  They  seem  to  have  been  a 

1  Luke  xxi.  38.     8  Matt.  xxi.  23  S.     Mark  xi.  27  S.     Luke  xx.  1  ff. 


A  DEPUTATION  FEOM  THE   AUTHOKITIES.          383 

deputation  sent  officially,  and  consisted  of  some  of  the  higher 
priests — heads  of  the  different  courses — some  Rabbis,  and 
some  of  the  "  elders  "  the  ancient  senators  or  representatives 
of  the  people,  who,  as  a  body,  had  existed  throngh  all  political 
changes,  from  the  days  of  Moses.1  Interrupting  Jesus  as  He 
taught,  they  now  abruptly  asked  Him  by  what  authority  He 
acted  as  He  had  done,  and  was  doing. 

They,  doubtless,  hoped  that  He  would  claim  Divine 
authority,  and  that  they,  thus,  might  have  ground  for  a 
charge  against  Him.  But  He  was  not  to  be  snared.  He 
showed  Himself  the  dreaded,  prompt,  keen  disputant,  ready 
to  turn  defence  into  attack.  Careful  to  avoid  giving  any 
handle  for  misrepresentation,  instead  of  answering  their 
question,  He  evaded  it  by  asking  one  in  His  turn.  "  Before 
I  answer  you,"  said  He,  "let  me  ask  you — Did  John  the 
Baptist,  in  his  great  work,  act  by  direction  of  God,  as  one 
sent  by  Him,  or  was  he  unauthorized  ?  "  To  be  themselves 
interrogated  in  turn ;  to  be  forced  to  give  a  reply,  in- 
stead of  listening  to  one,  was  sufficiently  embarrassing,  but 
the  question  itself  was  still  more  so.  It  involved  much. 
Jesus  evidently  associated  Himself  with  John  as  He  had 
never  before  done.  He  implied  that  the  man  who  had  been 
the  terror  of  Pharisees  and  priests,  and  their  victim — the 
man  of  the  people,  who  had  roused  such  an  unprecedented 
excitement — was  His  Forerunner  and  Herald.  He  spoke  of 
John's  baptism  as  a  commission  from  God,  and  evidently 
claimed  that  His  own  entry  to  Jerusalem,  His  preaching  of 
the  Kingdom  of  Heaven,  His  cleansing  the  Temple,  and  His 
claim  to  be  the  Messiah,  were  no  less  by  Divine  authority. 

He,  Himself,  might  say  all  this  if  He  pleased,  but  that 
they  should  have  to  say  it,  was  to  force  them  to  become  His 
advocates  and  apologists.  Yet,  what  could  they  do,  for  was 
it  not  clear  to  all  men  not  blind  to  the  truth,  that  John  was 
no  mere  adventurer,  but  a  noble  servant  of  God  ?  To  own 
that  he  was  so,  however,  would  bring  down  on  themselves 
the  crushing  question,  "  Why  then  did  ye  not  believe  what 
he  said  respecting  yourselves,  and  what  he  said  of  me  ?  for 
his  witness,  alone,  is  enough  to  prove  that  I  come  from  God." 
On  the  other  hand,  to  denounce  him  as  an  impostor  was 
dangerous,  for  his  memory  was  cherished  by  the  people  at 
large,  as  that  of  a  national  hero,  the  last  of  the  mighty  line 
of  prophets.  To  avoid  so  disastrous  a  dilemma,  therefore, 

1  Michaelis,  Mosaisches  Eecht. ,  vol.  L  p,  263. 


384  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

they  were  driven  to  the  feeble  evasion — that  they  could  not 
tell  whether  John's  mission  was  from  God  or  not. 

"  If  so,"  replied  Jesus,  "  then  clearly  he  did  not  need  your 
authority,  since  you  never  thought  it  worth  while  to  sanc- 
tion, or  even  decide,  respecting  him,  and  you  can  have  no 
claim  to  authorize  me,  or  to  withhold  authority  from  me.  I, 
myself  decline  therefore  to  tell  by  what  authority  I  ^act ; 
if  it  was  indifferent  in  the  case  of  John,  it  is  equally  so  in 
mine." 

He  had  silenced  His  opponents,  but  would  not  let  them 
leave  without  once  more  trying  to  open  their  eyes  to  their 
false  position.1 

"  Let  me  tell  you  a  parable,"  He  continued.  "  A  cer- 
tain man  had  two  sons.  He  came  to  the  first  and  said,  '  Son, 
go  work  to-day  in  the  vineyard.'  But  he  answered,  '  I  will 
not ;  '  yet,  afterwards,  he  repented  and  went.  And  he  came 
to  the  second  son,  who,  on  receiving  the  same  command,  at 
once  answered,  '  Yes,  sir.'  But  he  did  not  go.  Let  me 
ask  you,  which  of  the  two,  do  you  think,  did  the  will  of  his 
father  ?  " 

The  perfect  composure  and  the  consummate  art  with  which 
He  addressed  them,  were  equally  perplexing ;  for  high  dig- 
nitaries of  the  Jewish  religious  world  must  have  been  little 
accustomed  to  be  put  in  such  a  position  before  the  multitude. 
But  an  answer  could  not  be  refused,  and  the  question  was 
framed  in  such  a  way,  that  they  could  give  none  but  the 
one  which  Jesus  required  for  His  complete  justification,  and 
their  own  condemnation.  Hardly  seeing  what  it  implied, 
they  readily  answered,  "  The  first."  They  were  now  in 
His  hands.  "  You  say  rightly,"  replied  He,  "  for  when  John 
came  calling  you,  in  the  name  of  God — you  priests,  scribes, 
and  elders — to  repentance  and  righteousness,  you  honoured 
him  by  ready  professions  and  smooth  compliance,  promising 
all  good  works  of  a  pious  and  holy  life,  and  yet  you  held 
aloof  after  all,  and  showed,  by  your  neglect  to  obey  him,  that 
you  disbelieved  his  message.  You  are  the  second  son,  who 
said,  Yes,  but  did  not  go  into  the  vineyard. 

<fc  On  the  other  hand,  the  publicans  and  harlots,  whom  you 
despise,  the  common  people  at  large,  whom  you  reckon 
cursed  of  God  ;  who  had  roughly  and  wickedly  refused  to  do 
right,  and  had  even  gone  to  the  utmost  in  sin,  repented  at 
the  summons  of  John,  believing  his  words,  and  sought  earn- 

>  Matt.  xxi.  28-32. 


THE   VINEYARD  AND   THE   HUSBANDMEN.          385 

estly  to  enter  into  the  Kingdom  of  God.  They,  therefore, 
condemn  you,  0  ye  leaders  of  the  people ;  for,  by  yonr  own 
showing,  they  have  done  the  will  of  their  Father  in  Heaven, 
but  you  have  not. 

"  It  has,  indeed,  been  always  the  same.  As  in  John's  day, 
ye  would  not  hear  him,  but  persecuted  him  to  the  death,  so 
have  both  you  and  your  fathers  done  in  all  generations. 
You,  indeed,  are  guiltier  than  they  all,  for  you  seek  to  do 
even  worse.  Hear  another  parable." 

He  had  spoken  of  the  call  of  God  by  the  mouth  of  John, 
and  by  implication  affirmed  that  His  own  experience,  as  the 
successor  of  the  Baptist  in  his  great  work,  had  been  the 
same.  He  now  glanced  at  the  history  of  the  Theocracy,  and 
at  the  sins  of  its  leaders,  from  its  earliest  days.  He  re- 
counted the  long  roll  of  the  servants  of  God  whom  they  had 
slandered,  wronged,  and  slain,  from  the  first  to  the  last,  and 
greatest  of  them  all — Himself.  In  doing  so,  He  now  first 
openly  called  Himself  the  Son  of  God,  and  left  them  to  feel 
that  He  stood  as  such  in  their  presence,  awaiting  at  their 
hands  the  fate  of  other  messengers  of  His  Father.  Hia 
death  was  to  brim  the  cup  of  their  iniquity. 

"  A  certain  man,"  said  He,  adopting  a  parable  of  Isaiah, 
"planted  a  vineyard,  and  set  a  hedge  about  it,  and  hewed 
out  a  cistern  in  the  hill-side,  in  which  to  press  the  wine, 
and  built  a  tower  for  the  watchers,  to  guard  the  vineyard, 
and  agreed  with  husbandmen  to  work  it  on  his  behalf,  and 
went  into  a  far  country  for  a  long  time.  And  when  the 
fruit  season  drew  near,  he  sent  his  servants  to  the  husband- 
men, that  they  might  receive  for  him  his  fruits.1  But  they 
took  them,  and  beat  one,  and  killed  another,  and  stoned  a 
third.  He  then  sent  other  servants,  more  numerous  than 
the  first ;  but  the  husbandmen^  treated  them  as  badly,  for 
they  beat  one,  cast  stones  at  another  and  wounded  him  in 
the  head,  and  sent  him  away  not  only  empty-handed  but 
shamefully  treated.  Some  of  the  rest  they  beat,  others  they 
killed,  and  they  refused  to  pay  the  fruits  they  owed. 

"  Having  yet,  therefore,  a  son — his  only  and  well-beloved, 
— he  determined  to  send  him  to  them,  thinking  that,  though 
they  had  treated  his  servants  so  badly,  they  would  be  sure 
to  show  his  son  respect.  But  instead  of  this,  when  they  saw 
the  son,  they  said  among  themselves,  '  This  is  the  son,  come, 

1  Isa.  v.  1  ff ;  iii.  14 ;  ix.  10.  Matt.  xxi.  33-46.  Mark  xii.  1-12. 
Luke  xx.  9-19. 


386  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

let  us  kill  him,  and  the  vineyard,  which  he  should  have 
inherited,  will  be  ours.'  So  they  took  him,  and  cast  him  out 
of  the  vineyard,  and  slew  him. 

"  Let  me  ask  you  now,  what  will  the  lord  of  the  vineyard 
do  to  these  husbandmen  ?  " 

The  dignitaries  thus  addressed  could  not,  in  the  presence 
of  the  crowd  listening  to  all  that  had  passed,  refuse  the  only 
possible  answer.  "  He  will  come  and  miserably  destroy  these 
wretched  men,"  said  their  spokesman,  "  and  give  the  vine- 
yard to  others,  who  will  render  him  his  fruits  in  their 
seasons."  The  meaning  of  the  parable  had  already  flashed" 
on  the  minds  of  some  of  them,  and  the  answer  was  followed 
by  a  deep  "  God  forbid !  "  from  several  voices. 

Looking  full  and  steadily  at  them,  Jesus  now  kept  them 
from  retiring  by  a  further  question. 

"  Did  you  never  read  in  the  Scriptures,"  said  He,  "  this 
text,  '  The  stone  which  the  builders  rejected  is  made  the 
chief  corner-stone — the  main  foundation ;  Jehovah  hath  done 
this  ;  marvellous  is  it  in  our  eyes  ?  '  "  1 

The  meaning  was  clear.  The  corner-stone  of  the  Kingdom 
of  God,  of  which  those  in  His  presence  claimed  to  be  the 
chief  men,  was,  in  their  own  mode  of  speech,  only  a  figura- 
tive name  for  the  Messiah,  on  whom  its  existence  and  com- 
pletion depended,  as  a  building  depends  on  its  foundation 
and  support.  The  Psalm  quoted  had,  it  is  believed,  been 
sung  by  Israel,  on  the  first  Feast  of  Tabernacles  after  the 
return  from  Captivity.2  Its  historical  reference  was  primarily 
to  the  Jewish  nation — rejected  by  the  heathen,  yet  chosen 
again  by  God  as  the  foundation  of  His  earthly  kingdom. 
In  a  higher  spiritual  sense,  however,  the  Rabbis  themselves 
understood  it  of  the  Messiah,  and  thus  there  could  be'  no 
doubt  in  the  mind  of  any  Jew  that,  when  now  applied 
by  Christ  to  Himself,  it  was  a  direct  claim  of  Messianic 
dignity. 

"  You  know  this  verse,  do  you  not  ?  "  continued  Jesus  : 
"  Well,  then,  because  the  stone  which  you  have  rejected  has 
been  chosen  by  God  as  the  foundation-stone  of  His  New 
Spiritual  Kingdom,  every  one  who  shall  fall  on  it  3 — that  is, 
every  one  who,  by  rejecting  me,  the  Messiah,  shall  have 
drawn  down  on  himself,  destruction — will  perish ;  but  he  on 
whom  it  will  fall — he,  I  mean,  on  whom  I,  the  Messiah,  will 

1  Ps.  cxviii.  22.  *  Ewald,  in  loc. 

1  Scbottgen,  quoted  in  Meyer.     Matt.  xxi.  22. 


ISEAEL   REJECTED.  387 

let  loose  my  avfenging  judgments,  for  his  rejection  of  me — 
will  be  crushed  to  pieces,  small  as  the  dust  or  chaff  that  is 
scattered  to  the  winds. d 

"  Therefore,  I  say  to  you,  the  Kingdom  of  God  shall  be 
taken  from  Israel,  and  from  you,  its  present  heads,  and  bo 
given  to  a  nation  who  will  render  to  God  the  fruits  He  has  a 
right  to  claim  from  it." 

The  guilty  consciences  of  the  chief  priests  and  Pharisees 
addressed,  felt,  instinctively,  that  in  these  parables  He  had. 
pointed  to  them.  The  vineyard  of  God,  separated  from  the 
wilderness  of  heathenism  was,  clearly,  Israel.  The  Jews 
had.  been  favoured  by  having  the  "  noble  vine  "  of  Divine 
institutions  among  them.  The  tower  which  protected  them 
was  the  Temple  of  God ;  the  husbandmen,  were  the  suc- 
cessors of  Moses, — the  Priests,  Rabbis,  and  Pharisees,  the 
representatives  of  God,  to  whom  of  old,  when  He  returned 
to  heaven  from  Mount  Sinai,  He  had  left  His  vineyard 
with  the  charge  to  tend  it,  and  to  render  Him  duly  its  fruits. 
The  servants  sent  were,  clearly,  the  prophets,  from  their  first 
appearance,  in  the  distant  past,  to  John  the  Baptist.  They 
had  been  despised,  beaten,  martyred.  Only  one  could  follow 
them — the  last  and  highest  representative  of  God,  who  should 
have  commanded  respect  even  from  murderers — His  only  and 
well-beloved  Son,  the  Messiah,  who  had  come,  not  as  the 
nation  fancied,  to  bring  them  political  glory  and  earthly 
prosperity,  but  to  receive  and  bear  to  His  Father  the  fruits 
which,  kept  back  for  hundreds  of  years,  could  no  longer  re- 
main withheld.  But  Jesus,  the  Messiah,  had  long  foreseen 
His  fate.  He  had  had  it  before  His  eyes  every  hour  since 
His  public  entry  into  Jerusalem.  He,  the  rightful  heir  of  the 
vineyard,  had  been  received  by  the  husbandmen  with  jealous 
eyes  and  deadly  purposes.  The  revolt  He  had  come  to  end 
had  grown  worse.  No  longer  contented  with  refusing  to 
render  the  fruits,  the  holders  of  the  vineyard  now  claimed  it 
as  their  own,  and  were  taking  it  into  their  own  hands ;  casting 
out  God,  in  casting  out  Him  whom  He  had  sent.  The  fierce 
anger  of  God  could  not  long  delay.  The  rebels,  smitten  by 
His  wrath,  must  perish.  The  vineyard  must  pass  into  other 
hands.  But  "  the  others  "  could  only  be  the  heathen,  whom 
Israel  despised.  Loyal  to  the  Son,  whom  Israel  had  rejected 
and  slain,  His  disciples  and  followers,  gathered  from  other 
nations,  would  be  entrusted  with  the  inheritance.  Changing 
the  figure,  these  would  willingly  accept,  as  the  foundation  and 
chief  corner-stone  of  the  New  Kingdom  of  God,  Him  whom 


388  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

the  first  builders — of  whom  those  now  before*  Him  were  the 
representatives — had  rejected.  Was  there  any  doubt  that 
God  would  transfer  that  kingdom  to  those  thus  loyal  to  His 
Son  ?  He,  who  now  stood  before  them,  and  who  at  any 
moment  might  be  cast  out  of  the  Temple  with  ignominy, 
and  slain,  must  be  the  foundation  of  the  New  Theocracy 
which,  was  to  supplant  the  Old !  l 

The  first  open  attempt  at  violence  followed  this  parable. 
The  hierarchical  party  felt  that  they  were  meant,  and  that 
Jesus  had  dared  to  call  Himself  the  chief  corner-stone  of  the 
future  Kingdom  of  God,  which  was  to  rise  in  the  place  of 
that  with  which  all  their  dignities  and  interests  were  bound 
up.  With  wild  Eastern  frenzy,  they  sought  to  arrest  Him 
on  the  spot.  But  as  looks  and  words,  passing  among  them, 
betrayed  their  intention  to  the  crowds  around,  these  would 
not  permit  Him  to  be  taken,  counting  Him,  if  not  the  Messiah, 
at  least  a  prophet.  Some,  bolder  than  the  rest,  possibly  laid 
hands  on  Him,  but  they  were  forced  by  the  surging  multi- 
tude to  release  Him.  They  had  to  leave  the  place,  and  suffer 
Jesus  to  escape  for  the  moment.  But  they  had  power,  and 
organization,  and  the  people  would  not  always  be  round 
Him! 

Left  in  peace,  the  unwearying  Divine  Man  once  more 
calmly  betook  Himself  to  His  task  of  teaching  all  who  would 
hear. 

The  die  had  finally  been  cast,  and  the  open  breach  be- 
tween Him  and  the  Church  authorities  had  been  proclaimed 
by  Himself  in  His  last  parables.  Full  of  lofty  indignation 
at  the  hypocrisy  and  wilful  blindness  of  His  adversaries,  no 
less  than  of  compassion  for  the  multitude,  He  could  not 
repress  the  crowding  thoughts  which  the  last  hours  raised  in 
His  soul,  and,  as  usual,  they  found  expression  in  additional 
parables. 

"The  Kingdom  of  Heaven,"  He  began,  "is  like  a  king 
who  made  a  marriage-feast  for  His  son,2  and  sent  forth  his 
servants,  as  the  custom  is,  to  tell  those  who  had  already  been 
invited  that  the  time  had  now  arrived.  But,  though  thus  once 
and  again  summoned,  they  would  not  come.  Yet,  the  king, 
unwilling,  in  his  goodness,  that  they  should  not  enjoy  the 
feast ;  in  spite  of  this,  sent  other  servants,  once  more,  to 
invite  them  again.  '  Come,'  ran  his  message,  '  for  I  have 
prepared  the  first  meal  of  the  feast ;  my  oxen  and  fatlinga 

1  Keim,  vol.  iii.  p.  117.  8  Matt.  xxii.  1-14. 


THE   MARRIAGE   GARMENT.  389 

have  been  killed,  and  all  things  are  ready :  come  to  the 
marriage.'  But  they  made  light  of  this  fresh  invitation  as 
well,  and  went  off,  one  to  his  farm,  another  to  his  merchan- 
dise, while  still  others  took  his  servants,  and  ill-treated,  and 
even  killed  them.  Then  the  king  was  angry,  and  sent  his 
soldiers,  and  destroyed  those  murderers,  and  burned  their 
city.  Meanwhile,  he  said  to  his  servants,  '  The  marriage 
feast  is  ready,  but  those  who  have  been  called  were  not 
worthy.  Go,  therefore,  to  the  highways,  where  the  roads 
cross  and  there  are  most  passers-by,  and  invite  to  the  feast 
as. many  as  ye  find.' 

"  So  the  servants  went  forth  from  the  palace  of  the  king, 
to  the  roads  and  cross-ways,  and  gathered  together  all,  both 
evil  and  good,  who  were  willing  to  accept  their  invitations, 
and  the  feast-chamber  was  filled  with  guests. 

"  The  king  had  made  all  preparations  for  these  being 
nobly  arrayed  in  festal  robes,  so  as  to  be  worthy  to  appear 
before  him.1 

"  But,  now,  when  he  came  in  to  welcome  them,  he  saw 
among  them  a  man  who  had  not  put  on  a  marriage  robe. 
'  Friend,'  said  he  to  him,  '  how  is  it  that  you  have  come 
in  hither  without  a  marriage  garment  ?  You  must  needs 
have  known  that  I  provided  robes,  fit  for  my  presence,  for 
all  my  guests,  and  that,  to  refuse  or  slight  what  is  thus 
offered  is  to  show  me  the  worst  affront.  You  know  that 
to  do  so  is  to  raise  the  severest  indignation  in  a  king  thus 
offended.'  2 

"But  the  man  was  speechless,  for  he  could  not  excuse 
himself. 

"  Then  said  the  king  to  his  attendants,  '  Bind  him  hand 
and  foot,  and  cast  him  out  into  the  thick  darkness  outside.' 

"  Ye  know,"  added  Jesus,  "  how  dark  our  streets  are  in  the 
night ;  no  windows  opening  on  them,  and  no  lights  illumin- 
ing them.  That  darkness  is  but  a  type  of  the  awful  night 
into  which  he  will  be  cast  out,  who  appears  at  the  marriage 
feast  of  the  Messiah's  kingdom  without  the  marriage-robe 
provided  by  my  Father.  In  that  darkness  there  will, 
indeed,  be  weeping  and  gnashing  of  teeth,  for  though  mul- 
titudes are  invited  to  the  feast  of  the  heavenly  kingdom, 
many  neglect  to  secure  the  marriage-robe,  without  which 
no  one  can  see  the  king !  " 

1  Nork,  p.  88.     Rabbinical  Parable  from  Koheleth  Rabba,  9.  8. 
•  *  Bosenmiiller,  Sch-.Ua.    Matt.  xxii.  11. 


390  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

The  parable  was  an  enforcement  of  those  just  addressed 
to  the  priests  and  Rabbis,  but  with  various  additional  les- 
sons. The  haughty  sons  of  Jerusalem  heard,  once  more,  that 
when  the  kingdom  of  the  Messiah  should  be  set  up  in  its 
glory,  God  would  call  the  heathen  to  a  share  in  it,  while  the 
people  of  Israel,  with  their  religious  leaders — because,  as  a 
nation,  they  had  rejected  His  repeated  invitations — would  no 
longer  be  the  one  people  of  God.  Still  more,  they  would  be 
visited  with  the  avenging  wrath  of  God,  in  the  destruction 
of  Jerusalem,  even  before  the  final  triumphant  establish- 
ment of  the  New  Divine  Kingdom.  Yet,  among  the  heathen 
invited  to  enter  it,  as  among  the  Jews,  God,  at  the  day  of 
judgment,  when  the  kingdom  was  finally  set  up  for  eternity, 
would  separate  and  judge  those  who  had  been  wanting  iii 
loyalty  to  Him,  and  had  come  into  His  presence  without  the 
preparation  demanded.  Such  would  be  cast  into  the  outer 
darkness  of  Gehenna. 

Thus,  in  the  very  presence  of  imminent  death,  there  was 
the  same  tranquillity  and  repose  as  on  the  free  hills  of 
Galilee,  or  in  the  safe  retreat  of  Caesarea  Philippi  ;  the  same 
stupendous  claims  as  Head  of  the  New  Kingdom  of  God,  and 
King  over  the  souls  of  men,  for  time  and  eternity.  Within 
a  few  hours  of  crucifixion,  and  conscious  of  the  fact ;  in  the 
intervals  of  mortal  contest  with  the  whole  forces  of  the  past 
and  present,  the  wandering  Galiloean  Teacher, — meek  and 
lowly  in  spirit,  so  that  the  poorest  and  the  youngest  instinc- 
tively sought  Him ;  full  of  Divine  pity,  so  that  the  most 
sunken  and  hopeless  penitent  felt  He  was  their  friend ; 
indifferent  to  the  supports  of  influence,  wealth,  or  numbers ; 
alone  and  poor ;  the  very  embodiment  of  weakness,  as 
regarded  all  visible  help, — still  bore  Himself  with  a  serene 
dignity  more  than  human.  In  the  name  of  God  He  trans- 
fers the  spiritual  glory  of  Israel  to  His  own  followers ; 
throws  down  the  barriers  of  caste  and  nationality ;  extends 
the  new  dominion  of  which  He  is  Head,  to  all  races,  and 
through  all  ages,  here  and  hereafter ;  predicts  the  Divine 
wrath  on  His  enemies  in  this  world,  as  the  enemies  of  God, 
and  announces  the  decision  of  the  final  judgment  as  turning 
on  the  attitude  of  men  towards  Himself  and  His  message. 
The  grandeur  of  soul  which  could  so  utterly  ignore  the  out- 
ward and  apparent,  and  dwell  on  the  essential  and  eternal ; 
the  conscious  majesty  in  the  midst  of  humiliation  and  dan- 
ger ;  the  absolute  trust  that,  if  the  present  belonged  to  His 
adversaries,  the  everlasting  future,  in  earth  and  heuvcn,  was 


MAN — BUT,   ALSO,   DIVINE.  391 

all  His  own,  could  spring  in  such  a  heart,  only  because  it 
felt  that  it  was  not  alone,  but  that,  unseen  by  man,  a  greater 
than  man  was  ever  with  Him.  Only  when  we  realize  Him 
as  enjoying  unclouded  and  absolute  communion  with  eternal 
truth  and  love — Man,  but  also  the  Incarnate  Divine — can 
we  hope  to  solve  the  mystery. 


CHAPTER  LVL 

JEKUSALEM. 

IT  was  still  Tuesday,  and  Jesus  had  not  yet  left  the  Tem- 
ple courts.1  The  deputation  from  the  Temple  authorities 
had  come  to  Him  in  the  early  morning,  only  to  retire  mortified 
and  silenced,  but  the  interests  of  all  parties  were  threatened 
by  One  who  demanded  changes  so  fundamental.  All  alike, 
therefore,  however  hostile  at  other  times,  made  common 
cause  in  trying  to  get  the  hated  Reformer  into  their  power. 
It  was  the  same  spirit  as,  in  after  ages,  when  far  less  fiercely 
roused,  burned  Arnold  of  Brescia  and  John  Huss,  and 
strangled  and  burnt  Savonarola,  and  slew  the  thousands  of 
victims  of  the  Inquisition:  the  non  possumus  of  a  corrupt 
ecclesiastical  corporation,  which  would  murder  in  the  name 
of  God,  because  that  could  be  called  orthodoxy  ;  but  would 
not  reform,  because  to  do  so  would  touch  their  emoluments 
and  their  dignity. 

Plot,  therefore,  thickened  on  plot.  Having  themselves 
failed,  the  authorities  sent  some  of  the  Pharisees  in  company 
with  Herodians,  otherwise  their  deadly  enemies,  to  try  to 
entangle  Him  by  the  answers  He  might  give  to  treacher- 
ous questions.  Obscure  men  were  chosen,  men  unknown  to 
Jesus.  They  were  to  pretend  themselves  anxious,  as  sincere 
Jews,  scrupulous  in  all  duties,  to  get  His  counsel  on  a  point 
much  disputed.  The  snare  was  no  longer  laid  in  the  sphere 
of  Rabbinical  law,  but  in  the  more  dangerous  one  of  political 
obligation,  that  an  ambiguous  answer  might  compromise 
Him  before  the  Roman  procurator.  If  they  succeeded,  it 
would  at  once  transfer  the  odium  of  His  arrest  from  them- 
selves, ensure  His  not  being  rescued,  and  make  it  possible 
to  get  Him  put  to  death,  for  the  power  of  death  was  in 
Pilate's  hands  alone. 

The  Pharisees  and  Herodians,  though  from  different  prin- 

1  Matt.  xxii.  15-22.  Mark  xii.  13-17.  Luke  xx.  20-26.  12th  Nisan, 
Monday  at  sunset  to  Tuesday  at  sunset  (2-3  April). 


THE   PHARISEES  AND   HEKODIANS.  393 

ciples,  were  equally  disloyal  in  heart  to  the  Roman  Emperor. 
The  extreme  section  of  the  former  had  developed  into  the 
sanguinary  Zealots — the  extreme  left,  or  irreconcilables,  of 
Jewish  politics ;  the  Herodians  were  Jewish  royalists,  who 
sighed  for  the  old  days  of  Archelaus  and  the  Edomite 
dynasty.1  With  dexterous  craft,  the  ultra-orthodoxy  of  the 
Pharisaic  party  allied  itself  with  the  discontented  royalist 
faction,  to  tempt  Jesus,  if  possible,  to  some  bold  expression 
of  opinion  on  the  hated  question  of  the  payment  of  the 
Roman  poll  tax,  which  had  already  excited  fierce  insur- 
rections. If  He  held  that  payment  should  be  refused,  He 
would  compromise  Himself  with  the  Romans ;  if  He  sanc- 
tioned it,  He  would  embitter  Himself  both  with  the  Herodians 
and  the  ultra- national  party.  Danger  lay  on  each  hand. 
On  the  one,  the  fierce  eyes  of  the  multitude ;  on  the  other, 
the  bailiffs  of  Herod  ;  here,  the  cry,  "  Publicans,  sinners ;  " 
there,  a  Roman  dungeon.  To  disarm  suspicions,  they  used 

"  Smooth  dissimulation,  taught  to  grace 
A  devil's  purpose  with  an  angel's  face." 

"  Teacher,"  said  they,  with  soft  accents  and  humble  looks, 
"  we  know — indeed,  we  are  fully  convinced — that  Thou 
teachest  what  God  requires  of  man  as  his  duty  in  all  matters, 
truly  and  rightly,  and  troublest  not  Thyself  about  the 
opinions  of  men,  but  fearlessly  and  nobly  speakest  what 
truth  demands,  without  thinking  of  consequences,  and  with- 
out caring  who  hears  Thee,  whether  he  be  rich  or  poor, 
learned  or  simple,  powerful  or  lowly.  Is  it  lawful  for  us 
Jews  to  pay  tribute  to  Caesar,  or  not  ?  We  are  the  people  of 
God  ;  God  is  our  King  ;  is  it  in  accordance  with  the  allegiance 
we  owe  to  Him,  as  such,  to  recognise  any  other  king,  as  we 
must  do  if  we  pay  taxes  to  Caesar  ?  "  It  was  on  such  reason- 
ing that  Judas  the  Gaulonite  had  based  his  fierce  revolt 
against  payment  of  the  tax  demanded  after  the  census  of 
Quirinius,2  and  his  name  and  opinions  were  venerated  by 
the  closely  packed  multitude  around.  Every  Galilsean  among 
thorn  expected  a  stern  avowal  of  the  illegality  of  the  demand. 
For  Judas  had  taught  the  youth  of  the  country,  that  to  pay 
taxes  to  a  heathen  state  was  not  allowable,  and  defiled  the 
land,  and  thousands  had  lived  as  fugitives  in  the  caves  of  the 
north,  or  had  died,  for  this  cause. 

lAnt.,  xiv.  15.  10.  2  Ant.,  xviii.  1.  1. 


394  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

The  mode  of  approach  adopted  was  well  fitted  to  throw 
Jesus  off  His  guard.  Recognition,  even  by  Pharisees,  as  the 
brave,  frank,  fearless  Man  of  God,  and  appeal  to  Him  in  a 
matter  which  might  cost  the  questioner  his  life,  were  alike 
ensnaring.  Frankness  demanded  frankness.  The  courage 
of  the  question  called  for  as  much  in  the  reply.  Jesus  knew, 
besides,  that  such  ideas  were  always  fermenting  in  the  mind 
of  the  Pharisee  youth,  and  that  the  Herodians,  instead  of 
being  friends  of  Rome,  anxiously  desired  a  change.  Why, 
therefore,  should  He  distrust  the  new  allies  ?  The  Roman 
supremacy  was  undoubtedly,  at  bottom,  a  usurpation.  The 
strict  Jew  recognised  no  ruler  but  Jehovah,  and  since  Jesus 
had  devoted  His  life  to  founding  a  "  Kingdom  of  Heaven," 
it  seemed  only  natural  that  He  should  hold  His  followers 
free  from  obligations  to  the  kingdoms  of  the  world.  They 
could  not  comprehend  the  spirituality  of  His  conceptions, 
for  if  they  had  not  cherished  a  secret  hope,  that,  in  spite  of 
appearances,  He  really  meditated  an  attack  on  the  Roman 
government,  they  would  hardly  have  asked  such  a  question. 
Could  they  only  bring  Him  to  reveal  these  secret  thoughts, 
His  death  at  the  hands  of  the  Romans,  as  a  crafty  conspira- 
tor, was  certain,  and  the  hierarchical  party  would  get  their 
revenge  against  the  daring  and  determined  transgressor  of 
Rabbinical  law,  without  the  odium  of  exacting  it. 

But  Christ's  answer  scattered  their  subtle  plans  to  the 
wind. 

"  You  hypocrites  !— you  actors  !  "  replied  He  ;  "  I  see 
through  your  designs,  and  value  your  deceitful  flatteries  at 
their  worth.  Why  do  you  thus  seek  to  entrap  Me,  under 
pretence  of  religious  scruples  which  yon  wish  me  to  solve 
for  you  ?  Bring  me  the  coin  you  pay  as  the  Roman  tax." 
A  Roman  denarius  was  presently  brought  him — a  coin  which 
the  Jew  hated  intensely,  for  it  was  that  in  which  the  poll- 
tax  -was  paid,  and  was,  thus,  the  sign  of  slavery  to  the 
heathen.  Besides,  it  bore  the  idolatrous  image  of  the  Roman 
Emperor  Tiberius,  and  the  legend  of  his  authority.  Till 
Vespasian's  reign,  the  Emperors,  to  spare  Jewish  feeling, 
had  a  special  coinage  for  Judea,  without  a  likeness  on  it, 
but  only  the  name  of  the  Emperor  and  the  traditional  Jewish 
emblems.  Other  coins,  however,  stamped  with  the  image  of 
Augustus  or  Tiberias,  naturally  found  their  way  to  Jeru- 
salem, especially  at  the  feasts.  Such  a  piece  was  now  handed 
to  Jesus,  with  the  hope,  doubtless,  that  the  double  abomina- 
tion— the  idolatrous  image  on  one  side,  and  the  legend  of 


THE   BIGHTS   OF   C^SAR   AND   THOSE   OF   GOD.     305 

Jewish,  subjection  on  the  other — might  provoke  Him  to  some 
treasonable  expression. 

"  Whose  image  and  superscription  is  this  ?  "   asked  He. 

"  Csesar's." 

"  Render  then  to  Caesar  the  things  that  are  Caesar's,  and 
to  God  the  things  that  are  God's." 

Nothing  could  be  said  after  such  an  answer.  The  head  of 
the  Emperor  on  the  coin,  and  the  legend  around  it,  were 
overt  proofs  of  the  existing  state  of  things,  and  of  the  de 
facto  right  of  the  imperial  government  to  levy  taxes.  Hence 
followed,  not  only  the  lawfulness,  but  the  duty,  of  paying 
what  was  thus  due  to  the  Roman  exchequer,  including  the 
tax  in  question,  since  the  very  coin  in  which  it  was  payable 
showed,  on  its  face  that  it  was  the  lawful  claim  of  the 
ruling  power.  "  But,"  added  He,  "  your  theocratic  duty  is 
in  no  way  compromised  by  such  political  obligations.  Pay 
also  what  is  demanded  by  God  as  your  spiritual  King,  as 
a  legal  claim  of  His  government — the  Temple  tax  and  all 
that  He  demands  from  you  besides,  as  His  spiritual  subjects." 
The  treacherous  question  was  answered  with  a  clearness, 
precision,  and  wisdom,  which  defined  for  all  ages  the  relations 
of  Christianity  to  the  civil  power.  Its  adherents  were  not 
to  oppose  existing  authority,  but  to  unite  their  duty  to  it, 
with  their  duty  to  God.  The  political  and  religious  spheres 
were  declared  not  opposite  but  co-existing  and  harmonious, 
though  distinct. 

To  realize  the  immense  significance  of  this  utterance, 
delivered  as  it  was,  on  the  moment,  without  an  instant's 
hesitation,  we  must  remember  that  it  introduced  an  entirely 
new  conception  of  the  relation  of  Church  and  State.  Till 
then,  over  the  world,  they  had  been  identical.  The  Caesar 
was  chief  priest  as  well  as  emperor,  and  the  colleges  of  priests 
and  augurs  were  political  institutions.1  In  Judea,  the  two 
spheres,  henceforth  to  be  separated,  had,  hitherto,  been  con- 
fused and  intermixed;  the  civil  power  was  the  instrument 
of  the  priest ;  its  institutions  were  religious,  and  the  priest- 
hood had  striven  after  kingly  power  and  rank.  Hence- 
forward, the  new  Society  was  to  stand  apart  from  political 
interests  and  authorities.  The  State  was  no  longer  indis- 
pensable to  its  perfect  completeness  and  efficiency.  The 
sphere  of  religion  was  that  of  the  conscience,  which  is,  by 
its  nature,  free.  The  State  cannot  leave  the  payment  of  ita 

1  Mommsen's  Gesch.,  vol.  ii.  p.  424  ;  vol.  iii.  p.  478. 


396  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

impositions  to  goodwill ;  it  must  enforce  them,  if  they  be 
refused ;  but  force  is  utterly  opposed  to  the  idea  of  the 
Kingdom  of  God.  In  it,  voluntary  service  alone  has  value. 
"What  is  yielded  to  force,  without  inner  truth  and  love,  is, 
before  God,  as  if  not  given  at  all  ;  what  is  given  in  hypo- 
critical self-interest,  is  an  abomination  to  Him. 1 

No  wonder  such  an  answer  filled  the  messengers  of  the 
hierarchical  party  with  astonishment.  It  was  not  only  not 
treasonable,  but  indirectly  pressed  on  the  nation  the  con- 
scientious discharge  of  its  duties  to  Rome.  But  they  could 
not  grasp  its  whole  significance,  for  they  had  no  concep- 
tion of  a  religious  community  which  had  not  the  right  and 
power  to  inflict  civil  penalties.  The  Old  Testament  economy 
was,  itself,  the  State.  Obedience  to  its  requirements  was 
enforced  by  the  national  courts,  and  an  attempt  to  change 
or  transgress  them  was  severely  punished.  Jesus,  Himself, 
indeed,  was  about  to  atone  with  His  life  for  His  offences 
against  the  established  and.  traditional  religious  usages  and 
opinions  of  the  ruling  caste.  The  idea  of  freedom  of  con- 
science and  faith,  which  was  the  very  starting-point  of  His 
teaching,  was  a  stumbling-block  and  a  ground  of  bitterness 
to  His  age.  The  conception  of  a  religion  in  which  there 
was  no  responsibility  except  to  God,  was  beyond  it. 

All  the  influential  Jewish  parties  had  now  united  against 
Him,  as  a  dangerous  innovator,  an  enemy  of  the  Rabbinical 
"  hedge  "  of  human  prescriptions  and  refinements,  which  was 
the  essence  of  the  religion  of  the  day.  If  tolerated  longer 
He  might  win  over  the  people  to  favour  His  demand  for 
fundamental  reform.  The  Pharisees  and  Herodians  had 
hardly  left  Him  when  some  aristocratic  Saddncees  renewed 
the  attack.  The  clergy  of  all  classes,  from  highest  to 
lowest,  were  against  Him.  His  support  was  among  the 
people.  His  appearance  in  the  Temple,  His  assumption  of 
authority  over  it,  and  His  lofty  claim  to  be  the  Messiah, 
filled  the  official  world  with  alarm,  and  united  them  to  crush 
Him.  But  the  Sadducees  had  none  of  the  earnestness  of  the 
Pharisees.  They  were  the  prototypes  of  the  scoffing  and 
infidel  priests  whom  Luther  found,  almost  fifteen  hundred 
years  after,  in  Rome  ;  who,  while  apparently  consecrating  the 
Holy  Sacrament,  were  parodying  the  words  of  the  Office.2 
The  Pharisees  had  early  taken  offence  at  Jesus,  for  they 
were  zealots  for  the  Rabbinism  He  attacked ;  but  the 

1  Schcnkel,  p.  240.  8  Michelet's  Luther,  p.  16. 


THE  SADDUCEES  AND  THE  KESUBKECTION.   397 

Sadducees — few,  rich,  dignified ;  the  primate  and  bishops  of 
the  day — affected  at  first  only  to  despise  the  Galilaean,  who, 
like  so  many  before  Him,  had  stirred  up  commotion  for  the 
time  among  His  rude  compatriots.  Even  now,  in  Jerusalem, 
they  were  disposed  to  look  at  Him  and  His  adherents  with 
a  lofty  contempt,  and  to  laugh  the  foolish  rabble  who  listened 
to  Him  out  of  their  fanatical  dreams.  His  claims,  were,  in 
their  opinion,  more  silly  than  dangerous,  and  they  would, 
therefore,  bring  the  whole  matter  into  contempt,  by  making 
it  ridiculous. 

For  this  end  they  had  carefully  selected,  from  the  cases 
invented  by  Rabbinical  casuistry,  that  of  a  wife  who  was 
supposed,  in  accordance  with  the  Mosaic  law,  to  have  married 
in  succession  seven  brothers,1  each  of  whom  died  without 
children.  Though  an  imaginary,  it  was  a  possible  case,  for 
the  Law  enacted,  that,  if  a  husband  died  without  leaving 
a  son  to  perpetuate  his  name,  his  brother  must  marry  the 
widow,  and  the  first-born  son  of  this  second  marriage  was 
to  be  entered  in  the  public  register  as  the  son  of  the  dead 
man.2 

Not  themselves  believing  in  the  doctrine  of  the  resurrection, 
and  supposing  that  Jesus,  who,  they  had  heard,  taught  it,  held 
the  same  notions  as  they  ascribed  to  the  Pharisees,  they 
fancied  they  could  cover  Him  and  it  with  ridicule,  by  a  skil- 
ful use  of  this  case.  Some  of  the  Rabbis,  indeed,  had  purer 
conceptions  than  others,  teaching  that  in  the  kingdom  of  the 
Messiah,  after  the  resurrection,  or  at  least  in  the  future  world, 
the  just  would  neither  eat,  drink,  nor  marry.3  But  they 
were  exceptions ;  for  the  popular  belief,  as  expressed  by  the 
Rabbis  generally,  was  gross  and  unworthy  in  the  extreme. 
The  resurrection  would  not  only  restore  men  to  their  former 
bodies,  but  to  their  bodily  appetites  and  passions ;  they 
would  not  only  eat,  drink,  and  take  wives,  but  would  rise 
in  the  clothes  they  wore  in  life,  if  buried  with  them,  and 
even  with  all  their  bodily  blemishes  and  defects,  "that  men 
might  know  them  to  be  the  same  persons  as  they  knew  in 
life."4  Even  the  case  supposed  by  the  Sadducees  had  been 
settled  in  principle, — "  for  the  woman  who  had  married  two 


1  Matt.  xxii.  23-33.     Mark  xii.  18-27.    Luke  xx.  27-40. 

2  Deut.  xxv.  5.    Ew aid's  Alterth.,  p.  239.     De  Wette's  Archaologie, 
p.  157. 

1  Berachoth,  f.  17.  1.     Jalkut  Simeoni,  i.  34.  4.     Jalkut  Rubeni,  134.  1, 
*  Eisenmenger,  vol.  ii.  pp.  949,  935,  936. 


398  THE   LIFE   OF   CHBIST. 

husbands  in  this  world,"  says  the  Book  Sohar,  "  in  the  world 
to  come  will  be  given  to  the  first." 

Fancying  there  was  no  sanction  in  the  Pentateuch  either 
for  the  immortality  of  the  soul  or  the  resurrection,  the 
Sadducees  sneered  at  both  doctrines.  "  They  deny  the  re- 
surrection after  death,"  says  the  Talmud,  "  and  maintain  that 
it  is  as  vain  to  hope  that  a  cloud  which  has  vanished  will 
appear  again,  as  that  the  grave  will  give  back  its  dead."  l 

Coming  to  Jesus,  with  a  well-bred  politeness,  they  put  their 
question  softly,  addressing  Him  respectfully,  in  imitation  of 
the  Pharisees  and  Herodians,  as  Rabbi,  for  which  they  used 
the  current  Greek  equivalent. 

"Your  ideas  respecting  these  things  are  wrong,"  replied 
Jesus,  "  from  your  not  understanding  correctly  the  Scriptures 
which  refer  to  them.  The  children  of  this  world  marry,  and 
are  given  in  marriage  because  they  are  mortal,  and  marriage 
is  necessary  to  perpetuate  the  race.  But  those  who  shall 
be  counted  worthy  to  enter  the  Heavenly  Kingdom  of  the 
Messiah,  and  will  be  raised  from  the  dead  to  do  so,  neither 
marry  nor  are  given  in  marriage,  neither  can  they  die  any 
more,  for  they  will  be  immortal,  like  angels ;  and  hence  there 
is  no  reason  for  their  marrying  and  raising  children  to  take 
their  place,  as  with  men  in  this  world.  As  sons  of  the 
resurrection,  they  are  sons  of  God,  and,  like  the  angels,  will 
live  for  ever. 

"  As  to  the  resurrection  of  the  dead,  you  have  referred  to 
Moses.  But  let  me  also  refer  to  him.  Even  he  shows,  in 
the  passage  in  which  we  are  told  of  the  vision  at  the  burning 
bush,  that  the  dead  are  raised.  For  he  calls  Jehovah,  the 
God  of  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob.  Now,  God  cannot  be  the 
God  of  persons  who  do  not  exist,  and,  therefore,  the  patriarchs, 
though  their  bodies  were  dead,  must  themselves  have  been 
still  living — living,  I  mean,  in  the  separate  state,  and  awaiting 
the  resurrection.  Thus,  God  regards  all  the  dead  as  still 
living,  and,  if  this  be  the  case,  how  easy  for  Him  to  raise 
them  hereafter ! " 

"  Rabbi,  Thou  hast  spoken  well,"  said  some  scribes,  as  He 
closed.  They  were,  for  the  moment,  won  to  His  side,  by  His 
triumph  over  their  bitter  Sadducee  enemies,  Meanwhile,  the 
people  were  more  than  ever  astonished  at  His  teaching,  and 
disposed  to  think  Him  a  prophet. 

1  Quoted  in  Nork,  p.  88  The  Art.  Auferstehnng  in  Bibel  Lex.,  givea 
»n  admirable  history  of  the  doctrine  in  Jewish  Theology. 


GEEAT  AND   SMALL   COMMANDMENTS.  399 

It  soon  spread  abroad  that  the  Sadducees  had  been  silenced ; 
but  the  Pharisees  had  already  prepared  a  new  attempt  to 
entrap  Him.1  One  of  them,  who  had  listened  to  the  dispute 
—a  scribe,  or  master  of  the  Law — had  been  selected  to  be 
their  spokesman,  but,  as  it  proved,  was  only  half-hearted  in 
His  task.  The  Rabbis  taught  that  there  were  great  and  small 
commands  in  the  laws — the  one  hard  and  weighty,  the  other 
easy  and  of  less  moment.  Their  idea  of  greatness,  however, 
was  independent  of  the  religious  importance  of  a  particular 
precept,  and  was  determined  only  by  their  own  arbitrary 
enactments.  Thus,  commands  were  especially  called  great, 
to  the  transgression  of  which  excommunication  was  attached ; 
such  as  observance  of  the  Sabbath  in  their  sense,  of  cir- 
cumcision, of  the  minutest  rites  of  sacrifice  and  offering,  of 
ceremonial  purity,  and  the  like.  The  precepts  respecting 
the  structure  of  the  booths  at  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles,  and 
of  the  washing  the  hands,  were,  on  the  contrary,  counted 
small.  But,  in  spite  of  this  nominal  difference,  obedience  to 
all  was  alike  imperative,  and  in  practice,  both  classes  were 
treated  as  alike  weighty.  To  honour  one's  parents  and  to  let 
a  mother-bird  fly  when  the  young  are  taken,  not  to  kill,  and 
to  wash  the  hands,  were  put  on  a  level,  and  had  an  equal 
reward.2  Even  the  injunctions  of  the  Rabbis  respecting  the 
zizith  or  tassels  of  their  scarves,  were  "  great."  "  The 
words  of  the  Rabbis,"  says  the  Talmud,  "  are  to  be  prized 
above  those  of  the  Law,  for  the  words  of  the  Law  are  both 
weighty  and  light,  but  those  of  the  Rabbis  are  all  weighty."  3 
Any  answer  of  Jesus  on  a  subject  so  delicate,  might  perhaps 
once  more  commit  Him,  as  an  enemy  of  the  traditions,  and 
expose  Him  to  new  charges. 

It  may  be,  there  was,  besides,  a  lurking  desire  to  elicit 
some  utterance  respecting  His  claims  to  a  more  than  human 
authority.  Stones  had  been  lifted  more  than  once,  to  put 
Him  to  death  as  a  blasphemer,  who  made  Himself  equal  with 
God.  How  would  He  express  Himself  in  the  face  of  the  first 
command  of  the  Decalogue  ? 

His  reply,  as  always,  goes  to  the  root  of  the  matter, 
simplifying  the  whole  sweep  of  "  the  Ten  Words  "  into  brief 
and  easily  remembered  principles.  He  avoided  the  least 
approach  to  anything  that  could  offend  the  most  zealous 

1  Matt.  xxuL  34-40.     Mark  xii.  28-34.  s  Keim.  vol.  iii.  p.  150. 

1  Hurwitz,  in  his  Sagcn  der  Hebraer,  has  a  laboured  attempt  to  explain 
this  (xxix.),  but  it  is  a  failure. 


400  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

supporter  of  the  Old  Testament,  and,  at  the  same  time, 
gave  no  handle  for  accusation  of  any  slight  of  the  Rabbin- 
ical precepts. 

"  Teacher,"  said  the  legalist,  "  which  is  the  great  and  first 
commandment  in  the  Law  ?  " 

No  one  could  take  Jesus  by  surprise  at  any  time,  but  in 
this  sphere  He  was,  if  we  may  so  speak,  especially  at  home, 
as  he  had  shown  a  few  days  before,  in  His  conversation  with 
the  young  ruler,  near  Jericho.  Conscious  of  the  supreme 
peril  of  His  position,  He  answered  with  more  fulness  than 
usual,  leaving  no  ground  for  misapprehension,  but  giving  as 
little  for  offence.  To  the  young  ruler  He  had  named  only 
one  command — the  love  of  our  neighbour — as  great,  but  to 
the  scribe  He  gave  two,  as  forming,  together,  "  the  great  and 
first  commandment."  If  either  was  abridged,  or  subordinated 
to  the  other,  and  in  the  two  He  formed  the  principle  from 
which  obedience  of  all  the  rest  would  follow.  With  sure 
hand,  He  turned  first  to  the  Fifth  Book  of  Moses,  then  to  the 
Third,  for  the  two  great  guiding  stars  which  all  the  host  of 
lesser  commands  followed.1  "  Hear,  0  Israel,"  said  He : 
"  Jehovah,  our  God,  is  one  Jehovah"2 — words  in  which  every 
Israelite,  night  and  morning,  confessed  his  faith  in  Jehovah 
— "  And  thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy  heart, 
and  with  all  thy  soul,  and  with  all  thy  mind,  and  with  all  thy 
strength.  This  is  the  great  and  first  commandment.  A 
second  is  like  it.  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbour  as  thyself. 
There  is  none  other  command  greater  than  these.  On  these 
two  hang  the  whole  Law  and  the  prophets." 

He  had  once  more  shown  His  greatness  as  a  teacher,  by 
summing  up  our  whole  duty  in  the  fundamental  conceptions 
•  of  religion  and  morality ;  in  the  love  to  God,  which  is  also 
love  to  His  children,  our  fellow-men.  Nor  were  the  various 
commands  of  any  part  of  the  Scriptures  overlooked;  the 
religious  and  moral  precepts  of  the  prophets,  no  less  than 
the  Law,  were  honoured  and  made  binding  for  ever. 

"  Thou  hast  spoken  well  and  truly,"  broke  in  the  scribe, 
"  for  God  is  One,  and  there  is  no  other  but  He,  and  to  love 
Him  with  all  the  heart,  and  with  all  the  understanding,* 
and  with  all  the  soul,  and  with  all  the  strength,  and  to  love 
one's  neighbour  as  one's  self,  is  of  greater  consequence  than 
all  the  whole-burnt-offerings  of  the  Law,  the  morning  and 
evening  sacrifice,  and  all  other  sacrifices  besides." 

1  Kcim,  vol.  iii.  p.  151.  2  Deut.  vi.  4,  5.    Lev.  xix.  18. 


THE    SON   OP  DAVID.  401 

"  Thou  art  not  far  from  the  kingdom  of  God,"  replied 
Jesus,  as  He  heard  words  which  showed  that  the  speaker 
was  no  mere  man  of  his  party,  but  was  accessible  to  higher 
impulses.  The  Galilsean  had  proved  very  different  from 
what  he  had  been  led  to  anticipate.  His  answers  had  not 
only  silenced  His  enemies,  but  had  half  won  some  of  them 
to  His  side.  Henceforth,  all  alike  kept  aloof  from  One 
who  sent  away  chief  priests  and  Rabbis  equally  humbled 
and  silenced. 

As  on  the  day  before,  the  defeat  of  all  the  attacks  on  Him 
was  followed  by  His  taking  the  offensive,  but  only  in  a  mild, 
instructive  conflict  with  prejudice  and  misapprehension.  He 
had  openly  assumed  the  Messiahship,  though  in  a  sense  en- 
tirely in  contrast  with  the  popular  conception.  That  He 
fulfilled  none  of  the  conditions  expected  in  the  Messiah,  alike 
by  the  authorities  and  the  people,  had  given  the  former  the 
pretext  for  spreading  it  abroad  that  He  was  an  impostor  ;  a 
cry  caught  up,  in  the  end  only  too  widely  by  the  Jerusalem 
populace.  He  would  now  show  the  Pharisees,  if  they  chose 
to  listen,  that  their  preconceptions  were  wrong,  when  tested 
by  Scripture,  and  thus  expose  the  worthlessness  of  the  argu- 
ments on  which  they  had  based  their  light  denial  of  His 
Messiahship. 

Turning  unexpectedly  to  a  knot  of  Pharisees,  who  hung 
near,  to  watch  as  He  was  teaching,  He  asked  them l — 

"  What  is  your  opinion  about  the  Messiah ;  I  mean,  as  to 
His  lineage  and  extraction — whose  son  is  He  ?  " 

"  The  Son  of  David,"  answered  they,  at  once. 

"  How  is  it,  then,"  replied  Jesus,  "  that  David,  in  the 
hundred  and  tenth  Psalm,  which  you  Rabbis  justly  refer  to 
the  Messiah,2  says,  by  inspiration  of  God,  '  The  Lord  said 
unto  my  Lord,  the  Messiah,  Sit  thou.  on  my  right  hand,  till 
I  make  thine  enemies  thy  footstool.  Thy  mighty  sceptre 
will  the  Eternal  stretch  forth  out  of  Zion ;  rule  thou  in  the 
midst  of  thy  foes.'  If  He  be  David's  Lord,  how  can  He  be 
his  Son  ?  " 

Not  knowing  what  to  say  they  were  silent.  The  true 
answer  was  one  which  had  not  entered  their  thoughts.  It 
would  have  been — He  is  David's  Son  by  His  human  descent, 
but,  as  the  Son  of  God,  proceeding  from  the  Father,  He  is 
exalted  far  above  David  and  all  mankind,  and  therefore  was 

1  Matt.  xxii.  41-46.     Mark  xii.  35-37.     Luke  xx.  41-44. 
3  See  extracts  in  Nork,  p.  Iviii. 


402  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

rightly  called,  by  David,  his  Lord.  But  this  twofold  relation 
of  the  Messiah  to  their  great  king,  and,  with  it,  the  true 
estimate  of  the  dignity  and  office  of  the  Messiah,  were  not 
in  their  theology.  The  exposition  of  Jesus  might  displease 
the  Rabbis,  but  it  was  heard  with  eager  ears  by  the  multi- 
tude around. 

A  new  scene  now  opened.  Day  after  day,  the  hostility 
of  His  enemies  had  shown  itself  more  fierce,  as  they  found 
it  increasingly  hopeless  to  overcome  Him  by  legitimate 
weapons  or  argument.  The  people,  however,  were  more 
friendly,  and  regarded  Him  as,  at  least,  a  prophet,  if  not 
the  Messiah.  He  had  hitherto  maintained  only  a  defensive 
attitude,  but  the  clear  purpose  shown  to  put  Him  out  of  the 
way,  made  all  further  reserve  or  caution  useless.  With  the 
calmness  of  a  profound  conviction,  and  the  clearest  statement 
of  His  grounds,  He  proceeded  to  open  a  vigorous  attack, 
that  the  contrast  between  Himself  and  His  opponents  might 
be  beyond  question.  Every  one  must  be  enabled  to  judge 
intelligently  on  which  side  he  would  take  his  place.  A 
speedy  decision  of  the  struggle  was,  henceforth,  to  be  desired. 

Jesus  now,  therefore,  broke  out,  before  the  multitude,  in  a 
last  terrible  denunciation  of  the  moral  and  religious  short- 
comings of  His  enemies.  These  He  summed  up  under  the 
two  great  heads  of  hypocrisy  and  selfishness ;  they  made 
a  pretence  and  a  gain  of  religion.  Yet  their  doctrines  and 
decisions  were  substantially  right ;  it  was  their  practice  He 
condemned. 

"  The  scribes  and  Pharisees,"  said  He,  "  have  taken  pos- 
session of  the  seat  of  Moses,  to  continue  _his  office  as  law- 
giver, by  explaining  and  teaching  the  Law.1  They  are  his 
official  successors ;  therefore,  obey  their  decisions.  But  do 
not  imitate  their  lives,  for  they  teach  what  they  do  not 
practise.  They  heap  together  their  rules  and  demands  into 
heavy  burdens,  and  lay  them  on  men's  shoulders,  but  they 
will  not  help  those  whom  they  thus  load,  by  so  much  as  the 
touch  of  a  little  finger.  They  shirk  many  rites  and  forms 
which  they  demand  from  others  as  sacred  duties.  Their 
requirements  are  a  weight  on  the  conscience,  which  deadens 
and  destroys  it.  To  exalt  their  order,  they  make  slaves  of 
the  people,  paralyzing,  by  their  countless  laws,  all  true  virtue, 
freedom,  and  love.  They  act  only  with  an  eye  to  effect ;  to 
be  thought  more  religious  than  others,  and  reap  considera- 

1  Mark  xii.  38,  39.     Luke  xx.  45,  46.     Matt,  xxiii.  1-12. 


DENUNCIATION   OF  THE   PHARISEES.  403 

tion  and  profit  from  this  reputation.  They  come  out  to  pray 
in  their  most  pious  robes,  especially  now,  at  the  feast,  and 
wear  phylacteries  of  extra  size  on  their  forehead  and  arm  that 
they  may  be  noticed,  while  the  very  tassels  l  hung,  in  honour 
of  the  Law,  at  the  corners  of  their  abbas,  are  larger  than 
those  of  others.  To  get  honour,  they  strive  for  the  highest 
places  at  feasts,  and  the  chief  seats  in  the  synagogues,  and 
court  salutations  in  the  crowded  market-place,  and  the 
sounding  title,  Rabbi.  Have  nothing  to  do  with  such  proud 
names,  for  I,  only,  am  your  Rabbi  or  teacher,  and  all  ye  are 
brethren.  They  like  to  be  called  'Father,'  but  call  no 
teacher  on  earth  your  father,  for  one  only  is  your  Father ; 
God,  in  Heaven.  And  do  not,  like  them,  be  called  Leaders, 
for  you  have  only  one  Leader,  me,  the  Messiah.  The  highest 
place  among  my  disciples  is  quite  otherwise  obtained  than 
among  them,  for  he  who  seeks  to  be  great  among  you  can 
become  so,  as  I  have  said  before,  only  by  being  the  servant 
of  the  rest.  This  lowliness  is  itself  his  greatness.  For  he 
who  exalts  himself  shall  be  humbled  at  my  coming,  and  he 
who  humbles  himself  will  be  exalted." 

Rising,  as  He  proceeded,  He  now  broke  out  into  a  lofty 
utterance  of  indignation  at  such  principles  and  conduct. 

"  Woe  to  you,  scribes  and  Pharisees,  actors  !  Ye  plunder 
the  houses  of  desolate  widows,  left  without  protectors,  and, 
to  hide  your  doings,  make  long  prayers  while  at  such  work  !  - 
For  you  say  in  your  hypocrisy,  '  Long  prayers  make  a  long 
life,'  and  some  of  you  boast  that  you  pray  nine  hours  a  day !  3 
Believe  me,  you  will  receive  for  all  this  the  greater  damna- 
tion hereafter. 

"Woe  to  you,  scribes  and  Pharisees,  actors!  Ye  stand 
in  the  gateway  of  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven — that  Kingdom 
I  have  come  to  set  up — and  not  only  do  not  yourselves  enter, 
but  even  close  the  doors  I  have  opened,  that  you  may  keep 
those  from  entering  who  wish  to  do  so. 

"  Woe  to  you,  scribes  and  Pharisees,  actors  !  Instead  of 
helping  men  into  the  Kingdom  of  the  Messiah,  ye  compass 
sea  and  land  to  make  one  proselyte,4  that  your  party  may 
profit  by  him,  and,  when  he  is  gained,  what  do  you  make  of 
him  ?  A  son  of  hell,  by  your  example,  and  that  twofold 
more  than  even  yourselves. 

1  Herzog,  EncykL,  vol.  iv.  p.  682. 

*  Matt,  xxiii.  13-39.     Mark  xii.  40.     Luke  xx.  47. 

8  Hor.  Heb.,  vol.  ii.  p.  296.  4  Ant.,  xx.  2. 1. 


404  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

"  Woe  to  you,  blind  guides,  who  say,  '  If  any  one  swear 
by  the  Temple,  it  is  not  binding ;  but  if  he  swear  by  the 
gold  which  belongs  to  the  Temple — the  gilding,  the  golden 
vessels,  or  the  treasure — he  is  bound  by  his  oath.'  Fools 
and  blind !  for  which  is  the  greater,  the  gold,  or  the  Temple 
that  sanctifies  the  gold?  You  say,  in  the  same  spirib,  '  If 
any  one  swear  by  the  altar,  his  oath  is  not  binding  on  him  ; 
but  if  he  swear  by  the  gift  that  he  has  laid  on  the  altar,  he 
mast  keep  his  oath.'  Fools  and  blind!  for  which  is  tte 
greater,  the  gift,  or  the  altar  that  sanctifies  the  gift  ?  He 
who  swears  by  the  altar,  swears  by  it  and  by  all  the  things 
on  it,  and  he  who  swears  by  the  Temple,  swears  by  it  and 
by  Him  that  dwells  in  it.  And  he  who  swears  by  heaven, 
swears  by  the  throne  of  God  and  by  Him  who  sits  on  it. 

"  Woe  to  you,  scribes  and  Pharisees,  actors  !  for  ye  affect 
to  be  so  strict  in  observing  the  Law  that  you  pay  a  tenth  to 
the  Temple  of  even  the  sprigs  of  mint  and  anise  and  cummin 
in  your  garden  borders,  and  yet  at  the  same  time  you  neglect 
the  great  commands  of  the  Law, — to  do  justly,  to  love  mercy, 
and  to  walk  humbly  with  your  God.  You  ought  certainly  to 
attend  to  the  lighter  demands  of  the  Law,  but  surely  not  to 
leave  the  far  greater  neglected.  Blind  guides,  who  strain  out 
the  gnat  from  the  wine  and  swallow  the  camel !  Sticklers 
for  worthless  trifles,  regardless  of  matters  of  moment. 

"  Woe  to  you,  scribes  and  Pharisees,  actors !  Ye  make 
clean  the  outside  of  the  cup  and  the  dish,  but,  within,  they 
are  full  of  robbery  and  incontinence.  Blind  Pharisee,  clean 
first  the  inside  of  the  cup  and  dish,  that  the  wine  taste  no 
more  of  plunder  and  lust,  and  that  the  outside  may  not  only 
seem  clean  by  your  washing  it,  but  be  clean,  by  the  taking 
away  of  that  defilement  which  your  life  gives  it,  in  spite  of 
your  cleansings. 

"  Woe  to  you,  scribes  and  Pharisees,  actors  !  You  are  like 
the  whitewashed  tombs  all  over  the  land — fair  outside,  but 
full  within  of  the  deadliest  uncleanness,  the  bones  of  men, 
and  all  corruption,  You  pass  yourselves  off  as  religious,  but 
ii  your  hearts  you  are  full  of  hypocrisy  and  iniquity." 

Over  against  the  eastern  hall  in  which  Jesus  now  stood, 
and  from  which  He  looked  down,  into  the  Valley  of  the 
Kedron,  lay,  on  the  slope  of  the  Mount  of  Olives,  the  tombs  of 
the  Prophets,  the  southernmost  of  which  is  yet  known  as  the 
Tomb  of  Zechariah.  In  sight  of  these  monuments,  ranging 
His  eyes  from  grave  to  grave,  He  burst  out  afresh — 

"  Woe  to  you,  scribes  and  Pharisees,  actors !     Ye  build 


LAMENT  OVER  JERUSALEM.  405 

fine  tombs  over  the  old  prophets,  and  beautify  those  of  the 
saints,  and  say,  '  If  we  had  lived  in  the  days  of  our  fathers, 
we  would  not  have  taken  part  with  them  in  their  martyrdom 
of  these  holy  men.'  But  when  you  call  them  '  your  fathers,' 
you  bear  witness  that  you  are  their  sons,  and  you  are,  not 
only  in  natural  descent,  but  in  your  spirit.  You  are  of  kin  in 
heart  to  the  murderers  of  the  prophets  !  Fill  up,  therefore,  the 
measure  of  iniquity  your  fathers  before  you  filled  in  their  day, 
— by  slaying  me  and  those  I  shall  send  to  you  !  Serpents  ! 
brood  of  vipers,  for  vipers  your  fathers  were,  and  vipers  are 
ye,  how  can  ye  escape  the  judgment  of  hell !  That  ye  may 
not  do  so,  behold,  I  send  to  you  prophet-like  Apostles,  and 
Rabbis,  and  scribes.  Some  of  them  ye  shall  kill  and  crucify  ; 
some  ye  shall  scourge  in  your  synagogues,  and  persecute  from 
city  to  city — that  on  you,  the  leaders  of  the  people,  may  come 
the  punishment  of  all  the  innocent  righteous  blood  shed 
on  the  earth;  from  the  blood  of  righteous  Abel  to  that  of 
Zechariah,  the  son  of  Berechiah,  who  was  stoned  by  command 
of  King  Joash,1  in  the  court  of  the  Temple,  between  the  shrine 
and  the  altar.  Believe  me,  all  these  things  will  come  in  this 
generation."  Zechariah,  of  old,  had  denounced  the  sin  of 
Israel,  as  Jesus  had  that  of  the  priests  and  Rabbis.  -"  Why 
transgress  ye,"  he  had  asked,  "  the  commandments  of  the 
Lord  ?  Ye  cannot  prosper !  Because  ye  have  forsaken 
Jehovah,  He  hath  forsaken  you."  c< 

"  0  Jerusalem  !  Jerusalem  !  "  He  continued,  "  that  killest 
the  prophets,  and  stonest  those  sent  in  love  to  thee;  how  often 
have  I  desired  to  gather  thy  children,  as  a  hen  gathers  her 
chickens  under  her  wing,  and  ye  refused  to  accept  me  as  the 
Messiah,  and  thus  come  under  my  loving  protection.  Behold, 
your  house  is  left  to  you !  I  go  from  it.  The  time  of  the 
Divine  help  and  guard  over  you  and  your  city,  which  I  was 
sent  to  offer,  is  past. 

"  I  tell  you  ye  shall  not  see  me  henceforth,  after  my  death, 
which  is  near  at  hand,  till  I  appear  again  in  my  glory. 
Then,  you  shall  be  only  too  eagerly  willing  to  hail  me  as  the 
Messiah,  though  now  ye  refuse  even  to  let  others  thus  honour 
me.  Then,  when  too  late,  you  will  cry,  as  the  crowds  did  aa 
I  entered  your  city,  '  Blessed  is  He  that  cometh  in  the  name 
of  the  Lord.' " 

Thus,  the  breach  between  the  Future  and  the  Past  was 
finally  made  complete.  The  whole  hierarchy,  from  the  high 

1  Ant.,  ix.  8.  3.  8  2  Chron.  xxiv.  20. 


406  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

priest  its  primate,  to  the  Levite  its  curate,  and  the  Rahbi  its 
university  professor  or  tutor,  had  been  denounced  before  the 
people,  in  language  which  they  must  resent  if  they  were  to 
retain  any  authority  at  all.  Either  Jesus,  or  the  Church  as 
it  was,  with  all  its  innumerable  personal  interests,  must 
perish.  It  had  come  to  this,  indeed,  before  this  last  tremen- 
dous indictment  of  the  system,  and  the  certainty  that  nothing 
could  avert  His  being  sacrificed  to  the  fanaticism  and  vested 
interests  arrayed  against  Him,  had  alone  caused  such  a  pro- 
test. He  had  no  reasons  for  further  reserve.  It  was  evident 
that  He  must  die  at  their  hands,  and  the  irreconcilable  oppo- 
sition between  the  system  for  the  sake  of  which  He  was  to  be 
martyred,  and  His  own  character  and  work,  must,  once  more, 
for  the  last  time,  be  brought  out  in  full  contrast,  that  every 
one  might  choose  for  which  he  would  decide. 

The  infinite  moral  grandeur  and  purity  of  Jesus,  His  ab- 
solute truth,  His  all-embracing  love,  His  lowly  humility,  His 
sublime  consecration  to  the  will  of  His  Father,  His  intense 
moral  earnestness,  His  spirit  of  joyful  self-sacrifice  for  the 
moral  and  spiritual  good  of  mankind,  shine  out  nowhere  more 
transcendently,  than  when  contrasted,  in  this  parting  lament, 
with  the  wretched  sophistries  and  reverence  for  the  infinitely 
little,  which  marked  the  Rabbinism  He  opposed.  The  spirit 
of  the  market  or  the  booth,  in  religion,  found  no  sanction  at 
His  hands  ;  He  would  have  no  huckstering  for  heaven  by  a 
life  of  petty  formalities ;  He  abhorred  all  cant  and  insincerity, 
and  all  trading  with  religion  ;  all  strivin-g  after  mere  out- 
ward success,  for  ulterior  and  unworthy  ends.  He  would 
have  no  divorce  of  religion  from  morality  ;  it  was  with  Him 
a  living  principle  in  the  heart,  not  a  rubric  of  external  acts ; 
its  outward  expression  was  a  holy  life,  but  the  holiness  with- 
out was  only  the  blossoming  of  a  similar  holiness  within.  In 
Rabbinism,  on  the  contrary,  there  was  formal  piety,  with  no 
moral  earnestness ;  an  absorbing  zeal  for  artificial  duties, 
with  which  the  conscience  had  nothing  to  do  ;  and  an  elaborate 
multiplication  of  rules  and  rites,  for  the  express  aim  of  obtain- 
ing the  absolute  spiritual  dependence  of  all  on  the  teaching 
caste.  The  whole  system  had  been  originated  and  developed 
to  its  fulness,  to  be  a  "  hedge  "  round  the  Law,  and  thus 
secure  fidelity  to  the  politico-religious  constitution  of  the 
nation,  and  its  minutest  details  were  strenuously  enforced  to 
secure  this  end.  Unquestioning  acceptance  of  tradition,  and 
the  deepening  and  extending  of  the  ghostly  influence  of  the 
authorities,  were  the  two  great  points  kept  in  view.  There 


THE   MOEAL   DECAY  OF  JUDAISM.  407 

were  true  Israelites,  like  Nathanael,  or  Zechariah,  or  Simeon, 
or  Joseph,  in  spite  of  a  system  thus  lifeless  and  corrupting ; 
but  it  was  vain  to  hope  for  anything  but  evil  in  the  com- 
munity at  large,  under  its  reign.  Insincerity  and  immorality 
in  the  teachers  of  a  religion  can  only  multiply  and  perpetuate 
themselves  in  their  disciples. 

The  theology  and  hierarchy  of  Judaism  had  become,  in  fact, 
what  Jesus  openly  declared  them — whitewashed  sepulchres, 
pure  to  the  eye,  but  with  death  and  corruption  within.  They 
had  proved  that  they  were  so,  by  rejecting  Him,  because 
He  demanded  moral  and  religious  reform.  Wedded  to  the 
false  and  immoral,  they  rather  killed  Him  than  let  Him  lead 
them  back  to  God. 

Over  such  a  state  of  things  He  could  only  raise  His  sad 
lamentation  !  Judaism  had  chosen  its  own  way,  and  left  Him 
to  His. 


64 


CHAPTER  LVII. 

THE   INTERVAL. 

A  FTER  His  terrible  parting  denunciation  of  the  religiou.3 
**•  leaders  of  the  nation,  Jesus  passed  into  the  spacious 
Court  of  the  Women,  fifteen  steps  below  that  of  the  men. 
It  was  a  wide  space  of  a  hundred  and  thirty-five  cubits  in 
length  and  breadth,  and  was  open  to  the  people  at  large. 
Popular  assemblies,  indeed,  were  at  times  held  in  it,  and  it 
was  the  scene  of  the  torch-dance  at  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles. 
It  was  especially  frequented,  however,  by  both  sexes,  because 
the  building  in  which  the  pious  presented  their  offerings 
formed  part  of  one  of  its  sides. 

•  After  the  multiplied  excitements  of  the  past  hours,  Jesus 
had  sat  down  to  rest  over  against  the  treasury,  where  the 
continuous  stream  of  persons  casting  in  their  money  neces- 
sarily attracted  His  notice.  As  each  came,  He  could  judge 
by  his  appearance  how  much  he  threw  in.  The  poor  could 
only  give  paltry  copper  coins,  but  the  rich  cast  in  gold  and 
silver ;  some,  doubtless,  from  an  honest  zeal  for  the  glory  of 
God;  others,  because  alms,  in  the  sordid  theology  of  the 
day,  hefcl  their  commercial  value  in  the  future  world. 

AJmong  the  rest,  came  a  poor  widow,  with  her  two  lepta — 
one-twelfth  of  our  penny,  each l  * — the  smallest  of  copper 
coins.  She  could  not  have  cast  in  less,  for  one  lepton  was 
not  received  as  an  offering.  The  sight  touched  the  heart  of 
Jesus.  "  Believe  me,"  said  He,  to  those  around,  "  this  poor 
woman  has  cast  in  more  than  any  one,  for  they  have  only 
given  of  their  superfluity,  but  she,  in  her  need — for  she  has 
less  than  enough — has  thrown  in  all  she  had  for  her  day's 
living." 

Among  the  multitude  of  festival  pilgrims,  then  in  Jei-u- 
galum,  were  many  foreign  proselytes.  That  they  should 

1  Mark  xii.  41-44.    Luke  xxi.  1-4. 


GREEK  PROSELYTES.  409 

have  come  up,  though  heathen  by  birth,  showed  an  earnest 
sincerity,  for  it  exposed  them  to  ridicule,  and  even  worse, 
from  their  own  countrymen.  Many  of  them,  doubtless,  like 
the  centurion  at  Capernaum,  or  like  the  Ethiopian  eunuch, 
were  men  won  over  to  faith  in  Jehovah,  and  to  a  loyal 
respect  for  the  great  doctrines  of  the  Old  Testament ; 
proselytes  of  the  gate,  in  distinction  from  the  proselytes 
of  righteousness,  who,  by  circumcision,  had,  in  all  religious 
and  social  respects,  become  Jews.  The  spread  of  a  Jewish 
population  in  all  countries,  and  the  immunities  they  enjoyed, 
had  resulted  in  the  conversion  of  great  numbers  of  Gentiles, 
who  were  willing  to  pledge  themselves  to  what  were  called, 
the  seven  commands  of  Noah — the  avoidance  of  murder, 
bloodshed,  or  robbery ;  obedience  to  the  Jewish  courts  in 
matters  of  religion ;  the  rejection  of  idolatry,  and  the 
worship  of  Jehovah ;  and  to  eat  no  freshly  killed  and  still 
bleeding  flesh.  They  were  received  as  "  the  strangers  within 
the  gate  "  of  Israel,  and  could  attend  the  synagogues,  but 
could  not  pass  beyond  the  Court  of  the  Heathen,  in  the 
Temple.1 

Of  this  class,  some  Greeks,  then  at  Jerusalem  for  the 
feast,  which  they  were  in  the  habit  of  attending,  had  heard 
much  of  Jesus ;  perhaps  had  seen  Him  and  listened  to  His 
discourses,  and  were  anxious  to  know  Him  personally,  from 
their  interest  in  what  they  had  heard.  Too  modest  to 
come  direct,  they  applied  to  Philip,  the  only  Apostle  bearing 
a  Greek  name,  though  Andrew  is  of  Greek  origin.  To 
him  Philip  forthwith  mentioned  the  circumstance,  and  the 
two  communicated  it  to  Jesus.  It  filled  His  heart  with 
much-needed  joy,  to  welcome  men  who  must  have  seemed 
to  Him  an  earnest  of  His  future  triumphs  among  the  great 
heathen  nations.  As  Bengel  says,  "  it  was  the  prelude  of 
the  transition  of  the  kingdom  of  God  from  the  Jew  to  the 
Gentile." 

He  went  out,  therefore,  to  the-  Court  of  the  Heathen, 
where  they  were  standing,  and  cheerfully  gave  them  the 
audience  they  desired.  The  incident  brought  to  His  mind, 
with  fresh  vividness  and  force,  the  nearness  of  His  death, 
through  which  His  salvation  was  to  be  brought  to  the 
heathen  world  at  large,2  and  His  emotion  broke  forth  in 
words,  full  of  sublimity. 

1  Proeelytcn,  in  Herzotj,  Winer,  and  Bibel  Lex. 
*  John  x.  15,  16  ;  xii.  20-36.    ' 


410  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

"  The  hour  has  come,"  said  He,  lifting  His  face,  as  we 
may  believe,  to  heaven,  as  He  spoke,  "  the  hour  appointed 
in  the  counsels  of  my  Father,  from  eternity,  when  the  Son 
of  man  shall  enter  into  His  glory  by  death.1  For  it  must  be 
that  I  die,  that  my  work  may  bear  its  due  fruits — as  the 
grain  must  fall  into  the  ground  and  perish,  that  it  may 
bring 'forth  the  harvest.  Verily,  verily,  I  say  to  you,  it 
must  be  so.  My  life  remains  limited  and  bound  up  in 
myself,  as  the  life  is  in  the  seed,  till  I  die.  It  cannot,  till 
then,  pass  beyond  me  to  others,  and  multiply.  But  when  I 
die,  I  shall  be  like  the  corn,  which,  in  its  death,  imparts  its 
life  to  what  springs  from  it. 

"  As  it  is  needful  for  me  thus  to  die,  to  make  my  work 
triumph,  so  also  is  it  for  you,  my  followers,  in  your  own 
case.  He  who  so  loves  his  life  as  not  to  be  willing  to  yield 
it  for  my  kingdom,  will  lose  eternal  life  hereafter  ;  but  he 
who,  in  this  world,  cheerfully  gives  up  even  his  life  for  me, 
as  if  he  hated  it  in  comparison  with  loyalty  to  me,  will  gain 
life  everlasting.  If  any  man  wish  really  to  serve  me,  let 
him  imitate  me  in  my  joyful  readiness  even  to  die ;  and  he 
will  receive,  as  his  reward,  that  where  I  go,  to  the  right 
hand  of  my  Father  in  heaven,  there,  also,  will  he  follow,  and 
dwell  with  me ;  for  if  any  one  thus  truly  and  self-sacrificingly 
serve  me,  my  Father  will  honour  him  by  giving  him  the 
glory  of  the  life  hereafter." 

The  awful  vision  of  the  immediate  future,  meanwhile,  for 
a  moment,  raised  a  shrinking  of  human  weakness.  It  was 
the  foreshadowing  of  Gethsemane. 

"  Now  is  my  soul  troubled,"  cried  He,  with  a  voice  of 
infinite  sadness.2  In  his  agony  of  soul,  He  faltered  for  a 
moment  at  the  thought  of  all  through  which  He  had  so  soon 
to  pass,  as  if  He  were  even  now  enduring  it.  "  What 
shall  I  say  ?  "  He  added,  as  if  communing  with  Himself ; 
"  Shall  I  pray — Father,  save  me  from  the  hour  of  darkness  ; 
take  this  cup  from  me  ?  No,  let  it  not  be ;  all  the  past  has 
been  only  a  progress  towards  it,  that  by  it  I  might  glorify 
Thy  name !  "  The  momentary  human  shrinking  from  tho 
Cross  had  passed  away  as  soon  as  it  had  risen.  The  cloud 
that  dimmed  the  clear  Heaven  of  His  spirit  had  disappeared. 
His  trouble  of  soul  gave  place,  on  the  instant,  to  the  vic- 
torious consciousness  of  the  great  future  to  flow  from  His 
accomplishment  of  the  purpose  of  God  for  the  salvation  of 

1  John.  xvii.  5  ;  vi.  62.     1  Pet.  i.  11.  8  John  xii.  27  ff. 


A  VOICE   FROM  HEAVEN.  411 

the  world.  Then,  as  if  He  were  repeating  aloud  His  inward 
thoughts,  He  burst  forth  into  the  words — "  Father,  glorify 
Thy  name,  as  Thou  hast  purposed,  through  my  death  for 
man.  I  come  to  do  Thy  will,  O  God ;  I  give  myself  up  to 
Thee  !  " 

Forthwith  came  a  wondrous  attestation,  sealing  the  Divine 
authority  of  our  Saviour's  mission  with  the  stamp  of  august 
and  transcendent  glory.  Suddenly  there  sounded  a  voice 
from,  the  cloudless  April  sky,  with  a  volume  that  filled  the 
heavens,  so  that  some,  overpowered  by  its  grandeur,  could 
not  think  of  it  as  an  utterance  of  articulate  words,  but  fan- 
cied that  it  thundered — "  I  have  glorified  My  name,  already, 
in  having  sent  Thee,  and  in  all  thy  sinless  and  gracious  life, 
till  now  ;  and  I  shall  glorify  it  again,  by  Thine  entrance  on 
Thy  heavenly  glory  through  the  gates  of  death  !  " 

"  It  thunders,"  muttered  some,  whose  souls  were  least 
quick  to  realize  what  had  happened.  "  No,"  said  others, 
with  truer  religious  sensibility,  "  It  was  an  angel  speaking 
to  Him.  He  is  a  prophet,  at  least ;  if  not  the  Messiah  Him- 
self, and  God  speaks  thus  to  Him  by  a  heavenly  messenger." 
But  the  disciples  around,  and  Jesus  Himself,  knew  whence 
it  came,  and  what  were  the  precise  wordg  from  the  Excellent 
Glory. 

"You  may  not  understand,"  said  Jesus  to  the  disciples 
and  the  crowd,  "  whence  this  voice  comes,  and  why  it  is 
sent.  It  is  the  voice  of  my  Father  in  heaven,  and  comes, 
not  for  my  sake,  but  for  yours,  to  take  away  your  unbelief, 
and  to  strengthen  your  faith.  The  time  presses  for  your 
decision  regarding  me.  Even  now,  the  judgment  of  my. 
Father  is  being  given  forth,  against  those  who  have  rejected 
me  as  the  Messiah.  Through  the  victory  of  my  kingdom, — 
which  my  death  will  secure,  and  the  spread  of  my  name 
over  the  earth  proclaim, — the  impotence  of  my  enemies  will 
be  shown,  and  their  guilt  before  God  be  made  clear.  He, 
especially,  whom  even  you  call  the  ruler  of  this  world,  and 
the  great  enemy  of  the  kingdom  of  God — the  prince  of  evil — 
will  feel  the  greatness  of  my  triumph,  for  his  kingdom  must 
yield  to  mine.1  My  death,  as  the  atonement  between  God 
and  man,  will  deliver  from  his  power,  and  place  under  my 
protection,  as  the  glorified  Shepherd  of  the  sheep,  all  who 
believe  in  my  name.  Nor  will  that  triumph  cease  as  time 
rolls  on;  age  after  age,  till  the  last  day,  in  ever  wider 

1  Eisenmenger,  vol.  i.  p.  647. 


THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

sweep,  it  will  subdue  all  tilings  under  me,  and  drive  the 
kingdom  of  darkness  from  the  world. 

"  So  it  shall  be  ;  for  I,  if  I  be  lifted  up  from  the  earth  by 
the  death  of  the  cross,  as  I  know  I  shall  be,  and  thus  pass 
away  from  the  world  and  return  to  my  Father,  shall  draw 
all  men  to  me ;  for  the  power  of  my  cross  will  be  universally 
felt,  and  the  Holy  Spirit,  whom  I  shall  send  from  the  Father, 
will  turn  men's  hearts  to  love  and  serve  me.  The  prince  of 
this  world  has,  in  me,  his  conqueror ;  for  I  must  reign  till  all 
things  are  put  under  my  feet,  and  the  world  be  won  back  to 
God." 

The  people  round,  accustomed  to  speak  freely  with  the 
Rabbis  on  the  subject  of  their  addresses,  had  listened  to  Him 
respectfully,  but  were  at  a  loss  to  reconcile  His  words  with 
their  preconceived  ideas  of  the  Messiah.1  In  the  synagogue, 
they  had  heard  passages  read  from  the  Scriptures,  describing 
Him  as  a  priest  for  ever,  and  His  dominion  as  one  which 
should  never  pass  away  or  be  destroyed,  but  stand  for  ever 
and  ever,2  and  had  come  to  expect,  in  consequence,  an  ever- 
lasting reign  of  the  Messiah  upon  earth.  They  were  at  a 
loss,  therefore,  to  reconcile  Christ's  use  of  the  name,  Son  of 
man,  which  they  applied  to  the  Messiah,  with  the  statement 
that  instead  of  dwelling  on  earth  for  ever,  as  a  king  over  all 
nations,  He  should  suffer  the  shameful  death  of  crucifixion. 
The  cross  was  already  the  stumbling-block  to  them  it  after- 
wards became  so  widely  to  their  nation. 

"We  have  heard  out  of  the  Law,"  said  they,  "that  the 
Christ  is  to  live  for  ever,  on  earth.  What  dost  Thou  mean, 
then,  by  saying  that  the  Son  of  man — a  name  by  which 
we  understand  the  Christ — must  be  crucified  ?  Who  is  this 
Son  of  man  to  whom  Thou  referrest  ?  What  dost  Thou 
mean  by  using  this  name,  when  Thou  speakest  so  contrary  to 
Scripture  ?  " 

His  time  was  too  short  to  give  a  formal  explanation.  Nor 
would  it  have  been  of  any  effect  in  minds  so  prejudiced,  for 
the  fullest  statements  of  after  days  made  no  impression. 
He  chose  rather  to  urge  on  them,  once  more,  the  one  course 
in  which  lay  their  eternal  safety.  Standing  at  the  very  close 
of  His  public  ministrations,  He  threw  into  these  last  words  of 
warning  the  whole  intensity  and  earnestness  of  His  soul. 

"  If  you  wish  to  comprehend  what  I  have  said  about  my 
being  lifted  up,8  let  me  tell  you  how  all  your  questions  and 

1  John  xii.  34.      8  Ps.  ex.  4.    Dan.  vii.  14;  ii.  44.      3  John  xii.  35-43 


CHRIST'S  FAREWELL  TO  THE  TEMPLE.         413 

difficulties  about  it  may  be  resolved.  I  shall  be  with  you 
only  a  very  little  longer;  make  right  use  of  that  time  to 
believe  in  me,  the  Light  of  the  World,  as  the  traveller  makes 
use  of  the  last  moments  of  day,  to  reach  safety,  before  dark- 
ness overtake  him.  With  me,  the  light  of  truth,  which  now 
lights  you,  will  be  gone,  and  you  know  that  he  who  walks 
in  darkness  knows  not  which  way  to  go.  While  ye  have 
me,  the  Light  of  Men,  believe  in  the  light,  that  ye  may 
receive  illumination  from  it." 

It  was  still  early  in  the  afternoon,  and  He  might  have 
stayed  in  the  Temple  till  it  shut  at  sunset,  then  a  few  minutes 
after  six  in  the  evening.  But  these  were  almost  the  last 
words  He  was  to  speak  as  a  public  teacher.  His  mission  to 
His  nation  was  ended.  There  remained  only  a  brief  interval 
of  communion  with  the  loved  ones  round  Him,  and  then 
would  come  the  consummation  of  Calvary.  His  work  was 
over,  except  its  final  and  greatest  act.  Casting  a  last 
sad  look  of  quenchless  pity  on  all,  He  turned  away  to 
Bethany,  to  seek  seclusion,  till  the  time  came  for  His  self- 
sacrifice. 

It  must  have  been  a  solemn  and  well-nigh  overpowering 
moment,  thus  to  bid  farewell,  for  ever,  to  the  Temple  of  His 
nation,  the  centre  of  the  old  kingdom  of  God;  for  the 
retrospect  of  His  public  life,  and  the  vision  of  the  future, 
must  have  risen,  like  a  dream,  before  Him.  So  far  as 
apparent  results  went,  He  had  had  little  success,  for  though 
even  His  bitterest  enemies  were  forced  to  own  His  super- 
natural power,  and  the  greatness  and  number  of  the  instances 
in  which  it  had  been  shown — though  His  grand  self-restraint, 
which  always  exerted  that  power  for  others,  but  never  for 
any  personal  end,  either  of  ambition,  defence,  or  retaliation, 
was  recognised  so  fully  that  they  ventured  to  treat  Him, 
not  only  with  disrespect,  but  even  with  open  violence,  secure 
in  His  infinite  patience  and  humility — their  prejudices  had 
utterly  blinded  them,  and  they  steadfastly  refused,  as  a  class, 
to  accept,  in  His  person,  a  Messiah  so  contrary  to  their  gross 
and  ambitious  expectations.  There  were,  indeed,  even  among 
the  chief  rulers  and  priests,  many  who  believed  in  Him,  but 
it  was  only  a  secret  conviction  which  they  had  not  the 
courage  to  own. 

The  threat  of  excommunication  had  been  too  terrible  to 
brave,  and  they  preferred  to  cling  to  their  social  and  civil 
interests,  at  the  cost  of  repressing  their  better  thoughts. 

Once  more,  only,  was  the  pleading  voice  raised.     A  num.- 


414  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

ber  of  those  near  apparently  followed  Him  as  He  retired, 
and  He  could  not  tear  Himself  from  them,  without  a  final 
outburst  of  yearning  desire  for  their  salvation.  Turning 
round,  and  raising  His  voice  till  tha  sound  rang  far  and  wide, 
He  cried — 

"  Think  not  that  the  faith  I  demand  in  myself  in  any 
way  lessens  or  takes  from  the  faith  that  is  due  to  God.1  To 
believe  in  me,  and  to  believe  in  God,  are  the  same  thing. 
He  who  has  that  faith  in  me,  which  the  proofs  I  have  given 
of  my  being  sent  from  God  demand,  believes  not  so  much 
in  me  as  in  Him  who  sent  me.  And  thus,  also,  he  who 
looks  on  me  as  that  which  I  have  shown  myself  to  be,  looks 
not  so  much  on  me  as  on  Him  who  sent  me — on  the  Godhead 
of  my  Father  revealed  in  me.  In  me  ye  have  a  Light.  I 
came  into  the  world  to  enlighten  men,  that  every  one  who 
yields  himself  to  my  guidance,  may  be  as  when  one  walks 
after  a  light,  and  may  no  longer  remain  in  the  darkness 
of  ignorance,  superstition,  and  sin. 

"  Yet  if  any  one  who  hears  my  words,  refuses  to  believe 
in  me — let  him  not  think  that  I  shall  inflict  judgment 
on  him  for  his  refusal.  The  end  of  my  coming  is  not  to 
judge  the  world,  but,  rather,  to  save  it  from  eternal  ruin. 
He  who  rejects  me,  my  words,  and  my  deeds,  has  in  his 
own  breast  a  judge  that  will  condemn  him  hereafter.  The 
truth  I  have  spoken,  in  the  name  of  God,  which  he  has 
refused  to  receive,  will  condemn  him  in  his  own  conscience  at 
the  last  day,  and  will  condemn  him  also  from  the  lips  of  the 
Great  Judge.  For  the  words  I  have  spoken  have  been  no 
mere  utterances  of  my  own  ;  I  have  taught  only  that  which  I 
was  commissioned  by  my  Father  to  speak,  and  I  know  that 
my  teaching,  if  obeyed  and  followed,  secures  everlasting  life 
to  men.  All  that  I  say  is  only  what  my  father  has  told  me 
to  speak  in  His  name.  Therefore,  let  no  man  think  that  I 
speak  anything  but  that  which  my  Father  has  given  me  to 
proclaim.  I  am  He  whom  God  hath  sent,  and  my  words  are 
the  words  of  God." 

Nothing  in  these  last  discourses  of  Jesus  had  seemed  more 
strange  and  inexplicable  to  the  Apostles,  than  His  prediction 
of  the  early  destruction  of  Jerusalem,2  and  of  the  Temple 
itself.  As  they  now  passed  with  Him  through  the  forecourts, 
to  the  outer  gate,  and  down  the  eastern  steps,  to  the  Kedron 

1  John  xii.  44-50. 
»  Matt.  xxiv.  1-14.     Mark  xiii.  1-13.     Luke  xxi.  5-19. 


THE    SPLENDOUB  OF  THE    TEMPLE.  415 

Valley,  overpowered  by  the  vast  magnificence,  which  seemed 
grand  enough  even  for  the  times  of  the  Messiah,  they  could 
not  refrain  from  speaking  to  Him  respecting  His  strange 
and  mysterious  words. 

"  Master,"  said  they,  "  see  what  a  wondrous  structure  this 
is.  What  stones !  what  buildings !  what  splendour !  what 
wealth  !  How  the  whole  Temple  rises,  terrace  above  terrace, 
from  the  great  white  walls,  to  the  Holy  Place,  shining  with 
gold  !  and  it  is  not  finished  even  yet !  " 

The  Temple,  says  Josephus,  was  built  of  white  stones  of 
great  size — the  length  of  each  about  thirty-seven  and  a  half 
feet,  some  even  forty-five  feet,  the  thickness  twelve  feet, 
and  the  breadth  eighteen.1 

But  Jesus  looked  at  all  this  strength,  wealth,  and  magni- 
ficence, with  very  different  eyes.  To  Him  the  Jewish 
theocracy  had  outlived  its  day,  and  had  sunk  into  moral 
decrepitude  and  approaching  death,  which  the  mere  outward 
splendour  of  its  Temple  could  not  hide.  Israel,  in  rejecting 
Him, — the  Voice  of  God,  calling  it  to  rise  to  new  spiritual 
life, — had  shown  itself  ripe  for  Divine  judgment.  His  won 
death,  already  determined  by  the  ecclesiastical  authorities, 
and  now  close  at  hand,  would  seal  the  fate  of  the  nation  and 
its  religion.  It  would  be  the  proclamation  of  the  passing 
away  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  on  earth,  from  Judaism  now 
dead  in  forms  and  rites,  to  the  heathen  nations  willing  to 
receive  its  spirit  and  liberty. 

He  knew  that  the  Theocracy  would  cling  to  their  dream 
of  national  independence,  and  the  erection  of  a  mighty 
political  empire  of  the  Messiah,  and  that  this  involved  a 
struggle  between  them  and  Borne,  in  which  their  petty 
weakness  must  inevitably  be  crushed.  Strange  fate !  the 
moment  when  they  fancied  they  had  secured  themselves 
even  from  reform  by  the  resolution  to  put  Jesus  to  death, 
was  that  in  which  He  whose  violent  end  was  to  ensure  per- 
manence and  prosperity,  predicted  their  utter  destruction  ! 3 

"  Yes,"  said  Jesus,  in  utter  sadness,  "  I  see  all :  they  are 
very  great  buildings ;  but  I  tell  you  solemnly,  the  day  will 
come  when  there  will  not  be  one  stone  of  them  all  left  on 
another,  not  thrown  down."3 

He  said  nothing  more,  but  went  out  of  the  city  by  the 

1  Jos.,  Bell.,  v.  6.  6.    Ant.,  xv.  11.  3.     Assuming  the  cubit  to  be  only 
18  inches.     See  also  Furrer's  Wandentncjen,  p.  34. 
*  Scltenkcl,  p.  255.  3  Matt.  xxiv.  2. 


416  THE   LIFE   OF   CHKIST. 

blossoming  Kedron  Valley,  with,  its  gardens  and  stately 
mansions,  a  picture  of  peace  and  prosperity,  to  the  Mount 
of  Olives.  Sitting  down  on  a  knoll,  to  enjoy  the  magnificent 
view,  so  full  of  unutterable  thoughts  to  the  Rejected  One, 
the  Apostles  had  Moriah  once  more  before  them  in  its  whole 
glory,  crowned  by  the  marble  Temple,  like  a  mountain  with 
snow. 

In  the  group  around,  Peter  and  James,  and  John  and 
Andrew,  sat  nearest  their  Master,  and  as  they  looked  at  all 
the  splendour  before  them — splendour  so  great  that  it  was 
often  said  that  he  who  had  not  seen  it  had  missed  one  of  the 
wonders  of  the  world — their  thoughts  still  ran  on  the  words 
in  which  He  had  doomed  it  to  destruction.1  They  had  heard 
Him  say  that  the  nation  would  not  see  Him  again,  till  they 
showed  themselves  ready  to  receive  Him  as  the  Messiah, 
and  that,  in  the  meantime,  the  City  and  Temple  should  be 
utterly  destroyed.  Their  only  idea  of  the  Messiah,  even  yet, 
however,  was  that  of  a  deliverer  of  their  race,  who,  besides 
any  spiritual  benefits  He  might  confer,  would  raise  Israel  to 
world- wide  supremacy.  They  could  not  imagine  that  the 
Holy  City  and  its  Temple  would  perish  before  the  end  of  the 
world,  and  He  must  surely  come  sooner  than  that,  to  free 
the  land  from  subjection,  and  inaugurate  its  glory.  The  de- 
struction of  the  city,  therefore,  could  not,  they  fancied,  be 
before  the  destruction  of  all  things.  They  would  fain  know 
what  sign,  after  this  catastrophe,  would  precede  His  glorious 
coming  and  the  final  consummation,  if  it  were  to  be  so,  that 
they  might  recognise  His  advent  when  it  took  place.  Their 
ideas,  in  truth,  were  in  a  hopeless  confusion. 

"  Tell  us,  Master,"  said  one  of  the  four  favoured  ones, 
"  when  shall  these  things,  of  which  Thou  hast  spoken,  take 
place  ?  And  what  sign  will  there  be  of  Thy  coming,  and  of 
the  end  of  the  world  ?  " 

It  was  impossible  to  explain  this,  to  minds  so  filled  with 
preconceived  ideas.  Much  must  happen — His  death,  resur- 
rection, and  departure  from  the  earth  before  they  could 
acquire  just  conceptions  of  His  kingdom.  Till  then,  nothing 
could  remove  their  prejudices.  He,  therefore,  confined 
Himself,  as  usual,  to  the  practical,  that  He  might  rouse  them 
to  watchfulness  over  themselves,  and  destroy  the  illusion  that 
the  holiness  of  Jerusalem  would  preserve  it,  and  that  the 
Messiah  must  appear  first,  to  deliver  the  nation  from  the 
hand  of  the  Romans. 

1  Matt.  xxiv.  8. 


FALSE   MESSIAHS.  417 

He  fitly  began  by  warning  them  against  false  Messiahs. 
"  Take  heed,"  said  He,  "  that  no  impostor  deceive  yon,  by 
persuading  yon  that  He  is  the  Messiah,  come,  as  you  expect, 
to  free  the  nation  and  subdue  the  world,  and  to  spread  the 
Jewish  religion  over  the  earth.  Many  deceivers  will  rise, 
calling  themselves  the  Messiah,  sent  from  God  to  restore 
Israel,  and  saying  that  the  time  of  its  deliverance  has  come. 
They  will  mislead  many.  Take  care  that  you  go  not  out 
after  them. 

"  But  to  turn  to  your  question :  before  the  Temple  is 
destroyed,  you.  will  hear  the  terrors  of  wars  near  at  hand, 
and  the  distant  tumult  of  others,  and  you  may  think  that 
they  will  bring  the  end.  But  be  not  alarmed.  They  are 
divinely  appointed,  and  this  may  serve  to  calm  your  minds  ; 
but  the  destruction  of  the  city  and  Temple  will  not  take 
place  so  soon.  Nor  must  yon  think  that  these  wars  will 
herald  national  deliverance ;  instead  of  proclaiming  an  in- 
terference of  God  for  the  restoration  of  Israel,  they  mark  the 
beginning  of  His  judgments.  For  nation  will  rise  against 
nation,  and  kingdom  against  kingdom,  and  there  will  be 
famines,  and  pestilences,  and  earthquakes,  and  fearful  sights 
in  the  heavens,  here  and  there,  over  the  earth.  Yet  do  not 
think,  from  these,  that  God  is  about  to  appear  for  the  Jews, 
and  to  send  them  an  earthly  Messiah.  No  ;  all  these  are 
only  the  first  pangs  of  the  coming  sorrow.  Your  Rabbis  have 
told  you  that  such  things  are  signs  of  the  speedy  advent  of 
the  Messiah,b  but  be  not  deceived. 

"  Instead  of  peace,  these  things  will  bring  evil.  Once 
more,  be  on  your  guard.  I  shall  soon  go  away,  and  would 
again  warn  you  of  the  dangers  which  shall  precede  the 
last  catastrophe.  I  have  often  announced  what  perils  and 
heavy  trials  await  you,  in  founding  and  spreading  my 
Kingdom,  so  different  in  its  spiritual  and  moral  unworldli- 
ness,  from  all  others.  Before  the  end  comes,  men  will  proceed 
to  violence  against  you,  for  my  name's  sake.  Your  country- 
men will  lay  hands  on  you,  accuse  you,  and  bring  yon  before 
the  local  authorities  ;  yon  will  be  scourged  in  the  synagogues 
and  thrown  into  dungeons,  and  even  dragged  before  kings 
and  Roman  governors,  that  yon  may  witness  for  me,  my 
Person,  and  my  work,  before  them. 

"  But  let  me  comfort  you,  in  prospect  of  such  trials. 
Never  forget  that  I  will  not  forsake  you  when  you  thus  suffer 
for  my  sake,  and  will,  myself,  by  the  Holy  Spirit  whom  I 
will  send  to  your  aid,  give  you  words  and  wisdom  for  your 


418  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

defence,  when  you  are  before  tribunals.  Be  not  therefore 
anxious,  when  such  persecutions  rise,  for  in  the  hour  of  your 
trial  it  will  not  be  you  who  speak,  but  the  Holy  Ghost. 

"  Yet,  let  me  not  conceal  from  you  that  they  will  deliver 
you  up  to  every  form  of  suffering,  and  even  kill  yon,  and 
that  you  will  be  hated  not  only  by  your  own  nation,  be- 
cause you  proclaim  me  as  the  Messiah,  but  by  all  the  heathen 
nations  as  well.  In  this  world  you  can  look  only  for  tribula- 
tion. 

"  But  a  greater  trial  awaits  you  than  mere  persecution 
from  without,  The  strife  of  creeds  will  enter  even  the  sacred 
circle  of  the  family ;  the  father  will  give  evidence  before  the 
Courts  against  his  own  child,  the  brother  against  the  brother, 
the  child  against  the  parent,  the  friend  against  the  friend. 
The  fury  of  heathen  and  Jewish  fanaticism  will  feel  no  pity, 
the  nearest  blood  will  rage  against  its  own,  and  will  deliver 
them  up  to  the  executioner.  And  even  in  your  own  number, 
many  will  renounce  their  faith,  under  the  pressure  of  perse- 
cution and  trial,  and  will  even  betray  and  deliver  up  their 
fellow-Christians  to  the  magistrate,  and  hate  those  from 
whom  they  have  thus  apostatized.  My  name  will  indeed 
become  a  symbol  of  hatred  and  scorn  against  every  one  who 
confesses  it.  Still  worse,  many  false  Christian  teachers  will 
rise  in  your  own  midst,  and  will  mislead  numbers.  And  all 
this  spiritual  corruption  will  sap  the  brotherly  love  and 
religious  zeal  of  many  of  my  followers,  for  true  Christian 
life  cannot  thrive  where  there  is  moral  decay. 

"  But  He  who  neither  renounces  my  name,  nor  lets  him- 
self be  led  astray  by  false  teachers,  but  remains  true  and 
loyal  to  me  till  the  evil  days  are  over,  will  receive  everlasting 
honour  at  my  final  coming.  Such  good  and  faithful  servants 
need  have  no  fear  of  losing  their  reward,  for  nothing  can 
befall  them,  to  hurt  or  lessen,  in  the  least,  their  share  in  the 
salvation  my  eternal  Kingdom  will  bring.  As  regards  that, 
they  are  perfectly  safe.  Not  a  hair  of  their  head,  if  I  may 
so  speak,  will  perish,  so  far  as  their  heavenly  hopes  are 
concerned.  Their  faithfulness  will  gain  for  them  the  eternal 
life  of  their  souls,  even  should  they  die  as  martyrs  here. 

"  Meanwhile  the  Gospel  of  the  new  Kingdom  of  God  will 
be  preached  throughout  the  whole  world,  that  a  testimony 
respecting  me  may  be  given  to  all  nations,  however  they 
may  hate  you.  Then,  but  not  till  then,  shall  come  the  end 
of  this  present  state  of  things — the  old  will  then  pass  away, 
and  the  new  begin.  The  reign  of  the  kingdom  of  God  will 


THE   COMING   OP   THE    SON   OF   MAN.  419 

open  wlien  Judaism  has  fallen,  and  heathenism  has  heard 
its  doom. 

"  The  full  spread  of  my  Kingdom  cannot  come  so  long  as 
that  which  it  is  to  displace  still  stands  in  Jerusalem.  The 
Gospel  needs  new  soil,  new  means,  new  powers.  The  old 
religions  are  so  identified  with  the  civil  and  political  life 
of  men,  with  their  customs  and  modes  of  thought,  that  my 
Kingdom  can  hope  to  found  its  peaceful  reign  only  after 
great  and  terrible  revolutions  and  disturbances.1  The  way 
will  be  opened  for  it  by  war,  with  all  its  horrors,  and  by  the. 
widespread  judgments  of  God  on  the  world  at  large. 

"  When,  therefore,  ye  see  Jerusalem  compassed  with  armies, 
it  will  mark  the  beginning  of  the  end.  When  you  see  the 
holy  place  in  ruins,  and  desolation  reigning  there  in  its 
hatefulness,  as  is  spoken  of  in  Daniel,2  let  him  who  is  in 
Judea  flee  to  the  hills  of  Gilead,  where  he  will  be  safe ;  let 
him  who  is  on  the  house-top  not  come  down  to  take  away 
his  things  from  the  house,  but  let  him  flee  along  the  flat 
roof,  to  the  town  wall,  and  thus  escape  ;  and  let  him  who  is 
working  in  the  field,  where  he  has  no  outer  garment,  not 
come  back  to  his  house  to  get  it,  but  let  him  flee  for  his  life. 
But  woe  to  those  who  are  with  child  in  those  days,  and 
cannot  flee,  and  to  those  who  have  children  at  the  breast, 
and  are  kept  from  escaping  by  vainly  trying  to  save  them 
also.  Pray  that  your  flight  be  not  in  the  winter,  with  its 
rains  and  storms  and  swollen  torrents,  nor  on  the  Sabbath 
day,  when  he  who  still  clings  to  Jewish  law  will  think  it 
unlawful  to  travel  more  than  two  thousand  cubits.  What- 
ever hinders  your  swift  flight  will,  indeed,  be  cause  of  re- 
gret, for  the  troubles  of  those  days  will  be  great  beyond 
example. 

"  There  will  be  terrible  distress  in  the  land,  and  the  fierce 
wrath  will  be  let  loose  on  this  nation.  Its  sons  will  fall 
by  the  sword,  and  be  led  off,  to  be  sold  as  slaves  over  the 
whole  earth,  and  Jerusalem  will  be  trodden  under  foot  of 
the  heathen,  as  a  captive  is  by  his  conqueror,  till  the  times 
allowed  by  God  to  the  Gentiles,  to  carry  out  thus  His  aveng- 
ing wrath,  be  fulfilled. 

"  And,  indeed,  if  the  number  of  these  evil  days  had  not 
been  shortened,  in  God's  pitying  mercy,  no  flesh  would  be 
saved.  But  for  the  sake  of  the  chosen  ones  of  the  King- 

1  Matt.  xxiv.  15-42.     Mark  xiii.  14- £7.    Luke  xxi.  20-36. 
2  Dan.  ix.  27. 


420  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

dom  of  the  Messiah,  whom  God  has  determined  to  save  from 
the  calamities  of  these  days  and  preserve  alive,  they  have 
been  shortened. 

"  But  when  the  Temple  has  been  laid  waste,  and  you  have 
fled  for  your  lives,  false  Messiahs,  and  men  pretending  to  be 
prophets,  and  to  speak  in  the  name  of  God  to  the  nation 
in  its  affliction,  will  rise  once  more,  taking  advantage  of 
the  commotion  and  anxiety  of  those  days,  and  will  be  so 
much  the  more  dangerous.  When  men  say  to  you,  of  any 
of  these,  '  The  Messiah  has  appeared  here,'  or  '  He  has 
appeared  there,'  do  not  believe  it.0  They  will  pretend  to 
perform  such  great  signs  and  wonders,  that  even  the  chosen 
ones  of  my  Kingdom — my  disciples — would  be  deceived,  if 
it  were  possible.  I  have  warned  yon  of  this  already,  but 
press  on  you  once  more  to  take  heed  to  it.  If,  therefore, 
any  one  say  to  you,  '  Behold,  the  Messiah  is  in  the  wilder- 
ness,' do  not  go  out  with  him ;  for  they  draw  their  dupes 
to  the  desert  as  a  safe  place  for  mustering  them.  If  any 
say,  '  Behold,  he  is  in  such  and  such  a  house,  shut  up  in  his 
secret  chambers,'  do  not  believe  it.1  My  visible  and  final 
coming,  respecting  which  you  ask  me,  will  not  be  such  that 
men  need  point  to  this  place,  or  to  that,  to  see  me  ;  it  will 
be  like  the  lightning,  which  shines  with  instant  splendour 
through  all  the  sky,  and  announces  itself  beyond  mistake. 
For,  from  east  to  west,  the  earth  will,  in  that  day,  be  ripe 
for  the  judgments  of  the  Messiah,  and,  as  the  eagles  gather 
wherever  the  carcase  is,  so  the  Son  of  man,  then  the  minister 
of  Divine  wrath,  will  reveal  Himself  to  all  who  have  fallen 
under  His  condemnation. 

"  Then,  in  a  future  age — when  the  time  of  the  Gentiles, 
of  which  I  have  spoken,  is  fulfilled — when  He  who  has 
prayed  long  and  unfaintingly,  like  the  importunate  widow, 
will  begin  to  wonder  if  ever  he  will  be  heard 2 — I  do  not 
say  whether  in  the  second  watch,  or  in  the  third,  or  even  in 
the  morning ; 3  when  the  bridegroom  has  tarried  while  his 
attendants  wait  longingly  for  him4 — when  the  unfaithful 
servant  has  encouraged  himself  by  the  thought  that  his  lord 
delays  his  coming5 — when  the  Gospel  has  been  preached  to 
all  the  Gentiles 6 — and  when  the  king  may  be  expected,  at 
last,  from  the  far  country  to  which  he  has  gone7 — then, 

1  Jos.,  Ant.,  xx.  3.  6.     Bell.  Jud.,  ii.  13.  4,  5.  a  Luke  xviii.  1. 

*  Luke  xii.  38.     Mark  xiii.  35.  4  Matt.  xxv.  5. 

'  Matt.  xxiv.  48.  6  Mark  xvi.  15.  '  Luke  xix.  12. 


THE   SECOND   COMING  OF   CHRIST.  421 

suddenly,  like  the  flood  in  the  days  of  Noah,  or  the  destruc- 
tion of  Sodom,  shall  the  words  of  the  prophets l  be  verified, 
and  earth  and  heaven  be  veiled,  and  darkened,  and  tremble, 
before  the  great  coming  of  the  Son  of  man,  to  judgment. 
And  then  shall  they  see  the  sign  of  His  appearing,  respecting 
which  you  have  asked — the  far-shining  splendour  around 
Him,  like  the  sun  in  its  strength — when  He  descends  in  the 
clouds  of  heaven,  with  power  and  with  great  glory.  And 
He  shall  send  forth  His  angels,  fi-om  the  midst  of  the  un- 
utterable light ;  and  the  great  trumpet  of  God,  which  will 
wake  the  dead,  shall  sound,2  and  the  angels  will  gather 
together  around  Him  all  who  are  His — chosen  of  God  to 
be  heirs  of  the  heavenly  kingdom  of  the  Messiah — from 
north,  and  south,  and  east,  and  west,  over  the  whole  world. 
And  all  the  nations  of  the  earth  who  have  rejected. me  shall 
mourn,  when  they  see  me  thus  come  in  Divine  majesty.  And 
when  these  wondrous  signs  begin,  then  lift  up  your  heads, 
for  your  eternal  redemption  from  all  the  afflictions  of  time 
is  at  hand. 

"  When,  therefore,  soon  after  my  departure  from  you,  ye 
gee  all  these  wars,  and  hear  all  these  rumours  of  wars  of 
which  I  have  told  you,  know  that  I,  the  Messiah,  am  near 
in  my  first  coming,  as  ye  know  that  the  summer  is  close, 
when  ye  see  the  branches  of  the  fig-tree,  and  all  other  trees, 
swell,  and  put  forth  their  buds  and  tender  leaves.  For  it  is 
I  who  come,  unseen,  to  judge  Jerusalem  and  the  Temple,  as 
I  shall,  in  the  end,  come  visibly  to  judge  all  mankind.3 

"  Verily  I  say  to  you,  This  generation  of  living  men  shall 
not  have  passed  away,  before  the  beginning  of  the  age  of 
the  Messiah  has  come, — ushered  in  by  the  fall  of  Israel, 
and  to  be  closed  by  all  these  signs ;  when  the  old  world 
shall  have  drawn  to  an  end,  and  my  Kingdom — the  new  age 
of  the  world — shall  take  its  place  till  the  consummation  of 
all  things.  Heaven  and  earth  shall  one  day  pass  away,  but 
my  words  shall  not,  for  all  I  have  told  you  must  happen. 
The  signs  I  have  predicted,  as  heralds  of  my  coming  to 
judge  Jerusalem  and  Israel,  will  assuredly  be  seen  by  some 
of  you  now  round  me.  And  my  coming  then  will  be  the 
revelation  of  my  Kingdom  before  the  world,  and  of  its 
triumph  over  its  present  Jewish  enemies,  for  it  can  only, 

1  Isaiah  xiii.  9,  10.    Joel  iii.  15. 

«  1  Cor.  xv.  52.     1  Thess.  iv.  15,  16. 

*  Matt.  xxiv.  33.     Mark  xiii.  29.     Luke  xxi.  30. 


422  THE   LIFE   OF  CHBIST. 

then,  truly  rise,  when  the  Temple  has  been  destroyed. 
When  it  shall  lie  strewn  in  rains,  and  desecrated  for  ever 
by  heathen  soldiery,  the  world  that  is  will  be  seen  to  have 
passed  away.  There  will  be  an  end  of  the  old  priesthood 
and  sacrifice,  and  the  earth  will  be  opened  to  the  victory  of 
my  spiritual  reign. 

"  But  the  exact  time  of  the  last  period  of  all,  of  which 
I  have  spoken — the  destruction  of  all  things  visible,  the 
resurrection  of  the  dead,  and  my  return  in  glory,  to  judge 
the  nations— I  cannot  tell  you.  Even  the  angels  do  not 
know  it,  nor  even  does  the  Son ;  it  is  known  to  my  Father 
alone.  This  uncertainty  of  the  time  of  my  coming  will 
make  men  secure  and  careless,  as  they  were  in  the  days  of 
Noah.  For  they  went  on,  dreading  no  catastrophe,  eating 
and  drinking,  marrying  and  giving  in  marriage,  and  neither 
believed  nor  dreamed  that  the  flood  would  really  happen, 
till  it  came,  and  swept  them  all  away.  Like  it,  my  coming 
will  be  so  sudden,  that,  of  two  men  in  the  field,  one  shall  be 
taken  by  the  angels  sent  forth  to  gather  the  saints,  and  the 
other  left — for  they  will  have  no  time  to  flee ;  and,  of  two 
slave-girls  at  the  household  mill,  while  they  are  still  grind- 
ing, the  one  shall  be  taken,  in  like  manner,  to  be  with  me, 
and  the  other  left. 

"  Take  heed  to  yourselves,  and  watch,  lest  at  any  time, 
like  the  people  before  the  flood,  you  give  way  to  sinful 
pleasures  or  indulgences,  or  be  engrossed  in  the  anxieties  of 
life,  so  as  to  be  careless,  and  unprepared  for  my  return,  and 
that  day  come  on  you,  as  the  flood  did  on  them,  unawares. 
For  it  will  burst  on  all  that  dwell  on  the  face  of  the  whole 
earth,  as  suddenly  and  unexpectedly  as  the  snare  flies  over 
the  creature  caught  in  its  toils.1 

"  Take  heed,  I  repeat,  and  watch ;  for  ye  know  not  when 
the  hour  may  arrive.  It  will  be  like  the  coming  of  a  man 
who  has  taken  his  journey  into  a  far  country,  and  has  left 
his  house  in  the  hands  of  his  servants,  and  given  authority 
over  it  to  them,  to  each  his  own  special  work2,  and  has 
commanded  the  keeper  of  the  gate  to  look  for  his  return. 
Watch,  therefore,  like  faithful,  diligent  servants,  for  ye  know 
not  the  hour  when  I,  the  Master  of  the  House,  shall  come, 
whether  it  will  be  in  the  evening,  or  at  midnight,  or  at 
cock-crowing,  or  in  the  morning ;  lest,  if  I  come  suddenly, 
I  find  you  asleep.  And  what  I  say  to  you,  my  Apostles,  I 

1  Matt.  xxiv.  42.     Mark  xiii.  35.    Luke  xxi.  36.        *  Matt.  xxiv.  45. 


THE   WISE   AND  FOOLISH   VIEGINS.  423 

say  to  all,  Be  awake  and  watchful  at  all  times,  that  ye  may 
be  able  to  escape  all  the  terrors  of  my  coming,  by  being 
found  faithful,  and  thus  may  be  set  before  me  by  the  holy 
angels,  to  enter  into  my  glory,  and  stand  before  me,  as  my 
servants,  in  my  heavenly  kingdom. 

"  You  know  how  a  householder  would  have  acted  had 
he  known  beforehand  at  what  watch  of  the  night  the  thief 
would  come,  to  plunder  his  goods.  He  would  have  watched, 
and  not  have  suffered  his  house  to  be  broken  into.  Therefore, 
be  ready  at  all  times,  for  the  Son  of  man  will  come,  when, 
perhaps,  ye  least  expect  Him. 

"  Who  among  you  will  prove  himself  a  good  and  faithful 
servant  ?  He  will  be  like  a  servant  of  him  of  whom  I  have 
spoken,  who  took  his  journey  to  a  far  country — a  servant 
set  over  the  household  to  give  them  their  food  in  due  season, 
during  his  absence ;  who  faithfully  did  it.  Blessed  will  be 
that  servant,  whom  his  lord  when  he  returns  shall  find  so 
doing !  Verily  I  say  to  you,  he  will  advance  him  to  a  far 
higher  post,  for  he  will  set  him  not  only  over  the  food  of 
his  household,  but  over  all  his  substance.  And  blessed  in 
like  manner  will  he  be  whom  I,  on  my  return,  shall  find 
faithful  to  the  charge  committed  to  him  in  my  kingdom ! 

"But  if,  instead  of  being  faithful,  you  fail  in  your  duty, 
you  will  be  like  a  servant  of  the  same  master,  who  should  say 
in  his  heart,  '  My  Lord  delays  his  coming,'  and  begin  to  beat 
his  fellow-servants,  and  to  eat  and  drink  with  the  drunken, 
at  his  master's  cost.  The  lord  of  that  servant  will  come  in  a 
day  when  he  does  not  look  for  him,  and  in  an  hour  when  he 
does  not  expect  him,  and  will  punish  him  to  the  uttermost, 
and  make  him  bear  the  just  fate  of  a  hypocrite.  Even  so, 
the  hypocrite,  in  my  kingdom,  shall  be  cast  out  into  outer 
darkness.  And,  oh!  what  weeping  and  gnashing  of  teeth 
will  be  there  ! 1 

"  In  that  day  of  my  final  coming  it  will  be  as  when,  at  a 
marriage,2  the  maidens  invited  to  play  and  sing  in  the  mar- 
riage procession,  prepare  to  go  out  to  meet  the  bridegroom,  to 
lead  him  to  the  house  of  the  bride,  where  the  marriage  is  to 
be  celebrated.  Let  me  suppose  there  were  ten  such  maidens 
— five  wise,  five  foolish.  The  five  foolish  ones  took  their 
lamps  with  them,  to  help  the  display,  and  lighten  the  path 
of  the  bridegroom,  but  they  forgot  to  take  oil  with  them, 
besides,  to  refill  the  lamps,  when  they  had  burned  out.  But 

1  Matt.  xxiv.  51.  *  Matt.  xxv.  1-46. 


424  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

the  wise  not  only  took  their  lamps,  but  oil  in  their  oil-flasks 
as  well.  All  the  ten,  thus  differently  prepared,  went  forth 
from  the  home  of  the  bride,  and  waited  in  a  house,  on  the  way 
by  which  the  bridegroom  must  come,  to  be  ready  to  go  out 
and  escort  him,  when  he  passed. 

"  But  he  delayed  so  long  that  they  all  grew  heavy,  and  fell 
asleep.  At  last,  at  midnight,  they  were  suddenly  roused ; 
for  the  people  in  the  streets  had  heard  the  loud  music  and 
shouts,  and  had  seen  the  light  of  the  lamps  and  torches  of 
the  procession,  afar,  and  raised  the  cry  at  the  doors — '  The 
bridegroom  is  coming,  go  ye  out  to  meet  him.'  Then  they 
all  arose,  and  trimmed  each  her  own  lamp,  to  have  it  ready. 
The  foolish  ones  now  found  that  their  lamps  were  going  out, 
because  the  oil  was  all  burned,  and  asked  the  wise  ones  to 
give  them  of  theirs.  But  they  answered,  '  We  cannot  pos- 
sibly do  so,  for  our  oil  would  assuredly  not  suffice  both  for 
ourselves  and  you;  go,  rather,  to  the  sellers,  and  buy  for 
yourselves.' 

"  While  they  were  away  buying  it,  however,  the  bridegroom 
came,  and  the  five  who  were  ready,  joined  the  procession, 
and  went  in  with  the  bridegroom  to  the  marriage  and  the 
marriage-feast,  and  the  door  was  shut.  After  a  time,  the 
other  five  came,  and  knocked  at  the  gate  with  anxious  en- 
treaty, '  Lord,  lord,  open  to  us.'  But  he  answered,  '  I  do 
not  know  you.  You  were  not  among  the  other  maids  of  the 
bride  in  the  procession,  and,  therefore,  you  are  strangers  to 
me,  and  as  such  have  nothing  to  do  at  my  marriage.' 

"  Learn  from  this  parable  that  they  who  patiently  watch 
and  wait,  doing  the  duty  I  have  assigned  them,  till  I  come, 
though  they  know  neither  the  day  nor  the  hour  when  I  shall 
do  so,  will  have  a  part  in  the  joys  of  my  heavenly  kingdom. 
All  my  followers  will  then  be,  as  it  were,  my  bride,  and  I 
their  bridegroom  ;  but  those  who  are  riot  faithful  and  true  to 
the  end,  will  be  shut  out  from  the  marriage-feast." 

The  Apostles  and  the  others  who  followed  Jesus  had  been 
sitting  long  in  the  cool  of  the  evening  on  the  pleasant  slope 
of  Olivet,  listening  to  this  wondrous  discourse,  but  their 
Master's  stay  with  them  was  now  nearly  over,  and  He  was 
loath  to  bring  His  words  to  an  end.  He  still  went  on, 
therefore,  and  next  repeated  to  them  the  parable  He  had 
before  delivered  near  Jericho — of  the  talents  lent  by  the 
Lord  to  his  servants.  Its  awful  close,  however,  which  repre- 
sents the  unprofitable  servant  as  cast  into  the  outer  darkness, 
with  its  weeping  and  gnashing  of  teeth,  brought  before  Him 


THE   DAT  OF   JUDGMENT.  425 

all  the  terrors  of  the  last  judgment,  and  led  Him  to  close  by 
a  picture  of  that  awful  day,  unequalled  for  sublimity  by  any 
other,  even  of  His  own  utterances. 

"  The  parable  of  the  talents,  my  beloved,"  said  He,  "shows 
that  every  one  of  you  must  needs  make  the  utmost  possible 
use,  for  the  interests  of  my  kingdom  in  your  own  hearts 
and  among  men,  of  all  the  different  gifts  entrusted  to  you  by 
me,  for  my  service,  according  to  your  respective  abilities. 
For,  at  my  coming,  I  shall  reckon  with  you  all,  and  those 
who  have  been  faithful  to  me  shall  receive  high  rewards  in 
heaven,  but  those  who  have  left  their  gifts,  however  small, 
unused,  will  have  those  gifts  taken  from  them,  and  they 
themselves  will  be  thrust  out  of  my  kingdom." 

He  then  proceeded,  in  words  such  as  no  mere  man  could 
ever  dream  of  using,  words  which  we  seem  to  hear  spoken 
with  the  light  as  of  other  worlds  shining  from  the  speaker's 
eyes,  and  a  transfiguration  of  His  whole  appearance  to  more 
than  human  majesty. 

"  I  have  told  you  how  I  shall  return  invisibly,  to  earth, 
before  this  generation  shall  have  passed  away,  to  judge  Jeru- 
salem and  Israel,  when  the  cup  of  their  iniquity  shall  be  full ; 
and  how,  also,  I  shall  come  again,  in  spiritual  unseen  pre- 
sence, to  be  with  my  servants  in  their  warfare  with  the 
powers  of  darkness,  till  my  kingdom  passes  from  victory  to 
victory,  through  succeeding  ages,  and  the  prince  of  this  world 
be  finally  cast  down  from  his  usurped  throne,  and  the  world 
become  the  kingdom  of  God  and  of  me,  His  Messiah.1 

"  Then  shall  arrive  that  day  which  I  have  warned  and 
urged  you  so  earnestly  to  keep  ever  in  mind,2  the  day  when, 
like  the  lord  who  returned  from  the  far  country  to  reckon 
with  his  servants,  I,  the  Son  of  Man,  now  poor,  despised, 
with  none  round  me  but  you — rejected  by  my  brethren  of 
Israel,  and  in  a  few  hours  to  be  nailed  on  a  cross  like  the 
meanest  slave — will  come  again  as  Head  of  the  great  king- 
dom of  the  Messiah,  which  will  then  embrace  all  nations. 

"  The  father  has  committed  all  judgment  in  this  kingdom, 
to  me,  His  Son,3  and  has  given  me  all  power  in  it  in  heaven 
and  in  earth.4  And  at  that  day  I  shall  come  in  my  glory,  as 
its  Prince  and  Head,  amidst  the  splendours  of  heaven,  and 
vvith  all  the  angels  of  God. 

"  Then  will  I   sit  on  the  throne  of  my  glory,  as  kings  of 

»  Rev.  xi.  15.  *  Matt.  xxv.  31-46. 

•  John  v.  22-27.  4  Matt,  xxviii.  18. 


426  THE  LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

the  earth,  when  they  sit  to  judge,  and  all  nations  shall  bo 
gathered  together  before  me,  by  my  ministering  angels.1  and 
I  will  separate  them,  one  from  another,  as  you  have  seen  a 
shepherd  separate  the  white  sheep  from  the  black  goats,  and 
I  will  set  the  sheep  on  my  right  hand,  but  the  goats  on  my 
left.d 

"  Then,  as  King,  coming  in  the  majesty  of  my  assembled 
Kingdom,  shall  I  say  to  them  on  my  right  hand :  '  Come,  ye 
blessed  of  my  Father,  inherit  the  kingdom  prepared  for  you 
from  the  foundation  of  the  earth — that  kingdom  which  I 
promised  as  the  inheritance  of  the  meek.2  For  ye  have 
proved  that  ye  truly  believed  in  my  name,  by  the  love 
towards  me  and  mine,  which  only  sincere  faith  can  yield. 
For  I  was  hungry,  and  ye  gave  me  to  eat ;  I  was  thirsty,  and 
ye  gave  me  to  drink ;  I  was  a  stranger,  and  ye  gave  me 
welcome ;  naked  and  ye  clothed  me  ;  I  was  sick,  and  ye 
visited  me  ;  I  was  in  prison,  and  ye  came  unto  me.' 

"  Then  shall  the  righteous,  feeling  only  their  shortcomings, 
and  forgetting  their  good  deeds,  think  it  cannot  be  as  I  have 
said.  '  When,  Lord,'  they  shall  ask  me,  '  saw  we  Thee 
hungry,  and  gave  Thee  maintenance;  or  thirsty,  and  gave 
Thee  to  drink  ?  When  saw  we  Thee  a  stranger,  and  gave 
Thee  welcome ;  or  naked  and  clothed  Thee  ?  Or  when  saw 
we  thee  sick,  or  in  prison,  and  came  unto  Thee  ?  ' 

"  And  I,  the  King,  will  answer  them :  '  Verily  I  say  to 
you,  Inasmuch  as  ye  did  it,  for  my  sake,  to  one  of  these  my 
brethren,  even  the  least  of  them ;  the  poor,  the  lowly,  the 
outcast,  the  persecuted,  the  wretched,  who  believed  in  me, 
and  are  now  round  my  throne — or  to  one  of  the  least  of  all 
my  brethren  of  mankind,  for  the  love  ye  bore  me,  who  died 
for  them — ye  did  it  unto  me.' 

"  Then  shall  I  also  say  to  those  on  my  left  hand :  '  Depart 
from  me,  accursed,  into  the  everlasting  fire  prepared  for 
the  devil  and  his  angels,  but  now  to  be  shared  by  you,  his 
servants.  For  I  was  hungry,  and  ye  did  not  give  me  to  eat ; 
I  was  thirsty,  and  ye  did  not  give  me  to  drink ;  I  was  a 
stranger,  and  ye  would  not  receive  me ;  naked,  and  ye  did 
not  clothe  me  ;  sick,  and  in  prison,  and  ye  did  not  visit  me.' 

"  Then  they  will  try,  vainly,  to  justify  themselves,  by 
pleading  innocence.  '  Lord,'  they  will  say,  '  when  did  we  see 
Thee  hungry,  or  thirsty,  or  a  stranger,  or  naked,  or  sick,  or 
in  prison,  and  did  not  minister  to  Thee  ?  Lord,  we  nevei 

*  Matt,  xxiy.  31,  etc.  2  Matt.  v.  5. 


THE   FINAL   SENTENCE.  427 

saw  Thee  thus,  and,  therefore,  have  never  refused  Thee  our 
service.' 

"  But  I  will  answer  them  :  '  "Verily  I  say  to  you,  Inasmuch 
as  ye  did  it  not  to  one  of  the  least  of  these,  my  brethren, 
whom  you  had  with  you  and  might  have  helped,  ye  did  it 
not  to  me.  Had  ye  truly,  and  not  in  name  only,  believed  in 
me,  ye  would  have  shown  fruits  of  your  faith,  in  deeds  of 
love  for  my  sake.' 

**  And  these  shall  go  away  into  everlasting  punishment ; 
but  the  righteous  into  life  eternal." 


CHAPTER  LVIH. 
FAREWELL  TO   FBIEND3. 

IT  was  the  twelfth  day  of  the  new  moon,1  now  rounding  to 
fulness,  when  the  last  words  had  been  spoken  in  the  Tem- 
ple, and  farewell  taken  of  it  for  ever.  Jesus  had  hitherto 
lingered  in  its  courts  till  the  gates  closed,  at  sunset,  after  the 
evening  sacrifice,  but  His  soul  this  day  was  filled  with  im- 
measurable sadness.  Israel  would  not  hear  the  words  which 
alone  could  save  it,  and,  by  its  representatives,  had  not  only 
rejected  and  blasphemed  Him,  but  was  even  now  plotting 
His  death.2  He  had  left  the  Temple  courts,  therefore,  in  the 
early  afternoon,  to  spend  some  hours  with  the  little  band  of 
followers  He  was  so  soon  to  leave.  They  had  sat  on  the 
slope  of  the  Mount  of  Olives,  facing  the  Temple  and  the  city . 
He  had  passed  quietly  and  unheeded  through  the  stream  of 
pilgrims  and  citizens,  and  had  been  resting,  during  His  long 
discourse,  in  the  privacy  of  His  own  circle,  beneath  one  of  the 
tig-trees  of  Olivet,  gazing,  with  full  soul,  at  all  He  had  left 
for  ever.  Had  they  known  it,  the  high  priests  and  rulers 
would  have  seen,  in  His  final  abandonment  of  "  His  Father's 
House,"  a  portent  more  awful  than  any  their  superstitious 
fears  were  even  then  noting.  For,  forty  years  before  the 
destruction  of  the  Temple,  and  therefore,  in  the  very  days  of 
our  Lord's  public  life,  it  had  been  seen,  with  unspeakable 
alarm — if  we  may  trust  the  Talmud — that  the  hindmost 
lamp  of  the  sacred  seven-branched  candlestick  in  the  Holy 
Place,  one  night  went  out ;  and,  that  the  crimson  wool  tied 
to  the  horns  of  the  scapegoat,  which  ought  to  have  turned 
white  when  the  atonement  was  made,  had  remained  red  ;  and 
"  the  lot  of  the  Lord,"  for  the  goat  to  be  offered  on  the  Day 

1  Tuesday  at  sunset  to  Wednesday  at  sunset,  April  3-4  (13th  Nisan). 

-  General  authorities  for  the  chapter : — Kuinoel,  Lange,  3[eyer,  Rosen- 
miiller,  McClellan,  Lightfoot,  Schottgen,  Arts,  on  Passover  in  Herzog,  Winer, 
Schenkel,  Smith  and  Kitto ;  De  Wette,  Paulus,  Liicke,  Luthardt,  and  the 
various  Lives  of  Jesus. 


RENEWED   PLOTS.  429 

of  Expiation,  had  come  out  on  the  left  hand ;  and  the  gates 
of  the  Temple,  duly  shut  overnight,  had  been  found  open  in 
the  morning.1  A  generation  later,  it  was  to  be  told,  with 
pale  lips,  among  the  heathen,  that  when  the  Temple  was  near 
its  fall,  a  more  than  human  voice  had  been  heard  from  the 
Holy  of  Holies,  crying  "  The  gods  have  departed,"  and  that 
presently,  a  great  sound,  as  of  their  issuing  forth,  had  been 
heai'd.2 

But  the  true  hour  of  Jehovah's  leaving  it,  and  that  for  ever, 
was  when  His  SON  passed  that  afternoon  through  its  gates, 
to  re-enter  them  no  more. 

Rising  after  He  had  ended  His  discourse  on  the  near  and 
distant  future,  He,  who  a  moment  before  had  anticipated  the 
hour  when  He  should  come  amidst  the  clouds  of  Heaven,  to 
judge  all  nations,  attended  by  all  the  angels,  and  robed  in 
the  splendours  of  the  Godhead,  was  once  more  the  calm, 
lowly  Teacher  and  Friend,  climbing  the  slope  with  His 
handful  of  followers,  on  the  way  to  the  well-loved  cottage  at 
Bethany. 

As  they  went,  He  again  broke,  to  those  around  Him, 
His  approaching  fate.  "  You  know,"  said  He,  "  that  after 
two  days  is  the  Passover,  and  that  the  Son  of  man  is  ap- 
pointed, by  the  eternal  counsels  of  God,  to  be  delivered  over 
to  His  enemies,  to  be  crucified."  It  was  the  second  time  He 
had  expressly  used  that  word  of  unspeakable  degradation  and 
infamy  to  men  of  His  day — THE  CROSS.  But  though  they 
heard  it  again,  they  could  not  even  yet  realize  so  disastrous 
an  eclipse  of  their  cherished  dreams. 

Meanwhile,  His  enemies  were  not  idle.  It  was  now 
Tuesday  evening,  and  nothing  alarming  had  followed  the 
popular  demonstration  of  the  preceding  Sunday.  The  multi- 
tude, indeed,  disappointed  by  seeing  no  signs  of  the  national 
movement  they  had  expected  that  day  to  inaugurate,  had  lost 
their  enthusiasm,  and,  in  many  cases,  grown  even  hostile. 
There  was  less  to  fear  than  the  authorities  had  apprehended. 
Yet,  the  crowd  was  fickle,  and  thousands  of  Galilseans, 
the  countrymen  of  Jesus,  were  at  the  feast,  which  was 
always  so  restless  a  time  that  the  Roman  Procurator  kept  a 
double  garrison  in  Antonia  while  it  lasted,  and  himself  ex- 
changed the  congenial  society  of  Csesarea  for  Jerusalem,  with 
its  hated  bigotry  and  muffled  treason.  Even  the  governor- 
general  of  the  province  sometimes  indeed  thought  it  worth 

1  Liglitfoot,  Hor.  Heb.,  vol.  ii.  p.  325.  3  Tacit.,  Hist.,  v.  13. 


430  THE   LIFE   OF   CHKIST. 

his  while  to  be  present.1  The  fiery  Galilaeans  might  rise  if 
Jesus  were  apprehended  during  the  feast-week,  and  any 
tumult  would  be  certain  to  bring  severe  measures,  at  the 
hand  of  the  Romans,  on  the  community  at  large. 

The  heads  of  the  priesthood  and  of  the  Rabbis  were  hence 
in  a  difficulty,  and  met  to  consult  on  the  wisest  course.  The 
acting  high  priest,  Joseph,  known  among  the  people  as 
''  Caiaphas,"  "  the  oppressor,"  2  was  the  soul  of  the  movement 
against  Jesus  ;  for  his  memorable  words,  "  Why  not  this  one 
man  die,  rather  than  the  nation  perish  ?  "  had  first  given 
definite  expression  and  formal  sanction  to  the  idea  of  putting 
Him  to  death.  Throwing  all  his  official  dignity  into  the  plot, 
he  put  the  upper  court  of  his  palace,  in  the  Upper  City,  at  the 
disposal  of  those  engaged  in  it,  and  there  they  and  he  met,  to 
consult  how  they  might  get  the  Hated  One  into  their  power 
without  the  knowledge  of  the  people,  or  fear  of  a  rescue,  in 
order  to  hand  Him  over  to  the  Romans  for  crucifixion.  The 
meeting  could  not,  however,  come  to  any  fixed  plan,  from 
dread  of  a  popular  rising.  No  more  could  be  done  than 
watch,  and  take  advantage  of  the  course  of  events. 

While  murder  was  thus  being  discussed  in  the  halls  of  the 
primate,  peace  and  sacred  friendship  reigned  in  the  pleasant 
home  at  Bethany.3  The  house  of  Simon,  once  a  leper,  but 
cured  by  Jesus ;  now  the  abode  of  Martha,  perhaps  his  widow, 
perhaps  his  daughter ;  of  Mary,  her  sister,  and  of  Lazarus,  so 
strangely  brought  back  from  the  unseen  world — the  one  man 
raised  from  the  dead  of  whose  second  earthly  life  we  know 
any  incident — was  a  scene  of  tender  respect  and  loving 
homage.  To  do  Jesus  honour,  the  family  had  made  a  supper 
for  Him,  with  invited  guests,  and  Lazarus  reclined  with  Him 
on  the  table-couch.  Besides  Christ  and  His  immediate  fol- 
lowers, the  company  consisted,  doubtless,  as  in  the  case  of 
the  little  household  itself,  of  such  as  owed  their  health,  per- 
haps their  life,  or  that  of  some  friend,  to  His  miraculous 
powers. 

It  was,  in  itself,  a  tender  proof  of  reverent  love,  that  at 
such  a  time,  when  the  life  of  their  guest  was  sought  by  the 
authorities  of  the  Temple  and  Schools,  and  every  one  \vas 


1  Jos.,  Ant.,  xvii.  8.  4;  xviii.  2.  2;  xx.  5.  3.      Bell.  Jud.,  ix.  1.  3 ;  iu 
12.1. 

*  Bibel  Lex.,  Art.  Kaiaphas.    Gesen.,  Tltesaur.,  s.  v.  H53.    Buxt.,  Lex., 
p.  1076. 

*  Matt.  xxvi.  1-16.     Mark  xiv.  1-11.     Luke  xxii.  1-6.      John  xii.  2-& 


THE   ANOINTING  AT   BETHANY.  431 

required,  on  pain  of  high  displeasure,  to  help  them  to  arrest 
Him,  He  should  have  been  thus  honoured ;  for  Bethany  was 
close  to  Jerusalem,  and  the  act  might  have  brought  disaster 
on  a  family,  known,  like  that  of  Martha  and  Mary,  to  the 
dominant  class.1  But  a  still  higher  tribute  was  paid  Him  ; 
touching  and  delicate,  beyond  expression,  under  the  circum- 
stances. The  sisters  had  often  pondered  how  they  could 
show  their  gratitude  for  all  He  had  been  and  all  that  He 
had  done  for  them.  He  had  healed  Simon,  and  had  given 
not  only  him,  but  the  sisters  and  their  brother,  the  hope  of 
Heaven,  by  winning  their  souls  to  Himself,  and,  but  now, 
He  had  shown  how  truly  He  was  the  Messiah,2  by  bringing 
back  Lazarus  from  the  grave.  They  knew  that  the  shadows 
of  death  were  gathering  over  their  Mighty  Benefactor  Him- 
self, for  the  disciples,  doubtless,  repeated  to  them  the  de- 
pressing intimations  He  had  made.  Mary  was  left  to  give 
their  love  and  gratitude  expression. 

It  was  common  to  anoint  the  heads  of  the  Rabbis  who 
attended  marriage  feasts,  with  fragrant  oil,  and  special 
guests  were  sometimes  similarly  honoured.  A  grateful 
penitent  had  at  an  earlier  period  anointed  even  the  feet  of 
Jesus  Himself,  washing  them,  moreover,  with  her  tears,  and 
wiping  them  with  her  hair,  flowing  loose,  in  self -forgetful- 
ness.  But  now,  Mary  outdid  all  former  honour  paid  Him. 
The  costliest  anointing  oil  of  antiquity  was  the  pure  spike- 
nard, drawn  from  an  Indian  plant,  and  exposed  for  sale 
throughout  the  Roman  Empire,  in  flasks  of  alabaster,  at  a 
price  that  put  it  beyond  any  but  the  wealthy. 

Of  this  Mary  had  bought  a  flask,  containing  about  twelve 
ounces  weight,  and  now,  coming  behind  the  guests  as  they 
reclined,  opened  the  seal,  and  poured  some  of  the  perfume, 
first  on  the  head  and  then  on  the  feet  of  Jesus,  drying  them, 
presently,  with  the  hair  of  her  head,  like  her  predecessor. 
She  had  rendered  a  tribute  than  which  she  could  have  given 
no  higher  to  a  King ;  but  it  was  a  worthy  symbol  of  the 
rightful  devotion  of  all  we  have  and  are,  to  Christ,  and,  as 
such,  was  lovingly  accepted  by  Him.  The  act,  however, 
raised  different  thoughts  in  some  of  the  narrow  minds 
around.  As  the  fragrant  odours  filled  the  room,  voices  were 
heard  muttering  that  expense  so  lavish  for  such  an  object 
was  wrong.  "  This  ointment,"  said  one,  "  should  have  been 
Bold  for  three  hundred  pence,*  and  given  to  the  poor.  That 

1  John  xi.  33.  !  John  xi.  27. 


4o2  THE   LIFE   OF   CUEIST. 

would  have  been  a  worthy  act ;  but  this —  !  "  It  vras  Judas 
Iscariot. 

With  that  perfect  gentleness  and  repose  which  He  always 
displayed  in  such  circumstances,  the  answer  of  Jesus  showed 
no  resentment,  to  hurt  the  feelings  of  any,  but  yet  must 
have  carried  joy  to  the  tender  heart  that  had  felt  its  highest 
offering  too  little  to  bestow  on  such  a  guest. 

"  Why  do  you  blame  and  trouble  her  ?  "  said  He  to  the 
company,  especially  to  Judas.  "  Let  her  alone.  It  is  a 
good  deed  she  has  done  in  my  honour.  You  have  the  poor 
with  you  always,  and  you  can  never  want  an  opportunity  of 
showing  kindness  to  them,  if  you  wish.  But  you  have  not 
me  always  with  you.  Mary,  as  if  she  knew  I  was  soon  to 
die,  has  chosen  the  strongest  way  she  could  of  showing  how 
much  she  loved  me:  She  has  done  for  me,  as  her  Teacher, 
Messiah,  and  Friend,  while  I  still  live,  what  she  would  .soon 
have  had  to  do  to  my  dead  body — she  has  embalmed  me 
for  the  grave.  What  remains  will  do  for  the  day  of  my 
burial.  I  tell  you,  wherever  the  gospel  shall  be  preached  in 
the  whole  world,  what  she  has  done  will  also  be  told  for  a 
memorial  of  her." 

Judas,  the  only  southern  Jew  in  the  Twelve — the  one 
among  them  brought  up,  as  it  were,  under  the  shadow  of 
the  Temple — must  have  listened  with  the  bitterest  feelings 
to  such  praise  of  an  act  so  hateful  to  him.  He  had  been 
with  Jesus  at  least  from  the  first  appointment  of  the  Apostles, 
and  must,  even  then,  have  been  conspicuous  as  a  disciple. 
The  good  seed  of  Christ's  words  had  sprung  up  in  his  heart, 
as  in  those  of  the  others  in  those  early  days ;  but  the 
evil,  also,  small  and  unnoticed,  perhaps  at  first,  had  been  let 
spring  up  erelong,  and  it  had  grown  to  rank  strength  that 
slowly  choked  all  else.  Like  his  brethren,  he  had  cher- 
ished gross  and  selfish  views  of  the  prospects  to  be  opened 
for  them  by  their  Master.  If  some  of  them  were  to  be 
the  high  officials  in  the  expected  World-Monarchy,  he  had 
trusted  to  get,  at  least,  some  post ;  profitable,  if  less  splendid. 
Indeed,  the  lowest  dignity  promised  inconceivable  honour, 
for  were  not  all  the  Twelve  to  sit  on  thrones  to  judge  the 
Twelve  Tribes  of  Israel  ?  In  the  minds  of  the  others,  the 
dream  was  loyally  subordinated  to  love  and  duty  to  the 
Master;  in  his,  self  seized  and  held,  abidingly,  the  first 
place.  The  mildew  of  his  soul  had  spread  apace.  Trusted 
with  the  common  purse  of  the  brotherhood,  into  which 
passed  the  gifts  of  friends,  to  meet  the  humble  expenses  of 


JUDAS   GOES  TO   THE   PRIESTS.  433 

each  day,  the  honour,  sought  at  first  perhaps  in  all  upright- 
ness, became  a  fatal  snare.  His  religion  withered  apace. 
Once  a  disciple  from  honest  anxiety,  he  continued  one  in 
outward  form,  from  sordid  motives.  Gain  became  a  passion 
with  him,  till,  under  the  very  eyes  of  his  Master,  he  em- 
bezzled, as  treasurer,  the  petty  funds  in  his  hands. 

The  entry  to  Jerusalem  had  kindled  his  hopes,  after  many 
chagrins  and  disappointments,  for  the  popular  excitement 
promised  to  force  on  Jesus  the  part  of  a  National  Messiah. 
But,  blind,  to  His  own  interest,  as  Judas  must  have  thought 
Him,  He  had  thrown  away  the  splendid  opportunity. 
Instead  of  allying  Himself  with  the  dignitaries  of  Judaism, 
and  inaugurating  a  mighty  Jewish  uprising,  with  high 
priests  and  chief  Rabbis  as  His  supporters,  He  had  assailed 
both  Temple  and  School,  and  proceeded  to  open  rupture 
with  them.  Instead  of  a  crown,  He  had  spoken  of  a  cross  ; 
instead  of  honours  for  His  followers,  He  had  foretold  perse- 
cutions and  martyrdom.  To  the  mean  and  selfish  heart  of 
Judas,  the  bounty  of  Mary  had  sufficed  to  kindle  smoulder- 
ing resentment  and  disloyalty  to  a  flame.  If  ruin  were 
certain,  he  would  profit,  if  he  could,  before  all  was  over.  If 
Jesus  must  fall  into  the  hands  of  His  enemies,  he  might 
as  well  get  money  by  what  was  unavoidable.  Had  not  He, 
argued  the  diseased  spirit,  disappointed  him ;  led  him  about, 
for  years,  in  hopes  of  gain  in  the  end ;  and  had  He  not,  now, 
told  him  that  the  only  inheritance  he  could  expect  was 
poverty  and  suffering?  He  would  go  to  the  chief  priests, 
and  see  what  could  be  done. 

Stealing  out,  therefore,  with  guilty  thoughts,  from  the 
quiet  cottage,  perhaps  when  all  its  inmates  were  sunk 
in  sleep ;  unmoved  by  the  Divine  love  and  purity  of  his 
Master ;  forgetful,  in  the  blindness  of  his  evil  excitement,  of 
all  he  had  seen  and  heard  through  the  last  three  eventful 
years,  he  made  his  way,  in  the  darkness  of  night,  to  the 
Temple.  The  watch  was  at  its  post  at  the  gates  and  on  its 
rounds,  but  Judas  found  means  to  reveal  his  object  to  the 
captain  in  charge,  and  was  admitted.  The  officers  hastily 
gathered  to  learn  why  the  stranger  thus  rudely  disturbed  the 
night.  "I  come  to  betray  Jesus  of  Nazareth,"  muttered 
Judas.  "  He  bad  better  be  taken  to  the  chief  priests," 
replied  those  addressed.  Some  of  the  council  were  hastily 
summoned  forthwith,  and  received  his  overtures  with  a  joy 
that  brightened  their  faces,  even  by  the  dull  light  of  tho 
night-lamps — for  it  was  clear  that  a  cause  so  righteous  as 


434  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

as  that  of  the  Galilaean,  could  never  give  them  open  and 
honest  grounds  for  His  arrest.  Treason  must  come  to  their 
aid  from  within. '  So  they  bargained  with  him ;  meanly 
enough,  indeed ;  for  they  offered  for  his  villany,  if  successful, 
only  thirty  shekels  of  the  Sanctuary  l — the  price  of  a  slave. 
But  the  covetousness  of  an  Oriental  was  fascinated  even  by 
BO  paltry  a  bribe.  He  sold  himself  as  their  tool,  and  from 
that  time  sought  a  favourable  opportunity  to  betray  Jesus, 
when  the  people  were  not  round  Him. 

The  next  day,2  our  Thursday,  was  the  fourteenth  of  Nisan, 
on  which  labour  ceased  at  noon.  Before  then  all  leaven 
had  been  removed  from  every  house,  in  preparation  for 
the  Passover  in  the  evening.  Towards  sunset,  the  Passover 
lamb  was  killed  in  the  forecourts  of  the  Temple,  by  any  one 
chosen  to  do  so,  and  the  blood  and  fat  burned  on  the  altar  as 
an  offering  to  God.  The  rest  supplied  the  materials  for  the 
feast,  an  hour  or  two  later,  after  the  beginning  of  the 
fifteenth  day  at  sunset.  The  fourteenth  was,  therefore, 
very  busy  for  the  whole  of  Jerusalem ;  for  both  it,  the 
villages  round  it,  and  the  open  country,  were  filled  with 
countless  thousands,  all  intent  on  the  same  observances. 

The  Passover3  had  been  founded  to  commemorate  the 
departure  from  Egypt,  but  its  date  permitted  the  union  with 
it  of  the  feast  of  first-fruits,  to  celebrate  the  opening  harvest, 
and  it  was  also  called,  from  rites  connected  with  it,  the  feast 
of  unleavened  bread.4 

We  are  not  told  how  Jesus  spent  Wednesday,  for  the  supper 
in  the  house  at  Bethany  was  on  Tuesday  evening.  He  ap- 
parently stayed  in  privacy,  awaiting  the  coming  day. 

On  Thursday  morning  the  disciples,  taking  it  for  granted 
that  He  would  celebrate  the  feast  with  them,  came  to  Him 
early  to  receive  instructions.  Would  He  keep  it,  as  He 
legally  might,  in  Bethany,  for  the  village  was  counted  by  the 
B-abbis  part  of  Jerusalem  for  religious  usages,  and  the  lamb 
might  be  eaten  in  Bethany,  though  it  must  be  killed  at 
the  Temple.5  It  was  generally  bought  on  the  tenth  Nisan, 
according  to  the  rule  of  the  Law  ;  6  and  though  the  strict  en- 
forcement of  this  command  was  not  maintained,  Jesus  was 
careful  to  fulfil  all  the  innocent  duties  prescribed. 

1  Jos.,  Ant.,  iii.  8.  2.    About  2s.  Gd.  each. 

2  Wednesday  at   sunset   to   Thursday   at  snnset.      April    4-5    (14th 
Nisan). 

3  Matt.  xxvi.  17-19.     Mark  xiv.  12-16.     Luke  xxii.  7-13. 

*  Buxtorf,  p.  1765,  2nd  col.        *  Lightfoot,  in  loc.         *  Exod.  xii.  3 


PBEPABATIONS   FOB    THE   PASSOVEB.  435 

No  donbt  the  disciples  expected  that  Bethany  would  be 
chosen,  for  He  had  solemnly  turned  away  from  Jerusalem, 
two  days  before,  and  to  go  thither  again  would  be  to  put 
Himself  in  the  power  of  His  enemies.  But  He  had  resolved 
once  more  to  visit  the  city  so  dear  to  Him.  It  was  the  place 
appointed  by  the  Law  for  the  feast,  and  He  would  there  be 
in  the  midst  of  the  rejoicing  multitudes,  as  Himself  a  son  of 
Israel.  He  wished,  also,  to  throw  a  greater  sacredness  over 
the  institution  He  designed  to  inaugurate  that  night  as  the 
equivalent,  in  the  New  Kingdom  of  God,  of  the  Passover  in 
the  Old.  It  was  well  to  link  it  in  the  minds  of  the  Apostles 
with  the  sacredness  of  the  Temple,  under  whose  shadow,  with 
the  City  of  the  Great  King,  in  whose  bounds,  and  with  the 
gathering  of  Israel,  in  whose  midst,  it  was  founded. 

Turning,  therefore,  to  Peter  and  John,  His  usual  messengers, 
He  told  them  to  go  and  prepare  the  Passover,  that  He  and 
the  Twelve  might  eat  it  together.  "  On  entering  the  city," 
said  He,  "  you  will  meet  a  man  bearing  an  earthen  jar  of 
water ;  follow  him  into  the  house  he  enters,  ask  for  the 
master,  and  say,  '  THE  TEACHER  told  us  to  ask  you  "  Where 
is  the  room  intended  for  me,  in  which  to  eat  the  Passover 
with  my  disciples  ?  "  And  he  will  himself  show  you  his 
guest-chamber,  on  the  upper  floor,  provided  with  couches, 
ready  for  us.  Get  the  supper  prepared  for  us  there." 

The  two  started  at  once,  and  found  everything  as  Jesus 
had  said,  and  by  evening  all  was  in  readiness  to  receive  Him 
and  the  Ten.  Who  it  was  that  thus  entertained  him  is  not 
told  us.  It  may  have  been  John  Mark,1  or  perhaps  Joseph 
of  Arimathea,  the  early  scholar,  and  the  friend  after  death. 
The  Gospels  do  not  say,  and  even  tradition  is  silent.  Uni- 
versal hospitality  prevailed  in  this  matter,  and  the  only 
recompense  that  could  be  given  was  the  skin  of  the  paschal 
lamb,  and  the  earthen  dishes  used  at  the  meal.2  Not  fewer 
than  ten,  but  often  as  many  as  twenty — enough,  in  any  casej 
to  consume  the  entire  lamb — could  sit  down  together;  but 
Jesus  wished  to  have  none  but  His  Apostles  with  Him,  that 
He  might  bid  them  a  final,  tender  farewell.  Women  were 
not  commonly  present,3  and  indeed  were  excluded  by  many  ; 
but,  apart  from  this,  the  evening  was  designed  as  a  time 
of  deepest  communion  with  the  trusted  Twelve  alone,  and 
hence,  neither  the  outer  circle  of  disciples,  nor  the  ministering 

1  Acts  xii.  12.    Lichtenstein,  Leben  Jesu,  p.  394.     Ewald,  in  loo. 
*  Bab.  Jam,  12.  1.     Megill.,  26.  1.  *  Lightfoot,  in  loo. 


436  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

women  who  had  lovingly  followed  Him  from  Galilee,  were 
invited. 

Peter  and  John  had  had.  much  to  do  beforehand.  It  may 
be,  the  lamb  was  yet  to  be  bought  that  morning,  for  its  pur- 
chase on  the  tenth  had  fallen  rather  out  of  use.  They  had 
to  choose,  from  the  countless  pens  in  which  the  victims  were 
offered  for  sale,  a  male  lamb  of  a  year  old,  without  blemish 
of  any  kind.  In  Galilee,  no  secular  work  was  done  all  day ; 
but,  at  Jerusalem,  it  ceased  only  at  noon.  About  two,  the 
blast  of  horns  announced  that  the  priests  and  Levites  in  the 
Temple  were  ready,  and  the  gates  of  the  inner  courts  were 
opened,  that  all  might  bring  their  lambs  for  examination, 
'and  might  satisfy  the  priests  as  to  the  number  intending 
to  consume  each.  Forthwith,  the  long  lines  of  household 
fathers,  servants,  disciples  of  the  Rabbis,  and  others,  and, 
among  the  rest,  the  two  Apostles  deputed  by  Jesus,  pressed 
across  the  Court  of  the  Men,  which  was  gaily  tapestried  and 
adorned,  to  the  gate  of  the  priests'  court,  the  lamb  on  their 
shoulders,  with  a  knife  stuck  in  the  wool  or  tied  to  the  horn. 

About  half -past  two  the  evening  offering  was  killed,  and 
about  an  hour  after  it  was  laid  on  the  great  altar.  Forth- 
with, three  blasts  of  the  trumpets  of  the  priests,  and  the 
choral  singing  of  the  great  Hallel  by  the  Levites,  gave  the 
signal  for  the  slaughter  of  the  Passover  lambs,  which  had  to 
be  finished  between  the  hours  of  three  and  five.  As  many 
offerers  were  admitted  as  the  courts  would  hold,  and  then 
the  gates  were  shut.  Heads  of  families,  or  servants  deputed 
by  them,  killed  the  lambs,  and  the  priests,  in  two  long  rows, 
with  great  silver  and  gold  vessels  of  curious  shape,  caught 
the  blood  and  passed  it  to  others  behind,  till  it  reached  the 
altar,  at  the  foot  of  which  it  was  poured  out.1  The  victims, 
hung  on  the  iron  hooks  of  the  walls  and  pillars  of  the  courts, 
or  on  a  stick  between  the  shoulders  of  two  men,  were  then 
skinned,  and  cut  open ;  the  tail,  the  fat,  the  kidneys,  and 
liver,  set  apart  for  the  altar ;  the  rest,  wrapped  in  the  skin, 
being  carried  home  from  the  Temple  towards  evening.  As 
the  new  day  opened,  at  sunset,  the  carcass  was  trussed  for 
roasting,  on  two  skewers  of  pomegranate  wood,  so  that 
they  formed  a  cross  in  the  lamb.  It  was  then  put  in  a 
hole  in  the  ground,  and  having  been  covered  with  an  earthen 
oven  without  a  bottom,  was  roasted  in  the  earth.  The 
feast  could  begin  immediately  after  the  sun  set  and  the 

1  Lijhtfoot,  vol.  ii.  p.  342. 


IN   THE   UPPER  ROOM.  437 

appearing  of  the  stars,  on  the  opening  of  the  fifteenth  of 
Nisan,  which  was  proclaimed  by  fresh  trumpet  blasts  from 
the  Temple.1 

Judas  had  stolen  back  to  Bethany  before  daylight,  that  his 
absence  might  not  be  missed,  and,  after  another  day's  bitter 
hypocrisy,  under  the  burning  eyes  of  his  Master,  followed 
Him,  with  the  other  Apostles,  to  Jerusalem,  in  the  evening. 
They  must  have  breathed  heavily  in  the  troubled  air,  for 
presentiments  of  unknown  dangers  filled  every  heart.  They 
still  clung  to  their  old  dream  of  a  visible  earthly  kingdom  of 
God,  under  their  Master,  but  their  spirits  must  have  sunk 
within  them  as  they  passed  through  the  vast  multitudes, 
wholly  absorbed  in  the  approaching  feast,  with  no  sign  of 
preparation  for  a  national  Messianic  movement,  and  along 
the  illuminated  streets,  in  which  no  one  .took  notice  of  them. 
That  the  hierarchy  had  denounced  Jesus  was,  itself,  enough 
to  fill  their  simple  minds  with  dismay,  for  its  splendour  and 
power  seemed  reflected  in  the  myriads  assembled  from  the 
whole  world,  to  honour  the  faith  and  the  Temple,  of  which 
they  were  the  public  representatives.  And  was  not  the  tiara 
worn  by  a  fierce  Sadducee  ?  Were  not  the  governing  families 
exclusively  of  this  cruel  and  inhuman  party  ?  As  they 
passed  under  the  shadow  of  the  Temple,  with  its  gleaming 
lights,  its  marble  bastions,  and  its  immemorial  traditions, 
they  must  have  felt  that,  unless  Jesus  chose  at  last  to  do 
what  He  had  never  yet  done,  even  for  a  moment — unless  He 
used  His  supernatural  power  in  self  defence  and  for  self- 
aggrandisement — they  were  hopelessly  lost. 

To  Jesus  Himself  the  moment  was  unspeakably  solemn. 
His  scarcely  founded  Kingdom  was  about  to  pass  through  the 
severest  trial.  The  temporary  and  earthly  in  it  were  to  be 
violently  separated,  for  ever,  from  the  heavenly  and  eternal. 
All  hopes  of  a  worldly  kingdom,  so  deeply  rooted  in  the 
minds  of  His  followers,  were  to  be  destroyed,  and  He,  the 
visible  Head  of  the  Kingdom,  to  be  apprehended,  dishonoured, 
and  crucified.  The  thoughts  of  His  disciples  were  to  be 
raised  from  the  idea  of  a  Messiah  present  with  them,  to  a 
Messiah  in  heaven,  to  appear,  henceforth,  no  more,  but  by 
His  return  from  the  invisible  world.  To  be  true  to  Him, 
meant,  from  this  time,  the  realization  of  a  spiritual  concep- 
tion as  yet  unattained  by  even  the  most  enlightened  of  the 
Twelve. 

1  Keim,  vol.  iii.  p.  256.  For  the  Samaritan  Passover  at  the  present 
day,  see  Stanley's  Jewish  Church,  vol.  i.  p.  513. 


438 


THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 


But  Christ  was  in  no  degree  turned  aside  or  paralyzed  in 
His  resolution  by  such  dangers.  While  in  no  sense  courting 
death,  and  even  wishful,  if  it  pleased  His  Father,  to  escape 
its  attendant  horrors,  He  moved  towards  the  appointed  and 
foreseen  end,  with  sublime  self-possession  and  holy  peace  of 
soul,  recognising  all  that  yet  remained  for  Him  to  do,  and 
doing  it  with  a  Divine  serenity.  His  bearing  to  the  great 
world  to  the  last,  His  action  and  His  self-restraint,  are 
alike  wonderful ;  but  it  must  strike  us  still  more,  as  we 
observe  it  closely,  how  He  acted  in  the  circle  of  His  chosen 
ones  as  the  catastrophe  pressed  nearer  and  nearer. 

When  the  Twelve,  with  their  Master,  had  entered  the 
room,  to  take  their  places  on  the  cushions,  for  the  meal,1 
the  greatness  of  the  change  yet  to  be  wrought  on  their 
minds  was  once  more  strikingly  shown.  It  spite  of  all  He 
had  said,  the  question  of  precedence  was  uppermost  in  their 
thoughts. 

As  the  head  of  the  group,  Jesus  naturally  took  the  first 
place  on  the  highest  couch — the  outermost,  on  the  right  of 
the  hollow  square ;  His  face  towards  the  second  place ;  His 
feet  outwards.  Resting  His  left  elbow  and  side  on  a  cushion 

Middle  Couch. 


Pillows  or  Cushion. 


Highest. 


9       8 


Lowest. 


T/owest. 


Highest. 


TBICLINIUM.* 


•  Matt.  xxvi.  20.     Mark  xiv.  17.     Luke  xxii.  14-18,  24-30,    John  xiii. 
1-20. 
2  Diet,  of  Antiquities,  Art.  Triclinium. 


STRIFE   FOB  PRECEDENCE.  439 

the  whole  breadth  of  the  couch,  His  right  hand  was  thus 
free,  while  the  Apostle  next  Him  reclined  so  that  his  head 
lay,  as  it  were,  in  his  Master's  bosom.  It  had  been  the 
custom,  in  ancient  times,  to  eat  the  Passover  standing,  but 
the  Rabbis  had  changed  it  for  the  Gentile  practice  of  re- 
clining. It  was  like  slaves,  they  said,  to  eat  standing,  and 
as  Israel  was  not  a  race  of  slaves  but  of  free  men,  they  should 
eat  the  feast  reclining;  a  flattery  so  pleasing  to  the  natural 
arrogance  that  even  the  poorest  adopted  the  new  mode.1 

But  this  Jewish  pride  in  the  Apostles,  made  still  more 
fierce  by  selfish  ambition,  in  prospect  of  the  political  glory 
they  still  perversely  hoped  for,  could  ill  brook  to  take  a 
lower  place  than  others.  It  was  a  grave  matter  for  them, 
as  for  the  Pharisees,  who  should  have  the  higher  seats,  for, 
in  their  delusion,  they  assumed  that  it  might  affect  their 
future  position  in  the  Messianic  State,  to  be  founded,  as  they 
dreamed,  presently.  So  the  strife  that  had  broken  out  on 
the  other  side  of  Jericho,  once  more  distressed  their  Master, 
and  He  could  only  still  it  by  repeating  the  keen  rebuke  He 
then  gave  them.  "  In  my  kingdom,"  said  He,  "  to  be  humble 
is  to  be  great ;  the  lowliest  is,  in  it,  the  highest."  No  more 
was  needed;  the  struggle,  now,  would  rather  be  for  the 
lowest  place. 

But  He  did  not  confine  Himself  to  words.  Rising  from 
the  couch,  when  the  supper  was  just  about  to  begin,b  and 
girding  Himself  with  a  towel,  like  a  slave,  after  laying  aside 
His  upper  garments,  He  poured  water  into  a  basin,  and 
began  to  wash  the  feet  of  His  disciples.  Pride  and  selfish 
ambition  could  not  be  more  strikingly  and  touchingly 
reproved,  than  by  such  an  act  on  the  part  of  One  who  knew 
that  all  things  had  been  given  into  His  hands  by  God  His 
Father,  and  that  He  had  come  forth  from  Him,  and  was 
about  to  return  to  Him.  No  greater  proof  could  be  shown  of 
His  love,  than  that  such  an  instance  of  humility  should  be  its 
natural  expression.  Had  they  all  been  true-hearted,  it  would 
have  been  amazing  in  One  so  transcendently  above  them,  but 
it  was  still  more  so,  when  He  knew  that  one  of  them  was 
already  a  traitor.  He  had  proclaimed  Himself  the  Son  of 
God,  the  future  judge  of  the  world,  the  Messiah  in  whose 
gift  were  the  honours  of  heaven,  and  whose  voice  was  to 
raise  the  dead,  and  they  were  simple  Galilaean  fishermen. 
There  could  be  no  commentary  on  His  demand  for  lowliness, 

1  flier.  Pt!«.,  xxxvii.  2  ;  x.  1.     Wetitein,  p.  517. 
M 


440  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

as  the  true  ground  of  advancement  in  His  kingdom,  more 
vivid  than  His  voluntarily  performing  the  lowliest  act  of 
personal  service  to  them  all. 

He  seems  to  have  begun  with  Simon  Peter,  His  chief 
Apostle,  but  the  warm  heart  and  the  impulsive  nature  of  the 
rock- like  man  shrank  from  allowing  his  Master  to  homblo 
Himself  thus.  "  Lord,"  said  he,  "  dost  Thou  wash  my  feet !  " 
He  had  not  realized  the  meaning  of  an  act  intended  as  symbol- 
ical. "  What  I  do,"  replied  Jesus,  "  thou  understandest  not 
now,  but  wilt  know  hereafter."  "  Thou  shalt  never  wash  mi/ 
feet,  Lord,"  reiterated  the  Apostle.  "  If  I  do  not  wash  thee," 
said  Jesus,  "  thou  hast  no  part  with  me."  "  Lord,  if  that  be 
the  case,"  broke  out  Peter,  "  wash  not  my  feet  only,  but  my 
hands  and  my  head."  "  It  is  not  necessary,"  said  Jesus. 
"  He  who,  according  to  Jewish  ways,  has  taken  a  bath  before 
his  meal,  needs  no  more  than  to  cleanse  the  dust  from  his 
feet,  which  has  clung  to  them  on  the  way  from  the  bath. 
Except  this,  he  is  clean,  and  it  is  the  same  with  you,  except 
him  who  intends  to  betray  me.  By  my  word,  which  I  have 
spoken  to  you,  and  the  faith  kindled  in  you  by  it,1  you  are 
already  clean  in  the  sense  I  mean — right  in  the  desire  of 
your  heart  toAvards  me.  Yet,  though  thus  clean,  the  dust  of 
earth  still  clings  to  you  in  part,  and  makes  a  last  washing 
needful."  The  hour  was  at  hand  for  this  last  crowning  act 
of  love — the  shedding  His  blood  for  them  for  the  remission 
of  their  sins — and  He  would  now  prepare  them  for  it  by  this 
tender  symbol,2  for  it  taught  not  only  humility,  but  that  He 
alone  could  take  away  sin. 

Having  washed  their  feet,  and  resumed  His  garments,  He 
once  more  took  His  place  on  the  couch. 

"  Do  you  know,"  He  asked,  as  He  did  so,  "  the  meaning 
of  what  I  have  now  done  ?  You  call  me  Teacher  and  Lord, 
and  you  are  right,  for  I  am  both.  Learn,  then,  that,  if 
I,  your  Master  and  Lord,  wash  your  feet,  you,  also,  ought  to 
wash  one  another's  feet,  for  I  have  done  this  as  an  example 
to  you,  that  you  should  do  to  each  other  as  I  have  done  to 
you.  You  know,  and  I  would  have  you  remember  it,  that 
a  servant  is  not  greater  than  his  lord,  nor  an  apostle  thai*. 
He  who  sent  him  forth,  so  that  you  may  well  imitate  me, 
your  superior,  in  my  humility.  If  you  understand  what  I 
say,  take  heed  that,  henceforth,  you  act  on  my  teaching.  I 
do  not,  indeed,  speak  of  you  all.  I  know  your  characters  and 

1  John  xv.  8 ;  iii.  18.  3  Art.  Fusswaschung,  BibcJ  Lex. 


THE   LAST  PASSOVEB.  441 

hearts,  but  all  has  happened  in  fulfilment  of  the  Divine  will, 
for  the  Scripture  must  needs  be  fulfilled,  which  says,  '  He 
that  eats  bread  with  me,  craftily  lifts  up  his  heel  against  me ; ' 
to  trip  and  overthrow  me.1  I  tell  you  before  it  happen,  that, 
when  it  does  take  place,  you  may  believe  that  I  am  indeed 
the  Messiah,  and  that  no  other  is  to  be  expected.  That  I 
should  be  betrayed  by  one  of  ourselves  might  have  shaken 
your  faith  in  me,  but  it  cannot  do  so  when  I  have  foreseen 
and  foretold  it,  as  part  of  the  counsel  of  God.  But  to  cheer 
and  encourage  you  in  your  faithfulness,  I  announce  it,  that 
you  may  go  forth  with  joyful  hearts  to  the  mission  on  which 
I  have  sent  you.  Your  high  position,  as  'my  Apostles, 
remains  unaffected  by  the  treachery  of  one  of  your  number. 
For  I  now  solemnly  repeat,  what  I  said  before,  he  who 
receives  you  is  accounted  by  me  as  if  he  had  received  myself, 
and  he  who  receives  me  receives  God  the  Father  who  sent 
me,  for  He  dwells  in  me,  and  I  in  Him."  2 

The  supper  now  began,  but  the  spirit  of  Jesus  was  still 
clouded  and  troubled  by  the  presence  of  the  traitor.3  At 
last  His  feelings  broke  out  into  irrepressible  words.  "  Verily, 
verily,"  said  He,  "  one  of  you  who  eat  with  me,  will  betray 
me.  His  hand  is  with  me  on  the  table."  They  had  never 
hitherto  realized  His  hints,  and  to  their  honest  and  faithful 
hearts  the  very  idea  of  treason  was  almost  beyond  belief. 
They  could  not  think  who  was  meant,  for  Judas  had  managed, 
by  his  hypocrisy,  to  hide  his  character  from  them  all.  One 
by  one,  they  began  to  ask,  "  Lord,  is  it  I  ?  "  "  It  is  one," 
replied  Jesus,  "  who  dips  with  me  into  the  dish.  The  Son  of 
man,  indeed,  goes  from  this  world  in  this  way,  by  the  coun- 
sels of  God,  but  woe  to  that  man  by  whom  He  is  betrayed  ! 
It  would  have  been  well  for  him  if  he  had  not  been  born  !  " 
Words  thus  general  only  increased  the  pain  and  emotion 
of  all.  At  last,  Peter,  not  venturing  to  ask  directly  who  it 
could  be,  but  conscious  of  his  own  integrity,  beckoned  to 
John,  who  lay  next  our  Lord,  to  ask  Him  who  could  be  so 
base.  "  It  is  he,"  whispered  Jesus,  "  who  is  just  about 
to  dip  the  bitter  herbs  into  this  charoseth  with  me,  and  to 
whom  I  shall  give  some  of  it  presently." c 

He  then  dipped  the  piece  of  bread  into  the  charoseth,  and 
handed  it  to  Judas.  "  Is  it  I  ?  "  asked  the  guilty  man,  con- 

1  Ps.  xli.  9.  *  John  xiv.  10,  20 ;  xiii.  20. 

»  Matt.  xxvi.  21-25.  Mark  xiv.  18-21.  Luke  xxii.  21-23.  John  xiii 
21-35. 


442  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

science-stricken,  and  yet  unmelted.  He  had  not  heard  the 
words  of  John,  but  his  guilty  soul  could  not  help  stammering 
out  the  question,  in  a  vain  attempt  to  keep  up  the  mockery 
of  true-heartedness  he  had  acted  so  long.  The  awful  reply, 
that  "  it  was,"  tore  away  the  mask  at  once,  and  unveiled 
his  heart.  That  all  was  known  would  have  overwhelmed 
some  in  shame  and  contrition,  but  it  only  hardened  the 
betrayer.  The  wild  madness  of  evil  was  on  him  for  the  time. 
He  could  think  only  of  himself  :  his  fancied  wrongs  ;  his  full 
resolve.  Satan  had  entered  his  soul,  and  his  whole  nature 
was  bent  to  the  dark  ends  of  the  Evil  One.  It  may  be  that 
the  exposure  roused  him  to  the  heedlessness  of  despair,  as 
when  the  arch  enemy  bade  hope  farewell, 

"  and,  with  hope,  farewell  fear, 
Farewell  remorse  :  all  good  to  me  is  lost ; 
Evil,  be  thou  my  good !  "  * 

It  was  vain  for  him  to  seek  to  hide  the  workings  of  his  soul 
by  an  affected  outward  calm.  He  had  long  veiled  false- 
hood 

"  under  saintly  show, 
Deep  malice  to  conceal,  couch'd  with  revenge." 

But  the  eyes  of  his  Master  shone  into  the  depths  of  his  being, 
and  saw  the  tumult  of  his  worst  passions,  in  their  mastery. 
"  What  you  have  to  do,"  said  Jesus,  "  do  quickly."  He 
could  not  breathe  freely  till  the  miserable  man  had  left,  and 
besides,  He  would  fain  meet  the  inevitable  as  soon  as  might 
be,  for  the  slow  advance  of  a  catastrophe  is  harder  to  bear 
than  the  catastrophe  itself.  Judas  knew  the  meaning  of  the 
command  at  once,  and,  having  received  the  piece  of  bread, 
dipped  in  the  charoseth,  moodily  took  it,  and  silently  with- 
drew into  the  outer  night.  The  Eleven  were  too  nmch  con- 
fused to  realize  the  end  as  so  near  at  hand.  Betrayal  might 
come,  but  at  some  future,  perhaps  distant,  time.  They  only 
fancied,  therefore,  that  Judas  had  left  either  to  buy  what 
might  be  needed  during  the  week  of  the  feast,  or  for  that 
special  night ;  or  that  Jesus  had  bethought  Himself  of  some 
deed  of  mercy  to  the  poor,  and  sent  him  to  carry  it  out.  The 
traitor  gone,  Christ  felt  free  to  speak,  and,  as  if  relieved  of  a 
load,  broke  out  into  a  joyful  anticipation  of  His  fast-coming 
triumph.  In  the  near  vision  of  the  Cross,  His  work  seemed 
already  finished ;  2  His  glory,  as  Conqueror  of  Death  and 

1  Par.  Lost,  iv.  108-110.  8  John  xiii.  26-37. 


THE   NEW   COMMANDMENT.  443 

Hell,  and  Redeemer  of  Mankind,  attained,  and  that  of  God 
the  Father  illustrated. 

"  JSTow,"  said  He,  in  effect,  "  the  Son  of  man  is  already 
glorified.  All  things  are  hastening  to  His  ti-iumph,  and,  in 
that  trinmph,  God  Himself  will  also  be  glorified,  for  it  is 
His  work  which  I  shall  presently  complete.  And  if  God  be 
thns  glorified  in  my  death  for  the  salvation  of  man,  He  will 
assuredly  crown  me  with  His  own  heavenly  glory,  when  I 
return  to  Him ;  the  glory  that  I  had  with  Him,  before  I  came 
to  earth  to  become  man,  and  that  even  now  is  close  at  hand, 
through  my  death,  which  will  usher  me  into  it.  The  betrayer 
has  gone  to  accomplish  it ! l 

"  My  children,  for  I  call  you  so  in  love,  I  shall  be  only 
a  little  while  longer  with  you,  and  you  will  feel  the  want  of 
my  presence,  and  wish  for  me ;  but,  as  I  once  said  to  my 
enemies,  I  shall  be  where  you  cannot  follow  and  find  me. 
For  a  parting  word,  let  me  give  you  a  last  command — my 
very  last ;  a  new  command,  to  be  kept,  so  much  the  more — 
that,  henceforth,  ye  love  each  other  because  I  have  loved 
you  all,  and  because  you  all  love  me.  I  have  often,  before, 
told  you  to  be  like  God  by  your  loving  all  men,  but  I  now  tell 
you  to  do  so  for  the  love  I  bear  to  you,  and  for  that  which 
you  bear  to  me.  You  must,  henceforth,  be  known  as  members 
of  my  kingdom,  by  the  love  you  show  to  each  other.  And 
the  love  you  have,  as  brethren,  must  be  such,  and  as  great, 
as  mine  has  been  towards  you  all." 

As  He  thus  spoke,  Peter  still  dwelt,  in  his  thoughts,  on 
the  sad  words  which  seemed  to  foreshadow  a  lasting  separa- 
tion between  him  and  his  Master.  "  Lord,"  said  he,  in  his 
bold,  impetuous  way,  "  You  speak  of  going  away ;  pray  tell 
us  whither  you  are  going  ?  Will  you  leave  us  and  go  to 
the  Gentiles  ?  "  "I  go  to  a  place,"  replied  Jesus,  "  where 
you  cannot  follow  me  at  present,  however  willing  you  may 
be  to  do  so.  Yet,  do  not  fear.  We  shall  not  be  separated 
for  ever.  You  will,  one  day,  follow  me,  in  the  same  way, 
and  then  you  will  come  to  me."  Peter's  heart  could  not 
be  silent.  "  I  shall  be  glad  to  come  to  Thee,  Lord,"  said  he, 
"  even  after  a  time,  but  why  can  I  not  go  with  Thee  now  ? 
Thou  knowest  me.  I  am  ready  to  lay  down  my  life  for 
Thee." 

"  Do  you  think  so  ?  "  replied  Jesus,  with  a  look  full  of 
friendship,  and  yet  also  of  earnest  sadness.3  "  You  little 

1  John  xvii.  5. 
»  Matt.  xxvi.  31-35.     Mark  xiv.  27-31.     Lake  xxii.  31-38. 


444  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

know  your  own  heart.  All  of  you  will  forsake  me,  and  leave 
me  to  my  enemies,  this  very  night,  as  Zechariah,  the  prophet, 
has  foretold — '  I  will  smite  the  shepherd,  and  the  sheep  of 
the  flock  will  be  scattered  abroad.' 1  But  be  not  cast  down 
with  too  much  sorrow.  After  I  have  risen  from  the  dead, 
I  will  go  into  Galilee,  and  gather  you  round  me  once  more." 
The  idea  of  forsaking  his  Master,  whom  he  loved  so  dearly, 
was  too  inconceivable,  however,  to  Peter,  in  the  self-con- 
fidence of  his  affection,  to  allow  him  to  accept  it  as  possible. 
"  Other  men  may,  perhaps,  be  offended  on  account  of  Thee, 
Lord,"  said  he,  "  but  if  all  the  world  were  to  be  so,  there  is 
no  fear  of  my  failing.  I,  at  any  rate,  will  never  leave  Thee." 

"  Simon,  Simon,"  replied  Jesus,  using  the  old  name  by 
which  he  had  known  him  long  ago,  "  take  care.  Self-con- 
fidence will  be  your  undoing.  Satan  has  seen  it,  and  has 
sought  to  get  God  to  give  you  and  your  fellow-disciples  over 
into  his  power,  as  he  once  did  Job,  to  sift  you  as  wheat  is 
sifted.  He  would  fain  have  it  that  your  professions  are  only 
chaff,  and  he  will  shake  and  test  you  by  temptations,  dangers, 
and  troubles,  to  try  to  make  you  turn  against  me,  and  thus 
prove  that  it  is  so.  But  I  am  mightier  than  your  enemy, 
and  I  have  prayed  for  you 2  that,  though  you  fall,  you  may 
rise  again,  and  that  your  faith  in  me  may  not  give  way 
altogether  and  separate  you  entirely  from  me.  Though  you 
will  assuredly  fall,  yet  you  will  repent,  and  when  you  have 
done  so,  see  that  you  strengthen  the  faith  of  your  fellow- 
disciples,  and  become  their  helper,  to  support  and  confirm 
them,  if  they,  like  you,  waver." 

Peter  was  sorely  distressed  at  such  words.  Conscious  of 
his  honest  love  and  fidelity,  it  seemed  as  if  Jesus  doubted 
both.  His  warm  Galilaean  heart  was  full.  He  felt  as  if  his 
Master  spoke  of  his  acting  in  a  way  of  which  he  could  not 
believe  himself  capable.  "  Lord,"  said  he,  "  I  care  not  what 
happens  to  Thee.  I  am  ready  to  go  with  Thee  to  prison,  or 
to  die  with  Thee,  but  I  will  never  leave  Thee,  nor  be  untrue 
to  Thee."  "  Do  you  think  so,  Peter?  "  replied  Jesus,  with  a 
voice  full  of  tenderness  ;  "  I  tell  you  that  this  very  night, 
before  the  cock  crow  the  second  time,  you  will  thrice  deny 
that  you  know  me."  "  If  I  were  to  die  for  it,"  answered  the 
Apostle,  "  no  one  will  ever  hear  me  deny  Thee."  "  I  can  say 
the  same,"  added  all  the  other  Apostles. 

There  was  now  a  pause  for  a  short  time  in  the  conversation, 

1  Chap.  xiii.  7.  *  Thee  =  <rov. 


THE  DANGEES  OF  THE  FUTUEE.        445 

Presently  Jesus  re-commenced  it.  "  You  may  wonder  at  my 
speaking  as  I  have  done  to-night,"  said  He,  "but  there  are 
good  grounds  for  it.1  Your  circumstances  will  be  entirely 
different,  henceforth,  from  what  they  have  been  in  the  past. 
A  time  of  care  and  struggle  lies  before  you.  When  I  sent 
you  to  travel  through  the  country,  preaching  the  Kingdom, 
and  you  had  neither  purse,  nor  bag  for  food,  nor  sandals 
did  you  miss  any  of  these,  or  want  for  anything  ?  "  "  Nothing, 
Lord,"  said  the  Eleven.  "  It  will  be  very  different  now," 
replied  Jesus.  "  Whoever  has  money,  let  him  take  it,  and 
let  him  take  provisions  for  the  way,  as  well ;  and  let  him  that 
has  no  sword  sell  his  coat  to  buy  one,  to  defend  himself. 
He  who  has  money  and  provisions  can  help  himself  on  by 
them  in  his  journeys,  but  he  who  has  none  will  need  to 
ask  hospitality,  and,  as  he  will  too  seldom  receive  it,  let 
him,  at  least,  have  the  means  of  protection.  I  speak  in  a 
figure,  for  I  do  not  really  mean  you  to  fight,  or  to  carry  or 
use  a  sword,  but  I  wish  to  impress  on  you  how  hostile  the 
world  will  henceforth  be  to  you,  as  you  go  on  your  journeys 
as  my  Apostles  ;  and  what  earnest  energy  and  struggle  will  be 
needful,  on  your  part,  while  you  are  thus  carrying  the  news 
of  the  Kingdom  through  the  world.  For  I  tell  you,  solemnly, 
that  the  words  of  Isaiah,  '  And  He  was  reckoned  among 
transgressors,'  must  be  fulfilled  in  me,  for  that  which  has 
been  written  of  me  in  Scripture  is  about  to  be  accom- 
plished." 2 

The  disciples,  always  ready  to  understand  in  the  most 
material  sense  whatever  they  heard,  had  failed  to  catch  the 
real  meaning  of  Jesus  in  his  reference  to  the  sword.  They 
fancied  that  He  wished  them  to  provide  weapons  to  resist 
approaching  danger.  "We  have  two  swords,"  said  one  of 
them.  "  That  will  do,"  replied  Jesus,  gently  avoiding  further 
explanation.  "  You  will  not  need  more  than  the  two," — a 
touch  of  sad  irony  which  sufficed  to  show,  even  then,  that  He 
had  thought  of  something  very  different  as  their  defence  than 
the  purchase  of  arms ;  for  how  were  the  nine,  who  had  no 
swords  at  all,  to  protect  themselves,  when  scattered  on  the 
apostolic  journeys  of  which  He  had  spoken  ? 

The  evening  was  now  somewhat  advanced,  according  to 
Eastern  notions,  but  the  Passover  meal,  in  its  different  rites, 
could  not  be  hurried.  Though  we  cannot  tell  how  far  the 
usual  customs  were  followed  by  Jesus,  the  feast  began  thus 

'  Luke  xxii.  35-38  »  Chap.  liii.  12. 


446  THE  LIFE   OF  CHRIST. 

in  other  circles.1  A  cup  of  red  wine,  mingled  with,  a  fourth 
part  of  water,  to  make  it  a  pleasant  and  temperate  drink, 
was  filled  by  one  of  the  company,  and  given  to  the  head 
of  the  family,  who  took  it  in  his  right  hand  as  he  rested 
on  the  couch,  on  his  left  side  and  arm,  and  thanked  God 
in  the  words — "  Blessed  be  Thou,  0  Lord  our  God,  Thou 
King  of  the  world,  who  createdst  the  fruit  of  the  vine." 
He  then  tasted  the  cup,  and  passed  it  round.  Thanks 
for  the  institution  of  the  washing  of  hands  followed,  and 
then  the  washing  itself,  which  was  merely  formal.  "  Bitter  " 
herbs,  such  as  endives,  lettuce,  and  the  like,  were  next 
set  on  the  table,  to  represent  the  hard  life  of  Egypt.  Thanks 
were  given  for  them  also,  and  then  they  were  passed  round 
and  eaten,  after  dipping  them  in  a  mixture  of  salt  and 
vinegar.  The  unleavened  bread— the  bread  of  affliction — 
which  gave  one  of  its  names  to  the  feast,  followed  next,  and 
then  the  bowl  of  charoseth  and  the  Passover  lamb.  After 
this,  the  head  of  the  company  once  more  gave  thanks  to 
Him  "  who  created  the  fruit  of  the  earth,"  and  the  bitter 
herbs  were  dipped  by  each  in  the  charoseth,  and  a  piece 
of  it,  "  the  size  of  an  olive,"  eaten  with  them  by  all.  A 
second  single  cup  of  wine  mingled  with  water,  was  now 
poured  out,  discourse  on  the  lessons  of  the  feast  was  held, 
and  then  the  hundred  and  thirteenth  and  hundred  and 
fourteenth  Psalms,  part  of  the  Hallel,  were  sung.  Another 
short  thanksgiving  followed,  and  the  cup  was  once  more 
passed  round  and  tasted. 

The  household  father  now  washed  his  hands  again,  and 
then  took  two  of  the  unleavened  cakes,  and  breaking  one 
of  them  across,  laid  the  pieces  on  the  other,  and  pronounced 
a  thanksgiving — "  Blessed  be  He  who  makes  bread  to  grow 
from  the  earth,"  wrapped  some  bitter  herbs  round  a  piece 
of  the  broken  bread,  dipped  it  in  the  charoseth,  ate  it,  after 
another  special  thanksgiving,  and,  with  it,  a  part  of  the 
lamb  ;  the  others  following  his  example.  The  supper  had 
only  now  properly  begun.  Each  ate  and  drank  at  his  will ; 
all,  alike,  in  the  patriarchal  way  of  the  East,  lifting  what 
they  chose  from  the  common  dish,  with  their  fingers.  A 
third  cup  of  wine,  passed  round,  marked  the  close  of  the 
feast  as  a  religious  solemnity. 

The  meal  had  advanced  thus  far,  and  was  now  virtually 

1  Matt.  xrvi.  26-29.  Mark  xiv.  22-25.  Luke  ixii.  19,  20.  1  Cor.  xi. 
23-25. 


THE  LORD'S  SUPPER.  447 

finished,  when  the  warning  had  been  given  of  the  approach- 
ing  denial  of  their  Master  by  Peter,  and  the  weak-minded 
desertion  of  the  Eleven.  The  solemn  words,  foretelling  the 
dangers  and  trials  before  them,  had  been  added,  when  Jesus, 
now  in  the  bosom  of  the  little  band,  nearest  and  dearest  to 
Him  on  earth — His  companions  through  the  past  years,  since 
His  public  work  began — introduced  by  an  act  befitting,  in 
ils  simplicity,  a  spiritual  religion  like  His,  the  institution 
which,  henceforth,  should  supersede  in  His  kingdom  on 
earth  the  feast  they  had  ended.  Homage  had  been  paid  for 
the  last  time,  as  in  farewell,  to  the  Past ;  they  were,  here- 
after, to  honour  the  new  Symbol  of  the  Future. 

He  was  about  to  leave  them,  and,  as  yet,  they  had  no  rite, 
however  simple,  to  form  a  centre  round  which  they  might 
permanently  gather.  Some  emblem  was  needed,  by  which 
they  might,  hereafter,  be  distinguished ;  some  common  bond, 
which  should  outwardly  link  them  to  each  other,  and  to 
their  common  Master.  The  Passover  had  been  the  symbol 
of  the  theocracy  of  the  past,  and  had  given  the  people  of 
God  an  outward,  ever-recurring  remembrance  of  their  re- 
lations to  each  other  and  to  their  invisible  King.  As  the 
founder  of  the  New  Israel,  Jesus  would  now  institute  a 
special  rite  for  its  members,  in  all  ages  and  countries.  The 
Old  Covenant  of  God  with  the  Jew  had  found  its  vivid 
embodiment  in  the  yearly  festivity  He  had  that  night,  for 
the  last  time,  observed.  The  New  Covenant  must,  hence- 
forth, have  an  outward  embodiment  also  ;  more  spiritual,  as 
became  it,  but  equally  vivid. 

Nothing  could  have  been  more  touching  and  beautiful  in 
its  simplicity  than  the  symbol  now  introduced.  The  Third 
Cup  was  known  as  "  the  cup  of  blessing,"  and  had  marked  the 
close  of  the  meal,  held  to  do  honour  to  the  economy  that  was 
passing  away.  The  bread  had  been  handed  round  with  the 
words,  "  This  is  the  bread  of  affliction  ;  "  and  the  flesh  of  the 
lamb  had  been  distributed  with  the  words,  "  This  is  the  body 
of  the  Passover." 1  The  feast  of  the  ancient  people  of  God 
having  been  honoured  by  these  striking  utterances,2 — • 
Jesus  took  one  of  the  loaves  or  cakes  before  Him,  gave 
thanks,  broke  it,  and  handed  it  to  the  Apostles  with  words, 
the  repetition,  almost  exactly,  of  those  they  had  heard  a 
moment  before — "  Take,  eat ;  this  is  my  body,  which  is 
given  for  you;  this  do  in  remembrance  of  me."  Then, 

1  Mischna  PesacJiim,  last  chapter,  §  3.  2  1  Cor.  xi.  25. 


448  THE   LIFE   OP   CHRIST. 

taking  the  cap,  which  had  been  filled  for  the  fourth  and 
last  handing  round,  He  gave  thanks  to  God  once  more,  and 
passed  it  to  the  circle,  with  the  words,  "  Drink  ye  all  of  it, 
for  this  cup  is  the  New  Covenant  "  presently  to  be  made  "  in 
my  blood ;  "  instead  of  the  covenant  made  also  in  blood,  by 
God,  with  your  fathers  ;  "  it  is,"  in  abiding  symbol,  "  my 
blood  of  the  Covenant "  of  my  Father,  with  the  New  Israel, 
"  which  is  shed  for  you  and  for  many  for  the  remission 
of  sins.  This  do,  as  often  as  ye  drink,  in  remembrance  of 
Me,"  i 

For  Himself,  He  declined  to  taste  it.  "  I  will  not  drink, 
henceforth,"  said  He,  "of  the  fruit  of  the  vine — for  it  was 
still  only  wine — till  that  day,  when,  at  the  end  of  all  things, 
the  Kingdom  of  God,  which  I  have  founded,  shall  finally 
triumph,  and  my  followers  be  gathered  to  the  great  heavenly 
feast.  Then,  I  shall  drink  it  new  with  you  and  them." 

Such,  and  so  simple,  was  the  new  rite  of  the  Spiritual 
Theocracy.  To  those  around  Him  at  its  institution,  there 
could  be  no  doubt  of  its  meaning  and  nature,  for  it  was,  even 
in  words,  a  counterpart  of  that  which  He  had  superseded 
with  a  purer  and  more  spiritual  form.  The  cup,  He  told 
them,  was  a  symbol  of  the  New  Covenant,  under  which,  as 
His  followers,  they  had  come ;  in  distinction  from  that 
which  they  had  left,  for  His  sake.  It  was  to  be  a  memorial 
of  Him,  and  a  constant  recognition  of  their  faith  in  the 
virtue  of  His  atoning  death — that  death,  whose  shed  blood 
was  the  seal  of  this  New  Covenant  between  the  subjects  of 
His  kingdom,  and  God,  His  Father.  It  symbolized  before 
all  ages,  to  the  New  Israel,  the  cardinal  virtue  of  His  death. 
The  Apostles  could  have  had  no  simpler  or  more  unmistak- 
able intimation  that  as  the  blood  of  the  Passover  lamb 
redeemed  the  people  of  God,  of  old,  from  the  sword  of  the 
angel  of  wrath,  His  blood  would  be  a  ransom  for  man  from 
far  deadlier  peril.  A  covenant,  to  them,  implied  a  sacrifice, 
and  His  blood,  as  the  New  Covenant,  was  therefore  sacri- 
ficial ;  the  blood  of  a  Covenant  which  pledged  His  followers 
to  faith  and  duty ;  the  blood  of  a  new  paschal  lamb,  with 
which  His  disciples  must,  in  figure,  be  sprinkled,  that  the 
destroying  angel  might  pass  over  them,  in  the  day  of  judg- 
ment. The  custom  of  the  nation  to  use  a  common  meal  as 
the  special  occasion  of  religious  fellowship,  made  the  new 
institution  easy  and  natural  to  the  Apostles,  and  the  constant 

1  Exod.  xxiv.  8. 


THE   LETTEE   KILLETH.  449 

employment  of  symbols  in  their  hereditary  religion  prevented 
their  misconceiving  the  meaning  of  the  one  now  introduced 
for  the  first  time.  They  saw  in  it  an  abiding  memorial  of 
their  Lord ;  a  vivid  enforcement  of  their  dependence  on  the 
merits  of  His  death,  as  a  sacrifice  for  their  salvation;  the 
need  of  intimate  spiritual  communion  with  Him  as  the  bread 
of  life,  and  the  bond  of  the  new  brotherhood  He  had  estab- 
lished. The  joint  commemoration  of  His  broken  body  and 
shed  blood  was,  henceforth,  to  distinguish  the  assemblies  of 
His  followers  from  the  world  at  large.  Excepting  baptism, 
it  was  the  one  outward  form  in  the  Society  established  by 
their  Master. 

From  a  rite  thus  simple,  doctrines  have  been  developed  by 
theological  zeal  and  heated  fancy,  which  would  have  alike 
startled  and  shocked  those  who  first  partook  of  it.  It  has 
been  forgotten  how  Jesus,  Himself,  in  answer  to  the  cavil, 
"  How  can  He  give  us  His  flesh  to  eat  ?  "  repudiated  the 
literalism  which  caught  at  sound,  and  missed  the  sense. 
"  My  flesh — my  bodily  person,"  said  He,  "  profiteth  nothing 
towards  procuring  eternal  life ;  to  talk  of  eating  it  to  gain 
that  life  is  unworthy  trifling  ;  it  is  the  Spirit  who  quickens 
the  soul  to  a  new,  immortal,  and  heavenly  existence,  and 
that  Spirit  acts  through  the  words  of  sacred  truth  which  I 
speak  to  you.  They  are  spirit,  and  they  are  life." l 

1  John  vL  63. 


CHAPTER    LIX. 
THE  FAEEWELL. 

TERUSALEM  was  the  brightest  and  happiest  of  cities  on 
*J  this  Passover  night.1  But  though  the  hum  of  universal 
rejoicing  rose  on  every  side,  there  was  only  sadness  in  the 
little  band  round  Jesus.  One  of  their  number  had  proved 
a  traitor,  and  their  Leader  had  told  them,  once  more,  that 
He  would  very  soon  leave  them.  They  were  sore  at  heart 
from  shame  at  the  baseness  of  Iscariot,  at  the  dread 
of  losing  a  Master  they  passionately  loved,  and  at  the 
utter  miscarriage  of  all  their  half-worldly,  half-religious 
expectations  of  earthly  glory.  Christ  had  instituted  a  rite 
to  mark  them  as  apart  from  all  other  men,  but  it  looked 
as  if  there  would  be  little  use  for  it,  in  the  apparently  near 
overthrow  of  His  infant  Kingdom. 

As  they  reclined,  sad  and  silent,  Jesus  read  their  thoughts, 
and  began  to  cheer  them,  by  turning  their  minds  from  the 
gloomy  present  to  the  glorious  future. 

"  Let  not  your  hearts  be  troubled  with  care  and  anxiety 
in  such  a  way,"  said  He ;  "  believe  in  God,  and  in  me,  His 
Son,  who  speak  in  His  name,  and  let  that  faith  lead  you  to 
trust  confidently  that  the  promises  made  you  will  be  fulfilled. 
I  have,  indeed,  told  you  that  I  must  go  to  my  Father,  but  I 
have  told  you,  also,  that  I  will  return.  You  have,  assuredly, 
nothing  to  expect  on  earth  except  trial,  but  your  reward  in 
the  world  to  come  may  well  raise  you  above  all  sorrow  on 
that  account.  In  heaven,  my  Father's  house,  are  many 
mansions  ;  you  need  not  fear  that  everlasting  habitations  in 
glory  will  fail  you.  If  it  were  not  so,  I  would  have  told 
yon,  for  I  never  deceive  you.  Nay,  more,  I  am  your  fore- 
runner thither.  If  I  go  away,  it  is  t«  prepare  a  place  for 
you.  I  am  your  friend,  going  home  before  you,  to  get  all 
ready  for  your  glad  reception  when  you  follow  me. 

"  Nor  is  this  all;  I  will  return  to  fetch  you  to  my  heavenly 

1  John  siv.  1-31. 


THE   LIVING  WAT.  451 

home,  that  whey-e  I  am,  you  may  be  also,  for  ever.  If  you 
remember  what  I  have  said  in  the  past,  you  will  know  not 
only  whither  I  am  going,  but,  since  it  is  I  who  prepare  a 
place  for  you  above,  and  I,  and  no  other,  who  will  come  to 
lead  you  thither,  you  must  also  know  the  way." 

He  alluded  to  His  spiritual  return,  at  the  blissful  death  of 
His  servants,  to  guide  them  to  Himself,  above,  and  He  had 
told  them,  not  long  before,  that  He  was  the  door  of  the 
great  fold,  and  that  if  any  man  entered  by  Him,  he  would  be 
saved.1  But  this,  like  so  much  else,  had  been  misunderstood 
and  forgotten. 

A  full  and  satisfying  answer  to  the  question  of  Peter,2  lay 
in  these  words.  But  it  was  not  enough  to  calm  the  fears 
and  doubts  in  the  minds  of  the  Apostles.  They  still  clung 
fondly  to  their  earthly  hopes  of  the  Messiah's  Kingdom,  and 
though  they,  perhaps,  realized  the  near  departure  of  their 
Master,  they  had  not,  even  yet,  come  to  comprehend  that  it 
meant  His  death.  Hence  His  figurative  language  remained 
so  dark  to  them,  that  Thomas,  constitutionally  given  a»«  he 
was,  to  seek  clearness  and  certainty,  interrupted  Him  with  a 
reverent  freedom  3 — 

"  Lord,  we  do  not,  as  yet,  know  whither  Thou  art  going', 
and  how  can  we  know  the  way  in  which  to  follow  Thee  ** " 
The  questioner  wished  to  find  out  the  way  by  learning  thb 
goal ;  but  Christ,  in  His  answer,  pointed  him  to  the  way  as 
revealing  all  else. 

"  I  myself,  and  no  other,  am  the  Way,"  said  He,  "  because 
no  one  comes  to  the  Father,  in  His  heavenly  glory,  but 
through  me.  I  am  the  true  Way,  for  I  speak  only  the  truth 
given  me  from  above,  to  make  known ;  the  way  to  life,  for 
He  who  believes  in  me  shall  live  by  me,  and  shall  have  ever- 
lasting life,  and  I  shall  raise  Him  up  at  the  last  day.  If  ye 
have  known  me — the  Way — ye  will  know  whither  I  am 
going — to  my  Father — for,  since  he  who  sees  the  Son  sees 
the  Father  also,  you  know  Him  from  this  time,  and  have 
seen  Him,  in  seeing  me.  I  am  the  WAT,  because  no  one  can 
reach  my  Father's  presence  but  through  faith  in  me  as  the 
Saviour ;  the  Truth,  because  I  am  the  self -revelation  of  God  ; 
the  Light,  come  into  the  world,  without  following  which  no 
one  can  gain  salvation ;  the  Life,  because  I  am  the  source 
and  spring  of  eternal  life,  so  that  he  who  does  not  receive 
me  into  his  heart,  by  faith,  is  already  condemned." 

1  John  x.  7,  9.  -  John  xiii.  36.  3  John  xiv.  5. 


452  THE   LIFE    OF  CHRIST. 

Philip  had  listened,1  but  could  not  understand.  He  could 
only  think  that  Jesus,  in  speaking  of  seeing  the  Father, 
alluded  to  some  mysterious  appearance  of  Jehovah,  for  the 
purpose  of  founding  the  earthly  kingdom  of  the  Messiah. 
"With  a  childlike  simplicity,  therefore,  he  asked,  turning  to 
Christ — "  Lord,  show  us  the  Father,  and  all  our  wishes  will 
be  satisfied." 

No  one  who  had  thought  over  the  words,  "  If  ye  have 
known  me,  ye  have  known  my  Father  also,"  and  had 
understood  them,  could  have  asked  such  a  question.  It 
marked  an  amazing  want  of  intelligent  appreciation  of  the 
teaching  of  our  Lord,  and  of  His  mode  of  speech.  Hence, 
the  answer  of  Christ  sounds  almost  sad.  "  Have  I  been  so 
long  with  you,  and  do  you  know  so  little  of  me,  Philip  ?  If 
you  really  knew  me,  you  would  not  ask  me  to  show  you  the 
Father.  He  cannot  be  shown  to  the  natural  sight.  But  he 
who  sees  me,  and  rightly  understands  whom  I  am,  knows  the 
Father,  in  thus  knowing  me.  Such  an  one  realizes  that 
in  me  the  highest  possible  revelation  of  God  has  appeared, 
and  has  no  wish  to  have  any  higher,  or  other,  outward 
and  material  manifestation  of  Him.  You  speak  as  if  you 
did  not  believe  that  I  am  in  the  Father  and  the  Father 
in  me,  and  that  hence,  as  I  said,  he  who  sees  me  sees  the 
Father  also.  The  proof  that  it  is  so,  is  in  my  words,  for 
they  are  not  my  own,  but  His.  If  you  doubt  this,  you  do 
not  need  to  believe  merely  because  I  say  so ;  believe  it  on 
the  proof  of  the  works  that  I  do,  for  it  is  not  I  who  do 
them,  but  the  Father.  Put  away  your  gross  earthly  ideas. 
What  I  mean  is,  that  the  Father  is  revealed  by  the  Son,  as 
His  image  and  likeness,  but  only  in  a  spiritual  sense,  to  the 
eye  of  faith  and  of  the  soul." 

Jesus  now  turned  to  the  Apostles  at  large,  and  resumed 
His  discourse  at  the  point  He  had  reached,  when,  first, 
Thomas,  and  then  Philip,  had  broken  in  with  their  questions.2 

"  I  have  promised  you  eternal  life,"  said  He,  "  if  you  trust 
me  and  my  Father.  Let  me  do  more,  that  you  may  be 
cheered  and  supported  in  your  future  labours  for  my  King- 
dom.  I  tell  you,  with  all  solemnity,  that  if  you  have  this 
true  faith  in  me,  and  love  towards  me,  you  will  have  the 
power  to  do  just  such  wonderful  works  as  I  have  done,  and 
even  greater,  for  I  am  going  to  my  Father,  to  be  raised  to  all 
power  in  heaven  and  earth ;  so  that  you  may  feel  sure  that 

1  John  xiv.  8.  f  John  xiv.  12. 


THE   HOLY  COMFORTER.  453 

your  prayers,  as  my  Apostles,  offered  in  my  name  for  the 
advancement  of  my  Kingdom,  will  be  heard  and  answered, 
in  all  their  fulness.  You  will  receive  power  from  above  to 
overcome  the  world  by  your  labours  as  my  Apostles ;  to 
spread  the  Gospel  among  all  nations,  and  to  triumph  over  all 
Jewish  and  Gentile  opposition.  I  mean  this  when  I  speak 
of  your  doing  greater  works  than  my  outward  miracles  on 
one  here  and  one  there.  It  is  I  who  will  give  you  this 
power,  for  I  am  in  my  Father,  and  my  Father  is  in  me,  and 
He  works  through  me,  and  I  shall  give  it  that  my  Father 
may  be  glorified  by  my  triumph  ;  for  His  glory  is  the  great 
end  of  my  work,  now  and  hereafter.  So  mighty,  indeed, 
will  be  your  prayers  in  my  name,  as  my  Apostles,  that  I 
will  do  not  only  what  you  ask,  for  the  spread  of  my  King- 
dom, but  I  will  do  it  whenever,  and  as  often  as  ever,  you 
ask  it. 

"  But  if  you  desire  that  so  great  an  honour  should  be 
granted  you,  that  I  should  hear  and  answer  all  your  prayers, 
you  must,  above  all  things,  keep  my  commandments,  for  by 
doing  so  you  best  show  your  love  for  me. 

"  I  know  you  feel  sad  at  the  thought  of  losing  my  pre- 
sence and  help,  and  wonder  who  will  stand  by  you  and  aid 
you  when  I  am  gone.  Be  not  afraid.  I  will  not  leave  you 
alone,  bat  will  see  that  my  place  be  supplied,  so  that  you 
want  for  nothing.1  For  I  will  ask  the  Father,  and  He  will 
give  you  another  Helper  and  Counsellor,  who  will  not  leave 
you,  as  I  must  now  do,  but  will  abide  with  you  for  ever — 
protecting,  helping,  strengthening  you,  in  all  your  needs  ;  the 
Spirit  of  Truth,  who  imparts  the  Divine  Truth  to  the  hearts 
of  men,  leads  them  to  know  it,  and  quickens  them  to  all 
spiritual  power.  The  unbelieving  world  cannot  receive  Him, 
because  they  have  not  the  inward  sight — the  spiritual  sym- 
pathy— to  know  Him,  and  He  is  not  visible  to  the  outward 
sense.  But  they  cannot  comprehend,  and  will  not  receive, 
anything  that  is  not  material  and  apparent  to  the  bodily  eye. 
You,  however,  who  believe  in  me,  will  know  Him,  for  He 
will  remain  with  you,  and  will  be  in  you,  and  your  own 
experience  will  make  you  feel  that  He  is  so. 

"  Nor  is  this  all,  my  dear  ones.  I  will  not  leave  you  like 
orphans  ;  2  as  if  I,  your  spiritual  Father,  had  gone  from  you 
for  ever.  Not  only  will  you  have  the  Spirit  of  Truth  with 
you,  but  I,  myself,  will  shortly  return  to  you.  In  a  very  little 

1  John  xiv.  17.  *  John  xiv.  18. 


£54  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

while  longer  the  world  will  see  me  no  more,  but  yon  will  see 
me,  though  not  bodily  present.  You  will  see  me  in  spirit, 
and  feel  that  I  commune  with  you  and  work  in  yon,  through 
the  Spirit,  whom  I  will  send.  I  shall  be  alive,  though  un- 
seen, for  I  will  rise  from  the  dead  and  live  for  evermore,  and 
will  make  you  partakers  of  my  heavenly  and  deathless  life. 
By  this  higher  spiritual  life  ye  shall  know,  in  that  day,  when, 
by  the  gift  of  my  Spirit,  I  come  to  you  in  power,  that  I  am 
in.  my  Father,  and  you  in  me,  and  I  in  you.1  When  I  come, 
finally,  in  outward  glory,  at  the  last  day,  as  I  have  told  you 
already,  you  will  have  no  more  doubts  or  fears,  as  you  now 
have  in  this  time  of  my  lowliness  and  humiliation.  You 
will  then  know,  when  you  see  me  descend  in  heavenly 
majesty — as  you  shall  have  already  felt  when  I  come,  very 
soon,  by  the  Spirit — that  my  words  are  true ;  that  I  am 
indeed  in  my  Father,  and  you  in  me,  and  I  in  you ;  that  we 
are  for  ever  inseparably  one  with  the  Father,  and  with  each 
other.3 

"  But  only  he  who  has  my  commandments  in  his  heart,  and 
practises  them  in  his  life,  truly  loves  me,  and  will  be  loved 
by  my  Father  and  by  me.  To  him  will  I  reveal  my  presence 
in  His  soul,  by  the  Spirit  through  whom  I  commune  with 
Him." 

Here  Judas  Thaddeus,  "  the  brave,"  the  son  of  an  unknown 
James,  interrupted  the  discourse  by  a  reverent  question.3 
With  the  simple  literal  ideas  of  his  age  and  nation,  he  could 
not  understand  what  Jesus  had  said  about  manifesting  Him- 
self only  to  individual  believers,  and  not  to  all  men.  He 
still  expected  a  visible  appearance  of  Christ,  in  glory,  as  the 
Messiah,  to  judge  the  unbelieving  world,  and  set  up  His  own 
Kingdom.  "  What  has  happened,  Lord  ?  "  asked  he,  "  to 
make  Thee  determine  to  show  Thyself  as  the  Messiah  only 
to  us,  and  not  to  the  world  at  large  ?  How  comes  it  ?  " 

"  The  reason,"  replied  Jesus,  "is,  that  the  world,  so  long 
as  it  does  not  believe  in  me  and  love  me,  is  neither  morally 
capable  of  receiving  such  a  manifestation  of  me,  as  I  mean — 
a  spiritual  communion  with  the  soul — nor  worthy  of  it. 
Only  believing  and  faithful  hearts  can  become,  or  desire  to 
become,  the  abode  of  my  Father  or  of  myself,  so  that  We 
may  live  in  that  loving  fellowship  with  them  which  reveals 
Us  to  them.  I  do  not  speak  of  such  an  outward  and  visible 
dwelling  with  men  as  when  the  Divine  glory  rested  between 

1  John  xiv.  19.  *  John  xiv.  20.  •  John  xiv.  22. 


PEACE  BE  WITH  YOU !  455 

the  cherubim,  or  over  the  Tabernacle ;  but  an  unseen  abode, 
by  the  Holy  Spirit,  in  the  soul  as  in  a  Temple.  Only  he 
who  loves  me,  and,  loving  me,  keeps  my  commandments,  can 
have  this  honour  and  blessedness.1  Such  an  one  my  Father 
as  well  as  I  will  love,  and  we  will  come  to  him  and  make 
our  abode  with  him.  He  who  does  not  love  me  will  not 
keep  my  commandments.  I  call  my  commandments  mine, 
but,  in  reality,  they  are  those  of  my  Father  who  sent  me.2 
With  such  an  one,  therefore,  as  rejects  God's  words  and  does 
not  obey  them,  the  Father  and  I  cannot  make  our  abode,  and 
thus  I  cannot  manifest  myself  in  this  spiritual  way,  of  which 
alone  I  speak  at  this  moment,  except  to  individual  souls." 

There  was  now  a  short  pause ;  but,  after  a  time,  Jesus 
began  again.  Glancing  back  at  all  He  had  said  to  them 
during  the  evening,  and  knowing  that  much  of  it  must  be 
dark  and  enigmatical  to  their  simple  minds,  He  lovingly 
cheered  them  by  some  further  kind  words. 

"  I  have  said  these  things  to  you  while  I  am  still  with  you, 
but  I  know  that  you  hardly  understand  some  of  my  sayings, 
and  that  you  will  necessarily  forget  others.  The  Holy  Spirit, 
whom  the  Father  will  send  in  my  name,  at  my  request,  to  be 
your  heavenly  Friend  and  Helper,  will,  however,  throw  light 
on  every  point,  and  bring  to  your  vivid  remembrance  all  that 
I  have  now  told  you  ;  giving  you  a  fuller  and  wider  under- 
standing of  the  truths  I  have  only  briefly  opened. 

"  Fear  not,  my  beloved  ones,  all  will  be  well  with  you," 
added  He,  for  they  were  sorely  troubled.  "  You  know  how 
you  wish  your  friends,  '  Peace '  when  you  part  from  them. 
My  farewell  greeting  is  '  Peace  be  with  you ' — the  peace  of 
reconciliation  to  God,  and  of  eternal  salvation  in  my  Kingdom, 
which  I  have  gained  for  you  as  your  Saviour.  My  peace, 
coming  from  me  and  by  me,  I  leave  you  ;  for  it  will  be  won 
for  you,  as  an  undying  gift,  by  my  death,  now  so  near.  This 
gift,  my  peace,  is  of  a  wholly  different  kind  from  that  which 
men  wish  each  other  in  their  farewells — mere  earthly  joy 
and  prosperity,  which  leave  the  soul  unblessed.  My  peace 
carries  with  it  lasting  good  and  true  unfading  happiness,  for 
it  is  that  of  the  soul. 

"  As  I  began,  therefore,  I  shall  end :  Let  not  your  heart 
be  troubled,  neither  let  it  be  afraid,  now  or  hereafter.  Why 
should  it  be  either?  Instead  of  sadness  you  ought  to 
feel  joy,3  for  I  have  told  you  that,  though  I  go  away  now,  I 

1  John  xiv.  23.  *  John  xiv.  24.  3  John  xiv.  27. 

C7 


456  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

shall  come  to  you  again.  Indeed,  if  yon  love  me,  as  I  know 
yon  do,  yon  will  be  glad  to  hear  me  say  that  I  am  going  back 
to  my  Father ;  for  here  my  Father  has  nsed  my  hnman  weak- 
ness to  speak  His  words  and  do  His  works,  for  the  salvation 
of  man.  The  mortal  natnre  I  now  wear  has  been  His  feeble 
and  indirect  instrument.  But  when  I  return  to  Him,  m? 
Kingdom  will  be  under  His  direct  power.  My  work,  thence- 
forth, will  rest  alone  and  directly  in  His  hand,  and  He  will 
complete  by  His  mighty  power,  through  His  Spirit,  what  I 
have  begun  on  earth  ;  without  human  limitation,  such  as  has 
been  inevitable  while  He  wrought  through  me  as  the  Son 
of  man,  a  man  like  yourselves.  He,  working  with  His 
Almighty  power,  directly,  through  His  Spirit,  is  greater,  as 
a  help  to  my  Kingdom,  than  I  can  be  while  I  act  for  Him 
through  this  dying  body. 

"  I  have  told  you  now,  while  I  am  still  with  you,  that  I 
shall  presently  leave  you,  to  prevent  your  faith  from  being 
shaken  when  I  am  gone.1  The  hour  of  my  departure  ap- 
proaches ;  I  shall  not  speak  much  with  you  after  this.  For 
the  Prince  of  this  World — the  evil  one — is  already  coming 
against  me.  But  fear  not,  he  has  no  power  over  me.2  There 
is  nothing  in  my  soul  which  he  can  assail ;  no  sin  by  which 
he  can  claim  me  as  his.  Nor  do  I  need  to  yield  to  him  in 
anything,  for  I  could,  if  I  chose,  avoid  the  death  with  which 
he  threatens  me.  But,  that  the  world  may  know  my  love  to 
the  Father,  and  that  I  do  what  He  has  appointed  for  me  as 
His  will,  though  it  be  to  die,  let  us  rise  from  the  table,  and 
go  forth  to  meet  the  powers  of  darkness,  before  whom, 
according  to  the  counsels  of  God,  I  shall  fall." 

The  whole  company  hereupon  rose  and  prepared  to  leave 
the  room.3  But  Jesus,  full  of  thoughts  which  He  longed, 
even  yet,  to  utter,  before  His  ever  nearer  separation,  stood, 
as  it  were,  fixed  to  the  spot  by  His  love  to  them,  and  once 
more  began  to  speak.4  He  could  not  bring  Himself  to  break 
np  this  last  communion  He  should  have  with  them." 

He  began  by  the  well-known  and  beautiful  comparison  of 
Himself  and  the  Apostles  to  a  vine  and  its  branches.5  Per- 
haps the  thought  rose  from  the  sight  of  the  wine-cup  on  the 
table  and  its  recent  use  at  the  evening's  feast,  or  perhaps 
the  house  stood  amidst  vines,  and  branches  may  have  been 
trained  round  the  window,  or  the  vineyard  itself  may  have 
lain  below  in  the  bright  moonlight. 

1  John  xiv.  29.  8  John  xiv.  30.  '  John  xv.  1. 

4  Lilcke,  vol.  ii.  p.  401.  6  John  xv.  1. 


THE   VINE   AND   ITS  BEANCHES.  457 

u  This  vine  with  its  branches  and  fruit,"  said  He,  pointing 
to  the  wine-cup,  or  to  the  vines  outside,  "  is  a  type,  in  its 
earthly  and  visible  way,  of  a  heavenly  and  Divine  truth.  I 
am  the  true  vine,  ye  are  the  branches,  and  my  Father  is  the 
husbandman.  He  sent  me  into  the  world  ;  He  has  given  me 
such  faithful  souls  as  you,  and  joined  you  with  me,  in  living 
fellowship  and  communion;  He  has  tended  the  growth  of 
the  truth  in  the  past,  for  it  is  He  who  has  been  working 
through  me,  and  He  will  continue  to  do  so  by  His  Holy 
Spirit  after  I  leave  you. 

"  As  in  the  natural  vine  there  are  fruitful  and  unfruitful 
branches,  so,  in  my  fellowship,  there  are  some  who  bear  fruit 
both  in  word  and  in  act,  and  some  who  do  not.  Only  those 
who  are  pure  and  sincere — those  who  truly  love  me  and  keep 
my  commands — have  the  abiding  communion  with  me  from 
which  such  fruitfulness  springs  ;  for,  as  the  careful  husband- 
man cuts  off  the  unfruitful  branch,  and  cleans  away  with  his 
pruning-knife  all  that  would  hinder  the  full  fruitfulness  of 
the  good  one,  so  does  my  Father  with  my  disciples. 

"  But  be  ye  comforted.1  You  have  been  pruned  and  made 
clean  by  your  loving  and  obedient  reception  of  the  truths 
I  have  told  you,  and  by  the  discipline  through  which  you 
have  passed.  Dismiss  anxious  care !  You  will  not  be  cut 
off  as  unfruitful  branches.  My  Father  will  make  you  still 
more  fruitful ;  will  cleanse  away  all  that  hinders  your 
progress  in  grace,  and  will  perfect  you  in  the  end.  But,  to 
secure  this  growing  fruitfulness,  you  must  cherish  fondly 
your  communion  with  me ;  grafted  into  me,  as  the  branches 
into  the  stem  of  the  vine.  If  you  do  so,  I  will  not  separate 
myself  from  you,  any  more  than  the  vine  tears  itself  from 
its  branches,  but  will  strengthen  you  by  my  spiritual  aid. 
As  the  branch  cannot  bear  fruit  of  itself  if  it  do  not  abide 
in  the  vine,  you  cannot  bring  forth  good  fruit2  except  ye 
abide  in  me.  I  am  the  vine,  ye  are  the  branches  ; 3  the 
living  power  to  bear  fruit  comes  only  from  me.  But  if  you 
abide  in  me,  you  will  bear  much  fruit.  All  true  work  as 
my  disciples — all  spiritual  life — comes  only  from  fellowship 
with  me,  fellowship,  each  in  the  other,  close  as  that  of  the 
vine  and  its  branches  ;  for  apart  from  me  ye  can  do  nothing. 
As  unfruitful  branches  are  cut  off  by  the  husbandman,  and 
cast  out  of  the  vineyard  and  left  to  dry  up,  and  then  gathered 
and  cast  into  the  fire  and  burned,  so,  those  who  break  away 

1  John  x.\.  3.  3  John  xiv.  4.  8  John  xiv.  5. 


458  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

from  living  union  with,  me  will  be  cut  off  from  me  here, 
by  my  Father ;  and  hence  the  religious  life  will  wither  up  in 
them  while  they  live,  and  at  the  last  day  they  will  suffer  the 
judgment  of  God.1  But  if  ye  abide  in  loving,  spiritual  union 
with  me,  and  hold  fast  my  commandments  and  keep  them, 
you  may  ask  what  you  will,  and  it  will  be  done  to  you,  for 
you  will  then  ask  in  my  name  only  such  things  as  are  in 
keeping  with  my  will.2  And  it  is  a  great  motive  for  your 
abiding  in  me,  that  your  doing  so  glorifies  my  Father  by 
leading  to  your  bearing  much  fruit,  through  my  answers  to 
your  prayers.  You  will  further,  by  this  fulfilment  of  your 
prayers,  become  truly,  and  in  the  strict  sense,  my  disciples, 
for  such  spiritual  fruitfulness  is  the  special  mark  of  my  true 
disciples  only. 

"  That  you  may  thus  continue  in  living  fellowship  and 
spiritual  union  with  me,3  let  me  remind  you  that  the  unit- 
ing bond  of  this  fellowship  between  me,  my  Father,  and  you, 
is  love  ;  and  that,  on  your  sidej  all  depends  on  your  showing 
yourselves  true  and  obedient,  in  this  love  to  me  and  in  the 
practice  of  my  commands,  as  I  have  shown  and  still  show 
myself  towards  my  Father  and  His  commands.  As  He  has 
loved  me,  I  have  loved  you ;  see  that  ye  continue  hence- 
forth to  love  and  obey  me,  that  I  may  still  for  ever  be 
able  to  love  you.  I  have  spoken  thus,  that  the  same  joy 
which  I  have  in  knowing  that  I  abide  in  my  Father's  love,4 
may  be  felt  by  you,  from  your  knowing  that  you  abide  in 
my  love,  and  that  this  holy  joy  of  soul  may  increase,  more 
and  more,  to  a  heavenly  fulness," 

The  sound  of  the  word  "  love,"  so  dear  to  the  heart  of 
Christ,  led  Him  back  to  the  new  commandment5  He  had 
given  a  few  minutes  before.  That  His  disciples  should  love 
one  another  was  the  true  secret  of  keeping  His  command- 
ments, and  so  of  retaining  their  place  in  His  heart,  and 
securing  the  holy  joy  of  soul  He  desired  for  them.  He  now 
defined  His  requirements  more  narrowly.  They  were  to 
love  each  other  as  He  had  loved  them,  and  that  meant,  He 
told  them,  self-sacrifice,  even  to  death,  for  their  sakes. 

"  5Tou  wish,  I  am  sure,"  said  He,  "  to  retain  my  love  after 
I  leave  you,  and  will  strive  to  keep  my  commandments  that 
you  may  do  so.  These  commandments  are  summed  up  in 
the  one  which  I  gave  you  to-night,  already,  that  ye  love  one 

1  Matt.  xiii.  40.  !  John  xv.  7.  3  John  XT.  9. 

4  John  xv.  11.  b  John  xv.  12. 


NOT   SERVANTS   BUT  FRIENDS.  459 

another.1  I  only  add,  that  that  love  must  be  such  as  I  have 
shown  and  will  presently  show  to  you ;  love  so  great,  that, 
in  furtherance  of  the  Divine  purpose  for  your  salvation,  I 
willingly  lay  down  my  life  for  you.  There  can  be  none 
greater  between  man  and  man,  and  this  highest  example — 
this  joyful  sacrifice  of  life  itself  for  each  other — must  be 
your  standard.  Nothing  less  is  the  ideal  I  require  in  my 
New  Society.  Only  the  spirit  which  would  not  shrink 
from  this,  makes  true  and  full  obedience  to  my  command 
possible,  with  all  the  blessings  it  brings. 

"  If  you  thus  rise  to  a  love  like  mine,  you  will  bind  me 
to  you  in  closest  undying  affection ;  affection  not  as  from 
master  to  servant,  or  teacher  to  disciple,  but  as  of  friend 
to  friend.  If,  by  having  this  love,  you  do  the  things  I  com- 
mand you,  I  shall  call  you  my  friends,  my  loved  and  trusted 
ones  ;  for  doing  is  the  only  proof  I  accept  of  loving.  I  know, 
indeed,  that  you  will,  and  therefore,  henceforth,  I  call  you 
no  longer  mere  servants,  as  in  the  past,  but  trusted  friends.2 
For  the  servant  obeys  without  knowing  his  lord's  thoughts 
and  plans,  but  you  ha  ye  been  told  all  I  have  heard  from  my 
Father,  so  far  as  you  are  able  to  hear  and  understand  it ; 
told  it,  not  as  mere  servants  and  messengers,  the  blind 
instruments  of  my  will,  but  in  the  fulness  of  loving  con- 
fidence, as  sharers  of  my  inmost  thoughts  and  heart. 

"  But  great  though  the  honour  be  I  thus  give  you,  never 
forget  that  you  have  not,  like  the  disciples  of  the  Rabbis, 
with  him  whom  they  follow,  chosen  me  for  your  teacher,8 
master,  and  friend.  On  the  contrary,  I  chose  you,  not  for 
mere  idle  friendship,  but  that  I  might  appoint  you  to  go 
forth  as  my  disciples,  and  work  in  spreading  my  Kingdom, 
and  bear  fruit  in  winning  men  to  the  truth ;  fruit  that 
would  remain  for  ever,  both  for  yourselves  and  for  those 
you  led  to  the  light.  Thus  you  owe  all  to  me  ;  your  first 
discipleship,  no  less  than  the  friendship  to  which  I  have  now 
advanced  you ;  and  also  that  amazing  honour  I  have  pro- 
mised you,  that  so  long  as  you  keep  my  commands,  the 
Father  will  give  you  whatever  you  ask  in  my  name.  How 
much  fruit  may  ye  not  bear  with  this  heavenly  help,  and 
how  great  the  reward  before  God  when  ye  have  borne  it ! 

"  Once  more,  never  forget  that  without  true  brotherly 
love  all  your  labour  is  valueless,  for  the  spirit  that  prompts 
your  acts  or  words  alone  gives  them  worth. 

1  John  xv.  12.  *  John  xii.  26 ;  xiii.  13  ff.          »  John  xv.  16. 


460  THE   LIFE    OF   CHRIST. 

"  Wonder  not  that  I  enforce  this  call  to  mutual  love.  Let 
it  reign  within  my  New  Society,1  for,  outside,  you  will  have 
only  hatred.  But  let  me  comfort  you  by  the  thought  that, 
as  you  know,  it  has  hated  me  first.  To  be  hated  by  it,  is 
only  to  share  my  lot.  And  let  it  still  more  console  you,  to 
remember  that  this  very  hatred  by  the  unbelieving  world,  is 
a  proof  that  you  no  longer  belong  to  it.  If  you  belonged  to 
it,  it  would  love  its  own,  for  like  loves  like.  It  hates  you, 
because  I  have  chosen  you  out  of  it,  and  made  you  mine. 
To  be  hated  of  the  ungodly  is  a  testimony  to  your  worth, 
as  to  be  loved  by  them  would  be  to  your  discredit.  How 
ought  this  to  cheer  you  in  all  your  future  trials  ! 

"  Remember  what  I  said  to  you  to-night,2  already,  '  A 
servant  is  not  greater  than  his  lord.'  If  they  have  per- 
secuted me,  as  you  know  they  have,  they  will  also  persecute 
you ;  if  they  have  received  my  teaching,  as  you  know  they 
have  not,  they  will  receive  yours  as  little.  They  will  hate 
you  and  persecute  you,  because  you  come  in  my  name,  con- 
fessing me  as  the  Messiah  and  Saviour — for  they  know  not 
Illm  who  sent  me. 

"  This  hatred  of  my  name  has  no  excuse,  for  I  have  dwelt 
among  men,  and  taught  them  the  truth,3  and  have  done 
works  among  them  which  no  other  prophet  or  messenger 
of  God  has  done ;  works  which  should  have  made  them 
feel  that  God  had  sent  me,  for  they  were  such  as  Israel  itself 
had  agreed  to  accept  as  proof  of  the  presence  of  the  Messiah, 
and  they  showed  that  my  teaching  was  His  Divine  word  to 
them.  But  though  they  have  both  heard  my  teaching,  and 
seen  my  mighty  works,  they  have  not  believed.  They  have, 
thus,  I  repeat,  no  excuse.  Nor  is  their  hatred  of  my  Name, 
hatred  of  me  alone  ;  it  is  hatred  of  God,  my  Father,  no 
less  ;  for  my  words  and  works,  which  they  hate  and  reject, 
are  not  mine,  but  His.4  And  as  these  words  and  works  are 
thus  the  self-revelation  of  my  Father — as  He  thus,  by 
them,  had  made  Himself  visible  in  me,  so  far  as  the  invisible 
God  can  do  so — their  hatred  of  me  involves  the  awful 
wickedness  of  a  hatred  of  the  Eternal  Father.  Yet  this 
hatred  of  me  by  the  unbelieving  world  is  not  a  mere  ac- 
cident or  chance,  but  was  foreseen  by  God  and  spoken  of  in 
ancient  prophecy,  as  you  read :  '  They  hated  me  without  a 
sause.'5 

1  John  xv.  18.  *  John  xiii.  16  ;  xv.  20.  8  John  xv.  22. 

4  John  xv.  23.  *  Ps.  xxxv.  19  ;  Ixix.  4. 


PEKSECUTION   INEVITABLE.  461 

"  You  may,  however,  say  in  your  hearts,  '  If  they  have 
persecuted  Thee,  and  have  not  kept  Thy  word ;  if,  after 
having  been  taught,  and  having  seen  such  things,  they 
would  not  receive  them ;  if  they  have  hated  Thee,  and 
Thy  Father,  and  if  we  are  to  find  the  same  treatment,  what 
good  is  there  in  sending  us  to  them  ? '  Let  me  encourage 
you,  and  dissipate  such  thoughts.  For  when  the  Helper 
conies,  whom  I  shall  send  unto  you  from  the  Father — the 
Spirit  of  Truth,  who  goes  forth  from  the  Father,  and 
therefore  is  able  to  help  you  in  all  your  needs — He  will 
bear  witness  of  me  in  your  souls  ;  teaching  you  more  deeply 
concerning  me,  and  glorifying  me  to  you  in  doing  so,  that 
you  may  be  able  to  make  right  and  effective  use,  in  your 
witness  before  men,  of  all  you  have  seen  and  heard  while 
with  me,  from  the  beginning  of  my  public  work  as  the 
Messiah. 

"  I  have  told  you  these  things  about  the  hatred  the  world 
will  show  you  for  my  sake,  that  you  may  be  prepared  for 
it,1  and  not  stumble,  or  be  offended  on  account  of  it ;  but 
may  meet  it  with  so  much  the  more  earnest  zeal  and  fidelity. 
As  I  have  often  said,  they  will  put  you  out  of  the  syna- 
gogues ; 2  but  this,  hard  though  it  be  in  its  consequences, 
is  not  the  worst  their  fanatical  hatred  will  do.  You  know 
how  the  Rabbis  teach,  that  '  he  who  sheds  the  blood  of  the 
wicked  is  as  if  he  offered  sacrifice.' 3  They  will  act  on  this 
principle  towards  you  ;  for  the  hour  comes  when  every  one 
who  kills  you  will  think  your  blood  is  an  acceptable  sacrifice 
offered  to  God.  Nor  will  the  heathen  treat  you  better. 
Israel  knows  neither  the  Father  nor  me  ;  and  this  wilful 
ignorance  of  Divine  things  makes  them  act  thus.  I  tell  you 
all  this,  that,  when  these  times  of  persecution  come,  you 
may  be  strengthened  in  your  faith  in  me,  and  in  your 
patient  endurance  of  suffering  for  my  sake.  I  did  not  speak 
of  these  things  till  now,  because  they  were  still  distant  when 
you  first  followed  me,  and  because  they  might  then  have 
frightened  you  away  from  me.  Besides,  as  long  as  I  live, 
the  hatred  of  men  will  be  directed  against  me,  not  against 
you."  4 

It  is  hard  for  even  the  best  to  rise  superior  to  what  is 
present  or  near,  by  thinking  of  the  distant  or  future.  The 

1  John  xvi.  1. 

3  Matt.  x.  17  ;  xxiii.  34.    Mark  xiii.  9.    Luke  xxi.  12.    John  ix.  22, 34. 
»  Jalkut  Shim,  in  Pent.,  245.  3.     Bammidbar  liabba,  329.  1. 

4  John  xvi.  -i. 


462  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

Eleven  were  thoroughly  cast  down  and  dispirited,  and  stood 
silent,  unable  to  break  the  stillness,  even  by  a  few  of  those 
questions  which  the  disciples  of  Jewish  teachers  were  in  the 
habit  of  putting  to  their  masters.  The  lofty  promises  of 
Jesus  would  one  day  strengthen  their  faithful  souls  ;  but,  for 
the  time,  they  had  no  ear  for  them.  As  He  spoke,  He  saw 
this,  and  gently  reproved  it. 

"  Now  that  I  am  on  the  point  of  returning  to  my  Father," 
said  He,  "  why  are  you  so  wholly  engrossed  in  sadness,  that 
while  friends  are  always  wont  to  ask  often  from  one  about 
to  leave  them,1  '  where  He  is  going,'  you  have  not  been 
eager  to  do  so  in  my  case  ?  "  He  wished  them  to  inquire 
more  closely  about  His  going  away,  for  it  seemed  as  if  His 
disciples  had  not  fully  understood  His  previous  words,  else 
they  could  not  be  so  dejected. 

"  You  forget  the  consolation  I  have  given  you,  and  dwell 
only  on  my  near  leaving,  and  the  troubles  to  come  after 
it.  But  I  tell  you  the  truth,  when  I  say  that  it  is  better  for 
you  that  I  go  away.  For  if  I  were  not  to  do  so,  your  great 
Helper  would  not  come  to  you ;  but,  if  I  go  away,  I  will  send 
Him  to  you." 

The  history  of  the  Church,  after  the  ascension  of  Jesus 
and  the  effusion  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  explains  and  confirms 
these  words.  Only  the  once  Crucified  bat  now  Risen  One, 
the  glorified  Son  of  God,  sitting  at  the  right  hand  of  the 
Father,  could  have  been  proclaimed  by  the  Apostles  as  the 
Lord  of  a  new,  eternal,  and  spiritual  kingdom  of  heaven. 
Only  the  Conqueror  of  Death,  the  Son  of  God,  who  had 
returned  triumphant  to  the  glory  of  the  Father,  could  have 
been  announced  to  the  world  as  the  Righteous  One,  the 
Victor  over  the  Prince  of  this  World,  as  He  not  to  believe 
in  whom  was  sin.2 

Jesus  continued  :  "  You  will  have  to  strive,  even  to  blood, 
with  the  opposition  of  the  unbelieving  world,  and  their 
evil  opinion  of  me ;  against  their  illusion  that  they  are 
doing  right  in  their  unbelief  and  in  their  persecution  of  my 
servants  ;  and  against  their  trust  in  the  invincible  power  of 
wicked  men,  and  of  the  prince  of  darkness.  All  these  you 
must  resist  and  overcome.  But  human  eloquence  is  far  too 
weak  for  this  great  task.  Without  assistance  and  help  from 
above,  you  will  never  be  able  to  convince  men  of  their  sin 
and  error,  or  to  drive  out  the  reign  of  evil.  But  when  your 

1  John  xvi.  5.  3  Liicke,  vol.  ii.  p.  417. 


LEAD,   KINDLY  LIGHT!  463 

Heavenly  Helper  has  come,  He  will,  through  yon,  show  the 
world  their  sin  in  not  believing  in  me,  and  in  persecuting  you, 
my  servants.  He  will  also  convince  them  of  my  righteous- 
ness— that  is,  that  I  am  not  unrighteous  and  sinful,  as  they 
suppose,1  but  that  my  righteousness  and  innocence  have 
been  shown  by  my  not  shrinking  even  from  the  death  of  the 
Cross  in  the  fulfilment  of  my  great  work ;  by  my  rising  from 
the  grave,  and  thereby  proving  that  my  death  was  a  volun- 
tary act  of  love  to  man,  and  by  my  returning  to  ray  Father, 
which  will  show  that  I  am  His  Son,  sent  by  Him  as  the 
Messiah.  Thus  it  will  be  seen  that  my  cause  is  righteous, 
and  that  I  am  the  righteous  and  holy  One  of  God.  He  will, 
finally,  convince  men  of  the  utter  weakness  of  all  the  powers 
of  evil,  and  of  their  having  been  judged  and  condemned  of 
God,  by  revealing  to  them  the  complete  overthrow  of  the 
reign  of  the  devil  and  of  the  works  of  darkness,  by  my  life, 
my  teaching,  my  death,  my  resurrection,  my  return  to  my 
Father,  and  my  victorious  help  to  you  my  servants."  2 

He  had  touched  the  confines  of  great  and  mysterious  truths 
in  the  future  economy  of  His  kingdom,  but  felt  Himself  hin- 
dered from  going  further.  A  wide  field  of  higher  teaching 
lay  before  Him,  but  their  present  weakness  and  incapacity 
to  understand  lofty  spiritual  things,  forced  Him  to  break  off 
further  revelations.  "  I  have  yet  many  things,"  He  continued, 
"  to  say  to  you,  but  you  cannot  hear  them  now.3  Yet  be 
not  cast  down.  When  your  Helper,  the  Spirit  of  Truth, 
comes  from  above,  He  will  give  you  fuller  instructions,  and 
will  strengthen  your  minds  to  understand  them.  He  will 
lead  you  to  the  knowledge  of  the  truth  in  its  whole  extent, 
and  will  illuminate  for  you  all  the  heights  and  depths  of  my 
meaning  in  all  that  I  have  said  to  you.  Nor  need  you  fear 
to  trust  Him  as  fully  as  you  have  trusted  me  ;  4  for  just  as  I 
have  not  spoken  of  myself,  but  have  only  repeated  what  I 
have  heard  from  my  Father,  He,  the  Spirit  of  Truth,  will  not 
speak  for  Himself  or  of  His  own  promptings,  but  will  utter 
only  what  He  has  heard  from  God.  Nor  will  He  simply  ex- 
plain my  words,  and  reveal  higher  aspects  of  the  truth.  He 
will  also  announce  to  you  things  future.  He  will  give  you, 
my  Apostles,  the  gift  of  prophecy,  by  which  the  future 
development  of  my  Kingdom  will  be  revealed  to  you,  to  fill 
you  with  comfort  and  triumph. ' 

1  John  xvi.  8. 

3  1  Tim.  iii.  16.    Eom.  i.  4.    Acts  ii.  22-36;  Hi.  14,  26.    Heb.  vii.  26. 

3  John  xvi.  12.  *  John  xvi.  13. 


464  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

"  You  mnst  not  think,  however,  that  the  Holy  Spirit  will 
teach  you  any  new  or  different  truths,  not  connected  with  me, 
your  Saviour.  He  will  only  purify  and  enlighten  your 
hitherto  imperfect  conceptions  concerning  me,1  and,  while 
thus  fitting  you  to  spread  my  kingdom,  will  but  develop, 
expand,  and  complete  what  I  have  taught  you,  and  thus 
increase  my  glory.  All  that  the  Father  has  is  mine,2  as  tho 
Son  consecrated  and  sent  forth  by  Him  to  carry  out  His 
work — the  Son,  in  whom  the  Father,  for  this  end,  dwells  and 
works  in  closest  communion ;  He  also  dwelling  in  like  com- 
munion with  the  Father.  Therefore,  as  the  Holy  Spirit  will 
teach  you  only  what  He  hears  from  the  Father,  He  can  teach 
you  no  other  doctrine  than  mine." 

But  all  the  instruction  and  comfort  Jesus  could  administer ; 
all  the  warnings,  on  the  one  hand,  of  the  difficulties  and 
sufferings,  and  all  the  supports  on  the  other,  in  rich  promises 
of  power,  help,  and  blessing  from  above,  could  not  dispel  the 
sadness  of  the  Apostles,  or  bring  them  joy  and  courage.  The 
near  departure  of  their  loved  Master  filled  their  minds  with 
abiding  dejection  and  anxious  fear. 

In  tender  sympathy,  therefore,  Jesus  once  more  sought  to 
cheer  them.  "  I  said,  indeed,  '  He  went  on,  "  that  very  soon 
you  would  see  me  no  longer,3  but  yet,  a  little  while  more, 
and  you  will  see  me  again."  b 

The  Apostles  were  more  than  ever  perplexed  by  these 
words.4  They  thought  only  of  an  earthly  communion  with 
their  Master,  such  as  they  still  enjoyed,  and  could  not  under- 
stand the  sudden  change  of  not  seeing  Him,  and  seeing  Him 
again,  or  the  double  use  of  the  words,  "  A  little  while,"  or 
what  He  meant  by  saying  so  often  that  He  was  going  to  the 
Father.  Wondering  questions  followed  between  them,  and 
they  were  anxious  to  ask  an  explanation,  when  Jesus,  seeing 
their  perplexity,  anticipated  their  wish. 

"  Do  you  inquire  among  yourselves,"  said  He,  "  what  I 
mean  by  saying,  '  A  little  while,  and  ye  will  not  see  me  :  5 
and,  again,  a  little  while,  and  ye  will  see  me ; '  and  '  I  am 
going  to  the  Father  ?  '  Ye  shall,  indeed,  be  in  great  trouble 
at  my  death,  for  I  am  presently  to  die,  though  you  seem  as 
if  you  could  not  credit  it.  Indeed,  ye  will  be  sad,  when  the 
world  that  rejects  me  will  rejoice.  But  your  sorrow  will  be 
turned  into  joy,  as  sudden  as  that  of  the  mother  when  she 

1  John  xvi.  14.  a  John  xvi.  15.  *  John  xvi.  16. 

1  John  xvi.  17.  8  John  xvi.  19. 


THE    SPIEIT   OF   TRUTH.  465 

bears  a  son,  and  forthwith  forgets  the  past  for  gladness  that 
a  man  is  born  into  the  world  ;  for  yon  know  that  no  joy  is 
so  great  to  a  woman,  in  onr  nation,  as  that  of  having  a  son. 
So  you  will,  indeed,  have  sorrow  now  at  my  death,  but  it  will 
pass  into  abiding  joy,  when  you  see  me  again  in  my  spiritual 
return. 

"  In  tbnt  day  the  Spirit  of  Truth  will  have  given  yon  such 
a  full  and  satisfying  knowledge  of  all  that  concerns  me  and 
my  Kingdom,  that  you  will  have  no  need,  as  now,  to  ask  me 
respecting  any  words  or  matters  you  do  not  understand.1 
Ton  will  no  longer  miss  my  earthly  presence,  but  be  joyful 
in  the  possession  of  full  enlightenment.  For  most  truly  do 
I  assure  you,  that  all  you  ask  my  Father  in  my  name — all 
illumination,  all  gifts  and  joys  of  the  Spirit — He  will  give 
you.  Hitherto,  from  want  of  insight  and  experience,  you 
have  asked  nothing  in  my  name,  and  therefore  have,  as  yet, 
no  dream  of  the  boundless  gifts  your  Father  in  Heaven  is 
ready  to  give  you,  or  of  the  fulness  of  His  comforting  and 
supporting  grace.  Henceforth,  ask  in  my  name  and  you  will 
receive  what  you  ask,  that  your  joy  may  be  complete.2 

"  I  have  spoken  in  figures,  and  darkly,  of  my  going  away, 
and  of  your  seeing  me  again,3  and  of  what  would  now  from  it. 
But  a  time  comes  when  I  will  no  more  speak  to  you  in  this 
way,  but  will  instruct  you  clearly  and  plainly,  through  the 
Spirit,  respecting  the  Father.4  In  that  day  ye  shall  ask  in 
my  name,  because  you  will  then  be  enlightened  by  the  Spirit 
of  Truth,5  and  you  will  not  need  that  I  intercede  for  yon 
that  your  prayers,  thus  offered,  may  be  heard  ;  for  the  Father 
Himself  loves  you  because  you  have  loved  me,  and  have 
believed  that  I  came  forth  from  Him,6  and  He  will  therefore 
hear  you  without  my  intercession.  Nor  must  you  ever  for- 
get this  great  truth — the  sum  of  my  life  and  work — that  I 
came  forth  from  the  Father  to  appear  in  the  world,  and 
now  leave  the  world  to  go  back  to  Him  again."  7 

The  disciples,  listening  to  these  words,  fancied  they  now 
understood,  in  part  at  least,  what  had  before  seemed  so 
dark.8  They  had  at  least  realized,  from  His  last  sentence, 
that  as  He  had  come  forth  from  God,  and  was  about  to  return 
to  Him,  He  must  be  going  to  heaven.  Perhaps  they  thought, 
in  their  simple  way,  that  they  also  understood  better  what 

1  John  xvi.  23.  *  John  xvi.  24.  •  John  xvi.  25. 

4  John  xvi.  12,  13,  14.          •  John  xvi.  26.  •  John  xvi.  27. 

'  John  xvi.  28.  8  John  xvi.  29. 


466  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

He  had  said  about  their  seeing  Him  again.  It  seemed  as  if 
He  had,  already,  fulfilled  His  promise  to  them  to  speak 
clearly  and  without  metaphor.  That  He  should,  moreover, 
have  known  the  still  nnuttered 1  questions  they  had  in  their 
hearts,  so  astonished  them,  that  they  felt  sure  He  was 
omniscient,  and  did  not  need  any  one  to  ask  Him,  but  could 
interpret  their  thoughts  without  having  been  told  them. 
Awed  and  vividly  impressed,  they  had  a  fresh  corroboration 
of  their  belief  in  Him,  as  having  come  forth  from  God,  and 
hastened  to  tell  Him  their  strengthened  conviction.2 

"  Is  it  so,  that  you  are  now  sure  yon  believe  in  me  ?  " 
asked  Jesus.  "  An  hour  is  coming,  and  indeed  has  come, 
when  your  faith  will  have  a  hard  test.  Will  you  stand  firm  ?  :j 
Alas  !  how  soon  will  you  waver ;  for  in  that  hour  you  will 
be  scattered,  each  to  his  own  home,  and  leave  me  alone  ! 
Yet,"  added  He,  after  a  pause,  in  calm  and  clear  assurance 
that,  though  forsaken  of  man,  He  would  have  the  helping  and 
protecting  presence  of  the  Father,  "  yet  I  am  not  alone,  for 
the  Father  is  with  me." 

"  I  have  spoken  as  I  have,"  He  continued ;  "  have  given 
you  these  consolations  and  promises,  that  you  might  have 
rest  and  peace  in  me,4  by  communion  with  me  as  the  loving 
and  loved.  In  the  world,  indeed,  affliction  is  your  lot,  for  men 
will  hate  and  persecute  you,  as  I  have  said,  for  my  sake  ; 
but  be  of  good  heart,  I  have  conquered  and  broken  the  might 
of  the  world  and  its  prince,  and  they  can  neither  hinder  your 
salvation,  nor  check  the  triumph  of  my  Kingdom." 

The  farewell  discourse  was  ended  with  this  note  of  triumph, 
"  I  have  conquered  the  world  !  "  But  now,  before  He  went 
forth  into  the  night,  so  big  with  fate,  He  could  not  break  up 
for  ever  the  communion  He  had  had  with  them  so  long, 
through  joy  and  sorrow,  without  gathering  them  round  Him 
in  a  parting  prayer.  He  was  about  to  die  for  the  redemption 
of  the  world,  and,  as  the  Great  High  Priest  of  humanity, 
would  make  intercession,  before  yielding  Himself  up  to  sacri- 
fice. I  venture,  reverently,  to  amplify  the  expression,  that 
the  import  may  be  more  easily  caught. 

Lifting  up  His  eyes  to  heaven — the  Apostles  standing,  as 
the  manner  of  their  nation  was,  while  He  prayed — He  began,5 
"  Father,  the  hour  of  my  death  has  now  come.  Glorify  Thy 
Son  on  the  completion  of  the  work  of  salvation,  that  Thy 

1  John  xvi.  30.  s  John  xvi.  31.  8  John  xvi.  32. 

4  John  xvi.  33.  *  John  xvii.  1. 


THE  INTEECESSOBY  PEATEE.         467 

Son  may  glorify  Thee  as  its  author,  before  man.  Glorify 
Him,  in  accordance  with  Thy  will,  by  which  Thou  hast 
given  Him  power  over  all  men;  for  Thou  hast  appointed 
Him  the  only  Saviour  and  Redeemer,  to  carry  out  Thy  gra- 
cious purpose  of  salvation  towards  the  world ;  that  He  should 
give  eternal  life  to  all  whom  Thou  hast  given  Him.  And 
this  is  everlasting  life,  that  they  should  know  Thee,  the  only 
true  God,  and  Him  whom  Thou  hast  sent — me,  Jesus,  the 
Messiah.  I  have  glorified  Thee  on  earth,  for  I  have  made 
known  Thy  name,1  Thy  will,  and  Thy  plan  of  salvation  for 
man,  and  have  thus  completed  the  work  Thou  hast  given 
me  to  do.  Therefore,  glorify  me  now  2  O  Father,  when  I 
rise  from  my  work  on  earth  into  Thy  presence  in  heaven, 
with  the  glory  which  I  had  with  Thee  before  the  world  was. 
Let  me  enter  again  into  that  Divine  communion  in  Thine 
uncreated  glory,  which  I  had  before  the  creation  of  the 
world ! " 

He  had,  till  now,  prayed  for  Himself.  He  passed  next  to 
intercession  for  His  disciples,  urging  His  faithful  obedience 
to  His  Divine  mission,  as  a  ground  for  His  being  heard. 

"  I  have  made  known  Thy  name  unto  the  men  whom  Thou 
hast  given  me  out  of  the  unbelieving  world.3  They  were 
Thine  own,  for  they  were  of  Thy  true  Israel,  and  Thou 
gavest  them  to  me,  and  faithfully  and  truly  did  they  receive 
my  words  as  Thine,  and  they  have  kept  them.  In  much  they 
may  have  failed  to  understand,  but  they  have  been  sincere 
and  firm  in  their  belief  in  me,  as  having  been  sent  by  Thee, 
and  as  speaking  Thy  truth.  Now,  also,  they  have  learned  to 
know,  and  do  acknowledge,  that  all  Thou  hast  given  me4 
— all  that  I  have  said  and  done — is,  as  indeed  it  is,  from 
Thee ! 

"  I  pray  for  them.  T  pray  not  now  for  those  who  know 
Thee  not,  the  unbelieving  world,5  but  for  Thine  own,  here 
in  Thy  presence — Thine  own,  whom  Thou  hast  given  me. 
My  whole  life  and  work  has  been,  and  is,  a  prayer  for  the 
world  at  large,6  from  which  my  people  must  be  gathered, 
but  I  pray  now  for  these,  Thy  servants,  because  they  are 
Thine,  though  Thou  hast  given  them  to  me.  And  all  things 
that  are  mine  are  also  Thine,  and  Thine  are  mine ;  the  work, 
the  aim,  the  means,  the  power,  the  grace,  are  alike  mine 
and  Thine,  for  I  am  in  Thee  and  Thou  in  me.  Thy  "Will, 

1  Jolm  xvii.  4.  3  John  xvii.  5.  3  John  xvii.  6. 

1  John  xvii.  7,  8.          &  John  xvii.  9.          •  Matt.  v.  44.    Luke  xxiii.  34, 


468  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

Eternal  Fatter,  is  ever  mine,  my  -work  also  is  Thine  -,  Thou 
in  me  and  I  in  Thee,  and  thus  though  all  things  are  Thine, 
I  am  glorified  in  them.  Greatly  do  these,  Thy  servants,  need 
Thy  help,  for  I,  their  friend,  am  about  to  leave  them,  but  they 
remain  in  the  world  that  hates  them  for  my  sake.  Without 
Thy  heavenly  aid  and  protection,  they  will  not  be  able  to 
do  the  work  Thou  hast  appointed  them.  Therefore,  Holy 
Father,  keep  them  true  to  Thy  name,  which  Thou  gavest  me 
to  make  known  to  them,  that  by  their  common  faith  and 
love  they  may  be  one,  as  Thou  and  I  are  one.1  While  I  was 
in  the  world,  I  watched  and  protected  those  whom  Thou 
thus  committedst  to  my  care,  and  kept  them  faithful  to  Thy 
name — kept  them  from  the  evil  one,  from  denying  Thee, 
from  falling  away  from  Thee — and  none  of  them  has  perished 
but  the  son  of  perdition,  for  the  Scripture  must  be  fulfilled.2 
Thou  must  watch  and  keep  them,  now  that  I  shall  leave 
them ! 

"  But  now  I  come  to  Thee,  and  these  things  I  speak,  being 
yet  in  the  world,3  that  they  may  have,  in  their  own  souls, 
the  perfect  joy  that  is  in  mine,  feeling  assured  confidence 
that  the  grave  will  not  have  dominion  over  me,  and  that 
they  will  have  Thee  for  their  helper.  I  have  given  them 
Thy  word,  and  the  world  has  hated  them  for  receiving  it ; 
because  they  do  not  belong  to  the  world,  as  I  do  not.  There- 
fore, 0  Father,  keep  them !  I  ask  not  that  Thou  shouldest 
take  them  out  of  the  world  because  it  hates  them. ;  for 
suffering  and  struggle  are  needed  to  perfect  their  spiritual 
life,  and  to  spread  abroad  my  Kingdom.  But  I  ask  that 
Thou  shouldest  protect  them  from  the  evil  one,  that  they, 
too,  become  not  sons  of  perdition.  They,  like  me,  are  not  of 
the  world,  for  it  is  the  kingdom  of  the  evil  one  ;  4  therefore, 
they  need  Thy  protecting  care,  and,  as  Thine  own,  will  surely 
have  it. 

"  Thou  hast  brought  them  out  from  amidst  the  unbelieving 
and  hostile  world,  and  hast  given  them  to  me,  and  they  have 
received,  and  kept  Thy  Word,  made  known  to  them  by  me. 
Thus  they  live  in  the  Truth,  for  Thy  Word  is  Truth ;  sanctify 
them  in  this,  the  sphere  of  their  new  spiritual  life ;  not  onl/ 
keep  them  in  it,  but  consecrate  and  prepare  them  for  their 
great  work,  by  giving  them,  through  the  Spirit  of  holiness 
and  truth,  Divine  enlightenment,  power,  boldness,  love,  zeaL 

1  John  xvii.  11.  2  John  xvii.  12.  a  John  xvii.  18. 

4  John  xvii.  16. 


COMMUNION   WITH  CHRIST.  469 

Even  as  Thou  didst  send  me  into  the  world,1  but  didst  first 
consecrate  me  by  the  Spirit,  given  without  measure,  that  I 
might  accomplish  the  work  Thou  gavest  me  to  do,  I  have 
also  sent  them  into  the  world,  and  they,  0  Father,  need  a 
similar  consecration,  in  Thine  own  measure,  to  prosper  in 
Thy  work. 

"  For  their  sakes  I  consecrate  myself  to  Thee,  in  my  death, 
as  a  holy  offering  2 — for  I  am  both  high  priest  and  sacrifice ; 
that  they,  also,  may  be  made  holy  in  the  Truth,  by  Thy 
Spirit,  the  Helper  whom  Thou  wilt  send,  because  I,  the 
Holy  One,  have  thus  died  for  them. 

"  But  I  pray  not  for  these,  Thy  servants  now  before  Thee, 
alone,  but  for  all  them,  also,  who  will  henceforth  believe  in 
me,  through  their  word,  that  they  all,  teachers,  believers, 
and  converts,  may  be  one,  in  mutual  fellowship  and  com- 
munion of  love ;  the  copy  of  that  between  Thee,  Father,  and 
me ;  communion  so  deep  and  holy  that  Thou  art  in  me,  and 
I  in  Thee.  May  they  be,  thus,  one  in  each  other,  by  being 
one  in  Us,  by  loving  vital  communion  with  Thee  and  me, 
that  the  unbelieving  world  may  have  a  visible  proof,  and 
may  believe  that  Thou  didst  send  me,  the  source,  the  centre, 
the  stay  of  such  heavenly  love. 

"  That  all  who  shall  now  or  hereafter  believe  in  me,  may 
be  thus  one  in  holy  love  and  life,  even  as  We  are  One — 1 
have  given  them,  as  their  future  inheritance,  at  my  coming 
in  my  eternal  Kingdom,  part  in  that  heavenly  glory  which 
Thou  hast  given  me;  that  they  may  share  it  with  me  for 
ever.  I  have  given  it  them,  that  they  may  be  one,  even  as 
We  are  one ;  3  for  how  strong  must  it  be  as  a  bond  of  unity, 
that  they  are  heirs  together  of  the  same  glory  with  me  in 
heaven.  I  have  given  it  them  that  they  may  thus  be  per- 
fectly joined  in  one,  I  dwelling  in  them  and  Thou  in  me, 
that  the  world  may  know  that  Thou  hast  sent  me,  and  hast 
loved  them  with  the  same  Father's  love  with  which  Thou 
hast  loved  me,  and  may  thus  believe  on  me,  the  Saviour 
of  the  world.4 

"  Father,  I  will  that  they  whom  Thou  hast  given  me,  from 
all  the  generations  of  men,  be  with  me  hereafter,  to  enjoy 
eternal  life  5  and  everlasting  communion  with  me  in  that 
heavenly  world  whither  I  am  now  going.  It  is  the  high 
reward  of  their  faithfulness,  their  supreme  consolation  amidst 

1  John  xvii.  18.  *  John  xvii.  19.  8  John  xvii.  22. 

4  John  iv.  42  ;  x.  16.  6  John  xvii.  24. 


470  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

all  earthly  trials,  their  glorious  animating  hope.  I  will  that 
their  joy  may  be  full,  in  seeing  and  sharing  my  heavenly 
glory,  as  they  have  seen  and  shared  my  humiliation  on 
earth — that  glory  with  Thyself,  which  Thou  hast  given  me 
because  Thou  lovedst  me  before  the  foundation  of  the  world. 

"  Righteous  Father,  I  know  that  Thou  wilt  carry  out  this 
ray  will ;  for,  though  the  world  has  not  known  or  acknow- 
ledged Thee,  as  revealed  in  my  words  and  deeds,1  I  have 
known  Thee,  as  working  in  me,  and  revealing  Thyself 
through  me — known  Thee  by  direct  immediate  knowledge — 
and  these,  Thy  servants  before  Thee,  having  opened  their 
hearts,  and  received  my  word,  have  known  and  believed  that 
Thou  hast  sent  me.  I  have  made  known  unto  them  Thy 
Name,  and  will  make  it  known  through  the  Spirit  whom 
I  will  send;  that  the  love  wherewith  Thou  hast  loved  me, 
Thou  mayest  also  make  dwell  in  their  hearts,  and  that  I,  by 
the  Spirit,  may  dwell  in  them  for  ever."  2 

How  sublimely  this  prayer  was  realized  in  the  history  of 
the  Apostles,  the  "  Acts  "  and  the  Epistles  abundantly  illus- 
trate. It  was  their  common  glory  to  believe  that  nothing 
could  separate  them  from  the  love  of  God  in  Christ ;  that 
He,  by  His  Spirit,  was  with  them,  and  that  through  His 
help  they  overcame  all  that  opposed.  The  contrast  between 
the  dejected,  faint-hearted,  materializing  Galilasan  fishermen 
and  peasants  of  the  Gospels,  and  the  heroic,  spiritual  con- 
fessors of  Pentecost  and  after-times,  is,  itself,  a  miracle,  great 
beyond  all  others.  The  illumination  of  soul,  the  grandeur 
of  conception,  the  loftiness  of  aim,  are  a  transformation  from 
a  lower  to  an  indefinitely  higher  mental  and  moral  condition, 
as  complete  as  the  change  from  early  twilight  to  noon,  and 
find  their  only  solution  in  the  admission  that  they  must  have 
received  the  miraculous  spiritual  enlightenment  from  above 
which  Jesus  had  promised  to  send  them. 

1  John  xvii.  26,  *  John  xvii.  26. 


CHAPTER  LX. 
THE  ABBE  ST. 

WHILE  Jesus  was  tenderly  bidding  farewell  to  His  few 
followers  in  the  upper  room,  all  was  bustle  and 
excitement  among  the  Church  authorities,  now  on  the  track 
of  Hi  a  blood  by  the  help  of  Judas. 

It  was  the  great  holiday  of  the  year  at  Jerusalem ;  the 
week  in  which,  beyond  any  other  time,  the  whole  population 
gave  themselves  up  to  rejoicing.  The  citizens,  from  the 
highest  to  the  lowest,  were  reaping  the  great  golden  harvest 
of  the  year  from  the  myriads  of  pilgrims,  and  they,  on  their 
side,  had  the  excitement  of  numbers,  and  novelty,  and 
religious  enthusiasm.  A  mere  mountain  city,  Jerusalem 
lived  by  the  Temple,  either  directly  or  indirectly,  and  it  was 
now  the  loadstone  that  had  drawn  the  whole  Jewish  world 
around  it. 

With  the  craft  that  habitually  marked  him,  the  tetrarch 
Antipas  had  come  up  from  Tiberias,  to  show  how  devoutly 
he  honoured  the  Law,  and  had  taken  his  residence  in  the  old 
castle  of  the  Asmoneans,  which  still  remained  in  the  hands  of 
his  family.  It  was  near  the  Xystus,  and  exactly  opposite  the 
Temple,  to  which  he  could  cross  by  the  upper  bridge,  over 
the  Tyropceon  Valley  between  Zion  and  Moriah." 

Pilate,  also,  had  arrived  from  Caesarea,  to  secure,  in  person, 
the  preservation  of  order  in  the  dangerous  days  of  the  feast. 
His  quarters  were  in  the  new  palace,  built  by  Herod  the 
Great  on  Zion.  It  was  the  pride  of  Jerusalem.  "  The  kinds 
of  stone  used  in  its  construction,"  says  Josephus,  "  were 
countless.  Whatever  was  rare  abounded  in  it.  The  roofs 
astonished  every  one  by  the  length  of  their  beams  and  the 
beauty  of  their  adornment.  Vessels,  mostly  of  gold  and 
silver,  rich  in  chasing,  shone  on  every  side.  The  great 
dining-hall  had  been  constructed  to  supply  table-couches  for 
three  hundred  guests.  Others  opened  in  all  directions,  each 
with  a  different  style  of  pillar.  The  open  space  before  the 


472  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

palace  was  laid  out  in  broad  walks,  planted  with  long  avenneg 
of  different  trees,  and  bordered  by  broad  deep  canals  and 
great  ponds,  flowing  with  cool,  clear  water,  and  set  off  along 
tho  banks  with  innumerable  works  of  art."1  It  was  the  vast 
citadel-palace  in  which  the  tragedies  of  the  family  of  Herod 
had  been  enacted.  Here  Archelaus  had  reigned,  and 
Glaphyra  had  died.  By  right  of  war,  the  Romans  had  taken 
it,  as  the  chief  building  of  the  city,  for  the  residence  of  the 
procurators,  and  had  made  it  the  Prgetorium,  or  head-quarters. 
Its  enclosure — large  enough  to  permit  almost  an  army  to  be 
gathered  in  it,  if  necessary — ran  along  the  inner  side  of  the 
first  city  wall,  and  was  connected  with  the  great  castles  of 
white  stone,  Mariamne,  Hippicus,  and  Phasaelus,  which 
Herod  had  built ;  the  whole  constituting,  in  fact,  a  vast  for- 
tification. 

The  high  priest  at  the  time  of  the  Passover,  as  we  have 
seen,  was  Caiaphas.  The  real  head  of  the  priesthood,  how- 
ever, was  the  crafty  Hannas,  or  Ananus,  without  whom 
nothing  of  moment  was  done  in  the  affairs  of  the  theocracy. 
As  father  of  the  greatest  Sadducean  family,  he  was  fitly 
notorious  for  his  harsh  judgments,  and  was  presently  to  take 
the  chief  part  in  the  death  of  Jesus,  as  his  son  afterwards 
did  in  that  of  St.  James.2  He  had  been  appointed  high  priest 
by  Quirinius  in  the  year  A.D.  7,  but  had  been  deprived  of  the 
dignity  seven  years  later  by  Valerius  Gratus.  The  unique 
honour  was  reserved  to  him,  however,  of  seeing  his  five  sons 
successively  pontiffs — one  of  them  twice — a  distinction  which, 
in  later  years  gained  for  him,  among  his  countrymen,  the 
name  of  the  most  fortunate  of  men. 

Intrigue  and  unwearied  plotting  were  the  very  life  of 
Hannas  and  his  house.  The  gliding,  deadly,  snakelike 
smoothness  with  which  they  seized  their  prey  was  a  wonder 
even  to  their  own  generation,  and  had  given  them  a  by-name 
as  hissing  vipers.3  When  Quirinius,  after  the  census,  de- 
graded the  high  priest  Joazer,  who  had  brought  on  himself 
universal  hatred  by  his  services  to  the  Romans,  Hannas  was 
chosen  as  the  one  of  the  Temple  aristocracy  least  displeasing 
either  to  the  Romans  or  the  Jews.1  He  had  managed  to 
maintain  his  influence  with  three  procurators  through  difficult 
times.  Under  Valerius  Gratus,  he  was  forced  to  give  way 
to  Ismael  Ben  Phabi,  but,  after  a  year,  had  had  him  displaced, 

»  Bell.  Jud.,  ii.  9.  4.  «  Ant.,  xx.  9.  L 

•  Dereubourg,  p.  232.  *  Ant.,  xviii.  2.  1. 


THE   FAMILY   OF  HANNAS.  473 

in  favour  of  Eleazar,  one  of  his  own  sons.  He  himself  de- 
clined to  hold  the  office  again,  on  the  same  ground  which 
Jonathan,  another  of  his  sons,  afterwards  pleaded,  in  the 
days  of  Herod  Agrippa,  when  that  king  wished  him  take  it  a 
second  time.  The  family,  though  loose  enough  in  more 
serious  matters,  were  very  strict  as  to  hierarchical  order. 
No  one,  they  held,  should  resume  the  sacred  vestments  after 
having  once  laid  them  off,  and  released  himself  from  the 
obligations  imposed  by  wearing  them1  Hannas  bowed  to 
this  rule,  as  vital  to  the  theocratic  constitution,  by  the  help 
of  which  his  house  stood  at  the  head  of  Israel.  He  chose, 
therefore,  henceforth  to  hold  the  reins  only  in  safe  obscurity, 
but  with  a  firm  hand. 

His  sons,  Eleazar,  Jonathan,  Theophilus,  Matthias,  and 
Hannas,  successively  became  high  priests ;  but  when,  at  his 
death,  the  leading  spirit  was  gone,  the  brutality  of  the  Sad- 
ducee  came  more  prominently  into  play,  and  speedily  led  to 
the  ruin  of  the  house. 

Among  the  high  priests  who  had  interrupted  the  direct 
reign  of  this  family,  Caiaphas,  son-in-law  of  Hannas,  ruled 
longest.  At  the  time  of  the  condemnation  of  Jesus  he  had 
held  the  high  priesthood  for  seventeen  years,  having  given 
Pilate  no  excuse  for  setting  him  aside,  in  spite  of  the  conflict 
respecting  the  eagles,  the  shields,  and  the  conduits  of  Jeru- 
salem. He  even  retained  it  till  after  the  great  day,  in  the 
year  A.D.  36,  when  the  sacred  vestments,  so  long  held  from 
them,  were  handed  over  by  Vitellius  permanently  to  the 
Jews,  instead  of  being  given  out  to  them  from  the  strong 
room  of  Antonia,  a  week  before  each  great  feast,  for  seven 
days'  purifications,  washings,  and  consecrations,  to  free  them 
from  heathen  defilement,  before  they  could  be  worn.  Caia- 
phas, however,  had  little  to  do  with  procuring  this  great 
favour,  and  was  deposed  almost  immediately  after  ;  Jonathan, 
the  son  of  Hannas,  being  appointed  in  his  stead. 

Thus  at  the  time  of  the  condemnation  of  Jesus,  the 
acting  high  priest  was  only  a  puppet  in  the  hands  of  a 
powerful  family,  at  the  head  of  which  stood  Hannas,  his 
father-in-law,  sorely  envied  by  the  rest  of  the  priestly  aristo- 
cracy.2 

Jewish  tradition  describes  the  grades  of  the  ancient  hier- 
archy as  consisting  of  the  high  priest ;  his  deputy,  or  Sagan  ; 
two  suffragans  of  the  Sagan ;  seven  priests,  to  whom  were 

1  Ant.,  xix.  6.  5.  *  Hausrath,  vol.  i.  p.  453. 


474  THE   LIFE    OF   CHRIST. 

entrusted  the  keys  of  the  Temple  ;  and  three  treasurers, 
•whose  office  it  was  to  give  ont  the  sacred  vessels.1  Of  those 
holding  these  offices  when  Jesus  was  condemned,  we  can 
still  darkly  make  out  some.  With  Caiaphas,  at  his  right 
hand,  sat  Hannas,  the  titular  second,  but  real  head.  Jochana  \ 
Ben  Zacchai,  called  John  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  and 
one  Alexander,2  seem  to  have  held  the  next  dignities,  and 
after  them  came  the  five  sons  of  Hannas,  already  an  old  man, 
Eleazar,  Jonathan,  Theophilus,  Matthias,  and  Hannas — the 
five  apparently  hinted  at  in  the  awful  parable  of  Dives — and 
his  five  brothers,3  all  to  be  high  priests  hereafter,  Hannas, 
the  younger,  destined  to  stain  his  pontificate  by  the  murdbr 
of  James,  the  brother  of  Jesus. 

The  names  of  some  other  members  of  what  we  may  call 
the  self-constituted  high  ecclesiastical  council,  still  survive. 
Among  these  were  Joazer  and  Eleazar,  the  sons  of  that 
Simon  Boethus  of  Alexandria,  whose  daughter,  the  second 
Mariamne,  the  belle  of  Jerusalem,  was  married  by  Herod. 
Simon,  though  well-nigh  a  heretic  in  the  eyes  of  the  national 
party,  had  been  made  high  priest  by  his  royal  son-in-law,  and 
his  sons  had  succeeded  him  in  the  dignity,  but  bore  an  evil 
name  for  their  state  and  violence.  Their  guard  of  spearmen, 
indeed,  became  an  object  of  popular  hatred.4  Simon,  sur- 
named  Kanthera,  "  the  Quarrelsome," — the  murderer  of  St. 
James  the  son  of  Zebedee — and  his  son  Elioneus,  afterwards 
high  priest,  had  a  right  to  attend,  and  did  so  with  a  pomp 
which  brought  on  the  family  the  curse  of  the  people — "  "NVoe 
to  your  fine  feathers,  ye  family  of  Kanthera  !  "  Ismael  Ben 
Phabi,  the  handsomest  man  of  his  day,5  was  another  mitred 
high  counsellor,  to  be  famed  hereafter  for  the  clubs  and 
blows  of  his  serving  men,  the  greed  of  his  bailiffs,  his  shame- 
less nepotism,  and  the  Oriental  luxury  of  his  dress,  one 
outer  tunic  of  which  cost  a  hundred  minae — equal,  perhaps,  at 
this  day,  to  eighteen  hundred  pounds.6  There  were,  also, 
Jchanan  Ben  Nebedai,  the  persecutor  of  St.  Paul,  infamous 
in  later  days  as  a  sensual  glutton,  who  seized  even  the  holy 
sacrifices  for  his  feasts  ;  and  Issachar,  of  Kefar  Barkai,  who, 
in  his  pontificate  of  a  later  day,  would  not  sacrifice  except 
in  silk  gloves,  for  fear  of  soiling  his  hands,  but  lived  to  have 
those  hands  barbarously  cut  off  by  King  Agrippa.7  Such 

1  Maimon.  Hilch.,  B.C.  9-12.  '      2  Acts  iv.  6. 

*  Sepp,  vol.  vi.  p.  8.     See  note  to  chap.  liii.  *  Dereribourg,  p.  232. 

*  Ibid.  6  Derenboiirfi,  p.  234. 

*  Derenbourg,  p.  212.     The  Talmud  ascribes  this  act  to  Alex.  Jannasua, 


ON   THE   WAY  TO   GETHSEHANE.  475 

were  the  men  about  to  seize  Jesus.  No  wonder  that  even 
the  Talmud  relates  that  voices  were  heard  from  the  Holy  of 
Holies,  crying,  "  Depart  from  the  Temple,  ye  sons  of  Eli ; 
ye  defile  the  house  of  Jehovah  !  " 

The  elders  of  the  people — a  body  equivalent  to  a  Jewish 
senate — were  in  no  less  agitation  respecting  Christ ;  for  they, 
also,  were  identified  with  the  preservation  of  things  as  they 
were.  One  or  two  of  them — Nicodemus,  and  Joseph  of 
Arimathea — were  secretly  in  his  favour,  but  they  had  not 
moral  courage  to  take  his  part  openly.  The  names  of  the 
rest  have  perished. 

The  college  of  Rabbis  took  an  equally  vigorous  part,  but 
its  members  at  this  time  can  only  be  guessed,  though  some 
Avho  had  met  the  boy  Jesus,  twenty  years  before,  in  the 
Temple  school,1  doubtless,  survived. 

It  was  late  in  the  night  of  Thursday  when  Jesus  had 
ended  His  last  discourse  and  farewell  prayer.  According 
to  the  immemorial  custom  of  the  nation  to  mingle  songs 
of  praise  to  God  with  their  feasts,2  the  little  band  had 
already  sung  the  first  two  of  the  six  Psalms — the  one 
hundred  and  thirteenth  to  one  hundred  and  eighteenth — 
which  formed  the  great  Hallelujah  of  the  Passover  and  all 
other  feasts.  The  stillness  of  the  night  had  been  broken  by 
the  sound  at  the  time  when  the  second  cup  had  been  poured 
out.3  Now,  at  the  close,  the  voices  of  the  eldest  of  them 
chanted,  with  slow,  solemn  strains,  the  remainder  of  the 
Hallelujah — the  rest  responding  with  the  word,  Hallelujah, 
at  the  close  of  each  verse.  The  anthem  began  fitly — "  Not 
unto  us,  not  unto  us,  but  unto  Thy  name  give  glory,  for  Thy 
mercy  and  for  Thy  truth's  sake,"  and  closed  with  the  words 
of  the  hundred  and  eighteenth  Psalm — "  Blessed  be  He 
that  cometh  in  the  name  of  Jehovah  ;  "  the  Apostles  respond- 
ing— "  in  the  name  of  Jehovah,  Hallelujah  !  "  And  now  all 
was  over,  and  the  Eleven,  following  their  Master,  went  out 
into  the  night.  They  were  on  their  way  to  Gethsemane. 

The  spirit  of  Jesus  had,  hitherto,  been  calm  and  serene. 
But  the  final  close,  the  break  with  all  the  past,  the  shadow, 
deeper  than  that  of  Kedron,  before  Him,  for  the  time  brought 
on  a  reaction,  which,  till  it  passed,  overwhelmed  Him  with 
trouble.  No  wonder  the  Apostles  had  been  cast  down  when 

1  See  page  226,  vol.  i. 

1  Isaiah  xxx.  29.  Matt.  xxvi.  30,  36-46.  Mark  xiv.  26,  32-42.  Luk« 
xxii.  39-46.  John  xviii.  1.  *  Sepp,  vol.  vi.  p.  125. 


476  THE    LIFE    OF   CHRIST. 

even  He  who  had  been  exhorting  them  to  dismiss  sorrow, 
was  Himself  moved.  Behind  Him  lay  life,  before  Him 
death  ;  He  was  about  to  leave  friends,  and  the  fair  earth, 
which,  as  a  man,  He  loved  so  well,  and  His  infant  Chnrch, 
the  hope  of  the  world  He  had  come  to  save.  Before  Him 
lay,  not  only  natural  death,  but  shame,  derision,  miscon- 
ception. He  whose  whole  soul  was  truth,  was  to  be  crucified 
as  a  deceiver ;  the  One  on  earth  absolutely  loyal  to  God,  He 
was  to  die  as  a  blasphemer.  Loaded  with  false  charges  and 
feeling  their  baseless  malignance,  He  was  to  be  put  to  death 
on  the  ground  of  them  !  How  might  it  affect  the  little  band, 
to  whom  the  future  of  His  kingdom  was  entrusted?  He 
had  hitherto  restrained  Himself  from  using  His  supernatural 
power  in  His  own  behalf — would  He  still  do  so  ?  He  had 
but  to  speak,  and  all  would  be  changed ;  for  He  who  could 
calm  the  waves  of  the  sea,  could  quell  the  tumult  of  the 
people,  and  what  were  Temple  guards  or  Roman  soldiers 
against  legions  of  angels  ?  Would  He  still  absolutely  sub- 
ordinate all  thought  of  self  ?  Would  He,  to  the  end,  let 
men  do  with  Him  as  they  pleased,  though  He  had  at  His 
command  all  the  powers  of  heaven  ?  The  temptation  of  the 
desert  and  of  the  mountain  may,  for  a  moment,  have  returned, 
and  who  can  tell  the  struggle  it  must  have  been  to  over- 
come it  ? 

Nor  was  even  this  all.  The  mysteries  of  the  Divine 
counsels  must  be  for  ever  unknown,  but  they  pressed,  in  all 
their  weight,  on  His  absolutely  sinless  soul.  He  was  to  give 
His  life  a  ransom  for  man ;  to  be  made  an  offering  for  sin 
though  He  knew  none;  to  be  repaid  for  infinite  love  and 
goodness  by  ignominy  and  shame.  Perfect  innocence  freely 
yielding  itself  to  misconception  and  death,  for  the  unworthy 
and  vile,  would  be  transcendent  even  in  a  man,  but  is 
beyond  thought  in  the  Son  of  God.  Who  can  tell  what  it 
was  to  have  left  the  right  hand  of  the  Majesty  in  the 
heavens  to  stoop  to  Calvary ! — for  Him  who  could  raise 
the  dead  to  descend  to  the  tomb !  No  wonder  His  human 
soul  was  for  the  moment  eclipsed  and  clouded. 

They  passed,  silent  and  sad,  down  the  steep  side  of  the 
Kedron — for  the  town  gate  was  open  that  night  as  it  was  Pass- 
over— and,  crossing  by  the  bridge,  were  on  the  road  which 
leads  over  the  Mount  of  Olives  to  Bethany.  The  noise  the  of 
multitude  had  passed  away,  and  the  world  lay  asleep  under 
the  great  Passover-moon.  The  path  wound  between  stone- 
walled orchards  and  gardens,  which  Titus  was,  hereafter,  to 


GETHSEMANE.  477 

find  so  many  deadly  battle-grounds,  with  the  walls  for  ram- 
parts.1 He  had  gone  out  of  the  city,  each  night,  to  Bethany, 
but  had  no  intention  of  doing  so  now,  for  He  knew  that  His 
hour  had  come.  Always  given  to  solitary  prayer  among  the 
hills  so  dear  to  Him  as  a  Galilasan,  He  had  often  turned 
aside  to  commune  with  His  Father  on  one  part  or  other  of 
Olivet,  and,  this  night,  chose  the  stillness  and  shade  of  a  spot 
which  His  presence  made,  henceforth,  sacred  for  ever.  An 
olive  orchard  lay  near,  known  by  the  name  of  the  Oil-press 
— or,  as  we  are  accustomed  to  think  of  it,  Gethsemane.2  It 
was  called  so  from  a  rock-hewn  trough  in  it,  in  which  the 
rich  olives  were  trodden  with  the  feet,  the  oil  flowing  into  a 
similar  trough  below.  The  new  leaves  were  opening  over  the 
branches  as  they  passed,  and  the  moonlight  fell  through  their 
motionless  network  on  the  tender  spring  grass.  Stillness, 
peace,  solitude,  filled  earth  and  air;  even  the  birds  slept 
safely  on  the  boughs  under  the  great  sky  ;  for  they,  too,  had 
a  Heavenly  Father.  Moriah  rose  in  richly  wooded  terraces 
behind,  crowned  with  the  snow-white  Temple  in  its  magnifi- 
cence, and,  in  front,  the  yellow  slopes  of  Olivet  rising  from 
their  border  of  gardens  and  orchards,  swelled  between  them 
and  the  loved  cottage  of  Bethany. 

Amidst  this  quiet  and  beauty  of  nature  Jesus  turned  aside, 
and  entered  the  enclosure  of  Gethsemane,  to  strengthen  His 
soul  for  the  coming  crisis.  It  was  a  fitting  place — amidst 
olives,  the  emblems  of  peace  ! 

A  square,  stone-walled  garden,  close  by  the  path  to  Bethany, 
on  the  edge  of  the  Kedron  ravine,  under  the  shadow  of  the 
Temple  hill,  is  still  shown  as  the  spot.  Venerable  olive-trees, 
tended  with  superstitious  care,  are  claimed  as  the  very 
witnesses  of  our  Saviour's  agony  ;  but  it  is  fatal  to  the  belief 
in  the  tradition,  that  Titus  afterwards  cut  down  all  the  trees 
round  Jerusalem,  for  military  use,  and  that  the  same  fate 
has  befallen  the  whole  neighbourhood  in  later  sieges.  But 
the  gnarled  trunks,  twenty  to  thirty  feet  high,  the  broad 
branches,  and  the  still  seclusion,  at  least  reproduce  the  out- 
ward features  of  the  scene. 

When  the  soul  is  overwhelmed  it  seeks,  to  be  alone,  and 
yet  not  too  far  from  human  sympathy  and  help.  To  take  all 
the  Eleven  with  Him  into  the  depths  of  the  garden,  would 
have  invaded  the  sacredness  of  His  retirement.  Only  three, 
the  most  trusted — His  long-tried  and  early  followers,  Peter, 

1  Bell.  Ju<L,  v.  6.  2.        -  \?»2>  HJ. 


478  THE  LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

whose  guest  He  had  been  in  the  bright  Capernaum  days,  and 
James  and  John,  knit  to  Him  by  special  tenderness,  if  not 
even  by  relationship — were  allowed  to  go  with  Him  beyond 
the  first  few  steps  into  the  enclosure.  The  others  were  to  sit 
down  and  rest,  while  He  Avent  into  the  deeper  shade,  to  pray. 

Accompanied  by  the  Three,  He  passed  out  of  hearing  of  the 
rest,  and  presently,  leaving  even  the  three  behind,  with  the 
words,  "  My  soul  is  exceeding  sorrowful,  even  unto  death — 
tarry  ye  here  and  watch  with  me ;  "  He  went  on  about  a 
stone's  cast,  alone.  And,  now,  the  great  pent  up  sorrow 
burst  forth.  It  had  been  gathering,  no  one  knows  how  long, 
but  the  excitement  of  action  had  repressed  it  as  yet — as  the 
wind  keeps  a  heavy  raincloud  from  breaking.  But,  here, 
instead  of  the  city  and  its  multitudes  of  men,  there  was 
silence  and  loneliness  ;  instead  of  the  distractions  of  conflict 
with  enemies,  or  discourses  with  friends,  He  was  face  to  face 
with  His  own  thoughts,  and  with  the  Past  and  the  Future, 
and  that  in  the  night,  and  in  such  awful  isolation.  For  it 
seemed  as  if  even  heaven  were  as  far  from  Him  as  the  sym- 
pathy of  earth ;  as  if  even  its  lights  had  gone  out,  and  He 
was  treading  the  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death  in  a  horror 
of  thick  darkness.  Must  He  bear  all?  Must  the  cup  be 
drunk  to  the  dregs  ?  Was  redemption  possible  only  at  the 
awful  price  that  so  oppressed  His  soul  ?  Could  the  hour  not 
pass  ?  Was  it  not  possible  for  the  Eternal  Father  to  save 
Him  from  it  ? 

The  sacred  writers  labour  to  describe  the  agony  that  over- 
whelmed Him.  They  tell  us  that  He  first  kneeled,  then  fell 
on  His  face  on  the  earth,  and  prayed  with  strong  crying  and 
tears,1  till  His  sweat  became,  as  it  were,  great  drops  of  blood, 
falling  down  to  the  ground.  He  was  "  exceeding  sorrowful," 
"  sore  amazed,"  "  very  heavy."  His  soul,  as  it  were,  sank 
under  the  vision  that  rose  before  it.  "  0  my  Father,"  He 
cried,  "  if  it  be  possible,  let  this  cup  pass  from  me  ;  neverthe- 
less, not  my  will,  but  Thine,  be  done."  But  as  long  as  there 
was  a  struggle  of  the  frail  human  nature,  and  a  cry,  however 
reverent  and  lowly,  for  change,  if  possible,  in  the  burden  laid 
on  Him,  there  could  be  no  peace.  Rising  from  the  ground, 
in  His  agony  of  spirit,  human  sympathy  and  presence  seemed 
as  if  they  would  be  a  relief.  He  came  therefore  to  the 
Three,  but  only  to  find  that,  in  His  long,  wrestling  supplica- 
tions, even  they,  His  nearest  ones,  overcome  by  weariness  of 

1  Heb,  y.  7. 


. THE   AGONY.  479 

body  and  spirit,  lay  sunk  in  deep  sleep.  Rousing  Peter, 
lately  so  boastful,  He  gently  reproved  and  warned  him,  and 
with  him,  the  others.  "  What !  could  you  not  watch  with 
me  one  hour  ?  Watch,  and  pray  as  ye  do  so,  that  ye  may  not 
expose  yourselves  to  temptation  to  be  untrue  to  me,  and  to 
be  offended  at  me,  as  I  have  said  you  would.  The  spirit 
indeed  is  willing  to  stand  by  me  faithfully,  but  human 
nature,  with  its  instinct  of  self-preservation,  is  weak,  and  if 
you  heed  not,  will  make  you  fall !  " 

Leaving  them  again,  He  once  more  prostrated  Himself  in 
prayer ;  but  the  clouds  were  already  breaking,  for  His  whole 
being  had  returned  to  its  habitual  harmony  with  the  will  of 
God.  Every  desire  or  wish  of  His  own  was  passing  like  a 
troubled  dream.  "  0  my  Father,"  cried  He  now,  "  if  this 
cup  may  not  pass  away  from  me,  except  I  drink  it,  Thy  will 
be  done."  Perfect  peace  of  soul  can  only  be  found  in  abso- 
lute submission  to  the  One  Supreme  Will,  and  that  He  was 
fast'  attaining.  Returning  to  the  Three — who  knows  for 
what  ? — He  found  them  asleep  again.  They  were  losing,  by 
their  hour's  sloth,  the  opportunity  of  cheering  and  helping 
their  Master  in  His  sorest  trial.  Man  had  thus  failed  Him, 
but  the  need  of  human  comfort  was  passing  away.  Retiring, 
therefore,  once  more,  and  prostrating  Himself  a  third  time, 
the  same  calm  child-like  submission  to  His  Father  again 
rose  from  His  lips.  He  had  triumphed.  He  had  been  heard 
in  that  He  feared.1  He  no  longer  craved  a  change,  even  if 
possible,  in  the  ordered  course  of  the  Divine  purposes  ;  His 
earnest  cry  had  passed  into  still  submission ;  His  intense 
desire  into  holy  acquiescence.  He  thought  no  longer  of 
Himself,  but  of  the  perfect  love  and  wisdom  of  the  Father. 
He  had  ceased  to  have  a  wish ;  enough  for  Him,  henceforth 
the  all-holy,  all-wise,  all-loving  will  of  the  Father.  His  spirit 
had  broken  through  the  cloud  that  for  a  moment  darkened  it, 
and  reposed  once  more  in  the  calm  light  of  the  face  of  God.2 
The  tempter  had  fled,  and,  in  his  place,  as  after  the  victory 
of  the  wilderness,  we  are  told  by  St.  Luke,  "  there  appeared 
an  angel  unto  Him  from  Heaven,  strengthening  Him."  3 

Meanwhile,  Judas  had  been  busy.  Exposed,  and  dismissed 
by  His  master  from  the  company  of  the  Apostles,  he  had 
only  been  the  more  set  to  carry  out  his  miserable  purpose.4 

1  "  For  his  godly  fear." — Eevised  N.  Test. 

8  See  Schleiermacher's  Predigten,  vol.  i.  p.  25.         *  Luke  xxii.  43. 
4  John  xviii.  2-12.    Matt.  xxvi.  47-56.    Mark  xiv.  83-52.    Luke  xxtt. 
47-53. 


480  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

Hastening  through  the  illuminated  streets,  to  the  authorities, 
he  had,  forthwith,  reported  that  the  favourable  moment 
seemed  to  have  come.  Jesus  had  once  more  ventured  into 
Jerusalem,  and  though  it  might  not  be  safe  to  take  Him  in 
the  thronged  city,  it  would  be  easy  to  come  upon  Him  out- 
side the  walls,  as  He  was  in  the  habit  of  going  each  night 
for  prayer  to  a  spot  at  the  foot  of  the  Mount  of  Olives.  The 
traitor  meant  Gethsemane. 

The  authorities  remained  in  permanent  session  till  the 
arrest  was  effected,  and  at  once  detached  part  of  the  Temple 
Watch,  a  body  acting  as  the  police  of  the  Temple,  and 
armed  at  most,  only,  with  wooden  batons  or  clubs.1  The 
officers  of  the  watch,  and  even  some  of  the  chief  priests  and 
elders,  in  their  excitement,  accompanied  them.  It  had  been 
thought  unwise,  however,  to  trust  so  grave  a  matter  to  an 
undisciplined  and  weak  force,  and  the  high  priest  had,  there- 
fore, communicated  with  Pilate,  representing,  doubtless  that 
he  proposed  the  arrest  of  a  false  Messiah,  dangerous  to 
the  Roman  power,  and  feared  a  rescue.  A  "  band "  had, 
therefore,  been  told  off  from  the  troops  in  Antonia,  and 
these,b  under  the  chiliarch2  in  command  of  the  garrison, 
waited  their  orders.  A  rabble  of  the  servants  of  the  upper 
priests  and  chief  men,  with  lanterns  and  torches,  to  discover 
Jesus  should  he  try  to  hide  himself,  led  the  way,  behind 
Judas,  who  went  foremost  as  guide.  It  was  the  full  moon  of 
April,  but  the  trees  and  recesses  might  aid  an  attempt  at 
escape. 

Jesus  had  just  returned  from  His  third  prayer,  and  was 
rousing  His  disciples,  when  he  heard  the  noise  of  the  soldiers 
and  the  crowd,  and  saw  their  lights  approaching.3  The  dis- 
appointment, at  even  His  most  trusted  friends  lying  asleep 
when  they  should  have  watched,  and  leaving  it  to  Himself 
to  discover  Judas  and  his  band,  wounded  His  heart.  With 
keen  but  gentle  irony,  therefore,  He  told  them  that  they 
might  sleep  on  now  and  take  their  rest,  if  they  chose ;  their 
watching  was  no  longer  needed.  His  hour  had  come.  Then, 
speaking  in  a  serious  strain,  He  bade  them  "  rise  and  go  out 
with  Him,  for  the  traitor  was  at  hand." 

Judas  and  his  employers  had  utterly  misjudged  the 
character  of  Jesus.  Knowing  all  that  was  before  Him,  and 

1  Bell.  Jitd.,  iv.  4.  6.  2  John  xviii.  12. 

»  John  xviii.  2-12.  Matt.  xxvi.  47-56.  Mark.  xiv.  43-52.  Luke  xxii. 
47-53. 


THE   ARREST.  481 

now  calmly  victorious  over  momentary  human  weakness, 
He  did  not  wait  for  His  enemies,  but,  taking  His  disciples 
with  Him,  went  out  of  the  garden  enclosure  to  meet  them. 
"  Whom  seek  ye  ?  "  said  He  as  they  approached.  "  Jesus  the 
Nazarene,"  answered  the  foremost.  To  their  confusion,  the 
calm,  self-possessed  speaker  presently  told  them  that  He  was 
Jesus.  Not  a  few  in  the  Jewish  crowd  gathered  before 
Him,  had  heard  Him  spoken  of  as  a  prophet,  and  had, 
perhaps,  even  accepted  Him  as  such.  They  had  all  heard  of 
His  mysterious  supernatural  power,  and  He  might,  possibly, 
now  use  it  against  them,  though  hitherto  He  had  never 
availed  Himself  of  it  for  personal  ends.  His  kingly  com- 
posure and  dignity,  moreover,  awed  them,  for  grandeur  of 
soul  and  bearing  enforce  acknowledgment,  Withal,  it  may 
be,  He  revealed  a  momentary  glimpse  of  His  transfiguration 
splendour,  to  show  that  He  freely  surrendered  Himself, 
because  His  hour  had  come.  From  whatever  cause,  the 
crowd  fell  back  in  confusion,  overturning  each  other  in  their 
alarm.  "  Whom  seek  ye  ?  "  asked  Jesus  once  more.  "  Jesus 
the  Nazarene,"  muttered  the  boldest.  "  I  told  you,"  replied 
He,  "  that  I  am  He ;  if  you  seek  me,  let  these  men,  my 
disciples,  go  their  way."  He  had  said,  that  of  those  whom 
the  Father  had  given  Him  He  had  lost  none,1  and  even  in 
an  earthly  sense,  He  would  now  protect  them. 

Fear  as  yet  paralyzed  the  crowd.  Jesus  had  calmly 
owned  Himself,  but  no  one  dared  to  lay  hold  of  Him.  Judas, 
still  under  the  weird  spell  of  evil,  might  well  dread  that  all 
would  miscarry.  He  had  given  a  signal  by  which  to  know 
his  late  Master,  reckoning  on  having  to  point  Him  out,  and 
would  now  embolden  those  with  him,  by  himself  taking  the 
first  step  in  further  action.  He  had  arranged  that  he  should 
mark  Jesus  to  them,  by  going  up  to  Him  and  giving  Him  the 
customary  kiss  of  a  disciple  to  his  teacher.  Stepping  out, 
therefore,  from  the  crowd,  into  the  circle  of  the  disciples, 
as  one  of  their  number,  he  approached  with  a  hypocritical 
"  Hail,  Rabbi,"  and  kissed  him  tenderly.2  He  knew,  by  long 
experience,  that  he  might  do  so  safely.  To  the  calm  and 
keen  question  of  Jesus — "  Good  friend,  for  what  have  you 
c:>me  ?  " — he  returned  no  answer ;  for  what  answer  could  he 
give  ?  But  he  had  gained  his  end  ;  for  those  behind,  encour- 
aged by  his  remaining  uninjured  after  such  treachery,  laid 
hold  of  Christ  and  bound  Him  without  the  least  resistance 
on  His  part. 

1  JoLn  xvii.  12 ;  vi.  39.  «  Kara<t>[\eu. 

VOL.   II. 


482  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

Now  followed  the  only  act  of  violence ;  for  Peter,  im- 
petuous as  he  was  brave,  could  not  see  his  Master  thus  led 
away,  a  prisoner,  without  a  word  or  act  on  the  part  of  Ilia 
friends.  "  Lord,  shall  we  smite  them  with  the  sword  ? " 
cried  he  ;  and  without  waiting  an  answer,  or  thinking  of  the 
hopelessness  of  a  rescue,  or  of  the  odds  against  himself  alone, 
he  drew  the  sword  he  had  hung  by  his  side,  and  made  a  fierce 
cut  at  one  of  the  servants  of  the  high  priest,  fortunately  only 
grazing  the  skull,  but  yet  cutting  off  an  ear.  It  was  a 
splendidly  heroic  act,  but  sadly  out  of  place  under  such  a 
Teacher.  Turning  to  the  wounded  man,  and  at  the  same 
moment  rebuking  Peter,  Jesus  checked  any  evil  results 
from  the  brave  attack,  by  soft  words  and  an  effacement 
of  the  injury  done.  "  Suffer  thus  far,"  said  He,  and  then 
touched  the  ear,  and  healed  it.  Forthwith,  turning  to  Peter, 
He  told  him  to  sheathe  the  sword,  "  He  who  uses  violence," 
added  He,  "will  suffer  violence.  If  you  use  the  sword, 
you  expose  all  your  lives  to  danger.  Shall  I  not  drink  the 
cup  which  my  Father  hath  given  me  ?  Shall  I  hesitate  to 
please  Him  ?  If  I  wished  to  escape  suffering,  Peter,  dost 
thou  not  know  that  I  could  ask  my  Father,  and  He  would 
send  me,  instead  of  your  help,  twelve  legions  of  angels — a 
legion  for  each  of  you — to  protect  me  ?  But,  then,  that 
would  not  happen  which  the  Scriptures  have  foretold  I  must 
undergo." 

The  disciples,  after  the  first  impulsive  thought,  had 
abandoned  all  idea  of  resistance;  and  as  any  attempt  to 
rescue  Jesus  was  clearly  hopeless,  since  He  did  not  put  forth 
His  supernatural  power  on  His  own  behalf,  and  would  not 
let  them  do  anything ;  and  as  they  themselves  seemed  in 
danger,  through  the  impetuosity  of  Peter  ;  all  took  to  flight 
as  soon  as  they  saw  their  Master  fairly  in  the  hands  of  His 
enemies. 

The  intense  excitement  of  the  hierarchy  had  broken 
through  all  restraints  of  official  dignity.  The  proposal  for 
the  arrest  had  been  too  important  a  matter  to  be  trusted  to 
any  underlings,  and  hence,  some  of  the  head  priests  and  of 
the  "  elders  "  had  joined  the  leaders  of  the  Temple  police  in 
the  wild  march  to  Gethsemane.  Surrounded  on  all  sides, 
and  firmly  bound,  as  if  His  captors  still  feared  that  He 
would  escape  or  be  rescued,  Jesus  now  turned  to  these 
dignitaries,  so  sadly  out  of  place  in  such  a  scene,  and 
calmly,  but  keenly,  brought  home  to  them  their  shame. 
"  You  come  out  against  me,"  said  He,  "  as  you  might  against 


BEFORE   HANNAS.  483 

a  robber,  or  the  head  of  a  rising,  with  swords  and  clubs.  I 
sat,  day  by  day,  in  the  Temple,  teaching,  in  the  thick  of  the 
people.  You  had  every  opportunity  for  laying  hold  on  me 
then,  but  you  did  nothing.  The  darkness  of  night  is  fitted 
for  your  designs  ;  it  is  your  hour ;  the  powers  of  evil  work 
by  choice  in  the  dark.  But,  in  all  this,  there  is  no  chance ; 
it  happens  only  in  accordance  with  the  predictions  of  the 
prophets."  He  said  no  more,  and  allowed  them  to  lead  Him 
away.  The  disciples  were  scattered,  but  one  form  hovered 
after  them,  white  in  the  moonlight.  It  was  that  of  a  young  man, 
who  had,  apparently,  been  roused  from  sleep  by  the  tumult, 
and  having  thrown  his  white  linen  sleeping  cloth  round  him 
in  his  haste,  was  following  Jesus  towards  the  city.  Who  he 
was  must  remain  for  ever  unknown.  Was  it  Mark  himself, 
who  alone  relates  it  ?  Or  one  from  the  house  probably  at- 
tached to  Gethsemane?  Some  have  supposed  him  to  have 
been  Lazarus ;  others  have  had  different  conjectures ;  he  was, 
at  least,  some  faithful  heart,  eager  to  see  what  they  would  do 
with  his  Lord.  The  soldiers  had  let  the  Apostles  flee,  having 
no  orders  to  arrest  them ;  but  this  strange  apparition  attracted 
their  attention,  and  they  sought  to  lay  hold  on  him.  Casting 
off  the  cloth  around  him,  however,  he  escaped  out  of  their 
hands. 

Yet  there  were  friendly  eyes  following  the  sad  scene,  in 
the  safe  darkness  of  the  night.  Peter,  and  another  of  the 
Apostles,  who  could  only  be  John,  had  fled  no  further  than 
safety  demanded,  and  followed  the  crowd  at  a  distance, 
unable  to  leave  One  they  held  so  dear. 

The  great  object  with  the  authorities  was  to  hurry  forward 
the  proceedings  against  their  prisoner  so  quickly,  that  they 
might  hand  him  over  to  the  Romans  as  one  already  con- 
demned, before  the  people  could  be  roused  on  His  side. 
They  had  so  far  gained  their  point. 

On  reaching  Jerusalem,  Jesus  was  first  led  to  the  mansion 
of  Hannas,  the  head  of  the  reigning  priestly  family,  either 
in  deference  to  his  recognised  influence,  or  because,  as  the 
oldest  high  priest,  he  was  still  acknowledged  as  the  rightful, 
if  not  legal,  dignitary.  He  could  see  Jesus,  and  hear  His 
defence,  and  advise  his  son-in-law  how  to  act.  His  "  snake- 
like  "  craft  might  help  the  less  acute  Caiaphas. 

What  passed  before  Hannas,  or  what  hints  he  sent  to 
Caiaphas,  are  not  known.  It  may  be  that  he  simply  passed 
on  the  prisoner  to  the  legal  high  priest  at  once,  hastening  to 
follow  Him,  and  secure  his  condemnation. 


484  THE   LIFE   OF   CHBISI. 

In  the  East,  the  houses  of  the  great  are  rather  a  group 
of  buildings  or  chambers,  of  unequal  height,  near  or  above 
each  other,  with  passages  between,  and  intervening  open 
spaces  ;  the  different  structures  having  independent  entrances 
and  separate  roofs.  Such  a  house,  or  rather  cluster  of 
houses,  has  usually  the  form  of  a  large  hollow  square,  the 
four  sides  of  which  surround  a  roomy  court ;  paved  in  some 
cases,  in  others,  planted  with  trees,  and  ornamented  with  a 
lawn  of  soft  green.  Sometimes,  an  underground  cistern,  a 
Bpring,  or  a  bath,  offers  the  luxury  of  abundant  water,  and 
makes  the  court  an  agreeable  spot  for  relaxation  or  refresh- 
ment. Porticos  and  galleries  surround  it,  and  furnish 
chambers  for  guests  and  entertainments.  In  some  houses 
there  is  also  a  forecourt,  enclosed  from  the  street  by  walls, 
and,  in  all,  the  inner  court  is  reached  by  an  archway 
through  the  front  building — "  the  porch,"  in  the  narrative 
of  the  Gospels. 

The  hierarchical  party  were  in  permanent  session  in  the 
mansion  or  "  palace  "  of  Caiaphas.  A  commission,  consisting 
mainly  of  the  chief  priests,  with  Caiaphas  at  their  head,  had 
been  appointed,  to  await  the  result  of  the  treachery  of  Judas  ; 
for  the  whole  party,  in  its  alarm,  had  extemporized  joint 
action,  though  their  taking  any  judicial  steps  at  all  was 
irregular,  for  they  formed  no  legal  court  or  recognised  tri- 
bunal. They  were  simply  acting  as  a  self-constituted  body — 
partisans  of  established  ecclesiastical  order,  and  defenders 
of  their  own  vested  rights — gathered,  at  the  summons  of  the 
high  priest,  in  the  blind  excitement  of  fanaticism  and  passion, 
without  rules  of  judicial  proceeding  or  legal  standing  as  a 
court.  The  chief  Rabbis  of  the  school  of  Hillel  generally 
kept  aloof  from  such  tumultuous  and  violent  proceedings, 
which  were  already  too  common,  and  left  them  to  those 
of  the  fierce  school  of  Shammai,  and  to  the  merciless  Sad- 
duces.1  The  name  Sanhedrim  is  given  in  the  Gospels  to 
such  extemporized  assemblies,  the  word  meaning  only  "  an 
assembly."  But  they  do  not  use  it  as  the  title  of  a  legal 
tribunal.2  It  was  before  a  mob  of  dignitaries,  not  a  "  court," 
that  Jesus  was  brought. 

The  commission  were  awaiting  the  arrival  of  their  prey, 
in  the  house  of  Caiaphas,  who,  as  high  priest,  was  the  only 

1  Jost.,  vol.  i.  p.  278. 

2  Jtst,  vol.  i.  p.  281.     Leyrer,  in  Herzog,  vol.  xv.  p.  324.       Graetz, 
Qewti.   ?te  Auf.,  vol.  iii.  p.  145. 


THE    SANHEDRIM.  485 

representative  of  Judaism  recognised  by  the  Romans,  and, 
therefore,  tlie  only  one  who  could  hold  official  relations  with 
Pilate,  to  ask  him  to  carry  out  their  predetermined  resolu- 
tion to  put  Jesus  to  death. 


CHAPTER  LXI. 

THE   JEWISH   TETAL. 

through,  the  closed  porch,  or  archway,  into 
the  inner  court,  His  captors  led  Jesus  to  one  of  the 
chambers  opening  from  it,  where  His  judges  sat,  ready  to 
go  through  the  mockery  of  a  trial.  The  Roman  soldiers 
had  been  halted  outside,  for  their  presence  would  have  been 
a  defilement ;  but  the  Jewish  serving  men  went  in  with  the 
prisoner,  though  only  the  few  required  accompanied  Him 
to  the  inner  chamber.  The  tribunal  about  to  condemn  Him, 
it  must  not  be  forgotten,  was  not  a  legal  "  court,"  but 
simply  a  self-constituted  "  Committee  of  Public  Safety," 
extemporized  by  the  excited  Temple  authorities  and  Rabbis, 
like  the  Vigilance  Committees  of  America,  with  a  Jewish 
Fouquier  Tinville  for  President,  in  the  person  of  the  Sad- 
ducee  Caiaphas.  Knowing  the  illegality  of  their  proceedings, 
they  could  only  venture  to  propose  the  framing  an  indict- 
ment to  lay  before  Pilate,  and  trust  to  their  violence  for 
extorting  a  condemnation  from  him. 

The  hierarchy  were  masters  of  form,  and  knew  how  to 
honour  the  appearance  of  justice  while  mocking  the  reality. 
In  imitation  of  the  traditional  usages  of  the  Sanhedrim, 
while  it  existed,  the  judges  before  whom  Jesus  was  led,  sat 
turbaned,  on  cushions  or  pillows,  in  Oriental  fashion,  with 
crossed  legs  and  unshod  feet,  in  a  half  circle ;  Caiaphas, 
as  high  priest,  in  the  centre,  and  the  chief  or  oldest,  accord- 
ing to  precedence,  on  each  side.  The  prisoner  was  placed, 
standing,  before  Caiaphas  ;  at  each  end  of  the  semicircle  sat 
a  scribe,  to  write  out  the  sentence  of  acquittal  or  condem- 
nation ;  some  bailiffs,  with  cords  and  thongs,  guarded  the 
Accused,  while  a  few  others  stood  behind,  to  call  witnesses, 
and,  at  the  close,  to  carry  out  the  decision  of  the  judges.1 

Like  most  other  matters  in  the  Judaism  of  the  time, 
nothing  could  be  fairer,  or  more  attractive,  on  paper,  but 

1  Talmud,  quoted  in  Keim,  vol.  iii.  p.  328. 


EULES   OF  A  JEWISH   TRIAL.  487 

on  paper  alone,  than  the  rules  for  the  trial  of  prisoners. 
The  accused  -was  in  all  cases  to  be  held  innocent,  till  proved 
guilty.  It  was  an  axiom,  that  "  the  Sanhedrim  was  to  save, 
not  to  destroy  life."  No  one  could  be  tried  and  condemned 
in  his  absence,1  and  when  a  person  accused  was  brought 
before  the  court,  it  was  the  duty  of  the  president,  at  the 
outset,  to  admonish  the  witnesses  to  remember  the  value  of 
human  life,  and  to  take  care  that  they  forgot  nothing  that 
would  tell  in  the  prisoner's  favour.  Nor  was  he  left  un- 
defended ;  a  Baal-Bib,  or  counsel,  was  appointed,  to  see  that 
all  possible  was  done  for  his  acquittal.  Whatever  evidence 
tended  to  aid  him  was  to  be  freely  admitted,  and  no  member 
of  the  court  who  had  once  spoken  in  favour  of  acquittal 
could  afterwards  vote  for  condemnation.  The  votes  of  the 
youngest  of  the  judges  were  taken  first,  that  they  might 
not  be  influenced  by  their  seniors.  In  capital  charges,  it 
required  a  majority  of  at  least  two  to  condemn,  and  while 
the  verdict  of  acquittal  could  be  given  at  once,  that  of  guilty 
could  only  be  pronounced  the  next  day.  Hence,  capital 
trials  could  not  begin  on  the  day  preceding  a  Sabbath,  or 
public  feast.  No  criminal  trial  could  be  carried  through  in 
the  night ;  the  judges  who  condemned  any  one  to  death  kad 
to  fast  all  the  day  before,  and  no  one  could  be  executed  on 
the  same  day  on  which  the  sentence  was  pronounced.2 

Rules  so  precise  and  so  humane  condemn  the  whole  trial  of 
Jesus,  before  Caiaphas,  as  an  outrage.  It  was,  in  fact,  an 
anticipation  of  the  prostitution  of  justice  which  Josephus 
records  as  common  in  the  later  days  of  Jerusalem.  "  Ficti- 
tious tribunals  and  judicatures,"  he  tells  us,  "  were  set  up, 
and  men  called  together  to  act  as  judges  though  they  had  no 
real  authority,  when  it  was  desired  to  secure  the  death  of  an 
opponent."  3  As  in  those  later  instances,  so  now  in  the  case 
of  Jesus,  they  kept  up  the  form  and  mockery  of  a  tribunal 
to  the  close.  No  accuser  presenting  himself,  the  judge  him- 
self took  the  office,  in  utter  violation  of  all  propriety. 
Witnesses  against  the  prisoner  alone  appeared,  and  were 
eagerly  brought  forward  by  the  judge ;  but  not  a  single  wit- 
ness in  His  defence  was  called,  though  the  law  gave  such 
the  preference.  No  Baal-Rib,  or  counsel,  was  assigned 
Him,  nor  were  any  facilities  provided,  or  even  the  possibility 

1  John  xii.  51. 

J  Ginxlurg ;  Art.  Sanhedrim.    Kitto's  Bib.  Cyclo.    Keim,  vol.  iii.  pp. 
345,  346. 
»  Bell.  Jud.,  iv.  5.  4. 

69 


488  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

offered ,  for  His  calling  witnesses  in  His  favonr.  The  "  court," 
from,  the  first,  sought  to  condemn ;  not  as  the  law  required,  to 
acquit.  There  was  no  attempt,  as  was  usual,  to  ascertain 
the  trustworthiness  of  the  hostile  evidence,  nor  any  warning, 
beforehand,  to  those  who  gave  it,  of  the  moral  and  legal 
offence  of  untruth  fulness.1  So  keenly,  indeed,  has  the  judicial 
murder  of  Jesus  been  felt  by  the  Jewish  nation,  in  later  times, 
that  the  doctrine  was  afterwards  invented,  in  the  Talmud, 
that  any  one  who  gave  Himself  out  as  a  false  Messiah,  or 
who  led  the  people  astray  from  the  doctrines  of  their  fathers,3 
could  be  tried  and  condemned  the  same  day,  or  in  the  night. 
Yet,  in  contradiction  to  this,  the  monstrous  fable  was  also 
coined,  that  a  crier  called  aloud,  for  forty  days,  before  Christ's 
condemnation,  for  witnesses  in  His  favour  to  come  forward.3 

If  we  try  to  discover  by  what  law  it  was  possible  to  con- 
demn Jesus  legally,  it  will  be  found  that,  provided  He  could 
not  be  proved  guilty  of  some  civil  crime,  there  were  no  written 
laws  whatever  to  which  Caiaphas  and  his  assessors  could 
appeal  against  Him.  The  Old  Testament  had  not  anticipated 
the  case  of  any  one  calling  Himself  the  Messiah,  whether  in 
a  national  or  spiritual  sense,  and  the  charges  so  often  made 
against  Him,  of  having  broken  the  laws  of  the  Sabbath,  even 
if  He  could  not  have  defended  Himself  against  them,  were 
not  punishable,  by  the  laws  of  the  day,  with  death.  The 
grounds  on  which  the  theocracy  could  press  for  a  capital 
conviction  lay  wholly  outside  the  law  of  Moses,  and  even  of 
those  expansions  and  modifications  of  it  which  formed  the 
current  law.  A  pretext  had  to  be  invented  for  the  course 
taken.  His  real  offence  was  that  the  Church  authorities  felt 
He  was  diffusing  a  spiritual  influence,  which,  if  left  to  develop 
and  spread,  would  inevitably  undermine  the  corrupt  theo- 
cracy, and  with  it,  their  own  power  and  worldly  interests. 
To  gain  a  brief  respite,  they  were  bent  on  putting  Him  to 
death,  though  His  lofty  purity  of  life  and  morals  far  tran- 
scended the  highest  ideals  hitherto  known,  and  His  Divine 
goodness  was  altogether  unique.  They  did  not  see  that,  to 
kill  Him,  was  only  to  hasten  the  ruin  of  the  cause  they 
Bought  to  uphold. 

But  His  spiritual  glory  remained  hidden  to  their  wilful 
blindness,  and  the  shadow  into  which  it  threw  their  own 
shortcomings  roused  only  fanatical  rage.  Since,  therefore, 

1  Keim,  vol.  iii.  p.  330.  *  Tosephta  Sanhedrim,  x. 

•  Toledoth  Je.su,  Van  der  Aim  (1841). 


BEFOEE   CAIAPHAS.  489 

they  could  bring  no  capital  charge  recognised  in  the  Law, 
against  Him,  there  remained  nothing  except  to  feign  horror, 
as  Jews,  at  the  presumption  of  one  so  much  below  them  in 
worldly  station,  raising  Himself  above  the  divinely  revealed 
laws  of  Moses,  and  even  claiming  equality  with  God;  and  as 
hypocritical  friends  of  the  Roman,  whom  they  in  reality 
hated  intensely,  to  pretend  indignation  and  fear  at  the 
popular  disturbance  and  disloyalty  to  the  Emperor,  which 
they  affected  to  believe  would  result  from  His  claim  as 
Messiah  King.  Only  on  this  last  ground  could  they  secure 
the  indispensable  assistance  of  Roman  power,  to  put  Him  to 
death. 

Caiaphas  now,  at  last,  had  his  enemy  face  to  face.  He 
would  make  Him  feel  what  it  was  to  denounce  the  priesthood 
as  He  had  done,  and  to  hold  them  up  to  the  obloquy  of  the 
nation,  as  careless  of  the  charge  entrusted  to  them,  by  His 
taking  it  on  Himself  to  interfere  with  their  Temple  jurisdic- 
tion, in  His  puritanical  "  cleansing  "  of  the  sacred  enclosures. 
He  had  brought  lasting  odium  on  them,  by  the  contrast 
between  His  zeal  in  this  matter,  and  their  alleged  neglect,  in 
allowing  so  called  abuses.  The  fanatical  reformer  who  would 
turn  the  world  upside  down,  was  now  standing,  bound,  before 
him,  and  he  had  Him  at  his  mercy.  The  rest  of  the  self- 
constituted  judges  had  their  own  injuries  to  avenge,  for  had 
not  they,  the  scribes  and  Pharisees,  teachers  of  the  nation, 
been  denounced  with  as  unsparing  contempt  as  the  knot  of 
high  caste  Sadducees  ?  Caiaphas  had  long  made  up  his  mind 
what  to  do.  The  form  of  a  trial  might  be  necessary,  but  the 
result  was  determined  beforehand.  He  had  already  counselled 
both  Sadducees  and  Pharisees  to  lay  aside  mutual  disputes, 
and  unite  against  Jesus,  as  one  who  endangered  their  common 
interests,  and  to  sacrifice  Him  without  hesitation.  Policy, 
He  had  urged,  demanded  that  He  be  at  once  put  to  death,  to 
prevent  His  overthrowing  the  whole  ecclesiastical  constitu- 
tion, with  which  their  welfare  and  dignity  were  identified. 
The  sentence  was  thus  proclaimed  before  Caiaphas  took  his 
Keat  that  night ;  the  judge  had  already  openly  said  that  he 
intended  to  condemn.  The  whole  proceedings  were,  in  fact, 
Bimply  a  smooth  hypocrisy,  -to  secure  the  necessary  aid  of  the 
Roman  executioner. 

Deadly  enemies  at  other  times,  the  "  court  "  were  now  on 
the  most  amiable  terms  with  other,  in  their  anxiety  to  hunt 
down  the  common  foe.  The  proceedings  began  by  Caiaphas, 
as  he  glanced  fiercely  at  his  prisoner,  asking  Him  various 


490  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

questions  respecting  His  disciples  and  His  teaching :  Why 
He  gathered  so  many  followers  ?  What  He  had  meant  by 
sending  them  through  Galilee  and  Judea,  announcing  the 
coming  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  ?  Why,  a  few  days  before, 
at  His  entrance  to  the  city,  He  had  allowed  the  crowds  to 
hail  Him  as  the  Messiah  ?  What  He  meant  by  the  Kingdom 
of  the  Messiah,  and  why  He  did  not  formally  and  publicly 
proclaim  Himself  the  Christ  ? 

Jesus  carefully  avoided  any  allusion  to  His  disciples  in  His 
answer,  for  to  have  referred  to  them,  might  have  brought 
them  into  danger.  As  to  Himself,  the  questions  needed  no 
inquiry ;  the  matter  spoke  for  itself.  "  I  have  taught  frankly 
and  without  reserve,"  said  He  ;  "  I  have  no  secret  doctrines ; 
I  have  spoken  everything  I  had  to  teach,  publicly,  in  the 
synagogues  and  schools  of  the  land,  before  friends  and 
enemies,  and  here  in  Jerusalem,  in  the  Temple,  where  I 
had  for  hearers  the  people  assembled  from  all  parts.  I  have 
taught  nothing  secretly — nothing  except  in  these  public 
places.  Why  do  you  ask  me  ?  ask  some  of  the  multitudes 
who  have  heard  me.  They  know  what  I  have  said  to  them, 
and  what  they  say  will  seem  to  you  more  impartial  than  any 
words  of  mine.  The  Law  requires  that  witnesses  should  first 
be  examined  in  any  trial." 

But  an  honest  and  formal  inquiry  of  this  kind,  though 
necessary  by  the  Law,  was  no  part  of  the  plan  of  Caiaphas 
and  his  assessors.  They  sought  only  to  get  Jesus  handed 
over  to  the  Romans  as  soon  as  possible,  that  He  might  be 
beyond  the  hope  of  rescue  when  the  people,  among  whom 
He  had  so  many  supporters,  awoke  in  the  morning.  That 
He  should  dare  to  direct  the  high  priest  as  to  his  duty,  and 
should  presume  to  throw  on  the  court  the  rightful  task  of 
proving  His  guilt,  was  a  fresh  offence,  and  provoked  fierce 
looks  and  angry  words  from  the  bench.  The  defence  was  at 
once  rudely  interrupted,  for  one  of  the  attendants  standing 
by — whether  of  his  own  accord,  because  he  saw  the  feeling 
of  the  judges,  or  at  a  hint  from  Hannas  or  Caiaphas — in  utter 
violation  of  judicial  rules  or  common  decency,  forthwith 
struck  the  prisoner  on  the  mouth,  with  his  hand,  to  silence 
Him.  "  Answerest  thou  the  high  priest  thus  boldly  ?  "  said 
he.  Nothing  could  have  pleased  the  bench  better,  and  they 
did  not  attempt  to  rebuke  the  offender.  It  failed,  however, 
to  disturb  the  calm  self-possession  and  dignity  of  Jesus.  "  If 
I  have  spoken  what  is  false,"  He  replied,  "  prove  that  I  have 
done  so,  but  if  what  I  say  be  right,  why  do  you  strike  me 


FALSE   WITNESSES.  491 

violently  thus  ?     No  one  has  a  right  to  take  the  law  in  his 
own  hands,  much  less  a  servant  of  the  court." 

The  appeal  to  the  known  and  established  forms  of  trial  had 
not  been  lost.  Hostile  witnesses  had  already  been  sought 
to  bring  home  to  Jesus,  if  possible,  some  charge  of  false  doc- 
trine or  seditious  language,  but  none  had  been  found.  The 
only  evidence  to  be  had  would  not  suffice,  even  in  such  an 
assembly,  to  establish  a  capital  charge  of  which  the  Romans 
would  take  cognizance.  There  were  many,  doubtless,  who 
had  heard  Him  use  language  which  had  given  the  Rabbis 
offence — such  as,  "  Thy  sins  are  forgiven  thee  ; "  words  re- 
garded as  blasphemy,  and,  therefore,  punishable  with  death, 
by  Jewish  law ;  but  they  wanted  to  condemn  Him  on  a 
charge  recognised  by  Roman  law.  They  had  tried  by  spies, 
for  months  back,  to  draw  from  Him  something  they  could 
twist  into  an  attack  on  the  national  religion,  or  the  Roman 
government,  but  had  failed.  It  was  hard  to  get  a  tolerable 
pretext  for  condemning  Him. 

Such  evidence  as  they  had  was  now  however  brought 
forward,  in  the  hope  that  it  would  at  least  prove  Him  to  be 
"  a  deceiver  of  the  people,"  stirring  them  up,  and  exciting 
them  against  the  laws  of  Moses,1  as  defined  by  the  Rabbis. 
But  it  was  a  fundamental  rule  of  Jewish  jurisprudence,  that 
condemnation  could  only  follow  the  concurrent  testimony 
of,  at  least,  two  witnesses.2  Some,  however,  who  came  for- 
ward, had  nothing  relevant  to  say,  and  others  contradicted 
themselves.  His  last  discourses  were,  doubtless,  the  special 
crime  in  the  eyes  of  His  accusers.  Little  could  be  said  about 
His  ovation  on  entering  Jerusalem,  except  that  He  had  not 
refused  it,  nor  was  even  the  expulsion  of  the  buyers  and 
sellers  from  the  Temple  brought  up,  for  the  spirit  that  dic- 
tated it  was  evidently  noble,  however  the  act  itself  might 
be  challenged.  The  strong  invectives  against  the  collective 
hierarchy  offered  a  safer  ground  for  accusation.  Unfortu- 
nately for  the  judges,  suitable  witnesses  were  not  to  be 
found.  At  the  best,  those  who  came  forward  garbled,  or  mis- 
understood His  words;  as  the  hierarchy  themselves  after- 
wards, before  Pilate,  twisted  those  respecting  the  tribute 
money  into  a  directly  opposite  sense.3  But  even  thus,  the 
testimony  amounted  to  nothing.  Time  was  passing  dan- 
gerously fast,  without  anything  done. 

1  Matt,  xxvii.  64.    Luke  xxiii.  2,  5.     Mark  xv.  11. 

2  Light  foot,  vol.  ii.  p.  357.  a  Luke  xxiii.  2. 


492  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

At  last  one  witness  appeared,  who  alleged  that  he  had 
heard  Jesus  say,  "  Pull  down  this  Temple,  it  is  only  the  work 
of  man,  and  I  will  in  three  days  build  another,  not  made  with 
hands."1  Others  agreed  that  He  had  said  words  which 
seemed  intended  to  bring  the  Temple  into  contempt ;  an 
offence  so  grave  that  it  was  afterwards  made  a  capital  charge 
against  the  first  martyr,  Stephen,  that  he  had  "  spoken 
blasphemous  words  against  this  holy  place;"3  but  their 
statements  did  not  tally,  and  their  witness  was  therefore 
worthless. 

Meanwhile,  Jesus  had  stood  silent.  Even  to  charges  so 
hateful  to  Jewish  ears  as  contempt  of  the  Temple,  He  had 
made  no  answer.  He  knew  it  would  be  idle  to  speak  before 
such  a  tribunal,  and  kept  a  dignified  silence.  To  the  judges, 
on  the  other  hand,  they  seemed  of  the  greatest  weight. 
Caiaphas,  a  true  inquisitor,  could  no  longer  preserve  official 
calmness.  Springing  from  his  couch,  and  standing  up  in 
front  of  it,3  he  demanded  if  Jesus  had  nothing  to  say  in  His 
own  defence  against  all  this.  What  did  His  silence  mean  ? 
Was  it  a  confession  of  guilt  ?  But  He  still  remained  silent. 
The  matter  spoke  for  itself;  the  testimony  given  against 
Him  was  discordant  and  worthless.  If  His  past  life  could 
not  secure  His  acquittal,  mere  words  were  vain.  To  use 
His  own  earlier  saying,  they  would  be  pearls  cast  before 
swine,  who  would  turn  again  and  rend  Him.  Self-conscious 
and  kingly,  He  demeaned  Himself  with  a  lofty  composure 
that  impressed  even  His  judges.  He  would  let  violence  and 
falsehood  run  their  course.  He  would  not  recognise  the 
tribunal,  nor  do  honour  to  its  members,  for  He  knew  that 
they  were  determined  that  He  should  die,  innocent  or  guilty, 
to  serve  their  own  ends. 

Caiaphas  might  have  closed  the  examination  at  this  point, 
and  have  taken  the  votes  of  the  Commission.  But  with  quick, 
hypocritical  acuteness,  he  felt  that  the  charge  best  sustained 
was  an  offence  only  in  Jewish  eyes ;  that  the  evidence  in 
support  of  it  was  open  to  criticism,  and  that  the  silence  of 
the  prisoner  might  not,  after  all,  be  an  admission  of  guilt. 
His  pride,  moreover,  was  touched  by  such  an  attitude 
towards  himself  the  primate,  and  he  would  force  an  answer, 
if  possible,  to  save  his  own  dignity.  It  would,  besides,  be 
better  to  go  no  further  into  matters  which  might  protract  the 
Bitting,  and  spoil  the  plot,  by  letting  morning  return  before 

1  Mark  xiv.  58.  »  Acts  vi.  13.  '  Mark  xiv.  60. 


THE   KING   MESSIAH.  493 

Jesus  was  in  the  safe  hands  of  the  Romans.  True  to  the 
serpent-cunning  of  the  house  of  Hannas,  he  determined  to 
bring  things  to  a  head  by  making  Him,  if  possible,  com- 
promise Himself  at  once  with  Jewish  opinion  and  Roman 
fears.  He  hoped  to  worm  out  what  could  be  distorted  into 
a  civil  offence  ;  for  His  keen  knowledge^of  men  told  him,  that, 
while  fitly  silent  and  dignified  hitherto,  his  prisoner  would 
give  a  frank  reply,  and  reveal  His  secret  thoughts  when 
honour  demanded  it.  He  was  evidently  about  to  die,  as 
He  had  been  charged  with  living,  an  enthusiast  and  zealot. 

Looking  straight  at  the  accused,  the  mitred  hypocrite, 
in  his  white  robes,  with  practised  official  solemnity,  went 
straight  to  the  heart  of  the  matter,  by  the  demand,  uttered  in 
Aramaic,  the  common  speech  of  the  Jewish  courts  as  of  the 
nation,  "  I  put  you  on  your  oath  by  the  living  God,1  whose 
curse  falls  on  those  who  swear  falsely  by  Him,  and  require 
you  to  tell  us  whether  you  are  the  Malcha  Meschicha — the 
King  Messiah— the  Son  of  God— Ever  Blessed  ?  " 

The  long  foreseen  moment  had  come,  when  an  open  claim, 
which  He  had  hitherto  left  to  be  inferred  from  His  acts  and 
figurative  expressions,  rather  than  openly  stated,  would  bring 
on  Him  swift  sentence  of  death.  Caiaphas  knew  that  many 
believed  Him  to  be  the  Messiah ;  that  He  Himself  had  not 
refused  the  awful  name,  but  had,  rather,  in  His  discourses, 
justified  its  being  given  Him ;  and  that  a  few  days  before, 
He  had  allowed  the  thousands  of  Galilsean  pilgrims,  who 
greeted  His  entrance  to  Jerusalem,  to  salute  Him  by  it.  But 
the  ecclesiastical  authorities  had  decided  that  He  neither  was, 
nor  could  be,  the  Messiah,  and,  hence,  in  their  eyes,  His 
claiming  openly  to  be  so  would  be  a  crimen  Icesce  majestatis 
— blasphemous  high  treason  against  the  true  Sovereign  of 
the  Land,  Jehovah.  He  had  hitherto  evaded  a  direct  answer, 
except  in  rare  cases,  because  the  time  had  not  yet  come  for 
His  openly  declaring  Himself.  To  have  done  so  before  all 
hope  of  longer  life  was  past,  would  have  cut  short  His 
public  work  in  founding  His  Kingdom. 

But  the  supreme  moment  had  now  arrived.  With  kingly 
dignity,  in  the  face  of  certain  death  for  His  words,  and  in 
solemn  answer  to  the  appeal  to  "  the  living  God  "  as  to  their 
truth,  Jesus  calmly  replied  to  the  adjuration :  "  If  I  tell  you, 
ye  will  not  believe,  and  if  I  ask  questions  that  would  prove 
my  highest  claims  you  would  not  answer.  Thou  hast  said 

1  Matt.  xxvi.  63. 


494  1HB   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

the  Truth — I  AM  the  Malcha  Meschicha — the  King  Messiah — • 
the  Son  of  God,  and  Son  of  man.  In  my  present  gnise  ye 
will  see  me  no  more ;  but  when  ye  have  slain  me,  I,  the  Son 
of  man,  will  forthwith  sit  on  the  right  hand  of  the  Majesty 
of  God,  and  when  ye  see  me  next  it  will  be  sitting  there, 
and  coming  in  the  clouds  of  heaven." 

This  declaration  might  have  seemed  sufficiently  explicit, 
but  the  excitement  of  the  judges,  true  Orientals,  had  grown 
ungovernable.  Rising  on  their  cushions,  one  and  all  de- 
manded, with  loud  voices,  "Art  Thou,  then,  the  Son  of 
God  ?  "  "  You  have  said  it."'  replied  Jesus,  "  AXD  I  AM." 

They  had  gained  their  end.  Hearing  witnesses  would 
have  required  time,  and  their  whole  scheme  would  have  mis- 
carried, if  Jerusalem  woke  and  the  Galilaean  pilgrims  learned, 
while  a  rescue  was  still  possible,  the  secret  arrest  through 
the  night,  of  their  fellow-countryman,  whom  many  of  them 
esteemed  a  prophet  of  Jehovah,  if  not  the  very  Messiah. 

Caiaphas  played  his  part  well.  Quivering  with  passion, 
and  triumphant  at  his  success,  he  forgot  the  practised  cold- 
ness of  the  Sadducee,  and  once  more  springing  from  his 
couch  with  well-feigned  horror  at  the  words  of  Jesus,  though 
they  were  precisely  what  he  had  wished,  rent  the  bosom  of 
his  priestly  robe  of  fine  linen,  as  if  it  were  too  narrow  to  let 
him  breathe  after  hearing  such  blasphemy.  He  forgot  that 
it  was  the  worst  of  blasphemy  for  his  own  lips  to  use  the 
name  of  Jehovah  as  a  mere  cloak  for  crime  and  wickedness  ! 
Jesus  had  spoken  with  the  calmness  of  truth  and  innocence. 
He  had  applied  to  Himself  words  of  Daniel  and  of  the 
Psalms,1  universally  understood  of  the  Messiah,  and  had 
predicted  His  sitting  henceforth  with  Jehovah  on  the  throne 
of  heaven,  and  descending  in  Divine  majesty  to  judge  the 
earth,  though,  while  He  spoke,  He  was  at  the  very  threshold 
of  a  shameful  death. 

"  He  has  blasphemed !  "  cried  Caiaphas.  "  What  need  is 
there  to  hear  more  witnesses?  You  have  heard  the  blas- 
phemy from  His  own  lips.  He  gives  Himself  out  as  the  true 
Messianic  Son  of  God,  which  we  have  already  decided  He  is 
not.  What  seems  good  to  you,  my  colleagues  ?  " 

In  an  irregular,  illegal,  self-constituted  court,  whose 
members  had  already  approved  the  cold-blooded  counsel 
of  Caiaphas,  to  put  the  prisoner  to  death,  guilty  or  innocent, 
and  thus  quench  the  fire  He  had  kindled,  in  His  own 

1  Dan.  vii.  13.     Ps.  ex.  1 ;  viii.  4. 


WOKTHY  OF  DEATH  ! 

blood,  no  evidence  or  want  of  it  could  have  secured  an 
acquittal.  Too  many  private  and  class  grudges,  and  too 
many  vested  rights,  lent  weight  to  any  pretext  for  a  judicial 
murder.  The  very  humility  and  the  purely  spiritual  aims 
of  Jesus  were,  themselves,  a  deadly  offence ;  for  their  Jewish 
pride  nattered  itself  that  the  Messiah  would  wield  super- 
natural powers  to  restore  the  old  Theocracy,  and  make  Israel 
the  head  of  the  nations  instead  of  hated  Rome.  Then,  was 
He  not  a  Galilsean — one  of  a  race  they  despised  ?  It  might 
be  trxie  that  He  wrought  miracles,  but  one  who  wilfully 
broke  the  Law,  as  He  openly  did,  by  Sabbath  healing — 
and  who  knew  what  else  ? — must  work  them  by  help  from 
Beelzebub,  not  Jehovah. 

And,  besides,  had  not  the  high  priest  told  them  that  it 
was  no  great  harm  if  a  single  man  were  sacrificed  for  tho 
common  good,  even  if  he  were  innocent  ?  When,  moreover, 
did  ferocious  bigotry  fail  to  identify  its  cry  for  blood  with 
pious  zeal  for  the  glory  of  God  ? 

All  voted  that  further  investigation  was  useless ;  that  on 
His  own  confession  Jesus  was  worthy  of  death. 

They  had,  at  last,  their  wish.  All  charges  affecting  the 
Temple,  or  Judaism,  would  have  raised  only  the  contemp- 
tuous laugh  of  the  Roman  Procurator.  But  now  that  Jesus 
had  claimed  to  be  the  Messiah,  He  could  be  represented  to 
Pilate  as  a  State  criminal,  delivered  up  for  an  attempt  against 
the  imperial  rights  of  Tiberius. 

The  formal,  preliminary  examination  was  over,  but  its 
result  needed  to  be  confirmed  by  a  larger  gathering  of  the 
hierarchy.  It  was  about  three  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and 
some  hours  must  elapse  before  the  sentence  could  be  formally 
ratified. 

Meanwhile,  Jesus  was  left  in  charge  of  the  rough  Temple 
police,  while  the  judges  separated  for  an  hour  or  two  of 
sleep.  There  was  nothing,  now,  to  restrain  the  coarse  natures 
to  whom  the  condemned  prisoner  had  been  consigned.  Ono 
under  sentence  of  death  was  always,  in  these  rough  ages,  the 
eport  and  mockery  of  his  guards,1  and  those  in  charge  of 
Jesus,  made  worse  than  common  by  the  example  of  the 
judges,  vented  their  cruelty  on  Him  with  the  fiercest 
brutality.  Their  passions,  indeed,  intensified  their  bitter- 
ness, for  they  were  fierce  Jewish  bigots.  He  was  to  die  as 
a  false  prophet,  and  as  such  they  treated  Him,  racking  their 

1  Sepp,  vol.  vi.  p.  178. 


496  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

ingenuity  to  invent  insult  and  injury.  Having  blindfolded 
Him,  some  struck  Him  violently  on  the  head  with  their 
fists,  or  perhaps  with  the  vine-stick  which  Roman  cen- 
turions1 and  other  officials  carried  as  their  sign  of  rank, 
and  were  wont  to  use  on  the  face  or  head  of  the  soldiers — for 
some  of  the  captors  of  Jesus  had  such  staves  with  them — • 
others  struck  Him  with  their  open  hands,  while  still  others, 
adding  the  greatest  indignity  an  Oriental  could  offer,  spat  in 
His  face ;  crying,  as  they  insulted  and  tortured  Him,  "  Pro- 
phesy to  us,  thou  Messiah,  who  was  it  that  did  it  ?  "  The 
hands  they  had  bound  had  healed  the  sick  and  raised  the 
dead ;  the  lips  they  smote  had  calmed  the  winds  and  the  waves. 
One  word,  and  the  splendours  of  the  Mount  of  Transfigura- 
tion would  have  filled  the  chamber;  one  word,  and  the 
menials  now  sporting  with  Him  at  their  will  would  have 
perished.  But,  as  He  had  begun  and  continued,  He  would 
end — as  self-restrained  in  the  use  of  His  awful  powers  on 
His  own  behalf  as  if  He  had  been  the  most  helpless  of  men. 
Divine  patience  and  infinite  love  knew  no  wearying.  He 
had  but  to  will  it  and  He  would  walk  free,  but  He  came  to 
die  for  man,  and  He  would  not  shrink  from  doing  so. 

While  His  examination  had  been  proceeding,  the  central 
court,  which  seems  to  have  been  paved,  was  the  waiting 
place  of  the  servants  of  the  several  judges,  and  of  the  under- 
lings of  the  high  priest,  and  the  Temple  watch.  John  and 
Peter,  recovering  from  their  first  panic,  and  anxious  to  see 
what  became  of  their  Master,  had  followed  at  a  distance,  till 
He  was  brought  to  the  house  of  Caiaphas.  The  door  of  the 
outer  court,  or  porch,  had  been  closed,  to  prevent  the  entrance 
of  any  one  likely  to  spread  an  alarm  and  bring  about  a  rescue  ; 
but  John,  happening  to  be  known  to  the  household,  or, 
perhaps,  to  the  high  priest  himself,  was  readily  admitted. 
Meanwhile,  Peter  remained  shut  out,  but  at  John's  solicitation 
was  presently  admitted  by  the  maid  who  kept  the  door. 

A  fire  of  wood  kindled  in  the  open  court  in  the  chilly 
April  night,  had  attracted  all  round  it,  Peter  among  the 
rest,  by  its  cheerful  blaze.  He  sat  by  the  light  with  weary 
heart,  wondering  what  the  end  would  be,  and  not  without 
alarm  for  his  own  safety,  in  case  he  should  be  recognised, 
and  charged  with  his  violence  in  the  garden.  Meanwhile, 
the  door-keeper,  who,  perhaps,  had  seen  him  in  attendance 
on  Jesus  in  the  Women's  Court  of  the  Temple,  sauntered 

>  Juv.  Sat.,  viii.  247. 


PETER   DENIES  HIS  LORD.  497 

like  others,  to  the  fire,  and  with  a  woman's  abruptness,  after 
gazing  at  him  steadily,  put  the  question  directly  to  him  : 
"  Art  thou,  also,  one  of  this  man's  disciples  ?  "  Confused 
and  off  his  guard,  he  said  nothing  ;  but  she  would  not  let  him 
go.  "  Thou,  also,  wast  with  Jesus  of  Galilee,"  she  continued 
— repeating  to  those  round  her,  "  Certainly  this  man,  also, 
was  with  Him."  "  Woman,"  said  Peter,  stammering  out 
the  words  in  mortal  terror  for  his  life,  "  I  do  not  know  Him ; 
I  do  not  know  what  you.  mean."  But  his  conscience  was  ill 
at  ease,  and  his  fears  grew  apace.  He  could  no  longer  hide 
his  confusion,  and  went  off  into  the  darkness  of  the  porch. 
His  inexorable  inquisitor  would  not,  however,  let  him  escape. 
He  had  hardly  come  to  the  light  again,  after  a  time,  when  she 
once  more  scanned  him,  and,  determined  to  justify  herself, 
began  to  speak  of  him  to  the  serving  men  and  slaves.  "  He 
is  one  of  them.  He  was  with  Jesus  of  Nazareth."  Irritated 
and  alarmed,  and  losing  all  presence  of  mind,  he  repeated 
his  denial  with  an  oath.  "  I  do  not  know  the  man.  I  am 
not  one  of  His  disciples.  I  swear  I  am  not." 

His  stout  assertions  gave  him  an  hour's  respite  and  peace, 
but  his  troubles  were  not  over,  for  the  maid  had  called  atten- 
tion to  him,  and  his  bearing  had  excited  suspicion.  At  last, 
one  of  the  slaves  of  the  high  priest,  a  kinsman  of  the  wounded 
Malchus,  renewed  the  subject  by  asking  Peter  directly, 
"  Did  I  not  see  thee,  as  I  was  standing  at  the  door  of  the 
garden,  just  as  they  were  coming  out  ?  "  "  You  never  did," 
said  Peter.  "  I  was  not  there."  "  Why,  your  very  speech 
shows  that  you  are  of  them — you  were  with  Him,"  cried 
angry,  fierce  voices,  "  you  are  a  Galilaean — we  hear  it  in  your 
words." 

Peter  now  lost  all  control  of  himself.  He  had  tried  to 
strengthen  his  last  denial  by  a  solemn  oath,  but  now  burst 
into  curses  and  imprecations  on  himself,  if  he  had  not  spoken 
truth,  in  saying  that  he  knew  nothing  whatever  about  Jesus ! 
In  the  midst  of  his  excitement  a  cock-crow  fell  on  his  ears, 
and,  at  the  sound,  nis  Master,  still  before  His  murderers  in 
the  room  opening  into  the  courtyard,  turned  and  looked 
him  full  in  the  face,  with  those  loving,  but  now  reproachful, 
eyes,  in  the  light  of  which  Peter  had  so  long  found  his 
sweetest  joy. 

It  was  enough.  The  glance,  like  lightning  revealing  an 
abyss,  brought  back  to  its  nobler  self  the  honest  heart  that 
for  a  time  had  beei»» alarmed  into  superficial  unfaithfulness, 
and  threw  an  awful  brightness  into  the  depths  of  sin  on 


498  THE   LIFE   OF   CHBIST. 

whose  edge  he  stood.  All  his  unmanly  weakness  and 
wretched  fear  rose  in  his  thoughts,  and,  with  them,  the 
remembrance  of  his  boastings,  so  miserably  belied.1  Christ's 
words,  which  he  had  so  warmly  repudiated — that,  before  the 
cock  crew,  he  would  deny  Him  thrice — had  come  true. 
What  a  contrast  between  the  grand  strength  of  his  Master, 
and  his  own  weakness ! 

Shame  and  sorrow,  mingled  on  the  moment  with  a 
yearning  hope  of  forgiveness,  overpowered  him,  and  he  did 
now,  what  he  should  have  done  earlier,  went  out,  and  wept 
bitterly.  It  is  a  touching,  and  beautiful  tradition,  true  to 
the  sincerity  of  his  repentance,  if  not  as  a  historical  reality, 
that,  all  his  life  long,  the  remembrance  of  this  night  never 
left  him,  and  that,  morning  by  morning,  he  rose  at  the  hour 
when  the  look  of  his  Master  had  entered  his  soul,  to  pray 
once  more  for  pardon. 

Towards  the  close  of  the  fourth  watch,  and  before  day- 
break, the  heads  of  the  theocracy,  true  to  precedent,  which 
required  that  the  whole  Sanhedrim,  while  it  existed,  should 
meet  to  ratify  a  sentence  of  death,  had  extemporized  a 
semblance  of  the  old  High  Court  of  the  Nation,  in  some 
suitable  building.  Thither  Jesus  was  now  led,  under  escort 
of  Temple  police  and  retainers  of  the  high  priest,  to  appear 
before  the  notables  of  Israel.  The  chiefs  of  the  priestly 
courses,  and  other  dignitaries  of  the  Temple,  with  a  number 
of  elders  and  Rabbis,  had  gathered  in  the  fading  darkness, 
old  though  most  of  them  were,  to  take  part  in  the  condem- 
nation of  the  Hated  One.  The  proceedings  were,  however, 
only  formal — to  hear  the  sentence  of  the  Commission  and  to 
endorse  it.  This  done,  the  way  was  clear  for  handing  Him 
over  to  Pilate. 

In  the  eyes  of  those  who  thus  unanimously  confirmed  the 
fatal  sentence,  He  was  a  criminal  of  the  worst  dye ;  for,  in 
their  opinion,  He  had  blasphemed  with  audacious  boldness, 
by  claiming  to  be  the  King  Messiah,  the  Son  of  God,  the 
long-expected  Deliverer  of  the  nation,  sent  to  it  from  heaven. 
No  one  had  ever  before  laid  claim  to  the  sacred  name ;  for, 
though  many  Messiahs  rose  in  later  years,  no  one,  as  yet, 
had  assumed  the  tremendous  dignity.  Proof  more  than 
enough  to  establish  His  highest  claims,  offered  itself  in  His 
life  and  words  and  works ;  but  passion  and  prejudice  had 

1  Matt.  xxvi.  57,  58,  69-75.  Mark  xiv.  53,  54£66-72.  Luke  xxii.  54- 
<>2.  John  xviii.  13-18,  25-27. 


WILFUL   BLINDNESS.  499 

hardened  their  hearts  and  blinded  their  judgments.  The 
worst  among  them  would  never  have  dared  to  proceed 
against  Him,  had  they  believed  Him  really  the  Messiah. 
"I  know,"  says  St.  Peter,  "that  you  acted  in  ignorance,  as 
did  also  your  rulers."  l  But  it  was  the  ignorance  that  had 
refused  the  light.  Had  they  been  honest  and  honourable,  the 
first  point  to  have  been  settled  would  have  been,  at  least 
to  hear  what  the  Accused  had  to  say  in  His  own  favour. 
They  had  constituted  themselves  the  vindicators  of  the  Law 
and  the  Prophets,  and  it  was  their  elementary  duty  to  hear 
the  prisoner's  exposition  of  the  statements  of  both,  respecting 
the  matter  in  hand.  He  had  owned  Himself  the  Messiah, 
and  for  doing  so,  without  giving  Him  the  opportunity  of 
supporting  His  claim,  they  voted  the  sentence  of  death  by 
noisy  acclamation.  Law  and  tradition  demanded  a  second 
full  hearing  of  the  case,2  but  they  thrust  both  aside  in  their 
zeal  to  get  Him  condemned. 

1  Acts  iii.  17.  *  Keim,  vol.  iii.  p.  346. 


CHAPTER    LXII. 

BEFOEE   PILATE. 

fTlHE  decision  of  the  Jewish  authorities  having-  been  duly 
-?-  signed  and  sealed,  and  Jesus  once  more  securely  bound, 
He  was  led  off,  strongly  guarded  from  rescue,  to  the  official 
residence  of  Pilate,  on  Mount  Zion.  It  was  still  early,  but 
Eastern  life  anticipates  the  day,  for  the  heat  of  noon  requires 
rest  during  the  hours  busiest  with  us.  The  way  ran  from 
the  West  Hall  of  the  Temple  over  the  Tyropoeon,  by  a  bridge, 
and  across  the  open  space  of  the  Xystus,  with  its  pillared 
porches.  The  palace  of  Herod,  now  Pilate's  head-quarters, 
lay  just  beyond — the  proud  residence  of  the  Roman  knight 
who  held  the  government  for  the  Emperor  Tiberius.  It  was 
inhabited  for  only  a  few  weeks  or  days  at  a  time ;  but  now, 
during  the  Passover,  the  procurator  took  care  to  be  present, 
to  repress  at  once  any  popular  movement  for  national  free- 
dom, which  the  spring  air,  the  feast  itself,  and  the  vast 
gathering  of  the  nation,  might  excite. 

Now,  for  the  first  time,  Jesus  entered  the  gates  of  a  king's 
palace — the  home  of  "  men  in  soft  raiment  " — entered  it  as 
a  prisoner.1-  He  was  to  stand  before  a  man  who  has  come 
down  to  us  as  one  of  the  most  unrighteous,  cruel,  arbitary, 
and  hateful ;  a  man  rightly  named  Pilate,  the  "  Javelin-man," 
for  it  seemed  his  delight  to  launch  cruelties  and  scorns  on 
every  side,  like  javelins,  among  the  oppressed  people.  What 
had  Jesus  to  expect  from  one  who  hated  the  nation  from  his 
soul,  and  spot-ted  with  their  lives  and  possessions  as  if  they 
were  not  men,  but  a  lower  race  of  despised  slaves  and  fanati- 
cal Helots  ?  It  might,  indeed,  be  of  benefit  to  Him  that  the 
hatred  of  Pilate  towards  the  Jews,  might  regard  Him  as  a 
welcome  instrument,  in  the  absence  of  a  better,  for  playing 
off  his  bitterness  against  them  and  their  leaders.  To  favour 
a  Man  who  was  in  opposition  to  them,  was,  itself,  a  pleasure. 

1  Matt,  xxvii.  1,  2,  11-14.  Mark  xv.  1-6.  Luke  xxiii.  1-5.  John  xviii. 
28-38. 


.      THE   PALACE   OF   THE   HIGH   PEIEST.  501 

Calm,  temperate  and  impartial,  compared  to  Jewish  passion 
and  bitterness,  and  in  some  respects  in  sympathy  with,  the 
accused,  the  hard,  proud,  heathen  Roman  was  more  open  than 
the  Jews  or  their  leaders,  to  the  impression  of  Christ's  inno- 
cence or  harmlessness. 

That  he  did  not  permanently  protect  Him,  rose,  paitly, 
from  his  character,  and,  partly,  from  his  past  history  as  pro- 
curator. Morally  enervated  and  lawless,  the  petty  tyrant 
was  incapable  of  a  strong  impression  or  righteous  firmness, 
and,  besides,  he  dreaded  complaints  at  Rome  from  the  Jewish 
authorities,  and  insurrections  of  the  masses  in  his  local 
government.  He  had,  in  the  past,  learned  to  fear  the  un- 
conquerable pertinacity  of  the  Jews  and  the  rebukes  of  the 
Emperor,  so  keenly,  that  he  would  permit,  or  do,  almost 
anything,  for  quiet.  This  showed  itself  in  his  course  to- 
wards Jesus.  Protecting  Him  for  a  time,  half  in  sympathy, 
half  in  mockery,  he  gave  Him  up  in  the  end,  rather  than 
brave  the  persistent  demand  of  a  people  he  hated  and  feared. 
He  would  have  set  Him  free,  but  for  the  popular  clamour, 
and  a  bitter  remembrance  of  the  trouble  it  had  already  given 
him  in  Jerusalem  and  at  Rome.1 

There  was  a  hall  in  the  palace,  in  which  trials  were 
generally  conducted,  but  the  Jewish  notables,  who  had  con- 
demned Jesus,  were  much  too  holy  to  enter  a  heathen  build- 
ing during  the  feast,  since  there  might  be  old  leaven  in  it.  It 
was  Friday,  and  the  Sabbath  began  that  night,  and  in  the 
evening,  at  this  season,  the  priests  and  people  universally 
held  a  supplementary  feast  on  the  flesh  of  the  freewill  offer- 
ings. It  had,  for  centuries,  been  associated  with  the  Pass- 
over, of  which  it  was  reckoned  a  part,  and  Levitical  unclean- 
ness  would  prevent  the  accusers  joining  in  it.*  They  were 
still  true  to  the  character  given  them  by  Jesus ;  careful  of 
the  outside  of  the  bowl  and  platter,  but  willing  that,  within, 
it  should  be  filled  with  wickedness.  They  had  effected  their 
end,  Jesus  was  in  the  hands  of  the  Romans  before  Jerusalem 
awoke. 

Knowing  the  people  with  whom  he  had  to  do,  Pilate  made 
no  attempt  to  overcome  their  scruples.  Trials  in  the  open 
air  were  common,  for  Roman  law  courted  publicity.  Roman 
governors,  and  the  half  Roman  Herod  and  his  sons,  erected 
their  tribunals,  indifferently,  before  the  palace,  in  the  market- 
place, in  the  theatre,  in  the  circus,  or  even  in  the  highways.* 

1  Keim,  vol.  iii.  pp.  362,  363. 


502  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

Pilate,  therefore,  caused  his  official  seat  to  be  set  down  on  a 
spot  known  in  Jerusalem  as  Gabbatha,  "the  high  place,"0 
from  its  being  raised  above  the  crowd,  and  as  "  The  Pave  - 
ment,"  becanse,  as  was  the  custom  with  the  spot  on  which 
Roman  judges  sat,  it  was  laid  with  a  mosaic  of  coloured 
stones.  It  was,  very  possibly,  a  permanent  erection,  square, 
or  of  crescent  shape,  of  costly  marble,  in  keeping  with  the 
splendour  so  dear  to  Herod,  its  builder,  and  seems  to  have 
been  raised  in  front  of  the  "  Judgment  Hall,"  a  doorway 
connecting  the  two.  It  was  a  maxim  of  Roman  law  that 
criminal  trials  should  be  held  on  a  raised  tribunal,  that  all 
might  see  and  be  seen.1 

The  ivory  curule  chair  of  the  procurator — his  seat  of  state 
and  sign  of  office — or,  perhaps,  the  old  golden  seat  of  Arche- 
laus,  was  set  down  on  the  tesselated  floor  of  the  tribunal, 
which  was  large  enough  to  allow  the  assessors  of  the  court — 
Roman  citizens — who  acted  as  nominal  members  of  the  judi- 
cial bench,  to  sit  beside  Pilate,  for  Roman  law  required  their 
presence.  On  lower  elevations,  sat  the  officers  of  the  court, 
friends  of  the  procurator,  and  others  whom  he  chose  to 
honour. 

The  priests  and  elders  who  appeared  against  Jesus,  now 
led  Him  up  the  steps  of  the  tribunal,  to  the  procurator,  and 
placed  Him  before  him.2  Chairs  were  generally  set  near  that 
of  judge  for  the  accusers,  and  there  was  also,  usually,  a  seat 
for  the  accused ;  but  in  Judea,  despised  and  insulted,  this 
custom  was  not  now  observed,  at  least  so  far  as  regarded 
Jesus,  for  He  had  to  stand  through  the  trial.  An  interpreter 
was  not  needed,  as  the  Jewish  officials  doubtless  spoke  Greek, 
and  Jesus,  brought  up  in  Galilee,  where  the  presence  of 
foreigners  made  its  use  general,  necessarily  understood  it.  A 
strong  detachment  of  troops  from  the  garrison  guarded  the 
tribunal  and  kept  the  ground,3  for  a  vast  crowd  of  citizens 
and  pilgrims  speedily  gathered,  as  the  news  of  the  arrest 
spread.4 

Roman  law  knew  nothing  of  the  inquisitorial  system  by 
which  a  prisoner  might  be  forced  to  convict  himself ;  it  re- 
quired that  a  formal  accusation  of  a  specific  offence  should  be 
made  against  him.  This  office  of  accuser,  Caiaphas,  under- 

1  Tholuck,  Ev.  Johan.,  p.  313.     Winer,  Art.  Lithostroton.     Pibel  Lex. 
Art.  Gabbatha.    Lutkardt,  Evan.  Johan.,  vol.  ii.  p.  410.    Liicke,  Evan. 
Johan.,  vol.  ii.  p.  487. 

2  Diet  of  Ant.,  Art.  Basilica.    Keim,  vol.  iii.  p.  366. 

»  Matt,  xxvii.  27.     See  Bell.  Jud.,  ii.  14.  8,  9.  4  Matt,  xxvii.  20., 


PONTIUS   PILATE.  503 

took  in  part,  as  the  representative  of  the  nation  and  its 
highest  dignitary,  to  give  the  charges  the  greater  weight,1 
though  a  professional "  orator  "2  may  also  have  been  employed, 
as  was  usual. 

Pilate  having  taken  his  seat,  began  the  proceedings  by 
formally  asking  Caiaphas  and  his  colleagues  what  accusation 
had  against  the  prisoner.3 

"  If  He  had  not  been  a  great  offender,"  replied  Caiaphas, 
as  spokesman,  "  we  would  not  have  delivered  Him  up  to  thee. 
We  have  authority,  by  our  own  laws,  to  punish  ordinary 
offenders  ;  but  this  man's  crime  goes  beyond  our  powers  in 
the  punishment  it  demands,  and  we  have,  therefore,  handed 
Him  over  to  thee.4  That  we  have  done  so,  I  submit,  is  proof 
that  He  deserves  death.  The  presence  of  myself,  the  high 
priest,  and  of  the  notables  of  the  nation,  as  His  accusers,  may 
suffice  to  prove  the  blackness  of  His  guilt." 

Pilate  was  not  a  stranger  in  Palestine,  and  Jesus  had,  doubt- 
less, already  been  under  his  notice,  through  reports  of  his 
spies  and  officials.  He  had  learned  that  He  avoided  all 
appeals  to  force;  that  His  discourses  had  nothing  whatever 
political  in  them,  and  that  His  zeal  was  mainly  directed 
against  the  corruptions  of  the  Jewish  priesthood  and  public 
teachers,  whom  the  Romans  themselves  despised  for  the 
same  cause.  The  immense  crowds  that  had  followed  Him 
at  his  first  appearance  in  Judea,  three  years  before,  and  His 
subsequent  course  in  Galilee,  must  have  been  the  subject  of 
many  official  communications  to  Caesarea,  Pilate's  usual  resi- 
dence ;  and  they  had  uniformly  represented  Him  as  peace- 
ful and  harmless.  Pilate  knew,  therefore,  that  He  was  now 
delivered  up  by  the  priests  and  Rabbis,  only  from  envy  5  and 
for  their  own  selfish  ends.  From  all  he  had  learned,  Jesus 
was  only  a  well-meaning  enthusiast,  and  he  could  easily  see 
how  such  a  man  might  well  be  dangerous  to  the  vested 
interests  and  mock  holiness  of  the  Jewish  magnates,  but  not 
at  all  so  to  Roman  authority.  He  was  ready  enough  to 
quench  in  blood  any  religious  movement  that  threatened  the 
peace,  but  he  saw  no  ground  for  apprehension  as  regarded 
this  one. 

The  Gospels  give  only  a  brief  outline  of  the  whole  trial, 
but  even  the  opening  address  of  Caiaphas,  or  the  orator 
who  spoke  for  him  and  his  colleagues,  was,  no  doubt,  full  of 

1  Mntt.  xxvii.  12.  8  Acts  x-xiv.  1.     Jos.  Ant.,  xvi.  2.  3. 

»  John  xttii.  29.  4  John  xviii.  30.  «  Mark  xv.  10. 

70 


504  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

rhetorical  compliments  to  Pilate  himself  and  of  fierce  words 
against  the  prisoner.  It  had,  however,  a  very  different  effect 
on  Pilate  from  that  intended.  The  hypocritical  clamour  for 
blood  by  a  priesthood  whom  he  despised  as  Jews,  and  still 
more  for  their  superstition,  bigotry  s  barbarous  want  of  taste 
and  culture,  restless  greed,  and  restive  opposition  to  Rome, 
was  hateful  and  repulsive.  He  would  not  involve  his  court, 
which  represented  the  majesty  of  the  Emperor,  in  any  further 
details  of  a  question  about  one  who  seemed  a  mere  religious 
reformer.  The  accusers  had,  themselves,  jurisdiction  in  their 
own  religious  disputes. 

Interrupting  the  speaker,  therefore,  Pilate  told  him,  "  If 
you  have  found  Him  what  you  say,  you  had  better,  in  my 
opinion,  take  Him  and  judge  Him  according  to  your  own 
law."1  If  they  did  not  trouble  him  further,  he  would  not 
interfere  with  them.  He  had  not,  as  yet,  understood  that 
they  sought  to  have  Jesus  put  to  death,  but  fancied  they 
wished  some  other  punishment. 

Caiaphas  had  his  answer  ready.  "  It  is  a  criminal  charge," 
said  he,  "  a  charge  of  capital  crime,  and  we  cannot  put  any 
one  to  death  without  your  confirming  our  sentence."3  He 
could  not,  however,  do  so  in  any  case,  without  at  least  a 
summary  investigation,  and  thus  the  matter  must  proceed 
before  him.  They  might  have  stoned  Jesus  for  blasphemy, 
had  he  sanctioned  their  doing  so,  but  they  were  resolved  to 
leave  the  odium  of  the  murder  on  him,  and  have  their  victim 
crucified.  In  the  fulfilment  of  the  Divine  counsels,  He  was 
to  die,  not  as  a  martyr  to  Jewish  fury,  but  as  a  sin-offering 
on  the  Cross. 

"  What  is  your  accusation  then  ?  "  asked  Pilate. 

Craftily  keeping  out  of  sight  Christ's  declaration  that  He 
was  the  Son  of  God,  because  such  a  theological  question  was 
indifferent  to  the  Roman,  and  because  heathenism  had  no 
such  ideas  connected  with  the  phrase  as  Judaism,  Caiaphas 
turned  the  religious  offence  into  a  political  one.  The  "  Son 
of  Grod,"  in  a  Jewish  sense,  was  equivalent  to  the  Messiah, 
the  expected  national  deliverer,  and,  hence,  he  created  a  pre- 
tension to  earthly  royalty  out  of  the  claim.  Such  an  accusa- 
tion could  not  be  overlooked,  and  must  wake  prejudice,  if 
believed,  as  involving  a  charge  of  treason  against  the  sus- 
picious and  relentless  Tiberius.  The  priests  expected  an 
instant  condemnation,  for  they  knew  Pilate's  hyaena -like 
nature. 

1  John  xviii.  31.  a  John  xviii.  31,  32! 


THE   ROMAN   TRIAL.  505 

Roman  law  permitted  the  questioning  of  a  prisoner  after 
formal  accusation,  and  confession  of  the  charge  was  held 
sufficient  proof  of  guilt. 

"  The  accused  has  been  condemned  by  us  as  a  deceiver  of 
the  people,"  answered  the  high  priest.1 

"  How  ?  "  asked  Pilate. 

"  In  a  double  way,"  said  Caiaphas.  "  He  stirs  up  tho 
nation  against  paying  their  tribute  to  Caesar,  and  He  sets 
Himself  up  as  King  of  the  Jews.  He  says  He  is  the  Messiah, 
which  is  the  name  we  give  our  king,  and  He  has  led  many  to 
regard  Him  as  a  descendant  of  David,  and  our  only  lawful 
sovereign." 

Jesus  was  standing  at  Pilate's  side.  Rising  from  his  chair, 
and  ordering  Him  to  be  brought  after  him,  he  retired  into 
the  palace,  and  calling  Jesus  before  him,  asked  Him,  "  Art 
Thou  the  King  of  the  Jews?  Dost  Thou,  really,  claim  to  be 
so  ?  "  "He  evidently  expected  a  disavowal,  for  he  felt  it 
almost  beneath  him  to  put  such  a  question  to  one,  in  his 
eyes,  so  utterly  unlike  a  king.  Had  he  been  firm  and  strong- 
minded,  he  would  have  seen  the  groundlessness  of  the  charge, 
from  the  absence  of  all  overt  proof ;  but  he  weakly  proceeded 
to  compromise  himself,  by  putting  Jesus  to  examination. 

Knowing  that  Pilate  had  nothing  against  Him  but  the 
words  of  His  enemies  outside,  Jesus,  with  a  calm  dignity  that 
must  have  amazed  the  procurator,  replied  by  a  counter  ques- 
tion. "  Do  you  ask  this  of  your  own  accord,  or  have  others 
told  it  you  of  me  ?  "  2  He  would  have  Pilate  remember  the 
more  than  doubtful  source  of  the  accusation,  and  that,  with 
all  his  official  means  of  information,  no  grounds  of  such  a 
charge  had  ever  suggested  themselves  to  his  own  mind.  It 
was,  besides,  essential  to  know  if  he  spoke  as  a  Roman,  with 
a  political  use  of  the  title  "  king,"  or  repeated  it  in  the  Jewish 
sense,  as  equivalent  to  "  the  Messiah."  3 

"  Do  you  think  J  am  a  Jew  ?  "  answered  Pilate,  scornfully, 
feeling  his  false  position  in  entertaining  an  accusation  from 
so  suspicious  a  source.  "  Your  own  nation  have  brought 
you  before  me ;  the  charge  comes  from  the  priests  and 
Rabbis.  I  have  only  repeated  what  they  allege,  Do  you 
suppose  I  care  for  your  dreams  about  a  Messiah  ?  Tell  me, 
what  have  you  done  ?  Do  you  call  yourself  the  King  of  the 
Jews  ?  " 

1  Luke  xxiii.  2.  *  John  xviii.  34. 

*  Ewalfl,  vol.  v.  p.  368.  Neander's  Leben  Jesu,  p.  460.  Luthardt, 
vol.  ii.  p.  397.  Paulus,  vol.  iii.  p.  226. 


506  THE   LIFE   OP   CHEIST. 

"  In  your  sense  of  the  word  I  am  not  a  king,"  answered 
Jesus ;  "  but  in  another,  I  am.  My  accusers  expect  a  mere 
earthly,  world-conquering  Messiah.  But  my  Kingdom  is  not 
o£  this  world1 — not  earthly  and  political.  If  it  were,  my 
attendants  would  have  fought  for  me,  to  prevent  my  being 
arrested  and  delivered  up  to  my  enemies  by  the  soldiers  you 
sent  against  me.  But  they  made  no  resistance  nor  any 
attempt  even  to  rescue  me,  and  this,  of  itself,  is  enough  to 
show  that  my  Kingdom  is  not  a  political  one." 

"  You  speak  of  a  kingdom  ;  are  you  really  a  king,  then,  in 
any  other  sense  than  the  common  ?  "  asked  the  procurator, 
awed  before  the  Mysterious  Man. 

"  Thou  sayest  it ; 2  so  it  is ;  I  AM  A  KING,"  answered  Jesus. 
"  I  was  born  to  be  a  king ;  I  came  into  the  world  that  I 
should  bear  witness  for  The  Truth."  He  spoke  in  His  lofty, 
mystic  way  of  the  Divine  Truth  He  had  seen  and  heard  in  a 
former  existence,  when  in  the  bosom  of  the  Father.  "  All 
who  love  and  seek  the  Truth,"  he  continued — "  that  is,  who 
hear  and  obey  my  words — are  my  subjects."  He  had  thrice 
claimed  a  Kingdom,  and  thrice  told  Pilate  that  it  was  not  of 
this  world. 

"  How  these  Jews  talk ! "  thought  Pilate.  "  They,  barbarous 
as  they  are,  think  they  have  TRUTH  as  their  special  possession 
— TRUTH,  which  is  a  riddle  insoluble  to  our  philosophers ! 
What  have  I  to  do  with  such  speculations,  fit  only  to  confuse 
the  head  of  a  hungry  Greek  or  a  beggarly  Rabbi  ?  "  But  he 
had  heard  enough  to  convince  him  that  Jesus  had  no  thought 
of  treason  against  Rome,  or  of  stirring  up  a  disturbance  in 
the  country.  Hardened,  cold,  worldly,  he  felt  how  awful 
goodness  is,  and  would  fain  have  dismissed  One  so  strangely 
different  from  other  men — an  enthusiast,  willing  to  die  to 
make  men  better  !  "  What  kind  of  a  man  is  He  ?  "  thought 
the  Roman.  "  If  He  only  had  not  been  so  ready  with  His 
talk  about  being  a  king !  But  He  will  do  nothing  to  help 
Himself  !  What  is  Truth  ?  "  said  he,  ironically,  and  turned 
away  without  waiting  an  answer,  for  in  Pilate's  opinion,  as 
in  that  of  most  men  of  his  class  in  that  age,  Truth  was  an 
airy  nothing,  a  mere  empty  name.3 

Leaving  Jesus  to  be  brought  out  again  after  him  to  the  tri- 
bunal, he  returned  to  the  accusers  and  the  multitude.  Touched 

1  John  xviii.  36. 

2  Matt,  xxvii.  11.     Mark  xv.  2.    Luke  xxiii.  3.     John  xviii.  37. 

3  Lucke,  vol.  ii.  p.  480.     Neander,  p.  460.     Meyer,  in  loc.      Luthardt, 
vol.  ii.  p.  401. 


"HE   STIES   UP  THE   PEOPLE."  507 

by  the  prisoner's  self-possession  and  dignity,  half-afraid  of 
One  who  spoke  only  of  Truth  and  of  other  worlds  than  this,  and 
incensed  that  the  hierarchy,  for  their  own  ends,  should  have 
sought  to  palm  off  on  him  a  harmless  enthusiast,  as  a  danger- 
ous traitor,  he  threw  the  priests  and  Rabbis  into  fierce  con- 
fusion, by  frankly  telling  them  "  that  he  had  examined  Jesus, 
and  found  no  ground  for  any  punishment l  in  His  thinking 
Himself  the  Messiah,  as  they  called  it."  One  point  in  the 
accusation  had  failed,  but  it  was  necessary  to  hear  what  might 
be  alleged  besides.  The  accusers  could  easily  see  that,  in 
spite  of  the  admission  of  Jesus  that  He  claimed  to  be  a 
king,  Pilate  regarded  Him  rather  with  pity  than  fear.  More 
must  be  done  to  fix  on  Him  the  crime  of  being  dangerous  to 
the  State.  The  priests  and  Rabbis  were  greatly  excited. 
One  after  another,  they  sprang  up,  with  charge  upon  charge, 
to  confirm  their  main  accusation.  In  their  fierce  bigotry  and 
unmeasured  hatred,  they  had  not  scrupled  to  speak  of  a  purely 
religious  movement  as  a  dark  political  plot,  and  now  they 
were  bold  enough  even  to  adduce  proofs  of  this  treason.  "  He 
has  perverted  women  and  children,  and  has  systematically 
stirred  up  the  whole  nation  against  Caesar  ;  from  Galilee  to 
Jerusalem  there  is  not  a  town  or  village  in  the  land  where 
He  has  not  won  over  some,  and  filled  them  with  wild  expec- 
tations. He  has  appealed  to  the  nation  to  join  His  Kingdom  ; 
He  has  spoken  against  paying  the  taxes  ;  He  is  a  second  Judas 
the  Gaulonite,  and  you  know  what  his  career  cost  Rome,  in 
blood  and  treasure."  The  hypocrites  !  They  were  hunting 
Jesus  to  death  simply  because  He  would  not  identify  Himself 
with  them,  and  use  His  supernatural  power  to  drive  out  the 
Romans,  and  set  themselves  on  the  vacant  throne.2  They 
were  demanding  His  death  on  the  pretext  that  He  had 
threatened  to  use  force  to  establish  His  Kingdom,  when  the 
truth  was,  His  real  offence,  in  their  eyes,  was  that  He  would 
not  use  force ! 

Such  a  storm  of  accusations  and  suspicions  might  well  have 
led  Pilate  to  expect  some  denial  or  disproofs  from  Jesus.  He 
doubtless  attributed  all  the  difficulty  of  the  situation  to  His 
too  ready  admission  of  His  dreamy  kingship  ;  and,  on  every 
ground,  even  for  his  own  sake,  to  clear  him  from  a  business 
that  grew  more  and  more  serious,  hoped  to  hear  some  de- 
fence. But  Christ  knew  with  whom  He  had  to  do.  He  knew 
His  enemies  were  determined  that  He  should  die,  and  would 

1  John  xviii.  38,  8  Luke  xxiii.  4,  5. 


508  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

invent  charge  after  charge  till  He  was  destroyed.  They  had 
already  scrupled  at  nothing.  He  knew  Pilate — fierce,  and 
yet  cowardly,  with  no  moral  force ;  the  tyrant,  and  yet  the 
sport  of  the  Jewish  authorities.1  The  majesty  of  truth  and 
goodness  in  Him  looked  down  with  a  pitying  disdain  on  the 
moral  worthlessness  of  judge  and  accusers  alike,  and  would 
not  stoop  to  utter  even  a  word  in  His  own  behalf  before  them. 
They  knew  His  life  and  work,  and  if  the  witness  they  bore 
were  of  no  weight,  He  would  add  no  other.  "  If  I  demand 
that  He  answer,"  thought  Pilate,  "  perhaps  He  will  do  so. 
Do  you  not  hear,"  said  he,  "  how  many  things  they  accuse 
you  of  ?  Do  you  make  no  defence  at  all  ?  "  But  Jesus 
remained  silent,  not  uttering  even  a  word.  "  A  very  strange 
man,"  thought  Pilate.  He  seemed  to  him,  more  than  ever, 
a  lofty  enthusiast,  blind  to  His  own  interests  and  careless 
of  life. 

The  word  "  GALILEE,"  in  the  wild  cries  of  the  priests  and 
Rabbis,  raised  a  new  hope  in  Pilate's  mind.  Antipas  was 
now  in  Jerusalem  at  the  feast.  If  Jesus  were  a  GaKlaoan, 
it  would  be  a  graceful  courtesy  to  send  Him  to  be  tried,  as  a 
Galilamn,  before  his  own  prince,  and  might  perhaps  efface  the 
grudge  Antipas  had  at  himself,  for  having  let  loose  his  soldiers 
lately  on  the  Galilasan  pilgrims  in  the  Temple,  during  a 
disturbance,  some  being  cut  down  at  the  very  altar — a  sore 
scandal  in  the  Jewish  world.  It  would,  moreover,  get  him 
clear  of  a  troublesome  matter,  and,  perhaps,  it  might  even 
save  the  strange  Man — so  calm,  so  dignified,  in  circumstances 
of  such  weakness  and  humiliation  ;  with  such  a  look,  as  if  He 
read  one's  soul ;  with  such  a  mysterious  air  of  greatness,  even 
in  bonds,  and  in  the  very  face  of  death  by  the  Cross.  Anti- 
pas  would  hardly  yield  to  the  Temple  party,  as  he  himself 
might  be  forced  to  do,  to  avoid  another  complaint  to  Rome. 
He  no  sooner,  therefore,  heard  that  Jesus  was  a  Galilean, 
than  he  ordered  Him  to  be  transferred  to  Autipas,  that  he 
might  judge  Him. 

The  old  palace  of  the  Asmoneans,  in  which  Antipas  lodged, 
was  not  far  from  Pilate's  splendid  official  residence.2  It 
lay  a  few  streets  off,  to  the  north-east,  within  the  same  old 
city  wall,  on  the  slope  of  Zion,  the  levelled  crest  of  which  was 
occupied  by  the  vast  palace  of  Herod,  now  the  Roman  head- 
quarters. Both  were  in  the  old,  or  Upper  City,  and  through 
the  narrow  streets,  the  sides  of  which  rose  high  above  the 

1  Matt,  xxvii.  12-14.     Mark  xv.  3-5.       2  Luke  xxiii.  6-12. 


ANTIPAS.  •     509 

centre  to  prevent  defilement  to  passers-by,  Jesus  was  led 
nnder  escort  of  a  detachment  of  the  Roman  troops  on  duty. 
The  accusers  had  no  choice  but  to  follow,  and  the  multitude 
went  off  with  them,  for  it  was  no  ordinary  spectacle  to  see 
the  high  priest  and  all  the  great  men  of  the  city,  thus  in 
public  together. 

The  vassal  king  was  caught  in  Pilate's  snare.  The  flattery 
of  referring  a  Galilaean  case  to  him  as  the  Galilasan  tetrarch, 
greatly  pleased  him,  and  his  light  superficial  nature  was  no 
less  gratified  by  having  One  brought  before  him,  of  whom  he 
had  heard  so  much.  In  his  petty  court,  amidst  all  its  affec- 
tation of  grandeur  and  state,  ennui  hung  like  a  drowsiness 
over  all.  He  had  never  seen  a  miracle,  and  should  like  to  be 
able  to  say  he  had.  It  would  break  the  monotony  of  a  day, 
and  give  an  hour's  languid  talk.  A  prisoner,  in  danger  of  the 
Cross,  could  not  refuse  to  humour  him,  if  He  commanded 
Him  to  perform  one  !  He  had  been  afraid  of  Jesus  once,  but 
a  miracle-worker  in  chains,  could  be  only,  at  best,  a  clever 
juggler. 

Pilate  had  taken  his  seat  on  his  tribunal  in  the  grey  dawn, 
and  an  hour  had  passed.  It  was  shortly  after  six,1  when 
Antipas,  early  astir,  like  all  Orientals,  heard  the  commotion 
in  the  courtyard  of  his  palace,  and  received  word  that  Jesus 
had  been  handed  over  to  his  authority.  A  few  minutes  more, 
and  the  prisoner  was  led  into  the  Court  of  Justice  of  the 
palace,  and  presently  Antipas  made  his  appearance  on  the 
tribunal,  on  which  Jesus  was  also  forthwith  placed. 

The  light,  weak,  crafty,  worthless  man,  was  disposed  to  be 
very  condescending.  He  put  question  after  question  to  Him, 
as  his  idle  curiosity  suggested,  and  doubtless  commanded 
that  a  miracle  might  be  performed  there  and  then.  But 
Jesus  was  no  conjuror  or  "  magus."  He  was  ready  to  save 
His  life  by  worthy  means,  but  He  would  not,  for  a  moment, 
stoop  to  anything  ignoble.  The  creature  before  Him  clad 
in  purple  was  the  murderer  of  John,  the  slave  of  a  wicked 
woman,  a  mean  adulterer,  and  would  fain  have  had  His  life 
as  well  as  that  of  the  Baptist,  Jesns  felt,  therefore,  only 
utter  disdain  for  him,  and  treated  him  with  withering  silence. 
He  might  tire  himself  with  questions,  but  not  a  word  of 
reply  would  be  vouchsafed.  Antipas  began  to  feel  that  it 
was  no  time  to  indulge  his  humour,  and  grew  half-alarmed. 

The   high   priests    and   Rabbis,    Caiaphas   at   their  head, 

1  Gresswell,  Harm.  Evan.,  p.  363. 


510     •  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

•would  gladly  have  turned  the  annoyance  of  the  tetrarch  to 
their  own  account.  When  his  questions  had  ceased,  they 
broke  out  into  vehement  accusations,  forgetful,  in  their  rage, 
alike  of  their  office  and  of  their  self-respect.  But  they,  too, 
•were  met  with  the  same  insufferable,  contemptuous  silence, 
which  gave  no  chance  of  fastening  anything  on  their  enemy, 
by  any  admission  of  His  own.  Antipas  was  no  less  at  a  loss 
than  Pilate  what  to  do.  One  thing,  alone,  he  had  resolved 
— he  would  take  no  part  in  condemning  so  mysterious  a 
man.  Was  he  afraid  of  the  large  following  Jesus  already 
had  in  Galilee  ?  Was  he  spell-bound  and  awed  by  those  eyes, 
that  calmness,  that  more  than  kingly  dignity  ?  Was  he 
afraid  of  the  very  power  of  which  he  had  craved  some  ex- 
hibition ?  When  there  was  no  Herodias  at  hand  to  make 
him  the  tool  of  her  revenge,  he  was  rather  a  mere  voluptuary 
than  cruel.1 

Treated  so  strangely  before  his  courtiers;  humbled  and 
baffled,  Antipas  covered  his  defeat  and  alarm  by  an  affecta- 
tion of  contemptuous  ridicule.  The  harmless,  fanatical  mad- 
man, who  claimed  to  be  a  king,  would  make  a  fine  butt  for 
the  humour  of  his  guard.  Let  them  trick  Him  out  as  a 
king,  and  play  at  homage  to  Him,  and  see  how  He  would 
bear  His  shadowy  dignities !  It  was  a  brave  chance  for  the 
courtiers  to  show  their  manliness  by  mocking  a  helpless 
prisoner !  Antipas  knew,  by  this  time,  Pilate's  opinion  of 
the  accused,  and  suspected  why  he  had  sent  Him.  So,  officer 
and  common  soldier  set  themselves  to  amuse  their  master, 
by  trying  their  wit  on  this  ridiculous  pretender  to  a  crown  ! 
Tired  at  last,  nothing  remained  but  to  send  Him  back  to 
Pilate,  and  let  him  finish  what  he  had  begun.  Antipas  had 
no  desire  to  meddle  further  in  what  might  prove  a  very 
troublesome  matter.  Having,  therefore,  put  a  white  robe* 
— the  Jewish  royal  colour — on  Jesus,  as  if  to  show  his  con- 
tempt for  such  a  king,3  he  sent  Him  back  to  the  procurator. 

Pilate  had  already  made  one  vain  attempt  to  save  Him, 
and  now,  anxious  to  end  the  matter,  summoned  the  accusers 
once  more  to  the  tribunal.  A  great  crowd  had  gathered, 
mostly  of  citizens,  instinctively  hostile  to  the  alleged  enemy 
of  the  Temple  by  which  they  lived.  Looking  at  Jesus  again, 
standing  before  him  in  the  humble  dress  of  the  people — for 

1  Matt.  xiv.  9. 

1  Bengel,   Gnomon,  in  loc.     Luke  xxiii.    13-25.     Matt,  xxvii.  15-26. 
Mark  xv.  6-15.     John  xviii.  39,  40. 


BAKABBAS !    BARABBAS !  511 

they  had  already  stripped  Him  of  His  robe  of  mockery 
— Pilate  noticed  that  he  showed  no  trace  of  fanaticism  in 
word,  bearing,  or  countenance;  and  felt  more  convinced 
than  ever  that  He  was  no  rebel  or  dangerous  person.  "I 
have  examined  this  man,"  said  he,  "  and  nothing  worthy  of 
death  has  been  done  by  Him.  Still  more,  I  sent  Him  to 
Herod,  and  he  is  of  the  same  opinion,  and  has  transferred 
Him  again  to  me  uncondemned.  But  since  so  much  trouble 
has  been  caused  by  His  fancies,  He  deserves  some  punish- 
ment. I  shall,  therefore,  order  Him  to  be  scourged  and  then 
dismissed.  It  will  be  a  warning  to  Him."  The  proposal  was 
a  mean  salve  to  the  wounded  pride  of  the  hierarchy  for  his 
refusing  their  demand  for  a  sentence  of  death. 

Meanwhile  a  cry,  destined  to  have  momentous  results,  arose 
in  the  crowd.  It  was  the  custom  to  carry  out  capital 
sentences  at  the  Feast  times,  that  the  people  at  large  might 
get  a  lesson  ;  but  it  was  also  the  practice  of  the  procurators, 
in  compliment  to  the  deliverance  of  Israel  from  the  slavery 
of  Egypt,  commemorated  by  the  Passover,  to  release  any 
prisoner  condemned  to  death,  whom  the  multitude  might 
name  in  the  Passover  week. 

Coming  forward,  therefore,  and  addressing  both  accusers 
and  people,  Pilate  reminded  them  of  their  custom  that  he 
should  release  a  prisoner  to  them  at  the  Passover.  Cries 
instantly  rose,  clamouring  that  he,  as  hitherto,  would  grant 
them  this  favour,  and  for  once  the  shouts  pleased  him ;  for 
he  fancied  that,  this  time,  there  could  be  no  question  who 
should  receive  the  pardon.  One  who  claimed  to  be  their 
national  king,  and  had  attracted  so  much  notice,  would,  he 
assumed,  be  gladly  accepted.  He  called  out  to  the  people, 
therefore,  whether  they  would  like  "  Jesus,  their  king,"  to 
be  the  prisoner  now  released  to  them. 

It  happened  that,  at  this  time,  there  lay,  awaiting  exe- 
cution, one  Barabbas — the  son  of  a  Rabbi" — who  had, 
apparently,  been  compromised,  through  religious  fanaticism, 
in  one  of  the  countless  petty  revolts  which  incessantly 
harassed  the  Romans.  He  was  no  common  robber,  but  a 
zealot,  who,  in  mistaken  ardour  for  the  honour  of  the  Law, 
had  taken  part  in  a  tumult,  during  which  some  Roman 
sympathizers  or  soldiers  had  been  killed. 

The  proposal  of  Pilate  threatened  to  overthrow  the  scheme 
of  the  hierarchy,  and,  unless  opposed  on  the  instant,  might 
catch  the  popular  fancy,  and  be  accepted.  Caiaphas  and  his 
party,  therefore,  with  quick  presence  of  mind,  determined  to 


512  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

turn  attention  from  it,  by  raising  a  counter  proposal  flatter- 
ing  to  local  passion.  "  Ask  him  to  release  Barabbas  to  you, 
and  not  this  man,"  shouted  they  to  the  mob.  It  was  a 
dexterous  stroke,  for  Barabbas  had  been  condemned  for  an 
offence  which  made  him  a  martyr  in  the  eyes  of  the  people. 
He  had  risen  against  the  abhorred  Roman.  He  wa's  a 
patriot  therefore;  a  zealot  for  the  Temple  and  the  Law, 
while  Jesus  was  the  enemy  of  things  as  they  were,  opposed 
tradition  and  rites,  and  demanded  reforms.  Caiaphas  had 
no  sympathy  with  the  revolutionary  fierceness  of  Barabbas, 
but  it  was,  after  all,  only  an  excess  of  zeal  on  the  right  side, 
whereas  Jesus  was  the  public  accuser  of  the  whole  priest- 
hood, and  of  the  schools  as  well. 

The  cry  for  Barabbas,  therefore,  was  raised  by  the  high 
priest  as  a  cue  to  the  people,  and  repeated  with  such  vehement 
urgency  that,  erelong,  it  was  caught  up  by  the  whole  crowd, 
who  were  presently  wild  with  excitement  to  have  "the 
patriot"  released,  instead  of  Jesus.  The  public  opinion  or 
voice  of  a  nation,  when  the  result  of  free  expression  of 
opposite  judgments,  may  be  the  voice  of  God ;  but  the  voice 
of  the  unthinking  multitude,  as  the  outburst  of  sudden 
passion  or  caprice,  seems  often  that  of  Satan.1  Pilate  was 
under  no  legal  obligation  to  give  the  people  their  choice,  but 
had  fancied  he  might  appeal  to  them  as  against  the  priests 
and  Rabbis,  and  play  them  oft',  as  a  counterpoise  to  the  oppo- 
sition of  their  leaders,  and  a  security  for  himself  with  the 
Emperor.  But  the  priests  kept  up  the  cry  for  Barabbas  so 
fiercely,  and,  to  Pilate's  regret,  the  multitude  echoed  it  with 
such  a  wild  tumult  of  voices,  that  he  saw  he  had  failed.  "  Give 
us  Barabbas,"  alone  was  heard.  A  popular  tumult  seemed 
rising.  Everything  promised  another  scene  like  that  of  the 
great  deputation  to  Caesarea,  about  the  standards  set  up  in 
Jerusalem,  when  the  persistent  cries  of  the  multitude  were 
not  to  be  silenced,  even  by  fear  of  death,  and  forced  Pilate, 
in  the  end,  to  yield. 

To  add  to  the  governor's  perplexity,  he  had  scarcely 
ascended  the  judge's  seat  to  receive  the  decision  of  the 
people,  and  give  his  sentence  in  accord  with  it,  when  a 
message  came  to  him  from  his  wife,  from  the  palace  behind, 
which,  under  the  circumstances,  must  have  greatly  impressed 
him.  Since  the  time  of  Augustus,  Roman  magistrates  had 
been  permitted  to  take  their  wives  to  the  provinces,2  and 

1  Paulus,  vol.  iii.  p.  230.  *  Tacit.  Ann.,  iii.  33. 


"  TO   THE   CEOSS !  "  513 

tradition  has  handed  down  the  wife  of  Pilate — whose  name 
it  states  was  Procla — as  a  proselyte  to  Judaism.1  She  had 
evidently  heard  of  Jesus,  and,  having  taken  a  lively  interest 
in  Him,  was  greatly  troubled  at  His  arrest  and  present 
danger.  Her  messenger,  hastening  to  Pilate,  now  whispered 
an  entreaty  from  her,  that  he  would  have  nothing  to  do  with 
condemning  this  just  man  ;  she  had  suffered  many  things 
through  the  night  in  a  dream  because  of  Him,  and  feared 
Divine  vengeance  if  He  were  condemned. 

Pilate,  guided  only  by  expediency,  was  at  a  loss  what  to 
do.  Unwilling  to  give  way  to  the  mob,  and  let  loose  a  fierce 
enemy  of  Rome  instead  of  a  harmless  and  evidently  lofty- 
minded  enthusiast ;  certain  that  the  high  priests  had  accused 
Him  only  from  envy  at  His  influence  with  the  people,  and 
hatred  of  Him  for  His  opposition  to  themselves  ;  half  afraid, 
moreover,  especially  after  his  wife's  message,  to  meddle 
further  in  the  matter ;  he  once  more  turned  to  the  crowd, 
who  were  still  shouting  "  Not  this  man,  but  Barabbas,"  and 
attempted  to  carry  his  point,  and  save  Jesus, 

"Which  of  the  two,"  cried  he,  "  do  you  really  wish  me  to 
release  to  you  ?  "  "  Barabbas,  Barabbas,"  roared  the  mul- 
titude. The  cry  raised  by  the  priests  had  carried  all  before 
it.  "What  shall  I  do  then,"  asked  Pilate,  pale  before  the 
storm,  "  with  Jesus,  whom  you  call  the  Messiah — the  King 
of  the  Jews  ?  "  He  hoped  that  the  sound  of  titles  so  dear 
to  their  hearts,  and  so  flattering  to  their  pride,  would  have 
some  effect.  But  he  was  bitterly  deceived. 

For  now,  for  the  first  time,  rose  in  answer  to  him,  the 
fearful  words,  "  To  the  CEOSS  !  Crucify  Him  !  crucify  Him  ! " 
the  priests  and  Rabbis,  prelates  and  doctors  of  the  nation, 
on  the  raised  platform  of  the  tribunal,  shouting  first,  and  the 
mob  below  re-echoing  the  cry  far  and  wide. 

Pilate  had  failed  twice,  but  he  still  held  out.  Appealing 
a  third  time  to  the  excited  crowd,  he  strove  to  reason  with 
them  : — 

"  Why  shall  I  crucify  Him  ?  What  evil  has  He  done  ? 
He  has  broken  no  law.  I  have  found  no  cause,  in  anything 
He  has  done,  to  put  Him  to  death.  I  will,  therefore,  only 
scourge  Him,  and  let  Him  go." 

But  he  knew  not  the  forces  he  was  opposing.  Behind 
the  passions  of  the  priests  and  Rabbis  and  people,  were  the 
slowly  self-fulfilling  counsels  of  the  Eternal ! 

1  Evang.  Nicod.,  cap.  2.    Hofmann's  Leben  Jesu,  pp.  338-343. 


514  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

The  sea  of  upturned  faces  again  broke  into  wild  uproar, 
and  a  thousand  voices  yelled  at  their  fiercest,  "  Crucify  Him  ! 
crucify  Him !  " 

The  six  days  of  Caesarea,  when  the  same  crowds  had 
besieged  his  palace,  with  the  unbroken  cry,  which  not  even 
imminent  death  could  still1 — the  six  days,  when  their 
invincible  tenacity  had  forced  him  to  humble  himself  before 
them  and  let  them  triumph — rose  in  Pilate's  mind. 

"  It  will  be  another  uproar  like  that,"  thought  he ;  "1  must 
yield  while  I  can,  and  save  myself."  Poor  mockery  of  a 
ruler!  Set  by  the  Eternal  to  do  right  on  earth,  and  afraid 
to  do  it ;  told  so  by  his  own  bosom ;  strong  enough  in  his 
legions,  and  in  the  truth  itself,  to  have  saved  the  Innocent 
One,  and  kept  his  own  soul,  he  could  only  think  of  the 
apparently  expedient.  Type  of  the  politician  of  all  ages 
who  forgets  that  only  the  right  is  the  strong  or  wise ! 

Not  daring  in  his  weakness  to  play  the  man  and  do  right, 
Pilate  was  yet  determined  that  even  those  at  a  distance, 
who  might  not  hear  his  disavowal  of  any  willing  share  in  the 
condemnation  of  Christ,  should  be  made  to  see  it.  To  wash 
the  hands  in  water  is  a  natural  symbol  so  expressive  of  re- 
pudiation of  responsibility,  that  it  had  been  adopted  by  Jews 
and  heathen  alike.  As  long  before  as  the  days  of  Moses, 
the  elders  of  a  city,  near  which  the  body  of  a  slain  man 
had  been  found,  were  required  to  wash  their  hands  over  a 
slaughtered  heifer,  and  declare  their  innocence.  To  wash 
the  hands  in  innocency  was  already  a  common  expression  in 
the  days  of  David,-  and  it  was  familiar  to  both  Greeks  and 
Romans.  Calling,  therefore,  for  water,  Pilate  went  towards 
his  official  chair,  and  with  significant  gestures,  washed  his 
hands,  calling  aloud  as  he  did  so,  "  That  as  his  hands  were 
clean  before  them,  so  was  he  himself,  of  all  guilt  in  the  blood 
of  this  Man.  It  is  on  you ;  you  may  answer  for  it  as  you 
best  can  !  " 

"  Yes  !  yes  !  "  cried  the  furious  priests  and  rabble,  "  will- 
ingly !  We  and  our  children  will  take  the  blame  !  His  blood 
be  oh  us  and  our  children  if  He  be  slain  unjustly." 

"  Then  you  may  have  His  blood,"  thought  Pilate ;  "  I 
have  done  my  best  to  save  Him !  "  So  do  men  deceive 
themselves;  as  if  they  could  wash  their  conscience  clean  as 
easily  as  their  hands !  They  fancy  they  have  fulfilled  to 
the  utmost  their  acknowledged  duty,  when  they  have  not 

1  Ant.,  xviii.  3.  1.  *  Ps.  xxvi.  6 ;  Ixxiii.  13. 


CRUCIFIXION.  515 

done  precisely  the  first  indispensable  and  decisive  act.  They 
weary  themselves,  toiling  along  a  thousand  crooked  ways, 
whick  cannot  lead  them  to  their  end,  and  turn  aside  from 
the  path  of  unhesitating,  immovable  right — the  way  nearest 
to  thi-ni,  and  the  shortest,  after  all !  * 

The  Innocent  One  had  gained  nothing  bnt  evil  by  all 
the  windings  and  doublings  of  the  scheming  and  trimming 
Roman.  Pilate  had  proposed  as  a  compromise  with  His 
accusers,  to  save  His  life  by  delivering  Him  over  to  the 
shame  and  agony  of  scourging,  though  He  had,  confessedly, 
done  nothing  amiss.  He  was  now  to  be  both  scourged  and 
crucified. 

Victims  condemned  to  the  cross  first  underwent  the  hideous 
torture  of  the  scourge,  and  this  was,  immediately,  inflicted 
on  Jesus.  Pilate,  forthwith,  commanded  it  to  be  carried  out. 
"  Go.  bind  His  hands,  and  let  Him  be  beaten,"  was  the  order 
for  this  terrible  prelude  to  crucifixion. 

Roman  citizens  were  still  exempted,  by  various  laws,  from 
this  agonizing  and  painful  punishment,  which  was  employed 
sometimes  to  elicit  confessions,  sometimes  as  a  substitute  for 
execution,  and,  at  others,  as  the  first  step  in  capital  sentences. 
It  was  in  full  use  in  the  provinces,  and  lawless  governors  did 
not  scruple  to  enforce  it  even  on  Roman  citizens,  in  spite 
of  lis  acknowledged  illegality.2  Jesus  was  no\v  seized  by 
some  of  the  soldiers  standing  near,  and  after  being  stripped 
to  the  waist,  Avas  bound  in  a  stooping  posture,  His  hands 
behind  His  back,  to  a  post,  or  block,  near  the  tribunal.  He 
was  then  beaten  at  the  pleasure  of  the  soldiers,  with  knots  of 
rope,  or  plaited  leather  thongs,  armed  at  the  ends  with  acorn- 
shaped  drops  of  lead,  or  small,  sharp-pointed  bones.  In 
many  cases  not  only  was  the  back  of  the  person  scourged 
cut  open  in  all  directions ;  even  the  eyes,  the  face,  and  the 
breast,  were  torn,  and  the  teeth  not  seldom  knocked  out. 
The  judge  stood  by,  to  stimulate  the  sinewy  executioners  by 
cries  of  "  Give  it  him " — but  we  may  trust  that  Pilate, 
though  his  office  required  him  to  be  present,  spared  himself 
this  crime. 

Under  the  fury  of  the  countless  stripes,  the  victims  some- 
times sank — amidst  screams,  convulsive  leaps,  and  distortions 
— into  a  senseless  heap ;  sometimes  died  on  the  spot ;  some- 

1  Paulwt,  vol.  iii.  p.  234. 

8  Lit;.,  x.  9.  Cic.  Verr.,  v.  63.  Sen.  Ir.,  iii.  18.  Matt,  xxvii.  26  -  30. 
Mark  xv.  15-19.  John  xix.  1-3. 


516  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

times  were  taken  away  an  unrecognisable  mass  of  bleeding 
flesh,  to  find  deliverance  in  death,  from  the  inflammation  and 
fever,  sickness  and  shame.1 

The  scourging  of  Jesus  was  of  the  severest ;  for  the  soldiers, 
employed  as  lictors  in  the  absence  of  these  special  officials, 
who  were  not  allowed  to  procurators,  only  too  gladly  vented 
on  any  Jew  the  grudge  they  bore  the  nation,  and  they  would, 
doubtless,  try  if  they  could  not  force  out  the  confession 
which  His  silence  had  denied  to  the  governor.  Besides,  He 
was  to  be  crucified,  and  the  harder  the  scourging  the  less 
life  would  there  be  left,  to  detain  them  afterwards  on  guard 
at  the  cross.  What  He  must  have  endured  is  pictured  to  us 
by  Eusebius  in  the  epistle  of  the  Church  in  Smyrna.  "All 
around  were  horrified  to  see  them  (the  martyrs),"  says  he, 
"  so  torn  with  scourges  that  their  very  veins  were  laid  bare, 
and  the  inner  muscles  and  sinews,  and  even  the  very  bowels, 
exposed."  * 

The  scourging  over — Pilate,  as  his  office  required,  standing 
by,  to  hear  any  confession  that  might  be  made  — Jesus  was 
formally  delivered  over  to  a  military  officer,  with  the  autho- 
rization to  see  Him  crucified.  He  had  been  scourged  in  the 
open  grounds  before  the  palace  gate,  close  to  the  tribunal, 
but  was  now  led,  still  half-naked,  with  painful,  bleeding 
steps,  into  the  inner  court  of  the  palace,  in  which,  as  the 
trial  was  over,  the  whole  cohort — no  longer  needed  outside — • 
was  massed,  to  be  ready  for  any  attempt  at  rescue.  His 
guards  next  piit  some  of  His  clothes f  on  the  quivering  body. 
For  this  His  own  humble  under  garments  contented  them,  in 
part ;  but  the  brutal  humour  of  the  guard-room  was  free  to 
vent  itself  on  a  condemned  man,  and  the  lofty  claims  of 
Christ,  and  His  hated  nationality,  excited  it  to  the  keenest. 
Instead  of  His  plain  abba  of  linen,  therefore,  they  threw 
over  His  shoulders  a  scarlet  sagum  or  soldier's  cloak,  as  a 
rough  burlesque  of  the  long  and  fine  purple  one  worn  only 
by  the  Emperor.  One  of  them,  running  to  the  nearest  open 
space,  heightened  the  coarse  and  shameful  merriment  by 
bringing  in  some  of  the  tough  twigs  of  the  thorny  Nubk, 
which  he  twisted  into  a  mock  laurel  wreath,  like  that  worn 
at  times  by  the  Caesars,  and  forced  down,  with  its  close 
sharp  thorns,  on  our  Saviour's  temples.  The  Nubk  even 

1  Keim,  vol.  iii.  p.  361.     Arts.  Leibesstrafen,  in  Winer  and  Herzog. 
Scpp,  vol.  vi.  p.  239,  etc.  etc. 
3  Etuebnu  Hist.,  xv. 


THE   SOLDIERS   MOCK   CHRIST.  517 

yet  grows,  on  dwarf  bushes,  ontside  the  walls  of  Jerusalem.1 
A  last  supreme  touch,  to  complete  the  ridicule,  was  at 
hand,  in  one  of  the  long  reeds,  used  in  many  ways  in  Jewish 
houses,  and  hence  easily  procured.  Placed  in  His  hand, 
the  mock  king  had  a  sceptre !  It  only  remained  to  pay  Him 
a  show  of  homage,  and  this  they  did  on  their  knees,  salut- 
ing Him  with  mock  oaths  of  allegiance,  "  Hail,  King  of 
the  Jews."  The  courtyard  rang  with  peals  of  laughter. 
Some  of  the  more  brutal  could  not,  however,  let  things  pass 
so  lightly.  He  was  a  Jew ;  He  had  claimed  to  be  a  king, 
in  opposition,  as  they  fancied,  to  the  Emperor,  and  He  was 
about  to  be  crucified.  They  indulged  their  coarseness,  there- 
fore, by  tearing  the  stout  cane-like  reed  from  His  hands,  and 
striking  Him  with  it  over  the  face  and  head.  Others  struck 
Him  rudely  with  their  fists :  some,  in  their  contempt,  even 
spitting  on  Him  as  they  did  so.  The  scourging  had  lasted 
till  the  soldiers  had  done  their  worst,  and  now,  their  un- 
speakable brutality  was  left  to  wear  itself  out. 

This  long  passage  of  insult  and  mockery  was  one  of  the 
sorest  trials  of  these  last  sad  hours.  Yet,  through  the  whole, 
no  complaint  escaped  His  lips.  He  was  being  insulted,  mal- 
treated, and  mocked,  as  a  Jew,  while  already  agonized  by  the 
scourging ;  but,  if  His  tormentors  had  known  it,  He  stood 
where  He  did,  because  the  Jews  hated  Him.  They  ridiculed 
His  claim  to  spiritual  monarchy  as  the  Messiah  ;  but  had  the 
soldiery  known  the  truth,  He  was  being  put  to  death  because 
He  had  opposed  the  Jewish  dream,  that  the  Messiah  would 
secure  the  universal  political  supremacy  of  their  nation. 

No  murmur  rose  from  Him.  He  might  have  spoken,  or 
sighed,  or  implored  the  pity  of  the  soldiery ;  He  might  have 
appealed  to  their  honour  and  compassion.  A  heart  beats 
even  in  the  roughest  bosom.  But  He  was  silent — not  be- 
cause the  waves  of  His  sorrows  had  overwhelmed  Him,  but 
in  triumphant  superiority  to  them.  He  had  been  bowed 
and  crushed  in  Grethsemane,  but  now  He  showed  the  serene 
joy  of  a  conqueror.  His  silence  was  a  mark  of  His  perfect 
child-like  resignation  to  the  will  of  His  Father.  He  was 
fulfilling,  by  His  calm  endurance,  the  work  of  His  life,  in 
accordance  with  the  eternal  counsels  of  God,  and  in  holy 
love  for  His  nation  and  the  world.  His  kingly  spirit  was 
clouded,  to  human  eyes,  by  pain  and  agony,  but  the  end  of 
His  life  and  death  shone  out  the  more  triumphantly  before 

1  Trittram,  p.  429. 


518  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

Him.  He  was  dying  to  destroy  for  ever  the  dead  and  deatb- 
causing  ritualism  of  the  past ;  as  the  Founder  of  a  religion  of 
love  and  freedom  and  light,  and  as  the  atoning  sacrifice  for 
the  sins  of  the  world,  which  would  open  the  gates  of  mercy 
to  man  for  evermore  ! 

Pilate  had,  apparently,  retired  into  the  palace  for  a  time, 
Imt  now  re-appeared ;  urged,  perhaps,  by  his  wife  Procla,  to 
make  one  more  effort  to  save  Jesus.  He  might  have  pre- 
vented the  pitiful  roughness  of  the  soldiers  had  he  pleased, 
and  the  scourging  itself  was  an  injustice,  by  his  own  con- 
fession. He  now  ordered  Him  to  be  brought  out  once  more, 
tottering  with  pain  and  weakness,  wearing  the  scarlet  cloak 
and  the  crown  of  thorns,  and  covered,  besides,  with  the  vile 
proofs  of  contempt  and  violence.  Even  the  stony  heart  of 
Pilate  was  touched. 

"  Behold,"  said  he,  "  I  have  brought  Him  out  to  you 
again,  that  you  may  know,  once  more,  that  I  have  found 
no  fault  in  Him."  1  Then,  turning  to  the  figure  at  his  side, 
drawn  together  with  mortal  agony,  and  looking  at  the  pale, 
worn,  and  bleeding  face,  through  which  there  yet  shone  a 
calm  dignity  and  more  than  human  beauty  that  had  touched 
his  heart,  and  might  touch  even  the  heart  of  Jews,  he  added, 
"  Behold  the  Man  !  "  Would  they  let  the  scourging  and 
mockery  suffice,  after  all  ? 

But  religious  hatred  is  the  fiercest  of  all  passions.  Jesus 
had  been  sleepless  through  the  night ;  worn  with  anticipa- 
tions of  the  terrible  future,  and  with  the  sadness  of  an 
infinite  sorrow ;  disfigured  by  the  lawless  treatment  of  the 
palace-yard,  and  bowed  by  the  torture  of  the  scourging  ;  and 
now  stood,  utterly  exhausted,  before  all  eyes — yet  a  Form 
demanding  reverence. 

But  the  priests  were  unmoved.  What  revenge  would 
satisfy  their  hatred  so  long  as  still  more  could  be  had  ?  The 
sight  of  their  victim  redoubled  their  ferocity.  Forgetful  of 
their  profession  and  dignity,  the  chief  priests — the  primal  e 
and  prelates  of  the  day — their  servants  and  the  servile  crowd 
echoing  their  cry,  answered  the  procurator's  appeal  only  by 
loud  shouts  of  "  Crucify  !  Crucify  ! " 

"  Take  ye  Him,  then,  and  crucify  Him,  if  it  must  be  so,' 
answered  Pilate.  "  I  have  found  Him  blameless  of  any 
offence  against  Roman  law  for  which  I  could  condemn  Hin*," 
As  if  he  wished  to  say,  "  I  will  not  be  your  mere  tool  1  " 

1  John  xix.  4-16. 


"THE  SON  OF  GOD."  519 

The  first  accusation  had  therefore  failed,  and  was  dropped. 
But  the  priests  were  determined  to  have  His  life,  and  forth- 
with demanded  it  on  a  new  ground. 

"  He  shall  not  escape  with  life  ! "  cried  their  spokesman. 
"  If  He  has  committed  no  crime  worthy  of  death  by  Roman 
law,  we  have  a  Jewish  law  which  He  has  outraged,  and  by 
it  He  must  die.  He  has  claimed  to  be  the  Son  of  God — 
the  Messiah — which  He  is  not,  and  for  that,  by  our  law, 
which  thou  hast  sworn  to  uphold,  He  has  been  sentenced 
to  death — by  stoning,  in  any  case  ;  by  the  cross,  if  thou 
allowest  it.  Thou  art  bound  to  uphold  our  decision  and 
confirm  our  sentence." 

Thousands  were  eager  to  put  Jesus  to  death,  with  Pilate's 
permission  or  without,  now  that  the  high  priests  had  roused 
their  fanaticism.1  The  zealots  would  do  it  as  a  meritorious 
act.  But  such  an  outbreak  Pilate  dreaded.  He  would, 
therefore,  have  yielded  without  hesitation,  but  even  to  his 
frivolous  soul  there  was  an  ominous  sound  in  the  name 
"  Son  of  God."  Might  he  be  braving  the  wrath  of  the  gods, 
and  what,  compared  to  that,  was  the  utmost  these  wretched 
Jews  could  do  ? 

The  irresolute  man — with  no  force  of  character,  and  too 
unprincipled  to  be  an  upright  judge,  if  the  right  were  not 
first  of  all  politic — was  alarmed.  Perhaps,  if  he  brought 
Jesus  before  him,  privately,  once  more,  a  way  out  of  the 
dilemma  would  present  itself.  There  was  also  that  dream 
of  Procla  to  frighten  him. 

Retiring,  therefore,  into  the  palace,  he  ordered  Jesus  to  be 
set  before  him  again. 

"  What  was  that  they  said,"  asked  he,  "  about  Thy  being 
the  Son  of  God  ?  Whence  comest  Thou  ?  Art  Thou  of 
human  birth  or  more  ?  " 

The  dignity  of  spotless  innocence,  outraged  by  the  very 
representative  of  justice,  forbade  a  reply.  Anything  He 
might  have  said,  however  clear,  would  moreover  have  been 
unintelligible  to  the  heathen  governor,  with  his  utter  want 
of  moral  earnestness,  and  would  have  been  fruitless.  Jesus 
therefore  remained  silent.  Pilate  had  abundant  means  of 
judging  from  the  past,  and,  besides,  it  was  no  question  of 
birth  or  origin,  but  a  simple  matter  of  uprightness  he  was 
called  on  to  decide.  If  his  prisoner  were  innocent,  he  had 
a  right  to  be  set  free,  whoever  He  might  be. 

1  Acts  xxiii.  12. 

71 


520  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

Pilate's  pride  was  touched  by  the  silence.  His  momentary 
tenderness  turned  into  lowering  passion;  for  power,  when  it 
feels  itself  in  the  wrong,  is  the  more  ready  to  drown  con- 
science by  violence  towards  the  weakness  it  wrongs.  "  Do 
you  refuse  to  answer  ME?"  he  asked,  in  flashing  anger. 
"  Do  you  not  know  that  your  life  is  in  my  hands,  and  hangs 
on  my  nod  ?  That  I  can  crucify,  or  release  Thee,  at  my 
pleasure  ?  " 

Had  he  been  self-possessed  at  the  moment,  and  able  to 
ponder  things  aright,  he  would  have  seen  an  answer  to  his 
question,  even  in  Christ's  silence.  For  it  is  certain  that  He 
in  whose  lips  no  deceit  was  ever  found,  would,  on  the  instant, 
have  honourably  confessed  that  He  was  only  a  man,  had  He 
been  no  more.  His  very  silence  was  a  testimony  to  His 
Divine  dignity.1 

But  He  was  now  silent  no  longer.  "  You  have  indeed," 
said  He,  "  power  over  me,  but  you  would  have  none  were  it 
not  given  you  from  God  above.  But  your  sin,  though  great, 
in  condemning  me  against  your  conscience,  and  exercising 
on  me  the  power  granted  you  by  God,  is  not  so  great  as 
that  of  others ;  for  you  are  only  an  instrument  in  His 
hands  to  carry  out  His  counsels.  The  chief  guilt  lies  on 
those  who  have  delivered  me  to  you,  to  force  you  to  carry 
out  their  will  against  me.  Theirs  is  the  greater  sin  !  "  Even 
in  His  lowliest  humiliation,  He  is  tender  and  pitiful  to  the 
man  who  has  done  Him  so  much  wrong,  and  bears  Himself 
towards  him,  Roman  governor  though  he  be,  as  if  their 
respective  positions  had  been  reversed..  He  has  nothing  to 
say  of  His  own  agonies  or  unjust  treatment,  but  only  warn- 
ing earnestness  at  the  thought  of  the  sin  that  was  being 
wrought  by  men  against  their  own  souls. 

The  words  and  the  whole  conduct  of  Jesus,  struck  into 
the  heart  of  the  Roman.  Presence  of  mind  and  self-re- 
spectful dignity,  even  in  the  most  helpless  victim  of  injustice, 
have  an  irresistible  power  over  the  oppressor.  How  much 
more  such  a  unique  grandeur  as  diffused  itself  round  this 
mysterious  Man  !  Pilate  was  more  than  ever  resolved  to 
release  Him.  Returning  once  again  to  the  tribunal,  Jesus 
at  his  side,  he  strove  to  bring  the  priests  and  the  crowd 
to  content  themselves  with  what  their  victim  had  already 
Buffered. 

But  the  priests  and  Rabbis  had  hit  upon  a  new  terror 

1  Liicke,  vol.  ii.  p.  484. 


NO   KING  BUT   (LESAR.  521 

for  the  unrighteous  judge.  Hardly  waiting  to  hear  his  first 
words,  they  raised  a  cry,  which  they  and  the  mob  kept  shout- 
ing till  Pilate  was  "thoroughly  alarmed  and  unnerved.  "If 
you  let  this  man  go,  you  are  not  true  to  Caesar.  Any  one 
that  makes  himself  a  king,  as  He  has  done,  declares  himself 
against  Cassar." 

Pilate  knew  the  jealous,  suspicious  character  of  Tiberius,1 
and  feared  his  displeasure  the  more,  because  his  conscience 
told  him  how  he  had  abused  his  office  by  every  form  of 
tyranny,  so  that  an  appeal  to  Rome  might  well  be  fatal  to 
him.  Should  he  expose  himself  to  the  displeasure  of  the 
Emperor  ?  He  was  ready  for  any  act  of  weak  unrighteous- 
ness, rather  than  brave  a  censure  from  Caprese,  far  less  the 
risk  of  imperial  vengeance.  He,  perhaps,  tried  to  believe 
that  he  could  not,  in  any  case,  save  Christ's  life,2  and  nattered 
himself  that  he  had  acted  with  exceptional  uprightness.  He 
must,  after  all,  look  to  himself  first.  Would  he  bring  down 
on  himself  a  recall,  perhaps  banishment,  or  even  worse,  to 
save  a  Jew,  because  justice  demanded  his  doing  so  ?  "  Who, 
in  my  position,"  doubtless  thought  the  mere  politician, 
"  would  dream  of  committing  such  a  folly  ?  Shall  I  sacrifice 
myself  for  any  one  ?  No  !  " 

Furious  at  the  priesthood  and  the  rabble,  who  kept  shout- 
ing the  hateful  insinuation  that  clemency  would  be  treason 
to  Caesar,  Pilate  once  more  took  his  official  seat.  It  was 
now  about  nine  o'clock,8  and  he  had  at  last  given  way, 
though  with  bitter  mortification.  He  would  not  however, 
surrender  without  another  effort  to  carry  his  point,  for  he 
was  alarmed  alike  at  Jesus  and  about  the  Emperor. 

Turning  to  Jesus,  still  wearing  the  crown  of  thorns  and 
the  scarlet  cloak,  in  a  burst  of  unconcealed  contempt  against 
the  Jews,  as  impolitic  as  it  was  useless,  he  cried,  "  Behold 
your  King  !  "  The  only  answer  was  a  hurricane  of  cries, 
"  Away  with  Him,  away  with  Him,  crucify  Him  !  "  "  What ! " 
cried  Pilate,  with  keen  withering  mockery,  "  shall  I  crucify 
your  king  ?  "  As  if  to  say  that  one  so  humiliated  and  out- 
cast was  all  the  king  they  deserved. 

Caiaphas  and  Hannas,  and  the  group  round  them,  were 
however  more  than  a  match  for  him.  They  had  an  answer 
ready  which  would  force  his  hand,  if  he  had  any  thought  of 
still  holding  out.  "  We  have  no  king  but  Ca?sar,"  rose  all 
round  him  ;  "  we  want  no  other  king  !  "  "  The  hypocrites," 

1  Suet.  Tib.,  58.     Tacit.  Ann.,  iii.  38.  a  John  xix.  7. 


522  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

doubtless,  thought  Pilate,  "  with,  the  souls  of  slaves.  Tiberius, 
himself,  has  not  yet  ventured  to  take  the  name  of  king,  or 
Lord;  and  these,  his  mortal  enemies,  priests  too,  pretending 
to  be  the  heads  of  religion,  pay  him  homage  as  king,  without 
being  asked,  only  to  compel  me,  by  their  pretended  loyalty,  to 
carry  out  their  revenge  against  one  so  much  better  than 
themselves." 

It  was  Friday,  and  Sabbath — on  which  nothing  could  be 
done — began  at  sunset.  If  the  execution  were  delayed,  new 
difficulties  might  rise  from  Jewish  scruples  about  the  dese- 
cration of  the  holy  day,  by  the  exposure  of  bodies  on  the 
cross  during  its  hours.  Who,  moreover,  could  tell  what 
might  happen  if  the  followers  of  Jesus  rose  against  His 
enemies,  during  this  respite,  to  release  their  Teacher.  Be- 
sides, Pilate  felt  he  could  not  now  save  Him,  and  wished 
the  whole  matter  over  as  soon  and  as  quietly  as  possible. 

He  therefore  at  last  gave  the  final  order  for  crucifixion. 


CHAPTER  LXIII. 
JUDAS— THE   CRUCIFIXION. 

AMONG-  the  spectators  of  the  trial  and  condemnation,  was 
one  who  was  far  enough  from  joining  in  the  cries  of  the 
high  priests,  and  their  satellites, — Judas  Iscariot.1  Whatever 
might  have  been  his  thoughts  while  sustained  by  excitement, 
he  had  no  sooner  seen  Jesus  led  away  from  the  garden  by 
the  Roman  soldiers  than  all  changed.  The  excitement  was 
over ;  the  whirlwind  of  evil,  on  which  his  spirit  had  for  the 
time  ridden,  was  spent,  and  in  its  place  had  come  the  awful 
calm  of  retrospect  and  reflection.  He  was  no  longer  needed  by 
his  employers,  and  found  himself,  though  lately  nattered  and 
rewarded,  now  cast  ignominiously  aside  as  the  traitor  he  was. 
The  great  moon,  the  silent  night,  his  loneliness  after  such 
agitation,  the  sudden  breaking  up  of  the  past,  the  vision  of 
the  three  years  now  so  tragically  ended ;  echoes  and  remem- 
brances of  the  love  and  Divine  goodness  of  the  Master  he  had 
betrayed ;  a  sudden  realization  of  the  infinite  future — with 
its  throne,  its  unerring  Judge,  the  assembled  universe,  the 
doom  of  the  guilty,  and  the  joy  of  the  faithful — acted  and 
reacted  on  his  heart  and  brain. 

It  may  be  he  had  stood,  pale  with  remorse  and  anxiety, 
through  all  the  incidents  of  the  trial,  hoping  against  hope 
that  his  Master  would  at  last  put  forth  His  supernatural 
power,  and  deliver  Himself,  as  he  had  expected.  It  is  quite 
possible  that  Judas  acted  as  he  had  done  to  precipitate  a 
crisis,  and  compel  Jesus  to  such  a  display  of  His  power  as 
would,  even  against  His  will,  force  on  Him  the  assumption 
of  the  worldly  Messianic  dignity,  from  which  the  unhappy 
fallen  man  had  dreamed  of  political  greatness  and  rich  official 
state. 

To  his  unspeakable  horror,  he  found  all  his  calculations 
miscarry.  Perhaps  after  waiting  amongst  the  crowd  before 

1  Matt,  xxvii.  3-10.    Acts  i.  18,  19. 


524  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

Pilate,  as  well  as  outside  the  palace  of  Caiaphas,  tie  had  heard 
the  shouts  of  the  priests  and  the  mob,  the  sound  of  the 
knout  falling  on  the  bleeding  back,  the  awful  demand  for  THE 
CROSS— that  image  of  lowest  degradation  and  extremest  agony 
— and  last  of  all,  the  fatal  utterance  of  Pilate,  "  I,  mih  s, 
expedi  crucem,"  "  Go,  soldier,  prepare  the  cross."  They 
had  fallen  in  a  Sodom-like  fire-rain  on  his  soul,  and  he  felt 
himself,  already,  the  accursed  of  time  and  eternity.  The  light 
of  life  passed  into  the  darkness  visible  of  despair.  Which 
way  he  looked  was  hell ;  himself  was  hell. 

Hurrying  to  the  Temple  with  his  wretched  gain,  for  which 
he  had  bartered  away  his  inheritance  of  one  of  the  twelve 
thrones  of  the  resurrection,  and  an  apostle's  glory  here,  in  the 
heavenly  kingdom  his  Master  had  founded,  he  sought  to 
thrust  it  back  again  on  the  priests  from  whom  he  had  got 
it,  as  the  wages  of  guilt — paid  beforehand,  to  quicken  his 
zeal.  But  though  willing  to  prop  up  their  Temple  system 
by  murder,  they  would  on  no  account  compromise  their  own 
ceremonial  purity  or  that  of  the  sacred  treasury,  by  taking 
back  the  coin,  which  they  themselves  had  polluted  by  paying 
as  the  price  of  crime.  They  could  see  the  stain  of'  the 
blood  on  the  shekels,  but  not  on  their  own  souls.  Judas  had 
served  their  purpose,  and  was  nothing  to  them  now.  He 
had  in  his  agony  pressed  into  the  very  court  of  the  priests, 
where  they  were  gathered — ground  sacred  to  consecrated 
feet.  "  Would  they  do  nothing  yet  to  save  his  Master  ?  He 
had  not  expected  they  would  go  to  such  awful  extremes. 
Jesus  was  innocent.  All  he  had  said  against  him  was  un- 
true. Would  they  not,  for  their  holy  office  sake,  for  the  sake 
of  the  holy  spot  on  which  they  then  were,  undo  the  awful 
offence  ?  " 

He  might  as  well  have  spoken  to  the  marble  pavement  on 
which  they  stood  with  bare  feet,  in  outward  reverence  of  the 
Holy  of  Holies  close  by.  The  stone  was  not  more  impassive 
than  their  hearts.  "  What  is  it  to  us,"  answered  they,  "  what 
you  have  done  ?  That  is  your  own  affair.  See  you  to  it." 
But  if  he  could  not  move  them,  he  could  at  least  so  far 
clear  himself  by  casting  back  among  them  the  money  with 
^  hich  they  had  hired  him.1  Throwing  it  on  the  pavement, 
therefore,  he  went  out,  perhaps  in  the  darkness  of  early 
morning — for  possibly  he  did  not  wait  for  the  last  acts  of 
the  trial,  but  had  been  overwhelmed  by  the  condemnation 

1  Matt,  xxvii.  3-10.     Acts  i.  18,  19. 


CRUCIFIXION.  525 

of  Jesus  by  the  Jewish  authorities — and  hanged  himself  in  a 
spot  of  ground,  till  then  known  as  the  clay-yard  of  a  potter 
of  the  town,  but  thenceforth  as  the  Field  of  Blood.  Nor 
was  even  this  the  end ;  for  the  cord  by  which  he  had  sus- 
pended him&elf  gave  way,  and  he  fell  beneath,  ruptured  and 
revolting. 

To  put  into  the  treasury  money  defiled  from  any  cause, 
was  unlawful.  To  what  could  the  authorities  apply  it? 
How,  better,  than  to  buy  the  worn-out  clay  pit,  already  un- 
clean by  the  suicide  of  Judas,  for  the  further  pollution  of  a 
graveyard.  There  was  need  of  a  spot  in  which  to  bury 
foreign  Jews  who  might  die  in  Jerusalem.  So  the  scene  of 
the  traitor's  death  became  doubly  a  "  field  of  blood."  a 

Meanwhile,  preparations  were  being  rapidly  made  for 
crucifixion.1 

Death  by  the  cross  was  the  most  terrible  and  the  most 
dreaded  and  shameful  punishment  of  antiquity — a  punish- 
ment, the  very  name  of  which,  Cicero  tells  us,  should  never 
come  near  the  thoughts,  the  eyes,  or  ears  of  a  Roman  citi- 
zen, far  less  his  person.2  It  was  of  Eastern  origin,  and  had 
been  in  use  among  the  Persians  and  Carthaginians 3  long 
before  its  employment  in  Western  countries.  Alexander  the 
Great  adopted  it  in  Palestine,  from  the  Phenicians,  after 
the  defence  of  Tyre,  which  he  punished  by  crucifying  two 
thousand  citizens,  when  the  place  surrendered.4  Crassus 
signalized  its  introduction  into  Roman  use  by  lining  the 
road  from  Capua  to  Rome  with  crucified  slaves,  captured 
in  the  revolt  of  Spartacus,5  and  Augustus  finally  inaugurated 
its  general  use,  by  crucifying  six  thousand  slaves  at  once,  in 
Sicily,  in  his  suppression  of  the  war  raised  by  Sextus  Pom- 
peius.6 

It  was  not  a  Jewish  punishment,  for  the  cases  mentioned 
in  the  Old  Testament  of  "  hanging  up  "  criminals  or  offenders 
refer  only  to  their  dead  bodies,7  b  or  were  imitations  of 
the  heathen  custom,  by  some  of  the  kings.  For  Jews  to 
crucify  a  Jew  would,  indeed,  have  been  impossible,  as  the 
national  sentiment  .would  have  revolted  from  it.  The  cruelty 
of  heathenism  had  to  be  invoked  by  the  corrupt  and  sunken 
priesthood,  before  such  a  death  could  be  inflicted  on  any 
member  of  the  nation,  far  less  on  one  declared  by  the  pro- 

1  Matt,  xxvii.  31-38.  Mark  xv.  20-28.  Luke  xxiii.  26-38.  John  xix. 
16-22.  2  Pro  RaUro,  c.  5. 

»  Herod.,  iii.  126.     Pohjb..  i.  86.  4  Curtius,  viii. 

5  Pllu.  Ep.,  x.  38.         8  Oros.,  vi.  18.  1  Ewald,  Alt.,  pp.  220,  420, 


526  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

curator  himself  to  be  innocent.1  It  was  tlie  punishment 
inflicted  by  Borne — which  knew  no  compassion  or  reverence 
for  man  as  man — on  the  worst  criminals,  on  highway 
robbers,  rebels,  and  slaves,  or  on  provincials,  who  in  the  eye? 
of  Romans  were  only  slaves,  if  they  fell  into  crime. 

The  cross  nsed  at  Calvary  consisted  of  a  strong  post, 
which  was  carried  beforehand  to  the  place  of  execution,  and 
of  two  cross  pieces,  borne  to  the  spot  by  the  victim,  and 
afterwards  nailed  to  the  uprights  so  that  they  slanted  forward, 
and  let  the  sufferer  lean  on  his  stretched-out  hands,  and  thus 
relieve- the  pressure  of  his  body  downwards.2  A  stout  rough 
wooden  pin,  in  the  middle  of  the  upright  post,  supplied  a  seat 
of  fitting  agony,  for  the  weight  of  the  body  would  otherwise 
have  torn  it  from  the  cross. 

While  everything  was  being  prepared,  Jesus  was  again 
exposed  in  the  guard-room  to  the  insults  of  the  soldiery. 
At  last,  however,  all  was  ready,  and  the  scarlet  cloak  was 
now  removed,  His  own  linen  abba  being  replaced.  It  was  the 
custom,  as  I  have  said,  for  offenders  themselves  to  carry  the 
transverse  pieces  of  their  cross,  and  these,  therefore,  were 
laid  on  the  shoulders  of  Christ,  faint  as  He  was  with  mental 
and  bodily  distress.  A  detachment  of  the  cohort  which  had 
been  kept  in  the  court  of  the  palace,  in  case  of  disturbance, 
was  marched  out  under  a  centurion  to  guard  the  procession 
to  the  place  of  death,  the  officer  being  responsible  for  the 
due  execution  of  the  sentence.  Jesus  was  not,  however,  to 
die  alone.  Two  more  prisoners  were  led  off  to  suffer  with 
Him ;  men  convicted  not  of  mere  insurrection,  but  of  rob- 
bery— the  special  trouble  of  the  land  in  these  evil  times,  even 
till  Jerusalem  perished.  Pilate  could  hardly  have  intended 
to  degrade  Jesus  in  the  eyes  of  .the  Jews  by  associating  Him 
with  enemies  of  society ;  but  the  thoughtlessness  which  per- 
mitted his  forming  such  a  group  of  victims,  simply  to  empty 
his  prison,  and  get  through  the  annual  Easter  executions  at 
once,  shows  how  superficial  an  impression  had  been  made 
on  his  light  nature  by  all  that  had  passed.  His  seriousness 
had  been  written  in  water ;  heartlessness  and  utter  want  of 
moral  sincerity  were  his  prevailing  mood. 

And  now  the  sad  procession  began.  It  was  about  ten  in 
the  forenoon,  for  at  least  an  hour  had  been  spent  in  getting 

1  Ewald,  Gesch.,  vol.  v.  p.  573. 

3  Ewald,  Gesch.,  vol.  v.  p.  572.  Keim,  vol.  iii.  p.  397.  Paulus,  vol. 
iii.  p.  235.  De  Wette's  Archciologie,  p.  166.  Winer,  R.  W.  B.,  Art. 
Krcuzigung.  Scpp,  vol.  vi.  p.  298. 


ON   THE   WAY  TO   CALVAEY.  527 

ready.  The  soldiers  stepped  into  their  ranks,  and  the  pri- 
soners were  set,  under  guard,  in  their  places,  each  carrying, 
hung  from  his  neck,  a  whitened  board,  stating  in  large 
black  letters  the  offences  for  which  he  was  about  to  die ; 
unless,  indeed,  as  in  some  cases,  a  soldier  bore  it  before 
them.  Each,  also,  carried  the  cross  beams  of  his  cross,  fast- 
ened together  like  the  letter  V,  with  his  arms  bound  to  the 
projecting  ends. 

It  is  vain  to  attempt  to  follow  the  route,  for  the  whole 
surface  of  Jerusalem  has  changed  since  then.  Roman 
London  is  reached  only  at  a  depth  of  sixteen  or  seventeen 
feet,  though  the  history  of  our  island  is  comparatively 
peaceful ;  but  Jerusalem  has  stood  siege  after  siege  till  the 
streets  of  Christ's  day  are  buried  below  the  ruins  of  succes- 
sive cities.  All  we  know  is  that  the  place  of  execution  was 
outside  the  walls,  to  the  north-west,  at  the  side  of  a  leading 
road,1  to  let  the  spectacle  be  seen  by  the  crowds  passing  and 
repassing.0  From  the  palace  of  Herod,  the  sad  procession 
must  have  passed  out  under  the  shadow  of  the  great  castles 
of  Hippicus,  Phasael,  and  Mariamne,  through  the  Hebron 
or  Jaffa  Gate,  or  the  Gate  Gennath.  As  it  moved  slowly 
on,  an  official  proclaimed  aloud  the  names  of  the  prisoners, 
and  the  offences  for  which  they  were  about  to  die.2  Four 
soldiers  walked  beside  each,  as  the  special  guard  and 
executioners,  the  rest  of  the  detachment  preceding  and  fol- 
lowing. 

As  it  moved  through  the  narrow  streets,  a  great  crowd 
accompanied  it.  The  Temple  had  special  claims  on  the 
citizens  in  the  Passover  week,  and  besides,  it  would  soon  be 
Sabbath,  and  they  were  busy  with  their  worldly  affairs,  and 
lothe  to  afford  the  time  ;  yet  many,  both  friends  and  enemies, 
pressed  after  the  soldiers.  The  women  especially,  less  easily 
diverted  from  sorrow  and  pity,  either  by  religious  rites  or 
every-day  duties,  thronged  to  see  One  of  whom  they  had 
heard  so  much,  led  out  to  die.  In  the  East,  men  and  women, 
even  man  and  wife,  never  appear  in  public  together,  and 
hence  all  were  free  to  show  their  feelings  independently.  The 
Galilaeans  in  the  city  had  been  taken  by  surprise,  and  had 
had  no  time  to  gather  at  the  trial  and  show  sympathy  with 
their  countryman,  whom  so  many  of  them  reckoned  as  a 

1  Num.  xv.  31.  1  Kings  xxi.  13.  Acts  vii.  58.  Matt,  xxvii.  39.  Mark 
XV.  29.  Cic.  Verr.,  v.  66.  Hor.  Heb.,  Lightfoot,  vol.  ii.  p.  364.  S<-pp, 
vol.  vi.  p.  303.  But  see  Palestine  Fund  Report,  April,  1883. 

3  Sepp,  vol.  vi.  p.  303. 


528  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

prophet.  Only  fanatical  Jerusalem,  to  which  the  cry  of  the 
priests  was  law,  and  to  whom  Jesus,  as  a  supposed  enemy 
of  the  Temple — the  idol  at  once  of  their  bigotry  and  their 
pocket — was  doubly  hateful,  had  learned  of  the  arrest  in  the 
early  morning,  and  had  gathered  to  yell  down  Pilate's  pro- 
posals of  release. 

Two  incidents  only  are  recorded  of  the  march  to  the  place 
of  execution.  The  beams  laid  on  Jesus  soon  proved  too 
heavy,  in  the  hilly  streets,  for  His  exhausted  strength,  and 
His  slow  advance  with  them  so  delayed  the  procession  that 
the  guard  grew  impatient,  and  having  seized  a  passer-by 
coming  from  the  country,  compelled  him  to  bear  them.  The 
involuntary  cross-bearer  was  a  foreign  Jew,  called  Simon, 
from  Gyrene,  in  North  Africa — now  part  of  Tunis,  but  then 
in  the  province  of  Libya.  Ptolemseus  Lagi  1  had  carried  off 
a  hundred  thousand  Jews  from  Palestine,  and  settled  them 
in  those  regions  of  North  Africa,  and  in  three  hundred  years 
they  had  increased  so  greatly  in  numbers,  that  a  special 
synagogue  was  erected  in  Jerusalem 2  for  the  pilgrims  they 
yielded  to  the  great  feasts.  Simon's  appearance  marked  him 
as  a  foreigner,  for,  in  the  East,  all  nationalities  have  their 
distinctive  dress,  and,  as  a  stranger,  the  infamy  of  being 
made  to  carry  a  cross  would  be  less  likely  to  cause  a  stir. 
It  may  be  that  he  showed  sympathy  with  Jesus ;  but,  in  any 
case,  his  service  to  Him  appears  to  have  resulted  in  his  con- 
version, with  all  his  family ;  for  it  is  easy  to  believe  the 
tradition  that  the  "  Bufus  and  his  mother,"  of  whom  St. 
Paul,  a  quarter  of  a  century  later,  speaks  so  tenderly,  were 
his  wife  and  one  of  the  two  sons,  Alexander  and  Rufus,  men- 
tioned by  St.  Mark  3  as  known  to  his  readers. 

From  the  moment  of  His  declaring  Himself  the  Messiah, 
and  being  condemned  to  die  for  doing  so,  Jesus  had  had 
nothing  more  to  say  to  His  judges.4  No  cry  of  pain,  no 
murmur  of  impatience  escaped  Him.  He  had  realized  to 
the  full  all  that  the  victorious  completion  of  His  work, 
through  self- sacrifice,  demanded,  and  bore  indignities  and 
agonies  with  unbroken  submission.  He  was  dying  to  free 
mankind  from  the  bondage  of  the  letter ;  to  break  for  ever 
the  chains  of  Rabbinism  and  priestly  caste  from  the  human 
soul ;  to  inaugurate  the  reign  of  spiritual  religion ;  and, 

>  B.C.  323-285.  2  Acts  vi.  9.  3  Mark  xv.  21.     Rom.  xvi.  13. 

4  Luke  xxiii.  27-32.  Matt.  xxyii.  31-34.  Mark  xv.  20-23.  John  six, 
16,  17- 


DAUGHTERS   OF   JERUSALEM.  529 

above  all,  to  atone  for  man's  sin,  and  then  enter  into  Hia 
glory  with  the  Father.  In  the  words  of  the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews,  the  joy  set  before  Him  strengthened  Him  to  endure 
the  cross,  and  despise  the  shame.1 

But  His  lips,  shut  for  hours,  opened  once  more  on  the  "way 
to  His  death.  The  road  was  lined  with  spectators,  many  of 
whom  did  not  attempt  to  conceal  their  sympathy ;  and  a 
great  crowd  followed,  both  of  men  and  women — the  latter 
filling  the  air  with  loud  lamentations  and  wailings.  Touched 
with  their  grief,  so  strangely  sweet  after  such  a  long  bitter- 
ness of  mockery  and  clamorous  hatred,  the  Innocent  One 
stopped  on  His  way,  and  turning  to  them,  bade  them  lament, 
not  for  Him,  but  for  themselves. 

"Daughters  of  Jerusalem,"  said  He,  "weep  not  for  me, 
but  weep  for  yourselves."  His  death  was  the  fulfilment  of 
the  counsels  of  God,  and  His  apparent  overthrow  was  His 
real  and  eternal  victory.  They  might  have  wept  for  Him 
had  He  shrunk  from  completing  the  work  given  Him  to  do, 
and  failed  to  perfect  the  great  plan  of  human  salvation. 
"  Weep  for  yourselves  and  for  your  children.  The  fate  of 
Jerusalem,  which  I  love  so  well,  is  sealed,  and  will  be  sad 
indeed  compared  with  my  momentary  pains.  For  if  your 
enemies  do  these  things  to  me,  a  green  fruit-bearing  tree  that 
deserves  to  live  and  be  cherished — me,  pronounced  guiltless 
even  by  the  judge  himself — what  will  they  do  with  the  dry 
and  worthless  tree  of  the  nation,  guilty  before  God  and  man  ? 
Israel  is  a  dry,  leafless  trunk  that  will  bear  no  more  fruit, 
but  is  doomed  to  the  burning.  What  will  be  its  fate,  if  mine, 
who  am  green  and  fresh  in  innocence,  be  what  it  is !  Yet 
the  green,  cut  down,  will  sprout  again,  but  the  dry  will 
perish  for  evermore  !  In  that  day  the  curse  of  ages  of  sin 
and  hypocrisy  will  overwhelm  your  city  and  Temple,  with 
its  watchers  and  shepherds." 

He  had  always  loved  children,  and  had  often  pressed  them 
to  His  heart  and  carried  them  in  His  arms ;  but  the  vision 
of  the  awful  future  rising  before  Him  was  darkened  by 
this  very  tenderness.  To  bear  children  was  the  glory  of  every 
Jewish  wife  ;  but  now  He  told  them  that,  in  after  years,  they 
would  call  her  blessed  who  had  never  borne.  "  Your  nation 
has  not  known  the  day  of  its  visitation  ;  it  has  pushed  back  my 
hand  when  I  offered  it  life  here  and  hereafter,  it  has  killed 
its  prophets  and  stoned  them  that  were  sent  to  it  from  God, 

1  Heb.  xii.  2. 


530  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEJ3T. 

and  at  last  the  things  of  its  peace  are  hid  from  its  eyes.  Instead 
of  life  let  it  wish  a  grave,  ere  its  despairing  cry  rises,  that  the 
mountains  should  fall  on  it,  and  the  hills  cover  it l  from  the 
avenging  wrath  of  God."  Words  of  tender  human  love, 
welling  up  from  the  depths  of  a  sacred  pity,  even  under  the 
shadow  of  the  cross  ! 

The  spot  on  which  the  crosses  were  to  be  erected  stood 
near  some  of  the  gardens  of  the  suburbs,  and  was  known  by 
the  Aramaic  name,  Golgotha,  of  which  Cranion,  "a  skull," 
given  as  the  name  by  St,  Luke,  writing  for  Gentiles,  is  the 
Greek  translation,  and  Calvaria,  Calvary,  the  Latin.  From 
a  fancied  allusion  to  the  shape  of  a  skull,  tradition  has  handed 
it  down  as  a  hill ;  but  all  the  four  Gospels  call  it  simply  a 
place,  as  if  it  had  its  name  only  from  its  bare  smoothness  and 
slight  convexity,  as  we  speak  of  the  brow  of  a  hill  from  its 
rounded  slope.  It  may  have  been  the  usual  place  of  exe- 
cution, but  there  is  nothing  in  the  name  to  lead  to  the  belief ; 
for,  in  that  case,  it  would  have  been  spoken  of  as  a  place  of 
skulls,  had  they  been  permitted  to  lie  unburied,  in  Judea, 
which  was  impossible. 

The  cross  pieces  were  nailed  in  their  places  on  the  upright 
posts,  sometimes  before,  sometimes  after,  the  posts  themselves 
had  been  set  up.  Jesus  and  His  fellow-sufferers,  in  either 
case,  were  now  stripped,  as  they  had  been  before  they 
were  scourged — a  linen  cloth  at  most  being  left  round  their 
loins. d  The  centre  cross  was  set  apart  for  our  Lord,  and 
He  was  either  laid  on  it  as  it  lay  on  the  ground,  or  lifted 
and  tied  to  it  as  it  stood  upright,  His  arms  stretched  along 
the  two  cross  boams,  and  His  body  resting  on  the  projecting 
pin  of  rough  wood,  misnamed  a  seat.  The  most  dreadful 
part  then  followed ;  for,  though  even  the  Egyptians  only  tied 
the  victims  to  the  cross,  the  Romans  and  Carthaginians  added 
to  the  torture,  by  driving  a  huge  nail  through  the  palm  of 
each  hand,  into  the  wood.  The  legs  were  next  bent  up  till 
the  soles  of  the  feet  lay  flat  on  the  upright  beam,  and  then 
they,  too,  were  fastened,  either,  separately,  by  two  great  iron 
nails,  or  over  each  other,  by  one. 

A  single  touch  of  humanity  was  permitted  during  these 
preparations — the  offer  of  a  draught  of  the  common  sour  wine 
drunk  by  the  soldiers,  mingled  with  some  stupefying  bitter 
drug,  usually  myrrh.  The  ladies  of  Jerusalem  made  it, 

1  Schenkel,  p.  304.  Matt,  xxvii.  35-38.  Mark  xv.  24-28.  Luke  xxiii 
88,  34,  38.  John  xix.  18-24. 


ON   THE   CEOSS.  531 

indeed,  their  special  task  to  provide  it  for  all  condemned 
persons.1  But  Jesus  would  take  nothing  to  cloud  His 
faculties,  even  though  it  might  mitigate  His  pain.  The 
cross  was  now  lifted  up  and  planted  in  the  ground,2  with  a 
rough  shock  of  undescribable  agony.  It  was  perhaps  then, 
that  the  first  words  uttered  on  it  rose  from  His  lips : 
"  Father,  forgive  them,  for  they  know  not  what  they  do," — 
words  breathing  love,  patience,  submission,  gentleness,  and 
goodwill,  not  only  towards  the  soldiers,  who  were  the  blind 
servants  of  power,  but  even  to  Pilate  and  Caiaphas,  Hannas 
and  Jerusalem ! 

Racked  by  the  extremest  pain,  and  covered  with  every 
indignity  which  men  were  wont  to  heap  on  the  greatest  crimi- 
nals ;  forsaken  and  denied  by  His  disciples  ;  no  sigh  escaped 
His  lips,  no  cry  of  agony,  no  bitter  or  faltering  word  ;  only 
a  prayer  for  the  forgiveness  of  His  enemies.  They  had  acted 
in  blindness,  under  the  impulse  of  religious  and  political 
fanaticism ;  for,  to  use  St.  Paul's  words,  had  they  known  it, 
they  would  not  have  crucified  the  Lord  of  Glory.  They 
thought,  without  doubt,  that  they  were  doing  a  service  well- 
pleasing  to  God  in  putting  Him  to  death.  It  stood  written 
in  the  books  of  Moses,3  "  Cursed  be  he  who  does  not  fulfil 
the  words  of  the  law  to  do  them,"  and  they  fancied  they 
were  obeying  this  command  in  crucifying  Him  for  slighting 
their  additions,  which  they  confounded  with  the  word  of 
God.  In  spite  of  all  their  school  learning  they  were  blind 
to  the  true  meaning  of  the  Scriptures,  though  this  ignorance 
was  not  guiltless,  for  He  had  sought  for  three  years  to  rouse 
them  to  a  better  knowledge.  But  their  guilt  was  in  some 
measure  lessened  by  the  influence  on  their  minds  of  education 
and  the  prescriptions  of  centuries,  which  had  shut  their  eyes 
to  the  light  He  brought  them.  His  prayer  that  His  heavenly 
Father  would  pardon  them  was  only  a  last  utterance  of  the 
love  of  which  He  had  been  the  embodiment  and  expression 
through  life,  and  the  fitting  illustration  of  His  words,  that 
He  came  to  call  the  sick,  not  those  who  had  no  need  of  a 
physician.4 

The  "  title  "  that  had  been  borne  before  Him,  or  hung  from 
His  neck,  was  now  nailed  on  the  projecting  top  of  the  cross, 
over  His  head.  That  all  classes  might  be  able  to  read  it,  Pilate 

1  Lightfoot,  Hor.  Heb.,  vol.  ii.  p.  366.  2  Assuming  that  our  Lord 
was  nailed  to  it  while  it  lay  on  the  ground.  3  Deut.  xxvii.  26.  De 
Wette's  and  Ernesti's  translation.  In  Zunz's  translation,  "  Does-  not  hold 
upright."  *  Schenkd,  p.  307.  Hanna's  Last  Daijs,  etc.,  p.  176. 


532  THE   LIFE    OF   CHRIST. 

had  it  written  in  the  three  languages  of  the  country — the 
Aramaic  of  the  people,  the  Latin  of  the  Romans,  and  the 
Greek  of  the  foreign  population.  It  proclaimed  Him  THE 
KIXG  OP  THE  JEWS,  but  seems  to  have  run  differently  in 
each  language,  to  judge  from  the  variations  in  the  Gospels.* 

No  tribute  could  have  been  more  fitting  or  more  prophetic 
than  an  inscription  which  revealed  unconsciously  the  relation 
of  the  Cross  to  all  the  nationalities  of  the  world.  The  cru- 
cifixion was  now  completed,  and  there  only  remained  the 
weary  interval  till  death  came  to  deliver  the  sufferers  from 
their  agonies.  Meanwhile  the  troops,  with  their  centurion, 
kept  the  ground  and  guarded  the  three  crosses,  for  they 
were  answerable  with  their  lives  for  the  due  carrying  out  of 
the  execution. 

The  four  soldiers — a  quaternion — specially  detailed  to 
carry  out  the  sentence  of  the  procurator,  were  now  free  to 
appropriate,  as  their  perquisites,  the  clothes  of  the  three 
victims.1  The  outer  garments  of  Jesus  they  divided  into 
four  shares — tearing  the  larger,  to  make  the  division  equal, 
for  they  were  not  worth  keeping  entire.  The  inner  robe, 
however,  like  the  robes  of  the  priests,2  was  of  one  piece, 
woven  from  the  top  without  any  seam  or  stitching,  and  would 
be  destroyed  by  rending.  The  dice  were  ready  in  their 
pockets,  and  one  of  their  brazen  helmets  would  serve  to  throw 
them ;  it  would  be  better  to  cast  lots  for  this,  and  let  him 
who  won  the  highest  number  keep  it  for  himself — and  so  it 
was  done.  No  wonder  that  both  Matthew  and  John,  looking 
back  on  the  scene,  were  struck  by  the  fact  that  it  had  been 
written  ages  before,  in  the  twenty-second  Psalm,  which  the 
Jews  of  that  day,  as  well  as  Christians,  rightly  believed  to 
refer  to  the  Messiah :  "  They  parted  my  garments  among 
them,  and  for  my  vesture  they  cast  lots."  3 

The  inscription  on  the  cross  had  been  Pilate's  revenge  for 
the  condemnation  of  Jesus,  wrung  from  him  by  the  priests. 
To  proclaim  Him,  the  villager  of  Nazareth,  as  the  King  of 
the  Jews,  marked  at  once  what,  in  his  opinion,  was  fitting  for 
them,  and  flung  in  their  faces  a  bitter  reproach  of  having 
betrayed  their  own  nation  and  countryman,  to  Rome.  The 
authorities  of  the  Temple  were  indignant,  and  yet  alarmed, 
and  applied  to  him  to  alter  it.  But  he  had  suffered  enough 

1  Acts  xii.  4. 

•  Atit.,  iii.  7.  4.     Liicke,  vol.  ii.  p.  489.      Merz,  Art.  Kieuzigung,  ia 
Herzog,  vol.  viii.  p.  70. 
8  PB.  xxii.  18. 


THE  DEATH  OF  THE  CROSS.          533 

at  their  hands,  and  smarting  under  his  defeat  and  humiliation, 
dismissed  them  with  the  laconic  answer,  "What  I  have 
written  I  have  written." 

Meanwhile  the  fierce  heat  of  a  Syrian  noon  beat  down  on 
the  cross.  The  suffering  in  crucifixion,  from  which  death 
at  last  resulted,  rose  partly  from  the  constrained  and  fixed 
position  of  the  body  and  of  the  outstretched  arms,  which 
caused  acute  pain  from  every  twitch  or  motion  of  the  back, 
lacerated  by  the  knout,  and  of  the  hands  and  feet,  pierced 
by  the  nails.  These  latter  were,  moreover,  driven  through 
parts  where  many  sensitive  nerves  and  sinews  come  together, 
and  some  of  these  were  mutilated,  others  violently  crushed 
down.  Inflammation  of  the  wounds  in  both  hands  and  feet 
speedily  set  in,  and.  erelong  rose  also  in  other  places,  where 
the  circulation  was  checked  by  the  tension  of  the  parts. 
Intolerable  thirst  and  ever-increasing  pain  resulted.  The 
blood,  which  could  no  longer  reach  the  extremities,  rose  to 
the  head,  swelled  the  veins  and  arteries  in  it  unnaturally, 
and  caused  the  most  agonizing  tortures  in  the  brain.  As, 
besides,  it  could  no  longer  move  freely  from  the  lungs,  the 
heart  grew  more  and  more  oppressed,  and  all  the  veins  were 
distended.  Had  the  wounds  bled  freely,  it  would  have  been 
a  great  relief  ;  but  there  was  very  little  bleeding.  The  weight 
of  the  body  itself,  resting  on  the  wooden  pin  of  the  upright 
beam ;  the  burning  heat  of  the  sun  scorching  the  veins,  and 
the  hot  wind  drying  up  the  moisture  of  the  body,  made  each 
moment  more  terrible  than  the  preceding.  The  numbness 
and  stiffness  of  the  more  distant  muscles  brought  on  painful 
convulsions,  and  this,  slowly  extending,  sometimes  through 
two  or  three  days,  at  last  reached  the  vital  parts,  and  re- 
leased the  sufferer  by  death.1 

Common  pity  would  have  left  the  victim  of  such  agony  to 
die  in  peace.  But  it  is  reserved  to  the  malignant  hatred  and 
passion  which  spring  from  perverted  religious  zeal  to  ignore 
compassion.  The  title  over  His  head  was  as  offensive  to 
the  people  as  to  the  priests  and  Rabbis,  for  it  was  a  virtual 
ridicule  of  their  impotent  aspirations  after  universal  mon- 
archy. Beneath  the  cross  rose  the  same  cruel  mockery 
as  the  procurator  had  thought  not  beneath  the  dignity  of 
Rome.  The  fierce  crowd  had  heard  repeatedly  that  day  of 
Jesus  having  said,  as  was  asserted,  that  He  could  destroy 

1  Richter,  in  Herzog,  vol.  xi.  p.  67.  Winer,  Art.  Kreuzigung.  Paulust 
vol.  ii.  p.  238. 


534  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

their  magnificent  Temple,  and  rebuild  it  in  three  days.  They 
had  heard  also  a  great  deal  about  His  miracles,  and  of  His 
calling  Himself  the  Son  of  God  ;  but  it  seemed  as  if  the  whole 
must  have  been  a  deception,  else  why  would  He  allow  Himself 
to  die  such  a  death  ?  There  were  taunts  and  bitter  gibes  from 
the  mob  and  the  soldiers,  and  triumphant  sneers  at  His 
having  met  the  fate  He  deserved ;  even  the  chief  priests,  and 
Rabbis  and  elders,  indeed,  among  their  own  knots  and  groups,1 
degraded  themselves  to  the  level  of  the  rabble  in  their  un- 
manly taunts.  "  Thou  that  destroyest  the  Temple,  and  buildest 
it  in  three  days,  show  that  Thou  couldst  have  done  so,  by 
saving  Thyself,  and  coming  down  from  the  cross,"  called  out 
a  looker-on,  with  a  contemptuous  laugh.  "  If  Thou  be  the 
Son  of  God,  as  Thou  sayest,"  cried  another,  "  come  down 
from  the  cross."  "  He  wrought  miracles  to  save  others," 
said  a  high  priest  to  his  fellow,  "  by  the  help  of  Beelzebub, 
but  He  cannot  save  Himself  now  His  master  has  forsaken 
Him."  The  crowd,  catching  their  spirit,  bandied  from  one  to 
another  the  scoff,  "  If  He  be  the  Christ,  the  King  of  Israel, 
the  Chosen  of  God,  let  Him  descend  from  the  cross,  that  we 
may  see  and  believe."  A  true  index  to  their  religious  ideas  ! 
If  they  saw  Him  with  their  bodily  eyes,  by  a  miracle,  come 
down  from  the  cross,  they  would  believe !  Their  religion 
rested  on  their  five  senses.2  The  invisible  spiritual  power,  in 
which  Jesus  taught,  did  His  work,  and  founded  His  king- 
dom, had  no  existence  for  them.  The  only  authority  for 
their  faith  was  what  they  could  grasp  with  their  hands  or 
see  with  their  eyes. 

Nor  was  the  only  railing,  and  trial  of  bitter  mocking,  from 
the  spectators.  Affecting  indifference  to  their  own  suffer- 
ings, and  perhaps  wishing  to  win  a  poor  favour  with  the 
crowd,  in  their  last  hours — perhaps  angry  that  Jesus  had  left 
both  them  and  Himself  to  die,  when  He  might  have  saved 
them — the  two  unhappy  men  crucified  with  Him,  cast  the 
same  reproaches  in  His  teeth.  But  a  strange  contrast  was 
soon  to  display  itself.  One  of  the  two,  erelong,  awed  and 
won  by  His  bearing  under  such  treatment — perhaps  think- 
ing of  the  daughters  of  Jerusalem  he  had  seen  weeping  by 
the  way,  or  of  the  words  of  Jesus  in  which  He  spoke  of  the 
distant  future  as  open  before  Him;  perhaps  struck  by  the 

1  Matt,  xxvii.  39-44.     Mark  xv.  29-32.     Luke  xxiii.  35-37,  39-43. 
John  xix.  25-30. 
8  Sclienkel,  p.  308. 


THE   DYING   THIEF.  535 

title  over  the  Saviour's  head,  or  by  the  very  taunts  which 
spoke  of  His  having  trusted  in  God,  and  having  claimed  to 
be  the  Christ,  the  Chosen,  the  Son  of  the  Highest ;  perhaps 
recollecting  some  words  of  His,  heard  in  happier  days — re- 
pented of  his  bitterness,  and  turned  to  his  companion,  to 
persuade  him  also  to  kinder  thoughts.  "  Have  you  no  fear 
of  Grod,"  said  he,  "  when  you  think  that  you  are  dying  the 
name  death  as  He  whom  you  are  still  reproaching  ?  It  is  no 
time  to  mock,  when  you  are  so  near  death.  Besides,  we  are 
dying  justly,  for  we  are  receiving  the  fitting  punishment  of 
our  deeds  ;  but  this  man,  as  the  very  procurator  has  said,  has 
done  nothing  amiss." 

Then  followed  words  which  showed  that  his  repentance 
and  faith*  were  alike  sincere  and  intelligent.  He  had  been 
silently  watching  the  meek  and  patient  endurance  by  his 
mysterious  Fellow- Sufferer,  of  all  that  His  enemies  could 
do,  and  had  come  to  the  belief  that  He  was,  in  reality,  the 
Messiah  He  declared  Himself  to  be.  With  death  near,  the 
folly  of  the  earthly  dreams  of  his  countrymen — for  he  must 
have  been  a  Jew — flashed  on  his  mind.  As  the  Messiah,  He 
who  now  hung  in  agony  must  have  a  Kingdom  of  which 
death  could  not  deprive  Him,  and  it  must  be  in  the  world 
beyond,  since  He  had  only  a  cross  here.  He  would  doubtless 
enter  on  it,  as  even  the  Rabbis  taught,  at  the  resurrection  of 
the  dead,  and  reign  over  it  for  all  future  ages. 

"  O  Lord,"  said  he,  therefore,  turning  as  far  as  ho  could 
towards  Jesus  as  he  spoke,  "  remember  me  when  Thou 
comest  into  Thy  kingdom." 

"  This  day,"  replied  Jesus,  "  thou  shalt  be  with  me  in 
Paradise." 

To  have  confessed  his  faith  when  Christ  hung  on  the 
cross,  and  was  deserted  even  by  His  Apostles,  won  for  him 
the  high  reward  of  being  the  first  trophy  of  the  victory  that 
cross  achieved.  His  ideas  might  be  vague  and  obscure 
enough ;  but  the  broken  heart  and  trustful  love  which 
uttered  them  made  them  dear  to  the  Saviour.  Angry 
blasphemies  alone  had  hitherto  greeted  Him,  but  now  came 
this  prayer,  dropping  like  balm  on  His  wounded  spirit! 
Calmly,  and  with  the  bounty  of  a  king — though  now  nailed 
to  the  cross — He  showed  His  answering  love  by  the  gift  of 
Divine  pardon  of  sin,  and  the  bestowment  of  a  crown  in 
Paradise  ! f 

The  Eleven  had  never  gathered  again  after  the  arrest,  hav- 
ing boon  too  much  alarmed  even  to  venture  singly  into  the 


636  THE   LIFE    OP   CHEIST. 

crowd  which  stood  outside  the  cordon  of  troops  round  the 
three  crosses.  John,  alone,  showed  courage  enough  to  follow 
his  Master  to  Calvary,  and  to  cheer  Him  by  the  proof  of 
fidelity  in  at  least  one  heart.  Christ  had,  indeed,  foreseen  that 
He  would  be  deserted  thus  in  His  hour  of  need ;  but  He  was 
too  near  His  triumph  to  notice  their  absence  as  otherwise 
He  might.  The  veil  between  Him  and  His  eternal  glory 
was,  each  moment,  fading  into  the  upper  light,  and  had  He 
not,  even  now,  won  the  first  triumph  of  His  redeeming  love, 
to  bear  with  Him  to  heaven  ? 

The  last  sight  we  have  of  John,  before  the  crucifixion,  is 
in  the  courtyard  of  the  high  priest,  where  his  silence  and 
prudent  keeping  in  the  background,  saved  him  from  the 
danger  before  which  Peter  had  fallen.  He  had  seen  Jesus 
led  away  to  Pilate,  and,  apparently,  followed  Him  to  the 
palace,  waiting  in  the  angry  crowd  till  the  weak  time-serving 
procurator  had  given  Him  up  to  the  cross.  He  may  have 
left  as  soon  as  the  end  was  known,  to  hasten  into  the  city 
with  the  sad  news,  to  those  anxious  to  hear;  above  all,  to 
tell  her  whose  soul  the  sword  was  now  about  to  pierce  most 
keenly.  Mary,  perhaps,  heard  her  Son's  fate  from  his  lips. 
She  had  come  to  Jerusalem  to  be  near  Him,  but  we  do  not 
know  when ;  for  she  was  not  one  of  the  group  of  pious 
Galilaean  women  who  habitually  followed  Him,  though  she 
was  with  them  at  this  moment.  How  many  were  together 
is  not  told ;  but  Mary  at  least,  on  hearing  John's  words, 
determined,  in  her  love,  to  go  at  once  to  Calvary,  and  some 
round  her  resolved  to  go  with  her.  Her  own  sister,  who,  it 
may  be,  was  Salome,  the  mother  of  John ; 1  Mary,  the  wife  of 
Clopas ;  and  Mary  from  Magdala,  on  the  banks  of  Gen- 
nesareth,  would  attend  her,  and  John,  faithful  as  a  woman, 
would  not  stay  behind. 

The  first  sight  the  Virgin  had  of  her  Son  was  as  He  hung 
on  the  cross,  at  the  roadside,  mocked  by  the  crowd  and  the 
passers-by,  and  scowled  at  by  the  high  priests  and  digni- 
taries, who  had  come  out  to  glut  the  hatred  they  bore  Him 
by  the  sight  of  His  agony.  A  supernatural  darkness—- 
the sign  of  the  sorrow  and  wrath  of  heaven — had  fallen  on 
the  landscape  soon  after  the  nailing  to  the  cross,  though  it 
was  then  high  noon  ;  but  the  spectators  fancied  it  only  a 
Btrange  incident  in  the  weather.  The  sufferer  had  offered 

1  Wieseler,  Stud.  u.  Krit.  1840.  Liicke,  vol.  ii.  p.  491.  Ewald'a 
Gcsch.,  vol.  v.  pp.  579,  239. 


MARY  AND  JOHN.  537 

His  prayer  for  His  murderers,  and  had  spoken  words  of 
comfort  to  the  penitent  spirit  at  His  side ;  when,  as  His  eyes 
wandered  over  the  crowd,  He  saw,  through  the  gloom,  John, 
standing  by  His  mother's  side.  None  of  His  "  brothers  01 
sisters  "  were  there,  for  it  was  His  resurrection  apparently 
that  first  won  them  to  His  cause.1  Mary,  long  a  widow, 
was  now  to  be  doubly  bereaved.  John's  presence  there  pro- 
claimed his  heart.  The  sight  of  His  mother  in  tears ;  true 
even  in  death ;  in  spite  of  danger,  or  of  her  broken  heart, 
or  of  the  reproaches  rising  on  every  side  ; 2  the  remembraiuje 
of  Nazareth ;  the  thought  of  the  sorrows  that  so  often,  in 
these  last  years,  had  pierced  her  soul,  and  of  the  supreme 
grief  that  now  overwhelmed  her ;  the  recognition  of  the  true 
faith  in  Him,  shining  out  in  these  last  hours,  as  born  by 
miracle  to  be  a  Saviour,  the  holy  Son  of  God,  and  the 
thought  that  His  earthly  relations  to  her  were  closed  for 
ever,  filled  the  heart  of  Jesus  with  tender  emotions. 

Turning  His  face,  now  veiled  with  many  sorrows,  to 
her  and  John,  He  provided  for  the  one,  and  honoured  the 
fidelity  of  the  other.  A  few  words  gave  Mary  a  home  and 
another  son,  and  rewarded  the  friend  of  His  soul  by  the 
charge  to  take  the  place  towards  Mary  which  He  Himself 
was  leaving.  "  Woman,"  said  He,  in  tones  of  infinite  ten- 
derness, "  behold  in  him  at  thy  side  thy  Son  given  back  to 
thee."  Then,  looking  at  John,  he  added,  "  To  thee  I  trust 
my  mother ;  let  her  be  thy  mother  for  my  sake." 

Need  we  wonder  that  the  beloved  disciple,  writing  his 
Gospel  in  old  age,  felt  a  sweet  reward  in  recalling  an  inci- 
dent so  unspeakably  touching  ?  Mary,  henceforth,  had  a 
home,  for  John  took  her  to  his  own.  His  love  to  her  Divine 
Son  made  him  dearer  to  her  than  the  circle  of  Nazareth, 
however  related.  In  Mary,  he  saw  a  second  mother ;  in 
John,  the  widowed  one  saw  a  son.3  Nor  was  this  special 
honour  the  only  reward  to  John  from  the  cross.  His 
Master  had  shown,  by  His  thoughts  for  others  rather  than 
Himself,  in  this  time  of  His  greatest  need,  that  He  was  still 
what  He  had  always  been.  Looking  up  to  Him,  John  saw 
the  light  of  higher  than  earthly  victory  on  His  pale  features, 
and  felt  his  faith  confirmed  for  ever. 

It  was  now  three  o'clock,  and  Jesus  had  hung  on  the  cross 

1  Ewald,  vol.  v.  p.  579. 

8  Eosenmiiller's  Scholia  in  New  Test.,  vol.  ii.  p.  637. 

8  Paulus,  vol.  ii.  p.  244. 


538  THE   LIFE    OF   CHRIST. 

about  three  hours.  Darkness8  still  lay  like  a  pall  over  the 
landscape,  as  if  nature,  less  insensible  than  man,  refused  to 
look  on  such  a  spectacle,  or  would  prefigure  the  sadness  one 
day  to  be  spread  over  all  nations  for  the  sin  that  had  caused 
so  awful  a  sacrifice.  What  had  been  passing  in  His  spirit 
no  one  can  know.  As  a  man  He  had  a  nature,  in  all  things 
except  its  sinlessness,  like  that  of  the  race  at  large.  But  he 
was  also  the  Divine  Son  of  God,  for  a  time  in  the  form  of  a 
servant,  and  now,  of  His  own  free  love  to  man,  dying  as 
a  ransom,  for  sin.  We  accept  the  transcendent  mystery,  but 
we  cannot  hope  to  explain  it.  The  cross  was  but  the  cul- 
mination of  a  long  martyrdom.  His  soul  had  often  been 
sore  troubled;  His  sighs  had  been  marked  even  by  His 
disciples.  To  be  dying  for  the  sake  of  men,  and  yet  to  be 
treated  as  their  foe ;  to  be  misconceived  and  misrepresented  ; 
to  have  His  heart  full  of  infinite  love,  and  hear,  even  now, 
only  execrations,  brought  back  for  a  moment  the  mental 
agony  of  Gethsemane.  It  was  the  "power  of  darkness;" 
the  final  struggle  with  the  Prince  of  this  World.  To  the 
unendurable  torture  of  the  body  there  was  added  the  un- 
speakable spiritual  pain  of  apparently  utter  rejection  by 
man,  whom  He  loved  with  a  love  so  Divine !  His  Father 
was  with  Him  in  the  midst  of  the  darkness  as  much  as  in 
the  Transfiguration  at  Caesarea  Philippi,  but  the  gathering 
clouds  and  gloom  of  these  last  awful  hours  made  it  seem,  for 
an  instant,  as  if  His  face  were  hidden.  The  shadows  of 
death  passed  for  a  moment  in  blackness  and  horror  over  His 
spirit,  and  His  mental  anguish  relieved  itself  by  a  great  cry 
of  distress.  The  language  we  have  heard  from  our  mother's 
lips  and  have  spoken  in  childhood  may  be  laid  aside  in  after 
years  for  another,  to  meet  the  requirements  of  life ;  and 
Jesus,  doubtless,  in  these  last  years,  had  often  used  the 
Greek  of  city  communities,  instead  of  His  own  simple 
Galilsean.  But,  now,  the  sounds  of  infancy,  always  nearest 
the  heart,  and  sure  to  come  to  the  lips  in  our  deepest 
emotion,  returned  in  His  anguish,  and  in  words  which  He 
had  learned  at  His  mother's  knee,  His  heart  uttered  its  last 
wail — 

"  Eloi !  Eloi !  lama  sabachthani  ?"h 

"My  God  !  My  God  !  why  hast  Thou  forsaken  me  ?" 

The  first  words  sounded  like  the  name  of  the  great  pro. 

phet  Elijah,  the  expected  herald  of  the  Messiah,  and  were 

taken,  by  some  in  the  crowd,  for  a  cry  that  he  should  come 

to  save  Him.     Meanwhile,  one   near,  more  pitiful   than  the 


IT   IS   FINISHED.  539 

rest,  caring  little  for  the  words,  saw  the  agony  of  which 
they  were  the  expression,  and  ran  and  filled  a  sponge  with 
the  sour  wine-and-water  of  the  soldiers,  and  having  fixed  it 
on  the  short  stem  of  a  hyssop-plant  growing  near,  put  it  to 
His  lips :  for  the  cross  was  quite  low,  the  feet  of  Jesas 
reaching  nearly  to  the  ground. 

A  moment  more,  and  all  was  over.  The  cloud  had  passed 
as  suddenly  as  it  rose.  Par  and  wide,  over  the  vanquished 
throngs  of  His  enemies,  with  a  loud  voice,  as  if  uttering  His 
shout  of  eternal  victory  before  entering  into  His  glory,  He 
cried, 

"  IT  is  FINISHED  !  " 

Then,  more  gently,  came  the  words  : — 

"  Father,  into  Thy  hands  I  commend  my  spirit." 

A  moment  more,  and  there  rose  a  great  cry,  as  of  mortal 
agony ;  the  head  fell.  He  was  dead. 

The  work  of  salvation  was  now,  at  last,  completed,  pro- 
phecy fulfilled,  the  Ancient  Covenant  at  an  end,  the  New 
inaugurated.  Juda'ism  was  for  ever  obsolete,  and  the  Holy 
of  Holies  had  ceased  to  be  the  peculiar  presence  chamber  of 
Jehovah  among  men.  Nor  was  a  sign  wanting  that  it  was 
so;  for  the  great  veil  of  purple  and  gold — sixty  feet  long 
and  thirty  broad — before  the  inner  sanctuary  of  the  Temple, 
suddenly  rent  itself  in  two,  from  the  top  to  the  bottom,  at 
the  moment  of  Christ's  death ;  as  if  He  who  had  hitherto 
dwelt  there  had  gone  forth  to  lead  up  His  Eternal  Son  to 
His  own  right  hand.  And,  indeed,  not  only  the  yielding 
veil  of  the  Temple,  but  the  very  rocks  round  Calvary,  as 
St.  Matthew  tells  us,1  "  were  rent,  and  the  earth  quaked, 
the  graves  were  opened,  and  many  of  the  saints  sleeping  in 
them  rose  from  the  dead,  and  went  into  the  Holy  City,  and 
appeared  unto  many." 

One  incident  is  recorded  of  this  moment  by  three  of  the 
Evangelists.  The  centurion  in  charge  of  the  troops  had 
halted,  as  he  passed  the  cross,  when  Jesus  uttered  His  loud 
death -cry.  He  was  within  a  few  yards  of  Him,  and  must 
have  involuntarily  fixed  His  gaze  on  Him  at  such  a  sound. 
He  "Saw  the  change  pass  over  His  features ;  the  light  of  life 
leaving  them,  and  the  head  suddenly  sink.  As  it  did  so, 
the  earthquake  shook  the  ground  and  made  the  three  crosses 
tremble.  But  the  tremor  of  the  earth  affected  the  Roman 

1  Matt,  xxvii.  51-56.     Mark  xv.  38-41.    Luke  xxiii.  45,  47-49. 


540  THE   LIFE   OF   CHKIbT. 

less  than  the  piercing  cry  and  sudden  death.1  He  had  likely 
attended  many  crucifixions,  but  had  never  seen  or  heard  of 
a  man  dying  on  a  cross  within  three  hours.  He  had  never 
heard  a  crucified  man,  strong  to  the  last,  utter  a  shriek  that 
showed,  as  that  of  Jesus  did,  the  full  power  of  the  vital 
organs  to  the  end.  He  felt  that  there  was  something  myste- 
rious in  it,  and  joining  with  it  all  he  had  seen  and  heard  of 
the  Sufferer,  he  broke  involuntarily  into  the  words,  "  As- 
suredly this  man  was  righteous  ;  truly  this  was  God's  Son." 
The  one  expression  was,  perhaps,  equivalent  on  his  lips  to 
the  other,  but  both  showed  that  even  thoughtful  heathen 
were  profoundly  affected  by  the  spectacle  they  had  wit- 
nessed. 

Nor  was  the  effect  on  the  spectators  less  marked.  The 
darkness,  the  earthquake,  and  the  rending  rocks,  had  filled 
them  with  alarm.  They  had  been  noisy  and  ribald  enough, 
for  a  time ;  but  when  all  was  over,  amidst  such  strange 
portents  of  nature,  they  were  glad  to  hasten  home  in  silence, 
with  the  demonstrations  of  awe  peculiar  to  Eastern  popula- 
tions— smiting  their  breasts  as  they  went.  The  incidents  of 
Calvary  had  prepared  the  way  for  the  triumph  of  Pentecost, 
as  perhaps  the  rending  of  the  veil  had  been  the  first  step 
towards  the  change  of  feeling  in  the  great  company  of 
priests  2  who  soon  after  professed  themselves  Christians. 

The  Jewish  law,  as  I  have  said,  knew  nothing  of  cruci- 
fixion, but  it  had  been  not  uncommon  to  hang  up  the  body 
of  a  criminal  after  death.  It  was  not  permitted,  however, 
that  it  should  be  exposed  after  sunset ;  burial  the  same  day 
was  enacted,  "  that  the  land  should  not  be  defiled." 3  The 
Romans,  on  the  contrary,  left  the  bodies  on  the  cross  till 
they  were  wasted  away,  or  devoured  by  the  dogs,  the  jackals, 
or  the  ravens,  as  they  fell  limb  from  limb.  "  To  feed  the 
crows  on  the  cross "  was  a  familiar  expression.4  It  was 
necessary,  therefore,  if  the  Jewish  law  were  to  be  honoured, 
that  the  permission  of  Pilate  should  be  given  for  putting 
the  crucified  ones  to  death,  if  they  had  not  already  died,  and 
for  taking  down  and  burying  their  bodies,  almost  at  once. 
Next  day  was  the  great  Paschal  Sabbath,  and  only  an  hour 
or  two  remained  before  it  commenced.  Three  corpses  seen 
on  the  cross,  so  near  the  Temple  and  the  Holy  City,  on  a 

1  Matt,  xxvii.  54.    Mark  xv.  39.     Luke  xxiii.  47. 

1  Acts  vi.  7.  3  Deut.  xxi.  23.     John  xix.  31-42. 

*  Horat.  Ep.,  xvi.  48. 


A  BROKEN   HEART.  541 

day  so  sacred,  would  make  great  commotion,  as  polluting 
the  whole  place.  Besides,  the  feelings  of  the  people  might 
turn,  with  unknown  results. 

A  deputation  of  the  Temple  authorities,  therefore,  waited 
on  Pilate,  to  get  his  sanction  for  putting  to  death  any  of  the 
three  who  might  yet  be  alive.  The  common  way  to  do  so 
\?as  in  keeping  with  Roman  brutality.1  The  legs  of  the 
11  uf  ortunates  were  broken  by  blows  of  clubs,  that  the  shock 
might  kill  them  at  once,  and  this  Pilate  authorized  to  be 
done.  The  two  thieves  were  found  still  living,  and  the 
horrible  order  was  forthwith  executed  on  them ;  but  Jesus 
was  dead  already,  and  they  left  Him  untouched.  One  soldier, 
however — resolved  that  there  should  be  no  doubt — plunged 
his  spear  into  the  Saviour's  side,  making  a  gash  so  wide, 
that  Jesus  could  afterwards  ask  Thomas  to  put  his  hand  into 
it,  and  so  deep,  that  blood  and  water  poured  out  in  such  a 
quantity  as  attracted  the  notice  of  John,  who  was  still 
standing  close  by. 

That  any  one  should  die  so  soon  on  the  cross, — especially 
one,  like  Jesus,  in  the  prime  of  life,  and  unweakened  by 
previous  ill-health,  and  in  so  great  vigour  as  to  utter  such 
a  shriek  as  that  with  which  He  expired, — appeared  even 
to  Christian  antiquity  to  imply  some  supernatural  cause. 2 
But  the  mingled  flow  of  blood  and  water  seems  to  point 
unmistakably  to  another  explanation.  The  immediate  cause 
of  death  appears,  beyond  question,  to  have  been  the  rupture 
of  His  heart,  brought  about  by  mental  agony.  Excess  of 
joy  or  grief  is  known  to  induce  the  bursting  of  some  division 
of  the  heart,  and  the  consequent  flow  of  blood  into  the 
pericardium,  or  bag,  filled  with  colourless  serum,  like  water, 
in  which  the  heart  is  suspended.  In  ordinary  cases,  only 
examination  after  death  discovers  the  fact,  but  in  that  of 
our  Lord,  it  was  disclosed  by  the  thrust  of  the  soldier's 
spear.  In  a  death  from  heart-rupture  "  the  hand  is  sud- 
denly carried  to  the  front  of  the  chest,  and  a  piercing  shriek 
uttered."1  The  hands  of  Jesus  were  nailed  to  the  cross,  but 
t'.ie  appalling  shriek  is  recorded. 

Jesus  died,  literally,  of  a  broken  heart ! 

The  heat  of  the  climate  in  the  East  has  led  to  the  custom 
of  burial  following  almost  immediately  after  death,  but  there 
were  special  reasons  for  that  of  Jesus  being  hurried.  It  waa 

1  See  list  of  historical  cases  in  Sepp,  vol.  vii.  p.  441. 
8  See  quotations  in  Keim,  vol.  iii.  p.  436. 


542  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

the  eve  of  the  great  Passover  Sabbath,  and  no  corpse  could 
be  left  unburied  to  defile  the  ceremonial  purity  of  the  Holy 
City,  on  that  day.  It  was  necessary,  therefore,  that  our 
Lord  be  buried  without  a  moment's  delay,  for  sunset,  when 
the  Sabbath  began,  was  rapidly  approaching. 

Bodies  of  Jewish  criminals  seem  to  have  been  buried  with 
ignominy  in  the  Valley  of  Hinnom — known,  from  this  reason, 
as  the  Valley  of  Corpses l — amidst  the  unclean  dust-heaps 
of  the  city,  and  the  ashes  of  the  burned  offal  of  the  Temple 
sacrifices.  They  could  not  be  laid  in  the  graves  of  their 
fathers — the  common  burial-place  of  the  community — for 
the  guilty  could  not  be  buried  with  the  just ;  but  were 
huddled  out  of  sight,  the  beheaded  or  hanged,  in  one  spot, 
the  stoned  and  burned,  in  another.2  But  such  an  indignity 
was  not  to  befall  the  sacred  form  of  the  Saviour. 

Among  the  spectators  of  the  crucifixion  there  had  been  one, 
if  not  two,  whose  position  might  have  enabled  them  to  be  of 
service  to  Jesus  in  His  hour  of  need,  before  the  high  priestly 
court,  had  they  had  the  moral  courage  to  avow  their  convic- 
tions. Joseph,  a  member  of  the  ruling  class,  known  by  the 
name  of  his  birthplace,  Arimathea,  or  Bamathaim  Zophim,3 
where  Samuel  the  prophet  was  born,  among  the  "fruitful 
hills  "  of  Ephraim,  had  long  been  a  secret  disciple  ;  and  so, 
also,  had  Nicodemus,  another  member  of  the  theocratic 
oligarchy.  Afraid  of  the  overwhelming  opposition  they 
must  encounter  by  supporting  Christ,  they  timidly  kept 
in  the  background  during  His  trial,  though  neither  voted 
for  the  condemnation.  Joseph  indeed,  if  not  both,  even 
braved  public  opinion  and  the  wrath  of  their  fellow-coun- 
eellors,  by  following  Jesus  to  Calvary.  Now  that  He  was 
dead,  breaking  through  all  weak  reserve  and  caution  at  last, 
he  went  into  the  city,4  and  waited  on  the  procurator  in  his 
palace,  to  ask  as  a  favour,  that  the  body  of  Jesus  might  be 
put  at  his  disposal.  He  would  fain  honour  His  lifeless  form, 
if  only  to  show  regret  and  shame  for  unworthy  half-hearted- 
ness  while  He  still  lived.  The  meekness  and  majestic  silence 
under  all  reproaches  and  indignities,  the  veiled  sky,  the 
trembling  earth,  the  prayer  of  the  Sufferer  for  His  mur- 

1  Jer.  xxx.  40.     See  Naegelsbaoh,  d.  Proph.  Jeremiah,  p.  226. 

2  Sanhed.  c.  6.  5. 

'  1  Sam.  i,  1,  19.  Furrer,  BibelLex.,  Art.  Rama.  Fiirstand  Gesenius, 
Lex.  Matt,  xxvii  57-66.  Mark  xv.  42-47.  Luke  xxiii.  50-56.  John 
six.  38-42. 

*  dffT)\de.     Mark  xv.  43. 


THE   BUEIAIi.  543 

derers,  His  wail  of  mental  agony  as  if  forsaken,  and  then 
the  great  shriek  and  sudden  death,  had  awed  his  soul  and 
lifted  him  far  above  fear  of  man.  He  had  been  waiting  for 
the  Kingdom  of  God  before,  but  would  openly  identify  him- 
self with  its  Founder  now. 

Pilate  was  astonished,  alike,  that  a  Jew  in  Joseph's  position 
should  make  such  a  request,  and  that  Jesus  should  already 
be  dead.  It  was  not  allowed  to  remove  a  body  from  the 
cross  without  formal  permission  from  the  procurator.  The 
Eleven,  with  one  exception,  had  left  their  Master  alone 
amidst  His  enemies  in  His  last  awful  hours,  and  even  the 
women  who  had  watched  the  cross  did  not  venture  to  ask 
the  stony-hearted  governor  to  let  them  pay  the  last  tribute 
of  love  to  the  dead.  It  was  no  light  matter  Joseph  had 
undertaken ;  for  to  take  part  in  a  burial  at  any  time  would 
defile  him  for  seven  days,  and  make  everything  unclean  which 
he  touched ; 1  and  to  do  so  now  involved  his  seclusion  through 
the  whole  Passover  week,  with  all  its  holy  observances  and 
rejoicings.  But,  conscience-stricken  for  the  past,  he  had 
risen  superior  alike  to  prudent  inaction  or  ceremonial  preju- 
dice, and  would  render  his  Master  a  tribute  and  service 
especially  sacred  in  the  eyes  of  a  Jew.  It  was  one  of  the 
most  loved  remembrances  of  the  hero  Tobit,  in  the  old  times 
of  the  first  exile,2  that  he  had  buried  any  Jew  whom  he  found 
cast  out  dead,  round  Nineveh,  and  Josephus  could  add  no 
darker  horror,  a  generation  later,  to  the  picture  of  the  fall 
of  Jerusalem,  than  by  telling  that  the  Zealots  would  not 
•bury  those  slain  in  the  city,  or  who  fell  down  on  the  roads.3 
Joseph  would  not  suffer  Jesus  to  want  the  last  offices,  with 
all  the  indignity  the  neglect  would  imply. 

Sending  for  the  officer  who  had  charge  of  the  execution, 
and  finding  that  Jesus  was  really  dead,  Pilate  granted 
Joseph's  strange  request.  A  brave  deed  had  had  its  success. 
The  humour  of  the  procurator  could  not  be  counted  on,  and 
the  rage  of  Joseph's  own  party  was  certain.  In  later  days,  a 
servant,  Porphyrius,  who  ventured  to  ask  from  the  procurator 
Firmilian,  the  body  of  his  martyred  master,  the  presbyter 
Pamphilus,  for  burial,  was  himself  seized  and  put  to  death. 
The  apocryphal  Acts  of  Pilate  4  describe  Joseph  as  beseeching 
the  favour  with  -tears  and  entreaties,  and  they  thus  rightly 
mark  the  gravity  of  his  act ;  but  it  is  not  unlikely  that  a 

1  Num.  xix.  17.   Hagg.  ii.  13.    See  Winer,  Reimgkeit. 
8  Tobit  i.  17, 19.         8  Bell.  Jud.,  iv.  6.  3.  *  Acta  PH.,  c.  11  b. 


544  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

meaner  influence  came  to  his  help,  for  Philo  tells  us  that 
Pilate's  special  characteristic  was  his  openness  to  a  bribe.1 
Two  or  three  thousand  denarii  from  the  wealthy  supplicant 
would  weigh  more  than  his  entreaties,  in  securing  his 
wish.2 

A  written  order,  or  a  verbal  command  to  the  centurion, 
put  the  body  at  Joseph's  disposal. 

With  the  help  of  servants,  and  it  may  be  of  some  soldiers, 
the  cross  was  quickly  cut  down  or  lifted  from  its  socket  and 
laid  on  the  ground,  the  cords  round  the  limbs  untied,  and  the 
nails  drawn  from  the  hands  and  feet.  An  open  bier  sufficed 
to  carry  away  the  body  to  its  destined  resting-place. 

Among  the  Jews  the  hopes  of  the  future  were  closely  con- 
nected with  the  careful  preservation  of  the  body  after  death. 
Like  the  Egyptians,  they  attached  supreme  importance  to  the 
inviolability  of  the  tomb  either  by  time  or  violence,  and  no 
less  to  the  checking  of  natural  decay  by  embalming.  To 
perpetuate  their  existence  on  earth,  at  least  in  the  withered 
mockery  of  the  grave,  and  to  lie  in  the  Holy  Land  in  the 
midst  of  their  fathers,  has  at  all  times  been  the  most  sacred 
wish  of  the  Jews.  In  the  days  of  Jesus,  however,  an 
additional  motive  for  burial  in  Palestine  and  a  careful  pre- 
servation of  the  body,  was  found  in  the  belief  of  the  Resur- 
rection, which  was  to  take  place  first  in  Judea,  commencing 
in  the  valley  under  the  east  of  the  Temple.  Even  now  an 
Israelite  always  seeks  to  have  some  of  the  soil  of  the  Holy 
Land  laid  in  his  grave,  that  the  spot  where  he  rests  may  bo 
counted  part  of  the  sacred  ground ;  if  indeed  his  body  has 
not,  before  the  judgment,  made  its  way  through  the  land  and 
sea  to  the  home  of  his  fathers.  The  same  feeling  was  all- 
powerful  in  the  days  of  our  Lord;  for  in  the  great  sieges  of 
Jerusalem,  many  Jewish  fugitives  came  back  to  the  city,  in 
spite  of  the  horrors  they  had  already  striven  to  escape,  that 
they  might  count  on  at  least  the  last  of  all  blessings,  a 
burial  in  its  holy  bounds.3 

The  neighbourhood  of  Jerusalem,  like  all  other  parts  of 
Palestine,  has  hence,  since  the  earliest  times,  abounded  in 
tombs  hewn  out  in  the  limestone  rock.  Princes,  rich  men, 
every  one  who  could  by  any  means  secure  it,  desired  above 
all  things  to  prepare  for  themselves  and  their  families  an 

1  Phil.  Lef).,  1033. 

8  For  instances  of  bribery  of  Roman  governors  to  obtain  the  bodies  ot 
the  dead,  see  Sepp,  vol.  vi.  p.  450. 
1  Jos.,  Bell.  Jud.,  iv.  6.  3. 


THE   TOMB   IN   THE   GAEDEN.  545 

"  everlasting  house,"  k  and  such  a  tomb,  never  yet  used,  had 
been  hewn  out  in  the  hill-side  for  himself,  by  Joseph,  in  a 
garden  not  far  from  Calvary. 

To  this  the  body  of  Jesus  was  now  taken.  Nieodemus  had 
come,  with  some  of  his  servants,  and  he  and  they,  with  Joseph 
and  his  attendants,  and  Mary  of  Magdala,  and  Mary  the 
mother  of  James  the  Less  and  of  Joses,  the  wife  of  Clopas, 
and  perhaps  some  others  of  the  true-hearted  women  from 
Galilee,  were  the  only  followers  of  His  bier. 

Arrived  at  the  grave,  the  sacred  burden  was  laid  down  for 
a  time,  till  the  needed  preparations  were  made  for  placing  it 
in  the  tomb.  The  whole  body,  stained  as  it  was  with  blood, 
was  tenderly  washed,  and  then  wrapped  in  broad  bands  of 
white  linen,  within  which  were  thickly  strewn  powdered 
myrrh  and  aloes,  which  had  been  provided  by  Nicodemus  for 
the  imperfect  embalmment  practised  by  the  Jews.  The  ends 
of  the  bandages  were  apparently  secured  on  the  inner  side 
with  gum,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Egyptian  dead.  After  a 
last  kiss,  the  pledge  of  undying  love,  a  white  cloth  was  finally 
laid  over  the  face.  The  corpse  was  then  placed  in  a  niche 
in  the  rock,  and  since  there  was  no  stone  door  as  in  some 
tombs,  a  great  stone,  prepared  for  the  purpose,  was  rolled 
against  the  entrance,  to  protect  the  body  from  the  designs  of 
enemies  or  the  attacks  of  wild  beasts.  It  was  only  a  hurried 
burial,  for  the  last  rays  of  the  sun  were  shining  on  the 
garden  as  the  stone  was  set  up  against  the  entrance  to  the 
grave. 

Even  then,  however,  there  were  some  hearts  that  could  not 
leave  the  spot.  Though  He  no  longer  spoke  to  them  and 
they  no  longer  saw  Him,  some  of  the  Galilaean  faithful  ones, 
lingering  beside  His  resting-place,  sat  down  on  the  earth, 
before  the  door  of  the  tomb,  as  mourners.  In  the  evening 
stillness  and  gathering  twilight  they  seemed  even  yet  to  hear 
His  voice  and  see  His  form,  and  so  they  lingered  on,  as  near 
as  might  be  into  the  Sabbath  eve,  lamenting  Him  whom  they 
had  lost. 

Meanwhile,  the  fears  of  the  chief  priests  and  their  party 
had  already  awaked.  A  meeting  had  been  held  immediately 
after  the  crucifixion,  and  the  success  of  the  scheme  to  crush 
Jesus  had,  doubtless,  been  the  subject  of  hearty  mutual  con- 
gratulations. But  they  dreaded  that  all  was  not  over.  It 
was  remembered  by  one  or  more  that  "  the  deceiver  "  had 
spoken  darkly  of  rising  from  the  dead  on  the  third  day,  and 
His  disciples,  acting  on  this  hint,  might  steal  the  body,  and 

VOL.   II. 


546  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

spread  abroad  the  assertion  that  He  had  actually  risen,  mis- 
leading the  people  more  than  ever,  by  claiming  for  Him  Divine 
honours .  It  was  hence  necessary  that  the  grave  should  be 
watched  for  three  days.  A  deputation  was,  therefore,  ap- 
pointed to  wait  on  Pilate,  representing  their  apprehensions. 
Tired  of  them,  and  hating  them,  the  governor  was  in  no 
humour  to  argue.  "  Ye  have  a  guard,"  said  he  with  military 
bluntness.  "  Go,  make  it  as  sure  as  ye  can."  This  they  did. 
Passing  a  strong  cord  across  the  stone,  and  securing  its  ends 
by  clay,  they  sealed  it,  after  noting  that  the  soldiers  were 
duly  stationed  so  as  to  make  approach  without  their  know- 
ledge impossible. 

And  thus  the  Redeemer  was  left,  pale  but  victorious,  to 
sleep  through  the  Sabbath.. 


CHAPTER  LXTV. 
THE  RESURRECTION  AND  THE  FORTY  DAYS. 

rTlHE  religion  of  the  Letter  had  carried  out  to  the  bitter  end 
-*-  its  conflict  with  the  religion  of  the  Spirit.  Incapable 
of  reform,  identifying  its  dead  rites  with  the  essence  of 
truth,  it  had  crucified  the  Teacher  who  had  dared  to  say 
that  they  had  served  their  day  and  lost  their  worth.  Ritual- 
ism had  reached  its  natural  culmination  in  claiming  to  be  the 
whole  of  religion,  and  had  slain  The  Truth  and  The  Life, 
when  He  witnessed  against  it. 

The  benumbed  and  moribund  Past  had  striven  to  perpe- 
tuate itself,  by  attempting  to  destroy  the  Kingdom  of  the 
Future  in  its  cradle.  How  utterly  it  failed,  eighteen  cen- 
turies have  told  us. 

It  was  the  old  story ;  the  light  had  come  into  the  darkness, 
and  the  darkness  would  not  have  it ;  accustomed  to  the  one, 
it  was  only  dazzled  and  blinded  by  the  other.  Evil  had  had 
its  apparent  triumph.  As  far  as  the  will  and  hand  of  man 
could  effect  it,  He  who,  alike  as  He  was  man  and  also  as 
the  Messiah  of  Israel,  knew  no  spot  or  blemish  of  sin,  had 
been  crushed  as  an  evil-doer.1  The  one  holy  Being  of  our 
race,  having  revealed  Himself  as  the  true  Christ,  expected 
for  ages,  the  Hope  of  Israel,  the  highest  and  perfect  ex- 
pression of  the  spirit  and  aim  of  the  ancient  economy  and 
even  of  all  other  religions,  so  far  as  they  had  Divine  elements 
in  them — had  been  rejected  and  dishonoured  to  the  uttermost 
by  the  rulers  of  the  People  of  God,  and  by  the  great  bulk  of 
the  nation.  He  who  had  desired  to  secure  the  salvation  of 
Israel,  and  through  it,  of  humanity,  and  had  shown  how 
alone  that  salvation  could  be  attained,  had  been  branded  by 
the  highest  authorities,  both  of  Judaism  and  heathenism,  as  a 
deceiver  of  the  people.  The  blindness  of  the  one  and  the 
indifference  of  the  other  had  united  in  attempting  to  crush 
Him,  whose  only  weapons  in  the  assault  on  evil  had  been  the 

1  F.wr.U,  vol.  v.  p.  587. 


548  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

highest  wisdom,  the  divinest  love,  and  unconquerable  meek- 
ness. But  their  triumph  was  only  a  momentary  and  permit- 
ted eclipse  of  the  Light  of  the  World,  destined  presently  to 
reappear  in  unveiled  and  henceforth  unsetting  glory. 

"Nothing,"  says  even  so  keen  a  critic  as  Heinrich  Ewald,1 
"  stands  more  historically  certain  than  that  Jesus  rose  from  the 
dead  and  appeared  again  to  His  followers,  or  than  that  their 
seeing  Him  thus  again  was  the  beginning  of  a  higher  faith, 
and  of  all  their  Christian  work  in  the  world.  It  is  equally 
certain  that  they  thus  saw  Him,  not  as  a  common  man,  or  as 
a  shade  or  ghost  risen  from  the  grave ;  but  as  the  one  Only 
Son  of  God — already  more  than  man,  alike  nature  and 
power ;  and  that  all  who  thus  beheld  Him,  recognised  at 
once  and  instinctively  His  unique  Divine  dignity,  and  firmly 
believed  in  it  thenceforth.  The  Twelve  and  others  had, 
indeed,  learned  to  look  on  Him,  even  in  life,  as  the  True 
Messianic  King  and  the  Son  of  God;  but  from  the  moment  of 
His  reappearing,  they  recognised  more  clearly  and  fully  the 
Divine  side  of  His  nature,  and  saw  in  Him  the  conqueror  of 
death.  Yet  the  two  pictures  of  Him  thus  fixed  in  their 
minds  were  in  their  essence  identical.  That  former  familiar 
appearance  of  the  earthly  Christ,  and  this  higher  vision, 
with  its  depth  of  emotion  and  ecstatic  joy,  were  so  inter- 
related that,  even  in  the  first  days  or  weeks  after  His  death, 
they  could  never  have  seen  in  Him  the  Heavenly  Messiah, 
if  they  had  not  first  known  Him  so  well  as  the  earthly." 

Mary  of  Magdala,  and  the  wife  of  Clopas,  herself  another 
Mary — for  Mary,  from  the  Hebrew  Miriam,  was  a  favourite 
name  ever  since  the  days  of  the  sister  of  Moses — had  sat 
on  the  ground  at  the  door  of  the  garden-tomb  in  which  the 
Beloved  One  lay,  till  late  on  the  evening  of  Friday.  The 
trumpet  announcing  the  beginning  of  the  great  Passover 
Sabbath  had  only  startled  them  for  a  moment,  and  exhausted 
nature  had,  perhaps,  first  compelled  them  to  leave. 

The  next  day  rose  calm  and  bright  on  the  budding  and 
blossoming  landscape,  for  it  was  Nisan,  the  month  of  flower- 
ing, and  nature  was  in  the  secret  to  be  revealed  oil  the 
morrow,  and  might  well,  for  joy,  put  on  her  fairest.  The 
courts  of  the  Temple  were  filled  from  morning  till  evening 
with  zealous  worshippers ;  the  barefooted,  white-robed  and 
turbaned  priests  were  busy  offering  the  blood  of  bulls  and  of 

1  Gtschichte,  vol.  vi.  p.  75.  See  also  Dr.  Arnold's  Sermon  on  the  Resur- 
rection. 


THE   NIGHT   OF   CHRIST'S   BURIAL.  549 

goats1  for  the  sins  of  Israel,  unconscious  that  the  blood  of 
a  greater  sacrifice  had  been  shed,  of  which  those  offered 
by  them  were  only  the  rude,  and  well-nigh  revolting  symbol. 
Yet  it  must  have  been  with  strange  feelings  they  went 
through  the  services  of  the  day.  The  trumpets  and  voices 
of  the  Levites  were  loud  and  clear  as  ever ;  the  high  priest, 
fresh  from  Golgotha,  as  gorgeous  in  his  splendid  robes ; 
the  crowd  of  priests  as  engrossed  with  official  toil;  the 
throngs  filling  the  courts  below,  not  less  numerous  or  devout. 
But  an  omen,  portentous  beyond  all  their  history  recorded, 
had  been  seen  by  Levite  and  priest  alike — for  was  not  the 
Holy  of  Holies,  hitherto  veiled  in  awful  darkness,  and  entered 
only  once  in  the  year,  for  a  few  moments,  by  the  high  priest, 
laid  visibly  open  before  every  one  in  the  court  of  the 
priests,  or  even  in  the  vast  Temple  area  ?  For  the  Holy  of 
Holies  stood  high  above  the  rest  of  the  sanctuary.  The 
huge,  heavy  veil  of  Babylonian  tapestry  of  fine  flax,  gorgeous 
in  its  hyacinth  and  scarlet  and  purple,2  had  been  myste- 
riously rent  from  top  to  bottom,  at  the  moment  when  the 
"  enemy  of  the  Temple"  expired  on  Calvary,  and  the  awful 
presence-chamber  of  Jehovah  had  been  exposed  to  every  eye, 
like  ground  no  longer  sacred. 

The  disciples  of  Jesus,  and  even  the  Eleven,  had  been  over- 
whelmed by  the  events  of  the  day.  Having  no  clear  idea  of 
their  Master's  meaning,  and  thinking  little  on  words  painful 
at  best,  His  repeated  warnings,  that  He  must  be  put  to  death, 
but  would  rise  again  from  the  dead  on  the  third  day,  had 
made  no  lasting  impression  on  their  minds.  The  catastrophe 
had  been  so  sudden  and  complete,  that,  for  the  time,  they 
were  confounded  and  paralyzed. 

It  is  the  glory  of  woman  that  she  refuses  to  forsake 
those  she  loves,  even  when  things  are  darkest.  The  two 
Marys  had  left  the  grave  only  when  the  deep  night  compelled 
them,  but  even  then  they  still  had  its  dear  One  in  their 
hearts.  The  Sabbath,  which  had  begun  just  as  the  stone  was 
rolled  to  the  entrance,  kept  them  from  doing  anything  for 
Him  for  twenty-four  hours,  but  it  was  no  sooner  over,  on 
Saturday  at  sunset,3  than  with  Salome,  and  Joanna,  and  some 
other  women,  they  arranged  to  take  additional  spices  at  the 
earliest  dawn  to  complete  the  embalming  of  the  body,  begun 
by  Nicodemus,  but  left  unfinished  through  the  approach  of 

»  Heb.  x.  4.  *  Bell.  Jud.,  v.  5.  4. 

•  Greswell's  Harm.  Eva'ig.   p.  393. 


550  THE   LITE   OF   CHEIST. 

the  Sabbath.  Mary,  mother  of  Jesus,  was  too  sorely  stricken 
in  heart  to  join  them. 

Meanwhile,  the  Roman  sentries  were  pacing  to  and  fro  on 
their  beat,  before  the  sepulchre ;  their  fire  lighted,  for  the 
spring  night  was  chilly,  and  besides,  the  light  revealed  any 
one  approaching.  The  true-hearted  women  had  resolved  to 
reach  the  grave  by  sunrise,  which  would  take  place  about  a 
quarter  before  six  in  the  morning,1  and  slept  outside  the 
city  gates,  which  did  not  open  till  daybreak  at  the  earliest. 
The  grey  dawn  had  hardly  shown  itself,  before  they  were 
afoot  on  their  errand,  to  perform  the  last  offices  of  love.  As 
they  went,  however,  a  difficulty  rose  of  which  they  had  not 
thought  before.  Who  would  roll  back  the  stone  for  them, 
from  the  door  of  the  sepulchre  ?  They  had  heard  nothing, 
apparently,  of  its  having  been  sealed  or  of  the  guard  being 
mounted  in  the  garden,  else  they  might  have  been  altogether 
discouraged.  But  we  may  be  sure  they  had  told  some  of  the 
Eleven  where  the  grave  lay,  and  might  hope  that  one,  at 
least,  would  be  there  to  help  them. 

A  greater  than  an  Apostle  had  already,  however,  been  at 
the  tomb.  For  St.  Matthew  tells  us,  "  an  angel  of  the  Lord 
had  descended  from  heaven,  his  countenance  shining  like 
lightning,  and  his  raiment  white  as  snow,  and,"  striking 
terror  even  into  the  Roman  guard,  "  had  rolled  back  the 
stone  from  the  door."  As  it  opened,  the  Crucified  One  had 
come  forth,  unseen  by  the  dazzled  soldiers,  and  had  presently 
vanished. 

They  had  scarcely  left  the  spot,  when  the  women  arrived. 
The  earth  was  trembling  strangely,  but  they  had  kept 
on  their  way.  How  great  must  have  been  their  astonish- 
ment, however,  when  they  found  the  stone  rolled  back,  and 
the  grave  open.  There  was  no  longer  a  guard,  for  the 
soldiers  had  fled  in  terror  at  the  angelic  vision.  Mary  of 
Magdala  entered  the  garden  first,  and  found  things  thus, 
and  having  run  back  to  the  others,  hastened  into  the  city 
to  tell  Peter  and  John.  Determined  to  solve  the  mystery, 
if  possible,  her  companions  came  together  to  the  sepulchre, 
and,  bending  down,  entered  its  inner  chamber.  But  it  was 
only  to  be  appalled  by  the  sight  of  an  angel  in  white,  sitting 
in  it,  as  if  waiting  to  bear  the  glad  news  to  them  of  what 
had  taken  place.  Presently,  a  second  radiant  form  stood 
before  them,  as  they  bowed  down  their  faces  to  the  earth 

1  Greswell's  Harm.  Evartg.,  p.  393. 


APPEARANCE   TO   THE   WOMEN.  551 

in  terror.  But  words  now  fell  on  their  ears  which  bronght 
back  joy  to  their  hearts.  "  Fear  not,  for  I  know  that  ye 
seek  Jesus  of  Nazareth  who  was  crucified.  Why  seek  ye  the 
living  among  the  dead  ?  He  is  not  here,  for  He  is  risen. 
Behold  the  place  where  they  laid  Him.  But  go  quickly,  tell 
His  disciples,  and  Peter,  that  He  is  risen  from  the  dead. 
Hemember  the  words  that  He  said  to  you  while  He  was  yet 
in  Galilee — that  the  Son  of  Man  must  be  delivered  into  the 
hands  of  sinful  men,  and  be  crucified,  and  the  third  day  rise 
again.  And  tell  them  '  He  goeth  before  you  into  Galilee,' 
there  you  will  see  Him,  as  He  said  unto  you.  Lo,  I  have 
told  you." 

Mary  of  Magdala  had  hurried  back  to  Jerusalem  with 
eager  steps,  to  tell  the  strange  fact  of  the  grave  being  empty 
to  Peter  and  John,  who  seem  to  have  lived  together  at  this 
time.  The  Virgin  Mother,  now,  John's  honoured  guest, 
hearing  the  amazing  news,  joined  the  other  Mary  in  urging 
the  two  Apostles  to  go  immediately  to  the  tomb,  though 
their  own  faithful  hearts  at  once  instinctively  impelled  both 
forthwith  to  do  so.  Peter  and  John,  therefore,  were  in- 
stantly on  the  way  to  the  garden  ;  their  eager  haste  hurrying 
them  to  the  utmost  speed.  John,  however,  younger  than 
Peter,  outran  him,  yet  contented  himself,  on  reaching  the 
tomb,  with  stooping  down  and  gazing  into  its  empty  space. 
The  body  assuredly  was  gone,  but  there  was  no  trace  of 
violence,  for  the  linen  bandages  lay  carefully  unrolled,  in 
the  empty  niche  where  the  Saviour  had  been  placed.  Natural 
reverence  and  the  awful  mystery  before  him  kept  him  from 
actually  entering ;  but  no  such  hesitation  checked  the  impul- 
sive Peter.  Passing  under  the  low  doorway,  he  went  in,  undis- 
mayed. The  sepulchre  was,  indeed,  empty,  as  John  and  the 
women  had  found  ;  only  the  grave-linen  was  left — the  bands 
for  the  body  and  limbs  laid  by  themselves,  and  the  cloth  that 
had  covered  the  face  of  the  Dead,  not  lying  with  them,  but 
folded  up  in  a  place  by  itself.  Following  his  friend,  John 
now  entered,  and  saw  that  it  was  so.  The  great  truth,  as  he 
himself  tells  us  in  long  after  years,  now  for  the  first  time 
flashed  on  his  mind,  that  Jesus  had  risen.1  Neither  he  nor 
the  other  Apostles  had,  as  yet,  realized  that  it  had  been  fore- 
told in  the  Scriptures  2  that  He  would  do  so ;  for  this  would 
have  explained  the  whole  at  once,  and  would  have  thrown 
light  on  the  hitherto  mysterious  words  of  Jesus  Himself 
respecting  His  resurrection. 

1  John  xx.  8.  »  Ps.  xvi.  10. 

73 


552  THE  LIFE   OP   CHRIST. 

Having  seen  for  themselves  the  empty  tomb,  they  thought, 
like  men,  only  of  going  back,  to  discuss  with  each  other  and 
with  their  brethren  what  it  could  mean.  But  the  women 
would  not  leave  the  spot.  Wandering  everywhere,  they 
only  cared  to  find  Him  whom  they  loved,  if  they  could ;  for 
they  fancied  that  the  body  had  been  removed  to  some  other 
place.  Mary  of  Magdala  had  meanwhile  returned,  and  stood 
weeping  at  the  door  of  the  tomb  ;  her  spirit,  like  that  of  her 
companions,  overborne  with  longing  anxiety  to  find  Him,  if 
possible,  and  refusing  to  believe  that  she  could  not.  The 
two  Apostles  had  seen  no  angels,  but  the  weeping  woman 
was  more  highly  favoured.  Gazing  into  the  sepulchre,  the 
empty  space  where  Jesus  had  lain  was  no  longer  untenanted, 
but,  instead  of  the  Redeemer,  she  saw  two  angels,  in  bright 
robes,  one  where  the  head  and  the  other  where  the  feet  had 
rested.  They  were  there  to  comfort  the  broken  heart,  as, 
indeed,  they  had,  doubtless,  been  before,  though  for  the  time 
they  remained  unseen. 

"  Woman,"  said  one,  in  a  human  voice  that  disarmed  fear, 
"  why  weepest  thou  ?  " 

"  Because,"  replied  Mary,  in  broken  accents,  "  they  have 
taken  away  my  Lord,  and  I  know  not  where  they  have  laid 
Him." 

As  she  said  this,  she  turned  and  drew  back  into  the  open 
garden,  hardly  knowing  what  she  did.  A  man  now  stood 
before  her,  with  the  simple  dress  of  the  humbler  classes,  and 
being  in  a  garden,  she  naturally  thought  him  the  person 
in  charge  of  it.  "  Woman,"  said  he  strangely  enough,  as 
it  must  have  seemed  to  Mary,  in  the  same  words  as  the 
angels  had  used,  "  why  weepest  thou  H  whom  seekest  thou  ?  " 
"  Sir,"  said  Mary,  taking  it  for  granted,  as  great  sorrow  does, 
that  the  cause  of  her  grief  must  be  known  to  all,  "if  thou 
hast  carried  Him  from  this  tomb,  pray  tell  me  where  thou 
hast  laid  Him,  and  I  will  take  Him  away."  She  was  a 
woman  of  means,  and  would  see  that  He  had  a  final  and 
suitable  resting-place. 

No  reply  was  given,  except  the  repetition  of  her  own  name 
— "  Mary."  But  the  voice  revealed  the  speaker.  It  was 
that  of  Jesus.  She  had  not  recognised  the  known,  but  now 
strangely  etherealized,  features, — the  one  "  spiritual  body  " 
ever  seen  by  human  eyes — the  corruptible  changed  into 
iticorruption,  the  mortal  into  immortality.  But  the  sound 
of  that  voice,  so  tenderly  remembered,  brought  with  it  full 
recognition  of  the  face  and  form. 


MESSAGE   TO   THE   APOSTLES.  553 

"Rabboni,"  said  she,  in  the  country  tongue  they  both 
loved  so  well,  "  My  Teacher !  "  and  was  about  to  fall  on  His 
neck  in  uncontrollable  emotion. 

"  Touch  me  not,"  said  He,  drawing  back,  "  for  I  have  not 
yet  ascended  to  the  Father ;  but  go  to  my  brethren,  and  say 
to  them,  I  ascend  to  my  Father  and  your  Father,  and  to  my 
God  and  your  God." 

Meanwhile,  the  other  women  had  come  near,  and  hearing 
and  seeing  what  had  passed,  kneeled  in  lowly  worship.  As 
they  advanced,  Jesus  greeted  them  with  the  salutation  they 
had  often  heard  from.  His  lips,  "  All  hail ! "  and  the  words, 
and  the  sight  of  Mary  adoring  Him,  left  them  no  question 
of  its  being  their  Lord.  He  had  withheld  Mary  from  any 
approach  to  the  tender  freedom  of  former  days,  but  He  now 
stood  still  while  the  lowly  band,  Mary  among  them,  held 
Him  by  the  feet,  and  paid  Him  lowliest  reverence.  Then, 
as  they  kneeled,  came  the  words,  grateful  to  their  hearts,  "  Be 
not  afraid !  Go,  tell  my  brethren  to  go  into  Galilee,  and  they 
will  see  me  there." 

So  saying,  He  was  gone. 

Losing  no  time,  Mary  of  Magdala  and  the  others  hurried 
back  to  Jerusalem,  and  found  that,  in  the  still  early  morning 
the  news  had  spread  to  all  the  Eleven,  that  their  Master  was 
alive  and  had  been  seen  both  by  her  and  by  them.  But  it 
seemed  too  wonderful  for  simple  minds  to  realize  at  once, 
and  sounded  only  like  an  idle  tale  which  they  could  not  be- 
lieve. It  sufficed,  however,  to  rally  them,  for  the  first  time 
since  Gethsemane  ;  for  that  very  night  they  once  more 'assem- 
bled as  of  old. 

No  detailed  narrative  of  the  successive  appearances  of 
Jesus  to  His  disciples,  after  His  resurrection,  has  been  left 
us,  each  narrative  giving  only  special  cases,  which  had  par- 
ticularly impressed  the  mind  of  the  writer.  It  is  evident, 
indeed,  that  He  showed  Himself  on  many  occasions  of  which 
no  record  is  preserved ;  for  St.  John  expressly  tells  us,1  in  his 
summary  of  the  Forty  Days,  that  besides  the  sign  in  the  case 
of  Thomas,  Jesus  did  many  others  before  His  disciples,  which 
are  not  written  in  the  Gospel  bearing  the  Apostle's  name, 
and  He  had  promised  that  He  would  manifest  Himself  again, 
soon  after  His  death,  to  those  who  continued  faithful  to 
Him.2  Had  we  a  full  narrative  of  the  interval  between 
the  Resurrection  and  the  Ascension,  it  would  doubtless  illus* 

1  Chap  xx.  21.  *  John  xiv.  21. 


554  THE  LIFE  OP  CHEIST. 

trate  more  vividly  than  existing  records  permit,  the  fulness 
and  variety  of  demonstration  which  alone  accounts  for  the 
firm  and  triumphant  proclamation  of  Christ's  victory  over 
death,  by  the  Apostles  and  early  Church. 

One  characteristic  is  common  to  all  the  appearances  re- 
counted :  they  never  pass  outside  the  purely  spiritual  bounds 
we  instinctively  associate  with  the  mysterious  existence  on 
which  Jesus  had  entered.  Even  when  most  closely  touching 
the  material  and  earthly,  He  is  always  seen  speaking  and 
acting  only  as  a  spirit,  coming  suddenly,  revealing  Himself 
in  an  imperceptibly  increasing  completeness  which  culminates 
at  last  in  some  unmistakable  sign,  and  presently  vanishing 
as  suddenly  as  He  appeared.  He  no  longer  acts  or  suffers  as 
before  His  death,  and  even  when  condescending  most  to  the 
seen  and  material,  only  does  so  to  prove  Himself,  beyond 
question,  the  same  Jesus  as  formerly,  who  in  common  human 
life  shared  all  the  experiences  and  wants  of  His  followers.1 
To  some  He  made  Himself  known,  as  to  Mary  and  the  women, 
by  a  single  word  or  by  brief  sentences,  the  voice  carrying 
instant  conviction  with  it ;  to  others,  in  a  lengthened  com- 
munion, as  with  the  disciples  going  to  Emmaus,  kindling 
their  soul  by  the  higher  sense  He  gave  to  the  Scriptures,  and 
by  a  repetition  of  the  symbolic  "  breaking  of  bread,"  which, 
on  the  last  night,  He  had  enjoined  on  the  Eleven ;  to  others 
again,  as  to  Thomas,  by  an  outward  material  proof  from  the 
wounds  on  His  person;  and,  to  still  others,  by  joining  them 
in  their  simple  repast,  as  with  the  disciples  on  the  shore  of 
the  Lake  of  Galilee. 

It  would  seem,  from  a  notice  by  St.  Paul,2  that  the  first 
appearance,  after  that  granted  to  the  women,  was  vouchsafed 
to  Peter,  perhaps  while  still  in  the  garden.  The  complete- 
ness of  the  Apostle's  repentance  had  secured  as  complete  a 
forgiveness,  and  Jesus  could  not  forget  that  Peter's  home  at 
Capernaum  had  been  His,  or  how  true-hearted  he  had  been 
from  the  very  days  of  the  Baptism  on  the  Jordan,  though  he 
had  failed  for  a  moment  when  off  his  guard.  The  look  of 
reproach,  mingled  with  love  and  pity,  had  melted  Peter's 
heart  while  the  denials  were  yet  on  his  lips,  and  now,  the 
look  and  tender  words  of  the  risen  Christ  bound  him  to  Him 
for  ever.  He  had  been  the  foremost  in  zeal  for  the  meek 
and  lowly  Master  while  still  rejected  and  despised ;  but  when 
that  Master  stood  before  him,  the  conqueror  of  death,  and 

1  Ewald,  vol.  vi.  p.  87.  *  1  Cor.  xv.  5. 


APPEAEANCE   TO   THE   TWO   DISCIPLES.  555 

the  glorified  Son  of  God,  his  zeal  rose  to  a  passionate  devO' 
tion  that,  henceforth,  knew  no  abatement. 

The  news  of  the  Resurrection  spread  fast  among  the  dis- 
ciples in  Jerusalem ;  still  it  required  time  to  reach  all,  and 
even  when  announced,  the  fact  was  too  great  to  be  realized 
at  once,  and  too  contrary  to  previous  expectations  to  be  other 
than  slowly  understood.  Deep  dejection  reigned  throughout 
the  little  Christian  company.  In  spite  of  all  their  Master's 
warnings,  His  death  had  come  on  them  by  surprise,  and,  as 
it  seemed,  had  destroyed  everything.  Cut  off  suddenly  from 
all  the  hopes  they  had  cherished  of  an  earthly  kingdom,  not- 
withstanding the  constant  lessons  of  Christ's  life  and  words, 
and  deeply  distressed  by  the  loss  of  their  Teacher  and  Head, 
they  appeared  to  be  left  helpless,  and  paralyzed.  The  horrors 
of  the  past  few  days  engrossed  their  thoughts  and  conver- 
sation. They  believed  Him  now  in  Paradise,  but  no  one 
dreamed  of  a  resurrection  so  soon.  John  had,  indeed,  risen  in 
some  measure  to  the  grandeur  of  the  truth,  and  Peter  had 
even  seen  Him ;  but  the  bulk  of  the  disciples  had  well-nigh 
lost  all  hope.  The  report  of  the  empty  grave,  and  of  the 
vision  of  angels  and  of  their  announcement  that  He  was 
alive,  was  insufficient  to  break  their  gloom,  and  prolonged 
their  perplexity  without  relieving  it. 

Midday  had  passed,  and  only  floating  rumours  were  as 
yet  abroad.  The  disciples  began  to  think  of  finally  separat- 
ing, and  returning  to  their  homes  ;  for  without  their  Master, 
they  were  without  a  leader.  Two  of  them  determined  to  go 
back  to  Emmaus,  a  village  between  seven  and  eight  miles 
north-west  of  Jerusalem,  on  the  high  slope  of  the  hills.  The 
way  to  it  was  over  hills  and  through  valleys,  more  and  more 
barren  as  Jerusalem  was  left  behind,  but  Emmaus  itself 
looked  down  into  a  hollow  through  which  a  rivulet  spread 
greenness  and  beauty.  Vines  and  olive-trees,  planted  in  ter- 
races up  the  hill-side,  and  the  white  and  red  flowers  of  the 
almond-tree,  now  bursting  into  blossom  in  the  valley,  made 
the  end  of  the  journey  a  pleasant  contrast  to  its  beginning.1 

The  two  travellers  were  not  from  among  the  Apostles,  and 
it  is  not  even  known  whether  they  had  been  in  the.  number 
of  the  Seventy.  The  name  of  the  one  is  told  us,  Cleopai!,  a 
different  word  from  Clopas,  the  name  of  the  husband  of  one 
of  the  Marys  who  waited  on  Christ,  and  thus,  no  hint  is 
furnished  by  it.  The  other  has  been  variously  fancied  as 

1  Furrer,  p.  142. 


556  THE   LIFE   OF   CHBIST. 

Nathanael,  Peter,  or,  even  Luke  himself,  but  it  is  only  con* 
jecture.  They  were  passing  on  their  way,  their  conversation 
turning  naturally  on  that  of  which  their  hearts  were  full, 
and  of  which  they  had  heard  and  spoken  so  much  that  day. 
Was  Jesus  the  Messiah  or  not  ?  If  so,  how  had  things  ended 
so  gloomily?  His  life,  His  words,  His  miracles,  seemed 
to  show  that  He  was  the  Messiah ;  but,  on  the  other  hand, 
how  could  the  Messiah  have  been  crucified  ? 

Meanwhile,  a  stranger,  going  their  way,  overtook  them, 
and,  very  possibly  to  their  disappointment,  joined  them.  He 
had  heard  how  eagerly  they  were  disputing  and  reasoning, 
so  that  it  seemed  only  natural  when  He  asked  them  what 
subject  had  so  engrossed  them.  Half  impatient  that  He 
should  seem  unacquainted  with  a  matter  so  supreme  to  them- 
selves, Cleopas  answered,  "  That  he  could  not  have  thought 
any  one  who  had  been  to  the  feast  in  Jerusalem,  would  ask 
the  subject  of  their  conversation,  when  such  great  things, 
still  in  every  one's  mouth,  had  happened  in  these  last  few- 
days." 

"  What  things  ?  "  asked  the  stranger. 

"  What  but  respecting  Jesus  of  Nazareth?  "  replied  Cleopas. 
"  He  was  a  prophet  of  God,  a  mighty  worker  of  miracles,  and 
a  great  teacher.  All  the  people  must  own  that  He  was  that. 
Do  you  not  know  about  Him  ?  How  our  priests  and  Rabbis 
seized  Him,  and  condemned  Him  to  death,  and  forced  Pilate 
to  crucify  Him  ?  Yet  we  believed,  as  it  seemed  on  the  best 
grounds,  that  He  was  the  Messiah,  who  should  have  delivered 
Israel.  But  it  is  now  the  third  day  since  all  this  has  hap- 
pened. Some  of  the  women  belonging  to  our  company,  how- 
ever, have  created  no  little  perplexity  amongst  us.  They 
had  gone  early  in  the  morning  to  the  tomb,  but  found  it 
empty,  and  came  back,  saying  that  angels  had  appeared  to 
them,  who  told  them  that  He  was  alive  again.  On  this  some 
of  our  number  went  to  the  sepulchre,  and  found  the  facts 
as  the  women  represented,  but  they  did  not  see  Jesus 
Himself." 

It  was  clear  that  the  spark  of  hope  kindled  by  the  first 
report  had  been  already  extinguished. 

The  stranger  had  listened  attentively,  and  now,  to  their 
surprise,  began  to  chide  them  for  their  doubt,  and  entered 
into  the  matter  that  so  engrossed  them,  with  the  earnestness 
of  one  who  felt  as  supremely  interested  in  their  Master's 
cause  as  they  were  themselves,  and  with  an  intelligence  that 
arrested  their  closest  attention. 


ON   THE   WAY   TO  EMMAUS.  557 

"  What  is  there  in  all  this  that  makes  you  so  dejected  and 
despairing  ?  "  asked  He.  "  O  ye  dull  of  understanding,  and 
sluggish  of  heart !  Why  not  grasp  more  clearly,  and  believe 
more  readily,  what  is  the  burden  of  all  the  prophets  ?  Had 
you  been  as  intelligent,  and  as  ready  in  your  hearts  as  you 
should  have  been,  to  understand  and  accept  the  witness  of 
Scripture,  you  would  have  seen  that  it  had  been  prophesied, 
from  the  first,  that  the  Messiah  was  to  suffer  and  die,  as  Jesus 
has  done.  Let  us  examine  whether  the  prophets  do  not  show 
that  the  Christ — the  Messiah — must  needs  have  been  thus 
lowly,  entering  into  His  glory  only  after  suffering  death, 
though  you  have  foolishly  imagined  His  Kingdom  was  to 
come  by  force  and  miracle  ?  " 

The  stranger  was  evidently  at  least  a  learned  Rabbi ;  and 
had  won  their  anxious,  respectful  attention  already,  by  the 
novelty  and  force  of  his  appeal.  But,  now,  as  he  journeyed 
on  at  their  side,  their  wonder  and  delight  increased,  for  he 
quoted  passage  after  passage,  from  the  beginning  to  the  end 
of  the  Scriptures,  and  showed  them  how  the  whole  spirit  and 
contents  of  the  Holy  Books  pointed  to  such  a  Messiah  as  he 
had  indicated — a  Messiah  founding  a  spiritual,  not  a  mere 
earthly  kingdom,  by  love  and  self-sacrifice,  not  by  force. 
They  had  never  heard  such  discourse.  He  threw  light  on 
the  deep  things  of  Scripture  which  made  it  a  new  book  to 
them.  They  had  been  familiar  with  it  from  childhood,  but 
now,  for  the  first  time,  found  that  their  Master,  alike  in 
His  life  and  death,  shone  out  from  every  page. 

Such  discourse  shortened  the  road,  and  found  them  still 
eagerly  listening  as  they  approached  Emmaus,  the  end  of 
the  journey.  Climbing  the  hill  path  together,  through  the 
terraces  of  vines  and  olives,  and  passing  under  the  village 
gate,  they  were  presently  at  the  house  where  the  disciples 
were  to  stay.  And,  now,  the  stranger  bade  them  adieu. 
What  they  had  heard  from  him,  however,  had  interested 
them  so  much,  that  they  longed  to  hear  more.  They  begged 
him,  therefore,  to  lodge  with  them  for  the  night,  and  this, 
the  rather,  as  the  day  was  far  spent.  Accepting  the  invita- 
tion, all  three  went  into  the  house. 

It  must  have  been  no  small  wonder  to  the  Two,  who  their 
mysterious  companion  could  be.  Nothing  in  His  dress  or 
speech  gave  them  a  clue,  and  they  did  not  know  His  features. 
But  a  feeling  of  reverence  kept  them  from  asking. 

Simple  refreshments  were  presently  set  before  them — • 
among  the  rest,  bread  and  wine.  The  stranger,  as  was  hia 


558  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

due,  had  the  place  of  honour  at  table,  and  it  fell  to  him  to 
hand  what  was  before  them,  to  the  others.  Only  the  three 
were  together. 

Soon  after,  the  Unknown,  taking  the  bread,  offered  the 
usual  benediction,  just  as  Jesus  had  done  ;  broke  the  bread, 
just  as  Jesus  had  broken  it ;  handed  it  to  them,  just  as  Jesus 
had  handed  it.  Bearing,  voice,  and  manner  were  His.  And 
now,  as  they  look  at  Him  more  closely,  the  veil  He  had 
assumed  parses  away,  and  the  very  Face  and  Form  also  were 
His. 

It  was  He !  Meanwhile,  as  they  gazed  in  awful  wonder 
and  reverence,  He  vanished. 

No  instance  given  illustrates  more  strikingly  the  adapta- 
tion of  the  Risen  Saviour's  self-disclosures  to  the  require- 
ments of  His  disciples.  Their  minds  were  first  enlightened^ 
and  their  hearts  warmed,  till  there  was  no  longer  a  danger  of 
affecting  their  senses  only,  but  a  security  of  intelligent  con- 
viction, resting  on  impressions  left  by  the  discourse  they  had 
heard.  They  were  gently  led  on  till  fully  prepared,  and  then 
the  APPEARANCE  was  granted  in  a  way  so  inexpressibly  touching 
and  tender,  that  it  no  less  fired  their  love  than  established 
their  faith. 

Left  to  themselves,  the  Two  could  speak  only  of  what  they 
had  heard  and  seen — of  how  their  hearts  had  glowed  in  their 
bosoms  as  He  talked  with  them  along  the  road,  and  opened 
to  them  the  Scriptures.  Their  ecstatic  joy  at  having  seen 
Him,  whom  they  had  known  as  the  earthly  Messiah,  now 
unveiled  to  them  as  the  Messiah  risen  and  glorified,  the 
conqueror  of  death,  can  only  be  faintly  imagined.  Neither 
life  nor  death  could  ever  efface  the  memory  of  it  from  their 
inmost  hearts.  But  their  brethren  must  know  the  great 
truth.  Hastening  back  to  Jerusalem,  with  quickened  steps, 
to  reach  it  before  the  shutting  of  the  gates,  they  found  the 
Eleven  and  a  number  of  the  disciples  gathered  together — • 
the  amazing  rumours  of  the  day  the  one  engrossing  themo 
of  discussion.  Peter,  it  seemed,  had  told  them  that  Jesus 
had  appeared  to  him,  and  now  the  Two  added  their  wondrous 
narrative.  It  was  a  thing  so  transcendent,  however,  and  so 
unheard  of,  that  any  one  should  rise  from  the  dead,  that  the 
company  still  fancied  the  women,  and  Peter,  and  the  Two, 
under  some  strange  delusion.  They  could  not  credit  their 
story  as  a  matter  of  fact. 

It  was  still  Sunday,  and  the  assembled  Eleven,  with  the 
others,  had  gathered  at  the  table  couches,  to  eat  a  simple 


APPEARANCE  TO  THE  APOSTLES.        559 

evening  meal  together,  before  parting  for  the  night.1  The 
doors  were  fast  closed,  for  fear  of  any  emissary  of  the  high 
priest  and  Rabbis  discovering  them,  as  they  were  discuss- 
ing the  strange  reports  they  had  heard,  and  justifying  their 
incredulity.  Suddenly,  through  the  closed  doors,  a  Form, 
appeared  in  their  midst,  which  they  at  once  recognised  as 
that  of  Jesus.  Presently,  the  salutation  they  had  heard  so 
often,  sounded  from  His  lips — the  common  Jewish  greeting, 
"  Shalom  Lachem."  "  Peace  to  you  !  " 

The  sight  terrified  and  alarmed  them.  They  could  not 
realize  that  it  was  really  Jesus  Himself,  but  fancied  it  was 
His  spirit. 

"  Why  are  you  in  such  fear,"  said  He,  "  and  why  do  you 
not,  at  once,  without  any  such  doubts  and  questionings  in 
your  minds,  recognise  me  as  Him  whom  I  really  am  ?  "  His 
hands  were,  of  course,  exposed  beneath  the  sleeves  of  His 
abba,  and  His  feet  could  be  seen  through  His  sandal-straps. 
Holding  up  the  former,  and  showing  the  marks  of  the  great 
iron  nails  of  the  cross  in  the  palms,  and  pressing  back  His 
abba,  and  disclosing  the  wounds  on  his  feet,  He  went  on : 
u  Look  at  my  hands  and  my  feet,  see  the  wounds  of  the  nails, 
and  be  satisfied  that  it  is  I,  Jesus,  myself,  who  speak.  And, 
that  you  may  know  that  it  is  not  my  spirit  you  see,  but  the 
same  Master  you  knew  of  old,  come  near  and  touch  me,  for  a 
spirit  has  not  flesh  and  bones  as  you  see  me  have." 

Evidence  so  convincing  could  leave  no  doubt,  except  from 
very  joy  at  its  completeness ;  for  the  return  of  their  Lord, 
^hus  triumphant  over  the  grave,  was  so  stupendous  a  miracle 
that  while  they  could  not  question  it,  their  gladness  would 
scarcely  let  them  think  it  real.  But  still  further  proof  was 
to  be  given.  Knowing  how  easily  the  idea  might  spread 
that  His  appearances  were  merely  those  of  a  disembodied 
spirit,  He  asked  them  to  let  Him  share  their  meal.  They  had 
broiled  fish,*  and  having  set  some  before  Him  with  wondering 
awe,  He  ate  it  in  their  sight.  All  doubt  now  fled ;  it  was, 
indeed,  their  Risen  Lord. 

"  Now  that  you  are  convinced  that  it  is  really  I,"  continued 
Jesus,  "  let  me  remind  you  that  the  facts  you  have  no^ 
verified — that  T  should  die,  and  rise  again  from  the  dead — 
are  the  fulfilment  of  what  I  said  to  you  while  I  was  yet  with 
you,  that  all  that  was  written  respecting  me  in  the  Scriptures, 
must  be  fulfilled  in  this  way." 

1  Mark  xvi.  14-18.    Luke  xxiv.  36-49.     John  xix.  19-23. 


5GO  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

As  the  "  Light  of  the  World,"  He  then  proceeded  to  recall 
to  their  minds  and  explain  more  fully  the  prophecies  re- 
specting Himself  in  the  Books  of  Moses,  the  Prophets,  and 
the  Psalms — the  three  divisions  under  which  all  the  Holy 
Books  were  classed  by  the  Jews  ;  and  showed  their  wonderful 
vividness  as  inspired  anticipations  of  what  had  really  hap- 
pened in  His  own  person.1 

"  You  see  thus,"  added  He,  after  giving  this  summary  of 
the  testimony  of  Scripture,  "  that  it  was  necessary,  in  the 
Divine  counsels,  that  instead  of  founding  an  earthly  kingdom, 
as  you  expected,  the  Messiah  should  suffer  as  I  have  done, 
and  that  He  should  rise  from  the  dead  the  third  day,  as  ye 
see  has  been  the  case  with  me.  The  purposes  of  God  now 
further  require  that  the  need  of  repentance,  and  the  promise 
of  the  remission  of  sins  to  be  obtained  through  my  death 
and  resurrection,  should  be  preached,  henceforth,  as  the 
great  end  of  all  I  have  suffered,  and  the  Salvation  I  was 
sent  as  the  Messiah  to  secure,  not  for  Israel  only,  but  for 
all  mankind.  These  truths  you  are  to  proclaim  to  all  nations, 
but  you  are  to  begin  at  Jerusalem,  that  Israel  may  have 
still  another  opportunity  of  accepting  me,  and  of  being 
saved  through  my  name,  now  I  am  risen  and  glorified  ;  though 
they  rejected  me  in  my  humiliation.  And  you,  my  disciples, 
are  the  witnesses  through  whom  God  will  spread  abroad  this 
message  of  mercy  to  Jews  and  heathen,  and  proclaim  His 
new  Heavenly  Kingdom  founded  by  me." 

The  wondering  disciples  now  saw  that  He  was  about  to 
leave  them  once  more.  As  He  prepared  to  do  so,  however, 
He  added : — 

"  Peace  be  with  you. !  As  my  Father  sent  me,  so  I  send 
you.  Go  ye  into  all  the  world,  and  preach  the  Gospel  to 
every  creature.  He  who  believes  and  is  baptised  will  be 
saved,  but  he  who  does  not  believe  will  be  condemned.  And 
these  miraculous  signs  will  be  granted  those  who  believe,  for 
a  confirmation  of  their  faith,  and  that  they  may  win  others. 
They  will  cast  out  devils  in  my  name ;  they  will  speak  with 
tongues  new  to  them ;  they  will  take  up  serpents  without 
harm  to  themselves;  if  they  drink  any  deadly  thing  it  will 
not  hurt  them ;  and  they  will  lay  hands  on  the  sick,  and 
they  will  recover. 

"  To  fit  you  for  your  great  work  I  shall  presently  send 
you  the  Helper  promised  by  my  Father,  but  stay  in  the  city 
till  you  are  clothed  with  this  power  from  on  high." 
1  Bava  Bathra,  xiv.  2. 


SECOND   APPEAEANCE    TO   THE    APOSTLES.          561 

There  were  only  ten  of  the  Eleven  present,  for  Thoraag 
was  absent,  but  these  He  now  gathered  before  Him.  As  an 
earnest  of  the  fuller  endowment,  hereafter,  He  was  about  to 
impart  to  them  a  special  consecration  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  to 
their  office  as  Apostles.  He  had,  Himself,  compared  the 
influence  and  entrance  of  the  Spirit  to  the  breathing  of  the 
wind,  and  now,  prefacing  His  intended  words  by  the  sym- 
bolical act  of  breathing  on  the  Ten,  He  said : 

"  Receive  ye  the  Holy  Spirit.  The  government  of  the 
Church  is.  committed  to  your  charge.  As  a  special  gift  for 
your  work  as  founders  of  my  Kingdom,  Divine  insight  is 
granted  you  to  '  discern  the  spirits '  of  men,1  that  so  you 
may  know  their  true  state  before  God.  Through  you,  there- 
fore, henceforth,  as  through  Me  till  now,  He  will  announce 
the  forgiveness  of  sins,  and  it  will  be  granted  by  God  to 
those  to  whom  you  declare  it.  Through  you,  moreover,  He 
will  make  known  to  others  that  their  sins  are  not  forgiven, 
and  to  him  to  whom  you  are  constrained  to  speak  thus,  to 
him  his  sins  will  not  be  forgiven  by  God  till  you  announce 
their  being  so." 

Having  said  this,  He  vanished  from  their  sight. 

It  is  impossible  to  realize  the  emotions  of  the  little  band 
of  Apostles  and  disciples  at  these  appearances.  They  knew 
that  Jesus  had  been  put  to  death;  they  had  fancied  them- 
selves permanently  deprived  of  His  presence  and  help,  and 
they  had  not  known  what  to  think  respecting  Him.  But 
when  He  stood  amidst  them,  once  more,  after  He  had  risen, 
a  sudden  and  strange  revolution  took  place  in  their  minds. 
They  saw  before  them  Him  whom  they  had  revered  as  the 
Messiah  while  clothed  in  human  weakness,  now  raised  to  an 
unimaginable  glory  which  at  once  confirmed  and  sublimed 
their  former  faith.  They  saw  Him  victorious  over  the  grave, 
and  clothed  with  the  attributes  of  the  eternal  world.  In 
a  moment,  the  whole  sweep  of  the  truth  respecting  Him, 
hitherto  only  half  realized,  had  become  a  radiant  fact,  even 
to  their  senses.  The  hesitating  and  imperfect  belief  in  His 
heavenly  dignity  and  power  to  fulfil  all  He  had  promised, 
here  and  hereafter,  which  had  slowly  rooted  itself  in  their 
hearts  while  He  still  lived,  had  seemed,  after  all,  from  the 
catastrophe  of  these  last  disastrous  three  days,  a  fond  and 
beautiful  delusion.  But  now  at  length,  as  He  appeared  among 
them,  triumphant  even  over  death,  it  broke  all  restraints  and 

1  1  Cor.  xii.  10.     John  xx.  22. 


562  THE   LITE   OF   CHBIST. 

flooded  their  whole  soul  with  sacred  light  as  never  before, 
for  the  revulsion  from  despondency  to  the  purest  and  holiest 
joy  gave  it  additional  strength. 

It  is  impossible  to  conceive  the  effect  of  such  sights  of 
their  Risen  Master,  on  the  minds  of  those  who  were  thns 
favoured  with  them.  The  whole  life  of  one  who  had  seen 
Him  and  stood  near  Him,  perhaps  touched  Him,  after  He 
had  risen,  became  a  long  dream  of  wonder.  Such  an  one 
felt,  henceforth,  even  in  the  midst  of  his  commonest  occupa- 
tions, as  if  Christ  were  still,  though  unseen,  beside  him ; 
he  saw  Him,  as  it  were,  radiant  before  his  eyes ;  he  seemed 
still  to  hear  His  words  of  infinite  love,  and  lived  in  habitual 
communion  with  Him,  as  with  One,  hidden  it  might  be,  for 
the  moment,  in  the  upper  light,  but  to  be  expected  as  a 
visible  form  at  any  instant.  We  see  this  in  every  page  of 
the  Gospels  and  the  Epistles.1 

Only  the  immeasurable  force  of  the  thought  that  the  Son 
of  God  Himself,  the  true  glorified  Messiah,  had  appeared 
to  them ;  not,  as  hitherto,  in  the  veil  of  the  flesh,  but  in  a 
heavenly  transfiguration,  victorious  over  death ;  that  He 
had  stood  among  them,  had  quickened,  and  inspired  them ; 
perhaps  had  let  Himself  even  be  reverently  touched — could 
have  created  such  effects.  Henceforth,  he  only  was  recog- 
nised as  an  Apostle  in  the  fullest  sense,  who  had  seen  Him 
in  His  spiritual  body  during  this  mysterious  interval,  when 
He  seemed  ready  to  soar  to  heaven  as  His  rightful  home, 
and,  though  still  on  earth,  was  no  longer  of  it.  Nothing 
could  be,  more  amazing  than  the  result  of  such  a  sight  of  Him, 
thus  glorified,  on  the  Apostles.  From  despair  they  passed 
at  once  to  triumphant  confidence  ;  from  incapacity  to  believe 
that  the  Messiah  could  have  suffered  as  He  had  done,  to 
the  most  fervent  and  exulting  faith  in  Him  as  the  Messiah, 
on  account  of  these  very  sufferings.  They  became,  suddenly, 
men  into  whom  the  very  spirit  of  Christ  seemed  to  have 
passed ;  their  spiritual  nature  had  been  wholly  changed, 
and  they  were  bound  to  Him,  henceforth,  with  a  deathless 
and  ecstatic  devotion.2 

The  appearances  vouchsafed  during  the  day  of  the  Resur- 
rection had  now  ended.  On  the  part  of  the  priests  and 
Rabbis  there  had  been  great  anxiety,  for  they,  as  well  as  the 
disciples,  had  early  heard  the  rumours  of  His  having  risen. 
Some  of  the  watch,  after  having  fled  in  terror  before  the 

1  Ewald,  vol.  vi.  p.  85.  a  Ibid. 


DOUBTS  OF   THOMAS.  563 

descending  angel,  had  come  into  the  city,  and  reported  what 
had  happened.  A  hasty  meeting  of  the  chief  men  of  the 
party  had  been  held,  and  the  whole  matter  laid  before  them. 
Their  perplexity  was  extreme,  but  at  last  their  Sadducee 
leaders  invented  a  specious  story.  Not  believing  in  angels, 
they  affected  to  think  that  the  soldiers  had  been  frightened 
away  by  some  clever  trick  of  the  disciples,  who  had  thus  got 
possession  of  the  body  of  their  Master.  There  were,  indeed, 
difficulties  in  the  way  of  spreading  such  a  story,  but  it  would 
be  fatal  if  the  rumour  spread  that  angels  had  appeared.  The 
people  would  naturally  think  it  a  proof  that  Jesus  had  been 
what  He  said  He  was,  and  they  would  turn  to  Him  with  more 
ardour  than  ever.  The  guard  were  therefore  instructed,  with 
the  inducement  of  large  bribes,  to  say  that  they  had  fallen 
asleep,  and  found  the  body  stolen  when  they  woke.  The 
hierarchy  were  aware  that  it  was  death  for  a  sentry  to  sleep 
at  his  post ;  but  removed  this  difficulty  by  the  promise  that, 
in  case  the  story  reached  the  ears  of  Pilate,  they  would  ex- 
plain that  it  was  only  an  invention,  to  keep  the  people  quiet. 

A  whole  week  elapsed  before  the  next  manifestation  re- 
corded. On  Sunday — known,  henceforth,  as  the  "  first  day  of 
the  week,"1  in  contrast  to  the  Jewish  Sabbath,  the  seventh 
day ;  and  as,  especially,  the  "  Lord's  Day  "  2 — the  Eleven, 
having  once  more  assembled,  as  they  had  done  daily  through 
the  week  and  continued  to  do,  Jesus,  honouring  His  resurrec- 
tion day,3  once  more  stood  in  the  midst  of  them.  Thomas, 
known  as  Didymus,  or  The  Twin,  had  not  been  present  on 
the  Sunday  before,  and  in  his  grave,  earnest  way,  refused 
to  believe  that  Jesus  had  risen  and  appeared  to  the  Ten,  with- 
out what  he  himself  deemed  indisputable  proof.  "  Except 
I  see  in  His  hands  the  prints  of  the  nails,"  said  he,  -"  and 
put  my  finger  into  them,  and  put  my  hand  into  His  side, 
where  the  spear-thrust  made  the  gash,  I  will  not  believe." 
No  one  could  desire  more  to  see  his  Master  again,  but  his 
temperament  demanded  what  he  thought  demonstration  of  so 
amazing  a  fact  as  the  rising  of  one  from  the  grave. 

On  this  first  Lord's  day  after  the  Resurrection,  however, 
his  doubts  were  for  ever  dispelled.  The  disciples  had  gathered 
in  their  common  room,  which  held  at  least  a  hundred  and 
twenty.4  The  doors,  as  before,  had  been  carefully  closed,  foi 
fear  of  spies  from  the  Temple,  and  the  approaches  were, 
doubtless,  vigilantly  watched.  Suddenly,  however,  the  words 

1  John  xx.  24-29.        2  Eev.  i.  10.          3  Acts  ii.  46.        4  Acts  i.  16. 


564  THE   LIFE   OF   CHEIST. 

"  Peace  to  you  "  were  heard  in  the  midst  of  the  company, 
and  looking  up,  Jesus  stood  before  them.  He  had  not  been 
near,  so  far  as  the  senses  could  perceive,  when  Thomas  had 
uttered  his  doubts,  but  He  knew  them  none  the  less. 
Turning  to  the  faithful  but  still  incredulous  one,  whose 
presence  there  showed  how  eagerly  he  wished  to  believe  the 
i  ranscendent  news,  Jesus,  to  his  amazement,  addressed  him  : 

"  Thomas,  thou  saidst  thou  wouldst  not  believe,  unless  thou 
conldst  put  thy  finger  in  the  wounds  of  my  hands,  and  feet, 
and  side.  Reach  hither  thy  finger — here  are  my  hands  ;  and 
reach  hither  thy  hand,  and  put  it  into  my  side,  and  be  not 
faithless,  but  believing." 

To  hear  his  own  words  thus  repeated  by  One  who  had  not 
been  present  when  they  were  spoken  ;  to  see  the  hands,  and 
feet,  and  side  ;  to  receive  such  condescension  from  One  who 
he  now  felt  was,  indeed,  his  loved  Master,  yet  no  longer  a 
mortal  man  but  the  Lord  of  Life,  the  glorified  Messiah  who 
had  triumphed  over  death,  overwhelmed  him  with  awe.  No 
words  could  express  his  emotion.  He  could  only  utter  his 
one  deepest  thought,  that  he  had  before  him  his  Lord  and 
his  God. 

"  Thomas,"  said  Jesus,  "  thou  hast  believed  at  last  because 
thou  hast  seen  me  ;  blessed  are  they  who,  without  having 
seen  me,  believe,  as  thou  now  dost,  that  I  have  risen  from 
the  dead." 

Hitherto,  the  Risen  Saviour,  in  all  His  appearances,  so  far 
as  they  are  recorded,  had  designed  to  prove  to  His  disciples 
that  He  was  really  alive  again.  Convinced  of  this,  there  was 
much  to  say  to  them  of  "  the  things  pertaining  to  the  kingdom 
of  God,"  *  which  they  were  to  spread  abroad  through  the 
earth;  Before  His  death,  He  had  told  them  that  He  had 
many  things  to  say  to  them,  which  were,  as  yet,  too  hard  for 
them  to  understand  or  receive.  These  He  had  now  to  com- 
municate ;  for  what  would  have  been  incomprehensible  before 
His  sufferings  and  Resurrection,2  was  dark  no  longer,  when 
seen  in  the  strong  light  of  the  cross  and  the  empty  grave. 

He  did  not,  however,  mingle  among  them  and  live  ia  their 
midst  as  of  old.  They  apparently  expected  that  now  He  was 
alive  again  on  earth,  He  would  once  more  gather  them  round 
Him,  and  stay  permanently  with  them,  and  they  even  fancied, 
that  surely  now  at  last  he  would  set  about  the  establishment 
of  the  earthly  kingdom  of  Israel,  to  which  they  so  fondly 

1  Acts  i.  3.  2  John  xvi.  12. 


THE   BE  SUBSECTION   BODY   OF   CHRIST.  565 

clung.1  But  to  have  stayed  thus  familiarly  with  them,  was 
no  longer  in  keeping  with  His  glorified  immortality.  Till 
they  too  had  put  on  incorruption,  He  was  separated  from 
them  by  the  infinite  distance  and  difference  of  time  and 
eternity.  They  belonged  to  the  former,  He  now  to  the 
latter. 

He  showed  Himself,  therefore,  to  them  in  such  a  way  that 
they  could  never  count  on  His  taking  up  His  abode  with 
them  again,  as  in  former  days ;  accustoming  them,  thus, 
gradually  to  His  absence,  as  in  no  measure  breaking  or 
weakening  their  connection  with  Him.  He  hence,  vouch- 
safed them  only  intermitted  appearances ;  that,  on  the  one 
hand,  they  might  be  in  no  donbt  of  His  really  having  risen  from 
the  dead ;  and,  on  the  other,  that  they  might  become  familiar 
with  the  idea  of  His  leaving  them.  He  revealed  Himself  as 
One  about  to  quit  the  world,  and  as  no  longer  belonging  to  it, 
but  delaying  His  departure  for  a  time,  for  their  good.  His 
intercourse  with  them  was,  thus,  almost  like  that  of  the 
angels  with  their  fathers  in  the  early  ages,  when  they  came 
to  their  tents,  conversed  with  them,  and  even  ate  and  drank 
what  was  offered  them,  but,  presently,  left  again  and  disap- 
peared, till  some  new  occasion  brought  them  back.2 

Hence  we  are  no  more  told  the  place  of  His  stay  in  these 
forty  days,  or  of  His  journeys,  or  other  details,  as  otherwise 
we  might  have  expected.  He  appears  only  at  intervals,  and 
we  have  no  trace  whence  He  has  come,  or  whither  He 
vanishes.  He  does  not  travel  back  with  His  disciples  to 
Galilee  after  the  feast,  as  was  usual,  but  only  names  a 
mtountain  on  which  He  will  meet  them.  They  never  ask  Him, 
as  He  is  about  to  leave  them,  whither  He  is  going,  or,  when 
He  conies,  whence  He  has  done  so  ?  His  whole  bearing 
towards  them  was  like  that  to  Mary  of  Magdala — "  Think  not 
that  my  Resurrection  restores  me  to  you  as  the  companion 
of  your  daily  life.  Rejoice  not  over  my  reappearance  as  if  I 
were  to  stay  now,  abidingly,  with  you.  I  go  to  my  Father 
and  your  Father,  to  my  God  and  yours." 

He  had  told  the  women  at  the  sepulchre,  to  say  to  His 
disciples  that  He  would  meet  them  on  a  particular  moun- 
tain in  Galilee,  and  He  doubtless,  repeated  this  to  the 
company  when  in  their  midst.  The  most  of  them  were 
Galilaeans,  and  would  return  home  after  the  feast  week. 
Galilee  had  been,  moreover,  the  special  scene  of  His  labours, 

1  Acts  i.  6.  *  3  J.  Hess,  Gesch.  Jesu,  vol.  iii.  p.  413  (1773). 


566  THE   LIFE   OP   CHRIST. 

and  of  His  success,  and  a  greater  number  could  be  gathered 
together  there  than  in  Judea.  Jerusalem,  was  not  to  be  their 
scene  of  action  as  yet.  They  could  not  begin  their  great 
Apostolic  work  while  their  Master  was  still  on  earth,  and, 
besides,  they  needed  not  only  many  counsels  before  He  left 
them,  but  the  power  which  the  Holy  Spirit,  who  was  not  yet 
given,  could  impart.  When  they  returned,  to  attend  the 
Feast  of  Pentecost,  seven  weeks  after  the  Resurrection,  thoy 
would  receive  their  full  heavenly  consecration. 

The  future  was  still  unknown  even  to  the  Apostles,  and 
hence,  though  they  held  themselves  at  the  command  of  their 
Lord,  the  interval  before  He  required  their  permanent  service 
saw  them,  once  more,  at  their  former  callings.  They  seem 
to  have  had  no  idea  that  this  visit  to  their  homes  would  be 
the  last  they  would  ever  make  to  them  as  such,  or  that, 
within  a  few  weeks,  they  would  remove  to  Jerusalem,  to 
stay  there  for  a  time,  and  then  wander  forth  to  all  lands, 
and  see  their  native  country,  rarely,  or  never  again.  But 
the  long  attendance  on  their  Master  had  prepared  them  for 
finally  leaving  everything  for  Him,  and  had  fitted  them,  un- 
consciously, for  the  duties  that  lay  before  them. 

Simon  Peter,  Thomas  the  Twin,  Nathanael  of  Cana,  John 
and  James,  sons  of  Zebedee,  and  two  whose  names  are  not 
given,  apparently  because  they  were  not  Apostles,  had, 
among  others,  betaken  themselves  to  the  well-known  shores 
of  the  Lake  of  Galilee,  and  had  quietly  resumed  the  humble 
occupation  familiar  to  most  of  them — that  of  fishermen. 
They  had  been  out  on  the  lake  all  night,  but  had  caught 
nothing,  and  were  rowing  dispiritedly  to  land  in  the  early 
dawn,  when  they  saw  on  the  shore  a  stranger,  whom  they 
could  not  recognise  in  the  twilight  as  any  one  they  knew. 
It  was  nothing  strange  that  a  person  should  come  to  them 
as  they  were  landing,  to  buy  their  catch.  The  simple  habits 
of  the  East,  moreover,  made  it  common  to  sell  even  single 
fish,  which  were  prepared  and  cooked  on  the  spot,  in  the 
open  air,  by  the  buyer.  They  thought  nothing,  therefore, 
of  the  stranger  presently  asking  them,  with  a  kindly  famili- 
arity not  unusual  in  antiquity  in  addressing  the  humbler 
classes,1  "  Children,  have  ye  anything  to  eat?"  as  if  wishing 
to  buy  for  his  morning  meal.  "  Nothing  at  all,"  cried  the 
fishermen. 

"  If  you  cast  your  net  once  more  on  the  right  side  of  the 

1  Meyer,  Kum.,  vol.  iii.  p.  573.     Matt,  xxviii.  16.     John  xxi.  1-24. 


APPEARANCE   ON   THE   LAKE   OP  GALILEE.         567 

boat,  you  will  find  fish,"  said  the  stranger,  and  they,  think- 
ing perhaps  that  he  had  noticed  a  shoal  they  had  over- 
looked, were  only  too  glad  to  do  so.  Bat  now  the  net 
sank,  overloaded,  so  that  they  could  hardly  draw  it  after 
them  as  they  rowed  to  land. 

There  was  no  further  question  who  the  stranger  could 
be ;  for  what  was  this  incident  but  the  repetition  of  a  well- 
remembered  miracle  of  their  Master,  almost  at  the  same 
spot  ?  "  It  is  the  Lord,"  whispered  John  to  Peter.  The 
name  was  enough.  They  were  only  about  a  hundred  yards 
from  land,  but  the  ardent,  impulsive  Peter  could  not  wait. 
He  was  standing,  naked,  in  the  boat,  after  having  swum, 
round  with  the  net,  to  sweep  the  waters,  as  is  still  the  cus- 
tom on  the  Lake  of  Tiberias ;  but  he  instantly  drew  on  his 
upper  garment,  and,  jumping  into  the  water,  swam  ashore, 
to  be  the  first  to  see  if  it  really  were  his  Master.  The  others, 
meanwhile,  were  slowly  pulling  to  the  beach,  and  presently 
reached  it.  It  had  been  bare  a  moment  before,  but  now, 
strangely  enough,  they  saw  a  fire  burning,  with  some  fish 
on  it,  and  bread  at  hand,  as  if  the  stranger  had  intended 
them  for  Himself. 

"  If  you  would  like  to  eat  with  me,"  said  He,  "  bring 
some  of  the  fish  you  have  just  caught." 

Peter  had  not  dared  to  speak,  for  the  awe  of  his  Lord's 
heavenly  greatness,  as  One  belonging  now  to  a  higher  life, 
was  on  him.  But  he  instantly  ran  to  the  boat,  dripping  as 
he  stood,  and  dragged  ashore  the  net,  which  was  found  to 
have  caught  a  hundred  and  fifty-three  large  fish,  without 
being  rent.  All  were  convinced  that  it  was  Jesus,  but  they 
were  dumb  with  amazement ;  and  though  they  wished  to 
ask,  their  fear,  and  their  very  eyesight,  which  told  them 
that  it  was  no  other  than  their  Master,  kept  them  from 
doing  so.1 

They  had  sat  down  on  the  white,  dry  beach,  round  the 
fire,  at  His  invitation,  and  He  now,  once  more  as  of  old, 
took  His  place  as  Head  of  the  little  group.  Taking  first 
bread,  and  then  the  fish,  He  divided  them,  just  as  He  had 
done  while  He  was  with  them,  and,  as  He  did  so,  His  face 
and  bearing  were  so  exactly  what  they  had  been,  that  the 
fear  produced  by  the  suddenness  of  His  appearance,  and 
the  undefined  difference  in  Him  which  had  struck  them  at 
first,  soon  abated.  His  every  word  was  now  doubly  weighty, 

1  Cl  ry?os!om,  in  loc. 


568  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

and  hence  John  gives  us  a  more  than  usually  circumstantial 
narrative  of  what  followed.  The  meal  being  finished,  He 
turned  to  Peter,  as  if  to  show  him  by  a  further  proof  how 
entirely  his  shortcoming  had  been  forgiven,  and  the  com- 
pleteness of  his  restoration  to  his  apostolate.  He  commonly 
called  him  Peter,  but  now  addressed  him  as  He  had  done 
three  years  before,  when  they  first  met,1  and  only  once 
since,  when  he  made  his  grand  confession  of  belief  that  his 
Master  was  the  Messiah.^  "  Simon,  son  of  Jonas,"  asked 
He,  "  carest  thou  for  me  more  than  my  other  disciples  ? " 
"  Yes,  Lord,"  answered  Peter,  "  Thou  knowest  that  I  love 
Thee."  "  Go  and  feed  my  little  ones — my  sheep,"  replied 
Jesus  ;  "  for  love  to  me ;  care  for  the  spiritual  wants  of  all 
who  know  and  love  me,  as  a  shepherd  sees  that  his  flock  be 
duly  fed."  The  same  question,  in  the  same  words,  was  then 
repeated.  "  Yes,  Lord,"  answered  Peter,  more  eagerly  than 
before,  "  Thou  knowest  that  I  love  Thee."  "  Then,  tend 
my  sheep,"  replied  Jesus.  "  Not  only  nourish,  but  care  for 
them,  as  committed  to  thy  charge."  A  third  time  the  same 
question  was  asked — "  Simon,  son  of  Jonas,  lovest  thou 
me  ?  "  The  threefold  repetition  had  something  in  it  tender 
and  warning.  It  was  not  a  reproof,  yet  it  was  fitting  that 
the  disciple  who,  a  few  days  before,  had  thrice  denied  Him, 
should  be  made  to  think  as  often  of  his  weakness.  Peter 
felt  it,  and  almost  thought  that  Jesus  doubted  his  trust- 
worthiness. "  Lord,"  said  he,  "  Thou  knowest  all  things ; 
Thou  knowest  that  I  love  Thee."  "  Then,"  replied  Jesus, 
"  feed  my  sheep ;  the  oversight  of  my  flock  is  thiiie,  to  see 
that  they  are  fed." 

"  Hear  now,"  He  continued,  "  what  awaits  you.  Verily, 
verily,  I  say  to  you,  Hitherto  you  have  girded  yourself  and 
gone  whither  you  pleased,  and  you  do  so  still ;  but  in  your 
old  age  you  will  stretch  forth  your  hands  helplessly,  and  will 
give  yourself  up  to  others,  who  will  gird  you  with  chains, 
and  lead  you  off  where  you  would  fain  not  go — to  the  place 
of  judgment."  An  assurance  of  safety  for  the  present,  and 
a  timely  warning  of  what  the  future  would  bring !  There 
was  a  brief  pause,  and  then  the  words,  "  Follow  me,"  sum- 
moned the  Apostle  once  more,  as  of  old ;  but  spoken  this 
time  by  the  risen  and  glorified  Saviour,  it  called  him  to 
follow  Him  in  a  martyr's  death,  and  then,  to  the  glory 
beyond. 

1  John  i.  42.  *  Matt.  xvi.  18. 


APPEAKANCE  IN  GALILEE.  569 

Peter,  taking1  the  last  words  literally,  fancied  he  was  to 
follow  his  Master  as  before,  and  as  Jesus  seemed  now  leaving 
them,  had  done  so  a  few  paces,  when,  turning  round,  he 
saw  John  coming  after  him.  Unwilling  to  separate  from 
one  endeared  by  long  companionship  as  a  fellow-disciple, 
he,  therefore,  ventured  to  ask,  in  hope  that  John,  too,  would 
be  allowed  to  come  with  them — "  Lord,  what  will  this  man 
do  ? "  Bnt  things  were  not  as  in  old  days  of  common 
familiar  communion.  "  If  I  should  please  that  he  live  till 
my  return,  why  should  you  seek  to  know  it  ?  "  replied  Jesns. 
"  From  you  I  require  that  you  follow  me  in  the  path  in 
which  I  have  gone  before  you." 

St.  Paul,  about  twenty-five  years  after,  mentions  another 
appearance,1  which  was  no  doubt  the  same  as  is  related 
more  fully  by  St.  Matthew.3  It  took  place  in  a  mountain, 
appointed  for  the  purpose  by  Jesus  Himself,  as  a  well- 
known  spot  to  all.  Here  a  large  number  of  disciples,  includ- 
ing, as  we  know,  the  Eleven,  gathered  at  the  time  fixed. 
It  was  a  moment  of  supreme  solemnity,  for  it  was  the  close, 
so  far  as  we  know,  of  Christ's  ministry  in  Galilee.  A  moun- 
tain had  been  chosen,  alike  for  privacy  and  because  all  who 
might  come  would  be  able  to  see  their  Master.  Over  five 
hundred  were  gathered  when  Jesus  appeared  in  their  midst ; 
some  of  them  long  since  dead  when  Paul  wrote,  but  the 
majority  still  alive.  With  beautiful  frankness,  the  Evange- 
list tells  us  that  some,  who  probably  had  not  seen  Him  before, 
still  doubted  a  miracle  so  stupendous,  but  they  were  so  few 
that  he  could  say  of  the  multitude,  as  a  whole,  that  they 
worshipped  Jesus  as  their  Lord. 

Before  this  numerous  assemblage  Jesus  declared  Himself, 
in  the  loftiest  sense,  the  Messiah.  "  All  power,"  said  He, 
"  is  given  me  in  heaven  and  in  earth.  As  I  have  before 
commissioned  my  Apostles,  so  now  I  commission  you  all,  in 
the  fulness  of  the  authority  thus  given  me,  to  go  into  the 
whole  world,  and  announce  to  all  men  that  I  live,  and  am 
exalted  to  be  the  Lord  and  the  Messiah.  Go,  gather  dis- 
ciples to  me  from  among  all  nations,  and  consecrate  them 
by  baptism,  to  faith  in  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy 
Spirit,  by  whom  God  will  speak  and  act  through  your  means 
Give  them  the  commands  I  have  given  you  as  my  dis- 
ciples, and  urge  that  they  keep  them.  Nor  must  you  think 

1  1  Cor.  xv.  6 ;  written  A.D.  59.     (Hcmsen's  Paulas.) 
3  Matt,  xxviii.  16-20. 


570  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

yourselves  alone  while  thus  working  in  my  name,  for  lo,  I  am 
and  shall  be,  with  you  always,  till  the  end  of  the  world."  As 
at  the  first,  so  now  at  the  last,  the  WORD  was  the  only 
weapon  by  which  His  Kingdom  was  to  be  spread.  Resting 
on  PERSUASION  and  CONVICTION  from  the  beginning,  it  was  left 
on  the  same  basis  now  He  was  about  to  ascend  to  heaven. 

Only  two  or  perhaps  three  more  appearances  are  recorded 
— one  to  James  alone,  and  one  to  all  the  Apostles.1  The  last 
known  meetings  with  the  Eleven  took  place  immediately 
before  the  Ascension.  It  was  the  Parting  for  Ever,  so  far  as 
outward  and  visible  communion  on  earth  was  concerned — the 
final  delegation  of  the  interests  of  His  Kingdom  to  them, 
as  His  chosen  heralds  and  representatives.  They  were  in- 
structed to  wait  in  Jerusalem  till  the  promise  of  the  Father 
was  fulfilled,  that  He  would  send  the  Holy  Spirit  to  them,  as 
their  Helper  and  Advocate,  in  place  of  their  departed  Master 
— a  promise  which  Jesus  Himself  had  made  known  to  them. 
"  For  John,"  said  He,  "  truly  baptized  with  water,  but  the 
promise  which  even  he  announced,  that  you  would  be 
baptized  with  the  Holy  Spirit,  will  be  fulfilled  before  many 
days." 

The  Apostles,  acquainted  as  they  were  with  the  Old  Testa- 
ment prophecies,  which  foretold  that  the  fulness  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  would  be  poured  out  in  the  times  of  the  Messiah,2  seem 
to  have  fancied  that  there  was  an  indirect  promise  of  the 
establishment  of  the  Messianic  Kingdom,  as  they  conceived 
it,  in  these  words.  It  appears  as  if  an  interval  had  elapsed — 
apparently  only  a  part  of  the  same  day — between  the  appear- 
ance at  which  the  renewed  assurance  of  the  bestowal  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  was  given,  and  that  at  which  the  question  they 
were  now  to  ask  was  put.  When  they  had  come  together 
again,  Jesus  once  more  stood  among  them,  and  then—  so  hard 
is  it  to  uproot  fixed  preconceptions — they  resolved  to  find  out, 
if  possible,  whether  they  had  any  grounds  for  their  fond 
hopes. 

"  Lord,"  asked  they,  "  wilt  Thou  at  this  time  restore  the 
fallen  kingdom  of  the  Israclitish  nation  ?  "  They  had  not 
yet  received  the  illumination  of  the  Spirit,  which  was  to  raise 
them  at  once  and  for  ever  above  such  narrow  and  national 
views,  and  were  still  entangled  in  Jewish  fancies,  which 
regarded  the  Messiah  as  sent  to  Israel,  as  such,  for  its  earthly 
glory  as  well  as  spiritual  good. 

>  1  Cor.  xv.  7.     Acts  i.  3-8.  *  Joel  iii.  1,  2.     Acts  ii.  16. 


THE   LAST   APPEARANCE.  571 

Jesus  would  not  answer  such  a  question.  There  was  much 
in  their  expectations  which  would  never  be  realized  ;  yet  the 
gift  of  the  Spirit  would  really  be  the  true  setting  up  of  the 
Kingdom  of  the  Messiah.  Of  its  final  proclamation  and 
full  establishment,  which  would  take  place  at  His  return  at 
the  last  day,  He  would  say  nothing.  It  lay  hidden  in  the 
depths  of  the  future,  and  was  of  no  advantage  to  them  to 
know.  "  It  is  of  no  use  to  you,"  said  He,  "  to  know  the  time 
or  the  circumstances  of  these  great  revolutions  in  the  ages  to 
come.  The  Father  has  kept  these  as  a  secret  of  His  own 
omniscience.  Be  it  enough  for  you  to  know  what  will  happen 
immediately  on  my  departure.  You  will  receive  the  powers 
of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  rich  measure,  and  inspired  by  these, 
and  prepared  by  them  in  all  points,  you  will  go  forth  as  wit- 
nesses for  me,  and  of  my  resurrection,  not  only  to  Jerusalem 
and  Judea,  but  to  hated  Samaria,  and  to  the  heathen  through- 
out the  whole  earth  ;  for  mine  is  a  universal  kingdom,  open 
to  all  mankind,  without  distinction  of  race  or  rank,  of  bond 
or  free,  of  barbarian  or  Greek,  of  Jew  or  Gentile." 

This  last  interview  had  taken  place  in  Jerusalem,  but  He 
had  left  it  before  He  closed,  leading  them  out  towards 
Bethany.  He  may  have  walked  through  the  well-known 
streets,  veiled  from  His  enemies,  or  He  may  have  appointed 
the  meeting-place  for  them,  where  He  had  so  often,  in  His 
last  days,  retired  in  their  company.  The  place  where  He 
assembled  them  is  not  minutely  recorded,  but  was  on  the 
Mount  of  Olives.  It  was  the  last  time  they  were  to  see  Him. 
He  had  prepared  them,  as  far  as  their  dulness  made  possible, 
for  His  leaving  them,  and  had  fitted  them  to  receive  the  gift 
of  the  Spirit,  which,  within  a  few  days,  would  illuminate  their 
intellects  and  hearts. 

He  wished,  however,  to  leave  them  in  such  a  way  that 
they  should  not  think  he  had  simply  vanished  from  them, 
and  wait  for  his  present  re-appearance.  He  would  show 
them,  as  far  as  it  could  be  shown,  that  He  returned  from  the 
earth  to  His  Father ;  that  God  took  Him  to  Himself  as  He 
had  taken  Elijah.  They  would  be  able  to  tell  men,  when  they 
asked  where  He  now  was,  that  they  had  seen  Him  leave  the 
world,  and  pass  through  the  skies  to  the  eternal  kingdoms, 
in  His  human  body,  to  sit  down  at  the  right  hand  of  God. 
The  thought — HE  LIVES  :  HE  is  WITH  THE  FATHER  !  was, 
henceforth,  to  be  the  stay  and  joy  of  His  followers  in  all 
ages. 

We  know  not  with  what  last  parting  words  He  let  them 


572  THE   LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

see  He  was  now  finally  to  leave  them.  All  that  is  told  ug 
is,  that  He  gave  them  His  blessing,  with  uplifted  hands. 
Step  by  step,  he  had  raised  their  conceptions  nearer  tho 
unspeakable  grandeur  of  His  true  nature  and  work.  At 
first  the  Teacher,  He  had,  after  a  time,  by  gradual  disclo- 
sures, revealed  Himself  as  the  Son  of  God,  veiled  in  the  form 
of  man;  and  now,  since  His  crucifixion  and  resurrection, 
He  had  taught  them  to  see  in  Him  the  Messiah,  exalted  to 
immortal  and  Divine  majesty,  as  the  conqueror  of  death  and 
the  Lord  of  all. 

The  transcendent  miracle  which  closed  His  earthly 
communion  with  His  chosen  cnes  is  most  fully  narrated  by 
St.  Luke  :— 

"  When  he  had  spoken  these  things,  while  they  were  look- 
ing at  Him,  He  was  taken  up  into  heaven,1  and  a  cloud  re- 
ceived Him  out  of  their  sight " — that  cloud  which  symbolized 
the  presence  of  God.  "  And  as  they  were  gazing  earnestly 
into  the  heavens,  as  He  ascended,  behold  two  men  stood  by 
them,  in  white  apparel,  and  said  to  them,  '  Ye  men  of  Galilee, 
why  stand  ye  gazing  into  the  heavens  ?  This  same  Jesus, 
who  is  even  now  taken  from  you  into  heaven,  will  come,  in 
the  same  way  as  ye  have  seen  Him  go.' " 

"  Earth,2  thou  grain  of  sand  on  the  shore  of  the  Universe 
of  God ;  thou  Bethlehem  amongst  the  princely  cities  of  the 
heavens ;  thou  art,  and  remainest,  the  Loved  One  amongst 
ten  thousand  suns  and  worlds,  the  Chosen  of  God !  Thee 
will  He  again  visit,  and  then  thou  wilt  prepare  a  throne  for 
Him,  as  thou  gavest  Him  a  manger  cradle ;  in  His  radiant 
glory  wilt  thou  rejoice,  as  thou  didst  once  drink  His  blood 
and  His  tears,  and  mourn  His  death  !  On  thee  has  the  Lord 
a  great  work  to  complete !  " 

1  Acts  i.  9-11.    Mark  xvi.  19,  20.    Luke  xxiv.  51. 
3  Pressel,  Leben  Jesu,  p.  553. 


F1MS 


NOTES   TO  VOLUME   II. 


CHAPTER    XXXHL 

8  According  to  the  traditions  of  the  Eabbis,  Joshua,  on  his  distribu- 
tion of  the  country,  had  made  the  fishing  in  the  Lake  of  Galilee  free  to 
all,  so  that  their  nets,  etc. ,  did  not  interfere  with  the  navigation. — Bava 
Kama,  Ixxxi.  1,  2.  Nowadays  the  fishing  is  a  monopoly  of  the  Turkish 
Government,  and  is  virtually  extinct. 

Jerome  translates  Capernaum  as  "  The  Lovely,"  from  D'WJ  "ISD  (Kephar 
Nairn).  Origen,  on  the  contrary,  translates  it,  "  The  Village  of  Consola- 
tion "  (Din;?  ID?). 

b  Had  He  gone  with  Peter.  He  would  have  cured  the  Apostle's  mother- 
in-law,  without  waiting  till  after  tie  came  from  the  synagogue  next  day. 

0  The  Jews,  in  their  extravagant  way,  spoke  of  "  possession "  as 
having  characterized  all  ages,  but  there  is  no  notice  of  it  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, unless  the  case  of  Saul  be  supposed  to  be  an  instance  of  it, 
which  is  doubtful. 

d  Ha !  is  the  proper  translation  of  #a,  which  is  not  the  imperative  of 
e'dw,  but  an  interjection. 

rfv  BiSaffKuv,  en  didnskon  (Mark  i.  22),  marks  the  continuance  of  His 
teaching,  as  a  stated  practice. 

6  The  New  Testament  leaves  us  in  no  doubt  of  the  belief  on  the 
part  of  Jesus  and  the  Evangelists,  in  the  reality  of  these  demoniacal 
possessions,  and  to  my  mind  this  at  once  closes  the  question.  Modern 
criticism  has  sought  to  attribute  the  phenomena  associated  with  "  posses- 
sion," to  physical  or  mental  causes  only,  but  the  fact  that  disease  takes 
the  same  forms  from  apparently  natural  causes  as  it  assumed  from  the 
action  of  evil  spirits,  leaves  the  possibility  of  its  being  associated  with 
their  presence  in  the  cases  recorded  in  the  New  Testament,  wholly  un- 
touched. There  are  more  things  in  heaven  and  earth  than  are  dreamt 
of  in  our  philosophy.  To  quote  the  foolish  superstitions  of  the  Eat  bis 
respecting  the  relations  of  demons  to  our  race,  as  a  reason  foi  discredit- 
ing the  belief  in  "  possession  "  in  any  case,  is  as  absurd  as  to  urge  the 
fantastic  notions  of  the  ignorant  respecting  the  spirit  world  at  large,  as 
a  ground  for  turning  Sadducee  and  denying  tbe  existence  of  spirits  alto- 
gether. Nor  is  it  worthy  of  more  weight  to  trace  the  belief  among  the 
Jews,  in  spirits  good  and  bad,  in  greater  or  lesser  measure  to  Eastern 
sources.  It  would  be  as  reasonable  to  reject  belief  in  the  immortality  ov 
the  soul,  because  it  was  more  clearly  held  in  Egypt  than  in  Palestine. 


574  NOTES. 

Truth  is  truth,  from  whatever  quarter  it  may  reach  us,  and  that  would 
be  a  narrow  theology  which  would  limit  revelations,  for  untold  ages,  to 
the  uplands  of  Judea.  The  light  may  have  shone  most  brightly  there, 
nor  is  it  a  question  that  it  did  so  ;  but  who  can  tell  how  many  rays  shone 
down  on  other  lands  through  rifts  in  the  clouds  that  only  too  darkly 
covered  them  ? 

The  fact,  corroborated  by  the  widest  evidence,  tbat  there  are  still  seen 
in  half-enlightened  countries,  such  as  India,  phenomena  which  seem 
explicable  only  on  the  theory  of  "  possession,''  is  striking.  Take,  for 
instance,  the  following  extract  descriptive  of  a  scene  witnessed  in  India 
by  the  writer  :  * — "  The  circle  is  formed  ;  the  fire  is  lit ;  the  offerings  are 
got  ready— goats,  and  fowls,  and  rice,  and  pulse,  and  sugar,  and  ghee, 
and  honey,  and  white  chaplets  of  oleander  blossoms  and  jasmine  buds. 
The  tom-toms  are  beaten  more  loudly  and  rapidly,  the  hum  of  rustic 
converse  is  stilled,  and  a  deep  hush  of  awe-struck  expectancy  holds  the 
motley  assembly.  Now,  the  low  rickety  door  of  the  hut  is  quickly  dashed 
open.  The  devil- dancer  staggers  out.  Between  the  hut  and  the  dark 
shadow  of  the  sacred  banyan,  lies  a  strip  of  moonlit  sand ;  and  as  he 
passes  this,  the  devotees  can  clearly  see  their  priest.  He  is  a  tall,  hag- 
gard, pensive  man,  with  deep-sunken  eyes  and  matted  hair.  His  fore- 
head is  smeared  with  ashes,  and  there  are  streaks  of  vermilion  and 
saffron  over  his  face.  He  wears  a  high  conical  cap,  white,  with  a  red 
tassel.  A  long  robe,  or  angi,  shrouds  him  from  neck  to  ankle.  On  it 
are  worked,  in  red  silk,  representations  of  the  goddess  of  small-pox, 
murder,  and  cholera.  Bound  his  ankles  are  massive  silver  bangles.  In 
his  right  hand  he  holds  a  staff  or  spear,  that  jingles  harshly  every  time 
the  ground  is  struck  by  it.  The  same  hand  also  holds  a  bow,  which, 
when  the  strings  are  pulled  or  struck,  emits  a  dull  booming  sound.  In 
his  left  hand  the  devil-priest  carries  his  sacrificial  knife,  shaped  like  a 
sickle,  with  quaint  devices  engraved  on  its  blade.  The  dancer,  with  un- 
certain staggering  motion,  reels  slowly  into  the  centre  of  the  crowd,  and 
there  seats  himself.  The  assembled  people  show  him  the  offerings  they 
intend  to  present,  but  he  appears  wholly  unconscious.  He  croons  an 
Indian  l<iy  in  a  low  dreamy  voice,  with  drooped  eyelids  and  head  sunken 
on  his  breast.  He  swings  slowly  to  and  fro,  from  side  to  side.  Look ! 
You  can  see  his  fingers  twitch  nervously.  His  head  begins  to  wag  in  a 
strange  uncanny  fashion.  His  sides  heave  and  quiver,  and  huge  drops 
of  perspiration  exude  from  his  skin.  The  tom-toms  are  beaten  faster, 
the  pipes  and  reeds  wail  out  more  loudly.  There  is  a  sudden  yell,  a 
stinging,  stunning  cry,  an  ear-piercing  shriek,  a  hideous  abominable 
gobble-gobble  of  hellish  laughter,  and  the  devil-dancer  has  sprung  to  his 
feet,  with  eyes  protruding,  mouth  foaming,  chest  heaving,  muscles  quiv- 
ering, and  outstretched  arms  swollen  and  straining.  Now,  ever  and 
anon,  the  qnick  sharp  words  are  jerked  out  of  the  saliva-choked  mouth  — 
4 1  am  God.  I  aui  the  true  God !  '  Then  all  around  him,  since  he  and  no 
idol  is  regarded  as  the  present  deity,  reeks  the  blood  of  sacrifice.  .  .  . 
Shrieks,  vo'tfs,  imprecations,  prayers,  and  exclamations  of  thankful 
praise,  rise  up,  all  blended  together  in  one  infernal  hubbub.  Above  all, 
rise  the  ghastly  guttural  laughter  of  the  devil-dancer,  and  his  stentorian 
howls — '  I  am  God,  I  am  the  only  true  God  !  '  He  cuts  and  hacks  and 
hews  himself,  and  not  very  unfrequently  kills  himself  there  and  then. 
Hours  pass  by.  The  trembling  crowd  stands  rooted  to  the  spot.  Sud' 

•  "  Demonolntry,"  by  B.  C.  Caldwell,  Esq.,  Contemporary  Eeview,  Feb.,  1876. 


NOTES.  575 

denly  the  dancer  gives  a  great  bound  into  the  air ;  when  he  descends  he 
is  motionless.  The  fiendish  look  has  vanished  from  his  eyes.  His  de- 
moniacal laughter  is  still.  He  speaks  to  this  and  that  neighbour  quietly 
and  reasonably.  He  lays  aside  his  garb,  washes  his  face  at  the  nearest 
rivulet,  and  walks  soberly  home,  a  modest,  well-conducted  man  !  " 

The  Jewish  superstitions  respecting  demons  were  very  curious.  The 
chief  of  the  diabolical  empire  was  Beelzebub,  a  Phenician  god,  but  the 
Persian  Aeschma  Daeva  also  was  transferred  to  Judaism  as  Asrnodeus, 
and  with  him  an  endless  crowd  of  other  spirits,  or  "  devs,"  Asahel, 
Sammael,  and  the  like,  who  were  unknown  to  earlier  and  purer  ages.  — 
En-aid's  Geschichte,  vol.  iv.  p.  269.  Gfrorer,  vol.  i.  p.  395.  Henoch,  c. 
6,  ff.  Keim,  Jes.  v.  N.,  vol.  ii.  p.  187.  According  to  the  Book  of  Henoch, 
the  demons  are  the  souls  of  the  giants  who  corrupted  theni.-^Jves  with 
the  daughters  of  men,  but  Josephus  regarded  them  as  the  spirits  of  dead 
men. — Bell.  Jud.,  vii.  6.  3.  They  were  so  numerous  that  every  man  has 
10,000  of  them  on  his  right  hand,  and  1,000  on  his  left.  It  was  their 
delight  to  work  all  possible  evils  on  men  and  even  on  beasts,  and  hence 
all  the  sicknesses  and  calamities  that  happened  to  living  creatures  were 
ascribed  to  them.  Even  headaches  had  a  special  demon  who  caused 
them. 

The  casting  out  of  these  demons  was,  thus,  a  main  task  of  Jewish 
professional  life,  though  evil  spirits  trembled  especially  before  the  Eabbis, 
as  they  knew  the  secret  names  of  God.  The  angels  had  told  Noah  the 
cures  of  all  the  diseases  caused  by  demons,  and  their  modes  of  tempta- 
tion, and  how  the  virtues  of  plants  could  overcome  them  ;  and  Noah 
had  written  them  in  a  book  known  to  the  B.abbis. — Jubilees,  10.  In 
all  cases,  however,  it  was  the  name  of  God  in  the  exorcism  that  was 
supremely  potent.  Forms  of  words  were  used,  which  acted  as  spells. 
One  of  many  such  formulas,  preserved  in  the  Talmud,  is  as  follows: — 
"0  thou  demon  who  art  hidden;  thou  son  of  foulness,  thou  son  of 
abomination,  thou  son  of  uncleanness,  be  thou  cursed,  crushed,  anathe- 
matized, as  Schamgas,  Marigas,  and  Istemaa." — Shabbath  Bab.,  67a. 
Strange  gesticulations,  burnings  of  incense,  tying  and  unloosing  of 
knots,  and  the  use  of  certain  plants,  were  among  the  other  aids  of  exor- 
cism. "  Take  incense,"  says  Raphael  to  Tobit,  "  and  lay  part  of  the 
heart  and  the  liver  of  the  fish  on  it,  and  burn  the  incense,  and  the  demon 
will  smell  it  and  fly  away,  and  come  back  no  more." — Tobit  vi.  16,  17. 
The  root  Baara,  which  grew  near  Machaerus,  and  was  red  like  flame, 
throwing  out  fiery  gleams  by  night,  was  a  great  remedy.  "When  any  one 
tried  to  pull  it  up,  it  shrank  into  the  ground,  and,  if  he  left  any  part  of 
it  in  the  earth,  he  died.  Those  who  gathered  it,  therefore,  wisely  tied  a 
dog  to  it,  and  forced  him  to  drag  it  up.  When  the  root  broke  the  dog 
died ;  but  the  root  could  now  be  handled  with  safety.  When  brought 
near  one  possessed  with  a  demon,  the  demon  fled,  and  the  sick  man  got 
better. — Bell.  Jud.,  vii.  6.  3.  Josephus  also  tells  another  mode  of  exor- 
cism which  he  saw  employed  before  Vespasian,  bis  sons,  his  staff,  and 
many  of  his  soldiers,  by  a  Jew  named  Eleazar.  The  magician  put  a  ring 
that  had  in  it  a  root  of  one  of  the  plants  mentioned  by  Solomon,  to  the 
nostrils  of  the  possessed  man,  and  after  doing  so  he  drew  out  the  demon 
through  his  nostrils.  When  the  man  forthwith  fell  down,  he  abjured 
the  devil  to  return  to  him  no  more,  still  making  mention  of  Solomon, 
and  reciting  the  incantations  which  he  had  composed.  And  when 
Eleazar  would  persuade  and  demonstrate  to  the  spectators  that  he  had 


576  NOTES. 

Buch  a  power,  he  set,  a  little  way  off,  a  cup  or  basin,  full  of  water,  and 
commanded  the  demon,  as  he  went  ont  of  the  man,  to  overturn  it,  and 
thereby  to  let  all  know  that  he  had  left  the  man,  which  he  did. — Ant., 
viL  2.  5.  Compare  with  this  the  grand  simplicity  of  the  Gospels  when 
the  "Word  of  Jesns  alone  is  used ;  and  does  not  one  see  the  contrast 
between  reality  and  superstitious  wildness  ? 

See  Langen's  Judenthum.  pp.  297-331 ;  Winer's  B.ir.7?.,  Aii.Bfsessene  ; 
Bibel  Lex.,  Art.  Kesessene;  Herzog,  Art.  Damonische ;  Trench  on  Mira- 
elet,  pp.  151  ff. ;  Keim,  Jesu  v.  N.,  vol.  iL  pp.  168-201 ;  Hausrath,  voL 
L  pp.  110,  112,  etc.,  etc.,  etc. 

A  passage  from  Canon  Tristram's  Great  Sahara  bears  curiously  on  this 
interesting  subject.  I  append  it,  with  a  letter  I  have  had  the  honour 
of  receiving  from  him  respecting  it.  The  scene  was  Algiers;  the 
dramatis  pt-rnonte  members  of  a  fanatical  Mussulman  sect. 

"  The  floor  of  the  centre  was  paved  with  bright  tes=elated  tiles.  In 
the  midst  squatted  the  dervishes,  or  Beni  Yssou.  Bound  three  sides  the 
musicians  sat  on  the  ground,  beating  large  tambourines  and  swinging 
their  heads  as  they  accompanied  their  voices  in  a  low  measured  chant, 
which  never  varied  more  than  three  semitones.  Nothing  could  sound  to 
our  ears  more  monotonous  than  this  unvaried  wailing  cadence,  no  music 
less  capable  of  inspiring  frenzy.  The  fourth  side  of  the  square  was 
occupied  by  a  young  man  sitting  cross-legged  before  a  low  table,  on  which 
lay  a  bundle  of  papers  and  a  long  lighted  candle.  Near  him  -was  a 
chafing-dish  over  which  he  frequently  baked  the  tambourines.  One  of 
the  musicians,  in  lieu  of  a  tambourine,  Leld  a  huge  earthen  jar,  with  a 
parchment  cover  stretched  over  its  mouth,  which,  by  incessant  drum- 
ming produced  a  bass  groan  deeper  even  than  the  other  instruments. 
Shrouded  spectators  occupied  the  background ;  and  a  few  Moors,  and  one 
or  two  Frenchmen,  the  front  and  sides,  without  the  pillars.  "We  were 
accommodated  with  a  form,  and  courteously  supplied  with  coffee  and 
pipes  from  time  to  time.  Meanwhile  the  courtyard  filled,  and  became  a 
vapour-bath.  The  dervishes  having  now  worked  up  the  steam,  a  huge 
negro,  with  grizzled-grey  moustache,  rose,  plunged  forward  with  a  howl, 
and  swayed  his  body  to  and  fro.  He  was  supported  by  the  attendants, 
stripped  of  his  turban  and  outer  garments,  and  accommodate!  with  a 
loose  white  burnous  ;  he  then  danced  an  extempore  saraband  in  front  of 
the  lights.  Meanwhile,  he  had  been  anticipated  in  his  excitement  by  a 
little  boy  in  the  rear,  whom  we  had  noticed  on  the  stairs  behind,  for  the 
last  twenty  minutes,  gradually  working  himself  into  an  ecstasy,  rolling 
Lis  head  and  swaying  himself  on  his  seat,  apparently  unconscious  and 
unobserved.  The  black  had  now  become  outrageous  ;  his  eyeballs  glowed 
and  rolled  as  he  grunted  and  growled  like  a  wild  beast.  The  musicians 
plied  the  sheep  skins  with  redoubled  energy,  and  the  din  became  deaf- 
ening. The  negro  craved  for  aliment.  They  brought  him  a  smith's 
shovel  at  a  red  heat.  He  seized  it,  spat  on  his  fingers,  rubbed  them 
across  its  heated  edge,  found  it  not  snfnciently  tender,  blew  on  it,  and 
struck  it  many  times  with  the  palm  of  Lis  hand.  He  licked  it  with  his 
tongue,  found  it  not  yet  to  his  taste,  and  handed  it  back  to  the  attend- 
ants with  evident  disgust;  squatted  down  again,  glared  carnivorously, 
and  was  gratified  by  an  entremet  of  a  live  scorpion.  This  he  ate  with 
evident  relish,  commencing  carefully  with  the  tail ;  but  his  voracity  was 
still  unabated.  Next,  a  naked  sword  was  handed  to  him,  which  he  tried 
to  swallow,  but  failed,  the  weapon  being  tlightly  curved,  and  about  a 


NOTES.  577 

yard  long.  He  recommenced  the  saraband,  brandishing  the  naked 
sword  after  a  fashion  very  promiscuous,  and  not  at  all  satisfactory  to  the 
special*  >rs,  as  he  cut  the  caudle  to  pieces,  and  made  the  musicians  dire 
to  avoid  him.  He  then  attempted  to  bore  his  cheek  with  the  point ; 
then  to  pierce  himself  in  the  abdomen ;  setting  the  hilt  at  times  against 
a  pillar,  then  against  the  ground.  A  friendly  fanatic  assisted  him  by 
jumping  on  his  shoulders,  but  all  to  no  purpose.  He  was  evidently,  for 
the  nonce,  one  of  the  pachydermata  ;  his  hide  would  rival  the  sevenfold 
shield  of  Ajax.  Now  several  maniacs  simultaneously  howl,  stagger  forth 
to  the  centre,  and  repeat  the  same  extravagances ;  not  omitting  the 
dainty  taste  of  scorpions.  Three  of  them  at  length  kneel  before  the 
presiding  Marabout,  or  chief  of  the  dervishes,  who  benevolently  feeds 
them  with  the  leaf  of  the  prickly  pear,  which  they  bite  with  avidity,  and 
masticate  in  large  mouthfuls.  spines  and  all.  Others  repeat  the  shovel 
exploit ;  and  one  sturdy  little  fellow,  a  Marocain,  naked  to  the  waist, 
balances  himself  on  his  stomach  on  the  elge  of  a  drawn  sword,  held  up, 
point  and  hilt,  by  two  men.  Then  he  stands  on  it,  supporting  a  tall 
man  on  his  shoulders.  Altogether,  the  din  of  the  musicians,  the  pleased 
'  Sah,  sah '  of  the  spectators,  the  howls  of  the  maniacs  with  their 
waving  figures  and  dishevelled  hair  (for  the  dervishes  do  not  shave),  the 
heat  and  stench  of  the  apartment,  the  wild  confusion  of  the  spectacle, 
might  make  a  visitor  fancy  he  was  looking  on  some  mad,  unearthly 
revel,  where  fanaticism  had  turned  fiendish,  and  demoniac  worship  dom- 
ineered it  over  men." — The  Great  Sahara,  by  H.  R.  Tristram,  M.A. 
London,  1860,  pp.  12-15. 

The  following  is  an  extract  from  Canon  Tristram's  letter,  to  which  I 
have  referred : — 

"  I  need  hardly  say  that  I  thoroughly  agree  with  yonr  views  on  de- 
moniacal possession,  but  I  fear  I  cannot  aid  you  by  supplying  any  facts 
with  which  you  are  not  already  familiar.  In  the  first  chapter  of  my 
book,  The  Great  Sahara,  I  gave  a  full  description  of  what  I  witnessed, 
certainly  not  overdrawn,  but  I  have  nothing  to  add  to  it.  I  certainly 
never  received  any  rational  physical  explanation  of  the  eating  of  prickly- 
pear  leaf,  the  extraordinary  hardness  of  the  skin,  muscles,  etc. ;  and  the 
whole  is  in  complete  accord  with  what  we  read  of  demoniacs  in  the  New 
Testament. 

"  One  thing  is  certain,  these  feats  are  not  jugglery.  Jugglers  are  well 
known  in  these  countries,  and  perform  as  they  do  here,  but  no  native 
ever  dreams  of  confounding  the  two.  The  dervish  performs  only  when 
wrought  up  to  this  state  of  frenzy,  and  cannot  do  anything  extraordin- 
ary at  other  times ;  and  the  people  all  believe  it  to  be  by  a  species  of 
supernatural  possession.  I  never  heard  of  the  exhibition  except  as  a 
religions  one.  There  are  yet  stranger  stories  told  of  the  feats  of  these 
'  possessed '  dervishes ;  but  I  only  state  what  I  have  myself  seen.  It 
was  not  that  the  spine  of  the  prickly  pear,  etc.,  did  not  hurt  them ;  it 
did  not  prick  them.  I  am  not  prepared  to  affirm  that  it  is  demoniacal 
possession,  but  I  should  be  very  far  from  denying  it.  If  we  believe,  as 
we  do,  that  we  are  living  in  the  midst  of  a  spirit  world,  who  shall  say 
what  manifestations  may  not  be  possible,  if  God  permit  them  ?  " 

f  The  Eabbis  say,  He  who  medicates  on  the  Law  of  God  by  "  day," 
and  spends  the  night  in  prayer,  will  never  hear  evil  tilings. — Ueiachoth, 
L  14.1. 


578  NOTES. 

*  Jesus  nses  the  two  words,  xoXetj,  cities ;  and  /cw/^oTroXew,  country 
towns  possessing  a  synagogue. 

h  Greswell  (Har.  Evan.,  p.  48)  makes  the  date  of  the  circuit  from  June 
to  September. 

1  Leprosy  could  not  be  readily  caught  by  contact.  To  sleep  with  a 
leper  might  give  it  (Winer),  and  it  was,  as  I  have  said,  hereditary,  but  it 
was  not  contagious  in  the  ordinary  sense. — Trench,  Miracles,  p.  211. 
Yet  popular  feeling,  doubtless,  thought  it  so,  for  even  in  Spain  at  this 
day  it  is  universally  believed  that  a  leprous  corpse  gives  leprosy  to 
corpses  round  it  in  the  churchyard. — Borroio's  Bible  in  Spain. 

k  Abigail  falls  at  David's  feet  (1  Sam.  xxv.  24).  The  Shunammite  fell 
at  the  feet  of  Elisha  (2  Kings  iv.  37).  The  servant  falls  at  the  feet  of 
his  fellow-servant  (Matt,  xviii.  29),  and  so  on. 

'•  Lord"  (icvpios)  was  the  equivalent  of  our  "  Master,"  "  Sir" — or  of 
the  French  "  Monsieur,"  or  German  "  Herr."  It  is  used  by  a  son  to  a 
father  (Matt.  xxi.  30),  by  a  servant  to  a  master  (Matt.  xiii.  27),  to  the 
Roman  procurator  (Matt,  xxvii.  63),  and  even  in  the  respectful  inter- 
course of  daily  life.  It  is  still  the  same  in  Greek-speaking  lands. 

1  It  is  doubtful,  however,  whether  the  examination  of  the  leper  was 
left  to  tbe  priests  in  the  days  of  Jesus,  as  the  Eabbis,  in  their  hostility 
to  the  priesthood,  had  mauaged,  under  Hillel,  to  make  a  rule  that  a 
leper  might  be  examined  by  any  one,  and  on  his  declaration  was  to  be 
pronounced  clean  by  the  priest.  The  purification  would  still,  however, 
rest  with  the  priest. — Derenbourg,  Palestine,  p.  186. 

m  ffvf^pxovTo.  Imperfect  of  repeated  and  continuous  action.  See 
Winer,  Grammatik,  p.  252. 


CHAPTER  XXXIV. 

•  The  Eabbis  are  mentioned  by  different  names  in  different  passages 
of  the  Gospels. 

1.  They  are  called  Scribes  (ypafj-fjiarets) — the  equivalent  of  the  Hebrew 
Sopherim  (from  "iSp,  Saphar, "  to  write  ").  The  Rabbinical  law  was  known 
as  the  "words  of  the  Sopherim."    Ezra  was  regarded  as  the  founder  of 
the  order,  and  was  specially  known  as  Ezra  the  Scribe.     It  was  their  pe- 
culiar function  to  promote  reverence  for  the  Law,  by  devoting  themselves 
to  its  study,  teaching  it  to  the    people,  and  securing   its  transmission 
intact  by  the  most  careful  transcription.     Their  decisions  on  various 
points,  at  first  transmitted  to  each  generation  orally,  were  finally  col- 
lected in  the  Talmud,  and  overlaid  the   Divine  original  with  endless 
subtleties  and  refinements,  known  as  "the  traditions  of  the  Fathers." 

2.  A  second  name  was   "  lawyers  "  (  valued,  nomikoi),  and  (3)  a  third 
(vofj.odiSdffKa\oi,  nomodidaskaloi),  "doctors  of   the  Law."      Acts  v.  34. 
They  are,  also,  often  referred  to  as  "  the   Pharisees,"  from  the  great 
majority  belonging  to  that  party  ;  but  all  Eabbis  were  not  Pharisees,  nor 
all  Pharisees  liabbis.    In  the  same  way,  many  priests  were  Eabbis,  but 
many  Eabbis  were  not  priests. 

b  Dr.  Thomson  (Land  and  Book)  supposes  the  house  to  have  been  like 
one  of  the  Arab  houses  of  the  present  day — a  low  one-story  building 


NOTES.  579 

with  a  flat  roof,  sloping  downwards  to  the  back.  By  the  courtyard  he 
fancies  is  meant  a  space  enclosed,  before  the  house,  by  a  rough  stone 
wall,  a  door  in  which  furnished  the  means  of  entrance. 

Dr.  Delitzsch  (Kin  Tug  in  Capernaum,  p.  40)  believes  the  house  was 
built  on  four  sides  of  a  hollow  square :  two  windows  on  each  side  facing 
the  inner  space.  This  interior  court,  Sepp  thinks,  might  have  an  awn- 
ing over  it,  and  be  the  place  where  Jesus  taught  (Leben  Jesu,  vol.  ii.  p. 
276).  But  was  Peter  able  to  boast  of  a  house  like  this,  whioa  was,  rather, 
four  houses  built  together  ? 

Eoskoff  (Art.  Dach,  in  Bibel  Lexicon),  Lightfoot  (in  loc.),  Ewald  (vol.  v. 
p.  375),  think  the  house  was  of  two  stories ;  Keim  and  Hausrath  that 
it  was  of  one. 

c  Delitzsch  supposes  the  opening  was  made  by  lifting  up  a  square 
patch  of  bricks  from  an  aperture  in  the  roof,  used  in  summer  as  a  way 
from  within,  but  closed  in  winter,  and  not  yec,  at  the  time,  re-opened, 
A  slight  framework  over  this  in  the  dry  months  would  keep  out  the  sun, 
while  it  admitted  the  air,  and  a  stair  from  (he  ro  .in  below  would  give 
easy  access  to  the  roof,  on  which  a  great  part  of  the  time  is  spent  in 
Palestine,  in  summer,  in  the  mornings  and  evenings.  Ein  Tag,  n.p.  42. 

d  "  When  it  was  day,  we  all  took  up  our  beds — I  my  sheet  and  my 
shawl,  the  rest  their  cotton  or  straw  mats,  which  they  rolled  up  and  put 
in  a  corner." — Furrer,  Wanderungen,  p.  115. 

6  Latin,  Publicanus,  one  connected  with  the  revenue,  or  publicum. 
The  farmers  of  the  revenue  were  called  publicans,  says  Ulpian — •'  quia 
fruunter  publico  " — because  they  lived  from  the  public  revenues. 

f  Even  among  the  publicani  were  some  whom  all  men  praised.  The 
towns  of  Lesser  Asia  raised  inscriptions  to  the  father  of  Vespasian  as 
"  the  good  publican."  Josephus  speaks  of  the  Publican  Johannes,  in 
Cffisarea,  as  the  representative  of  'the  religious  interests  of  the  people, 
and  the  Talmud  praises  Rabbi  Zeira  as  one  who  lightened,  not  increased, 
the  public  burdens. — Suet.  Vesp.,  1.  Jos.  Bell.  Jud.,  ii.  14.  4.  Light- 
foot,  pp.  295,  344. 

e  Buxtorf  gives  the  list  of  things  unbecoming  in  a  Eabbi,  as  follows  : — 
Six  things  are  to  be  condemned  in  a  Disciple  of  the  Wise  (that  is,  of  a 
Rabbi,  and,  of  course, 'much  more  so  in  a  Rabbi  himself).  1.  To  go  out 
to  the  street,  after  anointing  himself.  2.  To  go  out  at  night  alone. 
3.  To  go  out  with  patched  shoes.  4.  To  speak  with  a  woman,  or  hold 
discourse  with  her.  (How  this  touched  Jesus,  in  the  ayes  of  the  dis- 
ciples, at  the  well  of  Sychar!)  5.  To  sit  down  to  eat  with  the  common 
people.  6.  To  be  last  in  entering  the  synagogue. — Buxtorf,  Lex.,  p.  1146. 

It  will  throw  light  on  many  passages  to  quote  a  few  more  Rabbinical 
details.  A  Rabbi,  as  I  have  said,  was  formally  made  so  by  the  Semicha, 
or  laying  on  of  hands.  But  the  "  degree,"  if  I  may  use  the  term,  was 
conferred  not  by  laying  on  of  hands  only.  Before  Hillel's  day,  if  one 
accredited  Rabbi  said  to  another,  " I  create  thee  a  Rabbi;  a  Rabbi  be 
thou,"  it  was  sufficient.  After  Hillel's  day,  however,  no  one  could  con- 
fer the  degree  but  the  president  of  the  great  Sanhedrim  and  the  "  Father 
of  the  House  of  Judgment,"  in  the  presence  of  two  witnesses.  Further, 
it  could  on  no  account  be  done  outside  the  land  of  Israel.  A  degree 
could  be  conferred  on  an  absent  person,  however,  and  sent  abroad  to 
him.  Any  number  of  degrees  could  be  granted  at  the  same  time-  that 
is,  any  number  of  Rabbis  created.  The  powe:s  implied  in  the  title 


580  NOTES. 

were  rations,  and  a  Rabbi  might  be  authorized  to  execute  some  and  not 
others,  or  his  powers  might  be  given  only  for  a  time.  He  might  be  ap- 
pointed a  judge,  but  not  to  teach  respecting  things  allowed  and  forbidden ; 
or  he  might  be  authorized  to  teach  respecting  these,  and  not  to  judge  in 
money  causes  ;  or  he  might  be  authorized  to  judge  money  causes  and 
not  criminal.  A  Eabbi  did  not,  however,  get  his  title  till  he  who  nom- 
inated him  was  dead.  Till  then  he  was  a  Haber,  or  "  companion,"  or 
"  disciple,"  or  "  friend. "  He  was  also  called  "  a  disciple  of  the  wise," 
and  was  felt  worthy  to  be  a  Eabbi.  though  it  was  thought  indecorous  tc 
claim  equal  honour  with  his  nominator  by  assuming  the  title.  A  new 
Eabbi,  that  is,  a  disciple,  either  sat  on  the  ground  while  his  patron 
taught,  or  stood. 

These  facts  are  taken  from  various  passages  of  the  Talmud,  etc. ,  aa 
quoted  by  Buxtorf,  pp.  1498,  1499. 

h  That  is,  the  James  who  is  called  the  brother  of  Jesus  ;  thought  by 
many  to  have  been  the  same  as  James  the  son  of  Alphaeus — that  is,  Has 
cousin. 

1  The  phrase,  "  Go  ye  and  learn,"  was  the  usual  form  of  expression 
among  the  Rabbis. — Nork,  p.  59. 

k  Mercy.  "Tpn  (Hesed),  kindness,  love,  zeal  for  the  good  of  any  one. 
The  passage  is  strictly  parallel  to  that  in  Micah  vi.  8,  "What  doth  the 
Lord  require  of  thee,  but  to  do  justly,  to  love  mercy,  and  to  walk  humbly 
with  thy  God?  "  It  is  noteworthy  that  Hosea  (B.C.  780)  and  Micah  (B.C. 
720)  were  among  the  very  earliest  of  the  prophets.  So  long  had  the 
noblest  practical  religion  been  taught  in  Israel. 

1  The  Greek  imperfect  of  "habit"  is  used  (Luke  v.  33). — Winer's 
Grammatik,  p.  327. 

m  Ewald  assumes  that  the  zeal  of  the  disciples  of  John  had  roused 
the  Pharisees  to  greater  activity  than  usual. — Geschichte,  vol.  v.  p.  379. 

n  "  He  who  makes  prayer  a  daily  mechanical  taskwork,  his  prayer  is 
no  prayer." — Berachoth,  4.  4.  "  Few  words  are  to  be  used  in  prayer 
before  God." — Berachoth  Bab.,  64a. 

0  Old  bottles  are  frequently  patched  and  mended  with  skin  and  pitch. 
The  manufacture  of  these  skin  bottles  is  very  simple.  The  animal  is 
skinned  from  the  neck  by  simply  cutting  off  the  head  and  legs  and  then 
drawing  the  skin  back,  without  making  any  slit  in  the  belly.  The  skins 
in  this  state,  with  the  hah"  on,  are  then  steeped  in  tannin,  and  filled  with 
a  decoction  of  bark  for  a  few  weeks.  .  .  .  They  are  then  sewn  up  at  the 
neck,  the  sutures  being  carefully  pitched.  They  are  then  exposed  to  the 
sun,  on  the  ground,  for  a  few  days,  covered  with  a  strong  decoction  of 
tannin  and  water  pumped  on  them  from  time  to  time,  to  keep  them  on 
the  stretch  till  sufficiently  saturated.  Dry  bottles  crack.  The  hair  on 
the  skins  preserves  them  from  friction  in  travelling.  .  .  .  An  old 
skin  is  not  able  to  bear  the  distension  of  new  wine  in  the  process  of  fer- 
mentation, and  would  burst  with  it. —  Tristram's  Nat.  Hist,  of  Bible,  pp. 
93,  412.  I  have  throughout  adopted  the  correct  text,  which  varies  a 
little  from  our  version,  though  not  so  as  at  all  to  change  its  general 
meaning. 


NOTES.  581 


CHAPTEB  XXXV. 

•  Meyer,  in  a  striking  passage  (Matt.  viii.  20),  shows  tliat  the  Babbia 
must  have  understood  Daniel's  phrase,  "  the  Son  of  Man,"  as  used  by 
Jesus,  of  His  claim  to  be  the  Messiah. 

b  Winer  thinks  the  name  Zebedee  comes  from  the  district  Zebedani, 
between  Baalbek  and  Damascus  (vol.  ii.  p.  711).  Smith's  Dictionary  of 
the  Bible  notices  that  Zabdai  is  nearly  identical  in  meaning  with 
John,  as  if  the  father  had  given  his  son  a  name  more  in  favour  than  his 
own,  and  yet  of  the  same  import. 

c  Hausrath,  in  Art.  Apostel,  in  Bibel  Lex.,  thinks  them  the  sons  of  the 
same  Alphasus,  who  is  also  known  in  the  Gospels  as  Cleopas,  the  hus- 
band of  Mary — apparently  the  sister  of  our  Lord's  mother. — John  xix. 
25.  Matt,  xxvii.  56.  Mark  xv.  40. 

d  Ewald  thinks  that  John,  and  of  course  his  brother  James,  were 
related  to  the  priestly  race,  through  his  mother.  He  supposes  both  her 
and  Mary,  tbe  mother  of  Jesus,  to  have  been  of  the  tribe  of  Levi,  and 
quotes  the  tradition  in  Eusebius  that  John,  in  his  old  age,  wore  the 
veraXov  (petalon),  or  priestly  coronet. — Geschichte,  vol.  v.  p.  246.  The 
petalon  was  a  gold  plate  fastened  on  the  brow  of  the  high  priest,  with  a 
purple-blue  cord.  It  bore  the  words  in  Hebrew,  "  Holiness  to  Jehovah." 
Ewald  thinks  that  its  use  was  open  to  all  Levites. — Alt.,  p.  395.  Hof- 
mann,  p.  30.  The  sacerdotal  tendencies  of  the  post-apostolic  age  may 
have  invented  this,  as  it  did  many  other  traditions.  Huther  (Jacobus, 
p.  14)  treats  it  as  of  no  value. 

6  "Fishermen  with  the  casting  net"  (the  net  used  by  Peter  at  the 
time  of  the  miraculous  draught)  at  the  present  day  work  stark  naked, 
with  the  exception  of  a  thick  woollen  skull-cap.  "  On  the  Egyptian  monu- 
ments, all  persons  catching  fish  or  water-fowl  with  nets  are  depicted 
naked.  The  custom,  therefore,  appears  to  be  ancient  and  widespread." 
— Tristram's  Nat.  History  of  Bible,  p.  290. 

Dr.  Tristram  questions  whether  they  could  have  been  quite  naked  in 
the  "  more  civilized  days  "  of  Peter,  "  with  a  dense  population  on  the 
shore."  But  this  admirable  and  accomplished  writer  will  doubtless  re- 
member that  at  the  Greek  games  introduced  by  Herod  (Jos.  Ant.,  xvi.  5. 
1),  which  were  very  popular  with  young  men,  in  spite  of  the  Babbis,  the 
competitors  were  in  many  cases  quite  naked.  So  that  nudity  was  less 
regarded,  even  by  many  Jews,  then  than  now,  doubtless  through  the 
universal  presence  of  more  or  less  Greek  feeling. 

f~Simon  is  called  the  Canaanite,  in  Matt.  x.  4,  and  Mark  iii.  18,  and 
in  Luke  vi.  15  Zelotes.  The  word  used  by  Matthew  is  Kavavirr]^  (Can- 
anites),  from  Heb.  N3f3  (Kanna),  Aram.  JN3^  (Kannan),  zealous,  and  of 
this,  Zelotes  (f?;Xarr?7s)  is  a  translation.  The  Zealots  hi  later  years,  pos- 
sibly even  in  Christ's  day,  had  become  a  society  like  the  Italian  Car- 
bonari, or  the  German  Vehmgerichte  of  the  Middle  Ages,  striking 
secretly  at  alleged  "  enemies  of  the  Law,"  without  trial,  as  their  superiors 
commanded. 

For  the  Old  Testament  uses  of  K|J5,  see  Buxtorf ,  p.  2050.  The  Zealots 
took  their  name,  as  has  been  said,  from  a  remembrance  of  the  words  of 
the  dying  Mattatbias,  the  father  of  the  Maccabaean  heroes.  "  Now  hath 
pride  and  oppression  gotten  strength,  and  it  is  a  time  of  desolation  and 


582  NOTES. 

bittei  fury.  Now.  therefore,  my  sons,  be  ye  zealots  for  the  Law,  and 
give  your  lives  for  the  covenant  of  your  fathers." — 1  Mace.  ii.  49,  50, 
The  sentiment  was  lofty,  and  such  as  only  spirits  of  a  noble  devotiou 
and  earnestness  would  grasp.  The  remembrance  of  Gideon  overcoming 
Midian  in  spite  of  its  hosts,  wJth  his  chosen  three  hundred,  and  of  the 
victories  against  similar  odds,  recorded  so  often  in  the  Old  Testament 
and  in  the  History  of  the  Maccabees,  fired  them  to  dare  even  the  awful 
power  of  Home.  The  battle  was  the  Lord's,  not  man's,  and  there  was 
no  restraint  with  Him  to  save  by  many  or  by  few.  1  Sam.  xiv.  6. 
2  Chron.  xx.  15.  They  were  at  first  called  Galilaeans ;  Galilee  being 
their  favourite  ground  of  action,  from  the  facilities  it  offered  for  gath- 
ering and  keeping  together  their  guerilla  bands.  The  Galilamns  were 
more  quick-blooded,  moreover,  than  their  southern  brethren,  and  were 
always  brave  soldiers.  See  Jos.  Bell.  Jud.,  vii.  10.  1.  Ant.,  xviii.  1.  6. 

Josephus  speaks  with  the  bitterness  of  a  renegade,  of  the  little  bands 
that  rose  from  time  to  time,  after  the  example  of  Judas  the  Galilsean,  in 
the  fond  hope  that  the  Messiah  would  appear,  and  give  them  the  victory 
over  the  stranger.  He  calls  them  robbers  and  traitors.  Josephus,  no 
doubt,  looked  on  our  Lord  and  His  followers  as  the  leader  and  dupes 
of  such  a  band,  and  classed  Him  and  them  in  the  same  category  of 
"  traitors,"  etc.,  else  he  would  have  spoken  more  of  Him. 

s  Mark  ix.  19.  In  the  Sinaitic,  Alexandrian,  and  Vatican  MSS.  the 
words  are,  " He  answereth  unto  them"  (the  disciples),  not  "answered 
him"  (the  father  of  the  child). 

h  Sepp  (Jerusalem  und  d.  H  Land,  vol.  ii.  p.  126)  thinks  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount  was  delivered  somewhere  in  the  Decapolis  or  Perea. 
Bunsen  decides  for  Karun  Hattin  (Bibelwerk,  vol.  ix.  p.  313),  while  De 
Wette,  Meyer,  Eobinson,  Fritzsche,  Keim,  and  others  think  the  particu- 
lar hill  impossible  to  identify. 

*  Hofmann  gives  examples  of  alphabetical  prayers,  each  petition  begin- 
ning with  the  letter  after  that  with  which  the  preceding  one  commenced ! 
Leben  Jesu,  etc.,  p.  275. 


CHAPTEE  XXXVI. 

•  Luke  (vi.  20-49)  gives  a  shorter  report  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount. 
I  shall  notice  any  variations  of  importance.  The  best  MSS.  show  tbat 
verses  3  and  4  of  St.  Matthew,  chapter  v.,  should  be  transposed. — Uer- 
zog,  vol.  ii.  p.  183. 

b  It  must  not  be  thought  that  there  was  no  true  religion  in  the  world 
before  Jesus,  or  in  the  economy  He  came  to  supersede.  The  Law  aud 
tlie  Prophets  had  spoken  with  no  doubtful  voice  respecting  the  true  con- 
ditions of  acceptance  with  God.  Even  the  uncanouical  literature  of  the 
Jews  was  often  healtLy  and  spiritual  in  its  tone.  "  If  ye  subdue  your 
own  understanding,  and  reform  your  hearts,"  said  the  Fourth  Book  of 
Esdras  (xiv.  34),  "y«  shall  be  kept  alive,  and  after  death  ye  shall  find 
mercy."  "  The  angels  know,"  says  the  Book  of  Enoch,*  "  what  will 
happen  to  the  spirits  of  the  humble  and  of  those  who  mortify  their 

*  Dillmann's  Such  Henoch,  last  chapter. 


NOTES.  583 

flesh  and  receive  the  reward  from  God,  and  of  those  who  were  evilly 
used  by  the  wicked ;  who  loved  God,  not  gold  or  silver,  or  any  of  the 
things  of  this  life,  but  gave  up  their  body  to  suffer ;  and  who,  through 
life,  did  not  crave  after  earthly  food,  but  looked  on  themselves  as  a  pass- 
ing breath,  and  lived  accordingly,  and  were  often  proved  by  the  Lord, 
but  their  spirits  were  found  pure,  to  praise  His  name.  He  has,  therefore, 
given  them  the  reward  for  this,  because  they  were  found  to  love  the 
eternal  heaven  more  than  life,  and  nraised  me  even  when  they  were 
trodden  down  by  evil  men,  and  had  to  listen  to  their  revilings  and  blas- 
phemiugs."  The  resemblance  and  the  contrast  between  thib  and  the 
teaching  of  Jesus  are  both  significant. 

It  is  curious  to  note  the  abuses  which  have  sprung  from  words  appar- 
ently so  clear  as  those  of  the  Beatitudes.  The  Synod  of  Cordova  (A.D. 
850-859)  had  to  pass  stern  laws  against  the  custom  prevalent  among  the 
monks,  of  deliberately  infuriating  the  Mahominedans  of  Spain  to  obtain 
martyrdom  at  their  hands. — Herzog,  vol.  xix.  p.  354. 

Lightfoot  quotes  from  tbe  Kabbis  a  striking  passage  illustrative  of  the 
corrupt  and  corrupting  ideas  of  purity  too  prevalent  among  the  Phari- 
sees. "  Come  and  see,"  says  E.  Simeon  Ben  Eleazar,  "  how  far  the 
purity  of  Israel  extends  itself;  when  it  is  not  only  appointed  that  a 
clean  man  eat  not  with  an  unclean  woman,  but  that  a  Pharisee  who  has 
a  shameful  disease  eat  not  with  a  common  person  who  has  it." — Hor. 
Heb.,  vol.  ii.  p.  99. 

0  "  Sixty-five  houses  in  Lady  Stanhope's  village  were  rented  and  filled 
with  salt.  These  houses  have  merely  earthen  floors,  and  the  salt  next 
the  ground  in  a  few  years  was  entirely  spoiled.  I  sjiw  large  quantities  of 
it  literally  thrown  into  the  street,  to  be  trodden  under  foot  of  men  and 
beasts." — Land  and  Book,  p.  381. 

The  salt  of  this  country,  when  in  contact  with  the  ground,  becomes 
insipid  and  useless.  From  the  mode  in  which  it  is  collected,  much  earth 
and  other  impurities  are  necessarily  collected  with  it. — Land  and  Book, 
p.  382. 

Maundrell  relates  that  he  visited  the  salt  district  near  Aleppo  and 
broke  off  a  piece  of  rock-salt  which  had  quite  lost  its  savour,  though 
further  in  the  salt  was  quite  strong.  The  earth,  etc.,  with  which  the  salt 
was  mixed,  had  caused  the  outer  layer  to  effloresce  and  become  tasteless. 

Josephus  records  that  the  salt  in  Herod's  magazines  having  once 
become  spoiled,  he  strewed  the  forecourts  of  the  Temple  with  it,  "  that 
it  might  be  trodden  under  foot  of  the  people." 

Pressel  gives  much  curious  information  on  the  subject. — Herzog,  vol. 
xiii.  p.  345. 

d  "Jot  or  tittle."  The  jot,  or  Greek  Iota,  is  the  Hebrew  letter  Tod 
(^),  the  smallest  in  the  Hebrew  alphabet.  The  tittle  is  the  Kepaia  (keraia) 
— lit.  a  horn — the  least  part  of  any  letter  or  the  ornaments  added  by  the 
Scribes  to  some  of  them.  Seven  letters  were  thus  decorated,  ^  3  t  3  tD  y  K>. 
Three  small  points  were  added  at  the  head,  or  heads  of  each  letter,  and 
one  of  these  points  was  the  "tittle." 

Many  passages  occur  in  the  Talmud  illustrative  of  the  superstitious 
reverence,  among  the  Babbis,  for  even  the  jots  and  tittles  of  the  Law. 
Thus :  Once  on  a  time,  the  Book  of  Deuteronomy  came  before  God,  and, 
falling  prostrate  before  Him,  said,  "  0  Lord  of  the  universe  !  in  me  hast 
Thou  written  Thy  Law.  But  if  a  law  be  altered  in  any  part  it  is  altered 
in  all.  Behold,  Solomon  is  attempting  tc  root  out  Yod."  (When  he 

75 


584  NOTES. 

took  many  wives  he  was  said  to  have  at  the  same  time  taken  he  Tod, 
which  marks  the  plural,  from  the  verse  Deut.  xvii.  17,  "  He  shall  not 
multiply  wives — D'KO,  nashim — to  himself.")  God,  ever  blessed,  an- 
swered, "  Solomon  and  a  thousand  like  him  shall  perish,  hut  not  a  tittle  " 
(the  fragment  of  one  of  the  ornaments  of  the  letters)  "  shall  perish." 

In  the  same  way,  God  was  said  to  have  taken  the  Yod  which  was 
dropped  from  the  name  Sarai  when  it  was  changed  into  Sarah,  and  put  it 
in  the  name  of  Joshua.  It  had  been  at  the  end  of  the  woman's  name. 
but  was  honoured  by  being  put  in  front  of  the  man's,  when  Mosea 
changed  the  name  of  Hoshea  to  Jehoshua,  or  Joshua—  IKi'tH  changed  into 
IJiTfrV.  Num.  xiii.  8.  Ex.  xvii.  9.  Thus,  God,  rather  than  let  even  the 
smallest  letter  of  one  of  the  words  of  the  Law  be  lost,  added  it  to  another 
word.  See  Girorer'aJahrhundert,  vol.  i.  p.  235;  Meyer's  Matthfiiis,  p. 
147  ;  Kitto's  Cyclo.,  vol.  ii.  p.  663 ;  Lightfoot's  Horae  Heb.,  vol.  ii.  pp. 
101,  102;  Elsey's  Annotations,  vol.  i.  p.  95. 

So  exact,  indeed,  were  the  Rabbis,  that  to  change  the  letter  n  (Cheth) 
into  n  (He)  was  declared  to  be  "  to  destroy  the  world ;  "  and  the  same 
undefined  ruin  is  said  to  be  involved  in  the  change  of  D  (Caph)  into  2 
(Beth)  or  of  1  (Daleth)  into  1  (Resh). 

Incidentally,  the  words  of  Christ  show  that  the  present  square-shaped 
letters  were  in  use  in  his  day. —  Dillmann,  in  Herzog,  vol.  ii.  p.  145 

The  Book  of  Jubilees  (c.  6)  tells  us  that  all  the  Rabbinical  laws  are 
copied  from,  the  books  of  heaven,  and  are  from  eternity.  The  whole 
world,  says  the  Talmud,  is  not  as  much  worth  as  one  word  of  the  Law. — 
Scpp,  vol.  iv.  p.  115. 

6  "  The  Law  "  included  the  five  boots  of  Moses.  "  The  Prophets  " 
were  divided  into  a  "first"  and  "last  "  section,  which,  however,  were 
joined  as  a  whole.  The  first  part  included  Joshua,  the  Judges,  Samuel, 
and  Kings;  the  second  part,  Jeremiah,  Ezekiel,  Isaiah,  and  the  minor 
prophets.  It  was  a  striking  illustration  of  the  inferior  value  set  on 
"  The  Prophets "  that  they  were  never  read  entirely  ;  only  selected 
lessons  were  used. — Bibel  Lex.,  Art.  Bibel,  by  Reuss. 

f  On  each  Monday  and  Thursday  three  sections  of  the  Law  were  read 
in  the  synagogue ;  on  each  feast  or  fast  day,  five  ;  on  Sabbath  morning, 
seven  ;  on  Sabbath  afternoon,  three;  while  in  the  week  only  one  section 
of  the  Prophets  was  read. — Pressel. 

8  The  local  courts  could  put  to  death  by  the  sword  ;  the  Sanhedrim 
could  put  to  death  by  stoning  also,  but  only  with  permission  of  the 
Roman  authorities. — Schiirer,  pp.  403,  404  ;  Elsey,  vol.  i.  p.  102. 

h  For  the  meaning  of  Raca,  see  Tholuck's  Bergpredigt,  p.  175. 
Lightfoot,  vol.  ii.  p.  113. 

One  of  the  middle-age  Rabbinical  books — "  Sohar  " — has  adopted  the 
words  of  Jesus.  It  says,  "  He  who  calls  his  neighbour  Kaca  shall  be 
thrust  into  hell." — Keim,  vol.  ii.  p.  250. 

Gehenna  is  the  word  here  translated  "  hell- fire."  It  was  originally  Ge 
bene  Hinnom,  the  Valley  of  the  Sons  of  Hinnom,  mider  the  south  walls 
of  Jerusalem.  Children  were  burned  alive  there  to  Moloch  till  the  days  of 
King  Josiah,  2  Kings  xxiii.  10.  The  bowlings  of  the  infants  and  the  foul 
idolatry  made  it  the  symbol  of  hell,  and  this  was  strengthened  by  ita 
being  afterwards  used  as  the  place  where  the  refuse  of  the  Temple  sacri- 


NOTES.  585 

fices  was  burned  up  continually  in  a  fire  that  was  never  quenched.— 
Schurer,  p.  596  ;  Lightfoot,  vol.  ii.  p.  109  ;  Furrer,  p.  53  ;  Herzog,  vol. 
iv.  p.  710  ;  Godwyn,  p.  143  ;  Das  Buck  Henoch,  329.  151. 

1  Raca  often  occurs  in  the  Talmud.  It  is  equivalent  to  a  worthless 
person,  in  a  light  and  frivolous  sense. — Buxtorf,  p.  2254.  "It  is  a  word 
used  by  one  that  despises  another  with  the  utmost  scorn." — Lightfoot, 
vol.  ii.  p.  109. 

The  Rabbis  had  many  refinements  respecting  homicide.  Thus,  "  He 
is  a  manslayer,  whosoever  shall  strike  his  neighbour  with  a  stone  or 
iron,  or  thrust  him  into  the  water  or  fire,  whence  he  cannot  come  out,  so 
that  he  die.  He  is  guiity.  But  if  he  thrust  another  into  the  water  or 
fire,  whence  he  might  come  out,  if  he  die,  he  is  guiltless.1' — Sanhed., 
ix.  1 ;  Horte  Heb.,  vol.  ii.  p.  110.  Again,  "  Whosoever  shall  slay  his  neigh- 
bour with  his  own  hand,  behold,  such  a  one  is  to  be  put  to  death  by  the 
Sanhedrim.  But  he  that  hires  another  by  a  reward,  to  kill  his  neigh- 
bour, or  who  sends  his  servants  and  they  kill  him,  or  he  that  thrusts  him 
violently  upon  a  lion  or  some  other  beast,  and  he  kill  him,  is  a  shedder 
of  blood,  and  is  liable  to  death  by  the  hand  of  God,  but  he  is  not  to  be 
punished  with  death  by  the  Sanhedrim." — Babylonian  Gemara,  in  Hor. 
Heb.,  vol.  iii.  p.  111. 

"  Fool "  (M^POS)  moros — is  an  expression  of  contempt  for  one  as  wicked 
and  lost.  It  was  equivalent  to  imprecating  damnation  on  one. — Hor. 
Heb.,  vol.  ii.  p.  112.  Buxtorf  (p.  744)  quotes  from  the  Talmud  that  he 
who  calls  his  brother  a  slave  is  to  be  excommunicated  ;  he  who  calls  him 
"  a  bastard"  is  to  be  beaten  with  forty  stripes,  and  he  who  calls  him  "  a 
wicked  person  "  is  to  be  stripped  of  all  he  has. — Also  Hor.  Heb.,  vol.  ii. 
p.  112. 

k  "  Gift "  is  the  word  Corban,  Mark  vii.  11 ;  Matt,  xxvii.  6.  No  inter- 
ruption of  an  offering  was  permitted,  especially  before  the  libation  after 
the  sacrifice.— ScJuiitgen,  p.  35.  Passages  somewhat  similar  to  our 
Lord's  are  found  in  the  Talmud.  Thus,  "  He  that  offers  an  oblation, 
not  restoring  what  he  has  unjustly  taken  away,  does  not  do  that  which 
is  his  duty.  The  day  of  expiation  atones  for  what  a  man  has  committed 
against  God,  but  not  for  what  he  has  done  against  his  neighbour,  until 
he  has  been  reconciled  with  him." — Hor.  Heb.,  vol.  ii.  p.  113  ;  ScJtott., 
p.  63.  But  such  expressions  are  rare  and  had  little  weight,  because  with 
the  Ribbis  the  formal  offering  covered  everything,  apart  from  the  state 
of  heart.  Indeed,  there  is  no  real  parallel  to  the  words  of  Jesus,  for  the 
very  idea  of  an  interruption  in  a  sacrifice  was  a  horror  to  the  Jew. — 
Keim,  vol.  ii.  p.  251.  Lightfoot  notices,  moreover,  that  the  reference  is 
almost  always  to  pecuniary  matters.  The  idea  of  reconciliation  from  a 
charitable  and  brotherly  heart,  or  from  any  other  feeling  than  a  formal 
self-justification  before  God,  is  not  thought  of. 

Jesus  lays  stress  on  the  reconciliation  from  an  humble,  loving,  penitent 
heart,  being  made  for  any  offence  whatever.  Tt,  "  any  whatever." 

1  The  Rabbis  have  somewhat  similar  expressions,  but  they  are  too 
gross  to  be  copied.  To  look  upon  a  woman's  heel,  or  her  little  finger, 
was  denounced  as  not  less  guilty  than  open  impurity.  But  there  is  the 
immense  difference  between  Jesus  and  these  purists,  that  while  they 
condemn  what  is  perfectly  innocent,  attaching  guilt  even  to  letting  the 
eyes  meet  the  form  of  a  woman,  our  Saviour  only  condemns  the  looking 
with  evil  thoughts.  The  Rabbis  walked  with  their  faces  to  the  earth, 


586  NOTES. 

lest  they  should  see  a  woman.  Christ  speaks  with  her  of  Samaria,  and 
has  women  minister  to  Him  throughout  His  whole  public  life.  How 
utterly  impure  the  affected  purity  which  needs  to  be  blind  not  to  offend, 
and  makes  nothing  of  the  eye  of  the  mind,  if  only  the  outward  sight  be 
clean !  An  extract  may  be  of  use.  "  Kabbi  Gedal  and  E.  Johanan  were 
wont  to  sit  where  the  women  bathed  naked,  and,  when  spoken  to,  B. 
Johanan  replied,  « I  am  the  seed  of  Joseph,  over  whom  evil  passions 
have  no  power.'" — Hor.  Heb.,  vol.  ii.  p.  118;  Buxtorf,  p.  1475;  also, 
p.  113. 

m  Deut.  xxiv.  1.     See  Hor.  Heb.,  vol.  ii.  p.  122  ;  Keim,  vol.  ii.  p.  253. 

n  Jesus  does  not  prohibit  an  oath  under  all  circumstances,  for  He 
Himself  did  not  shrink  from  the  most  solemn  public  oath  (Matt.  xxvi. 
63).  The  oaths  He  condemns  are  the  light  and  thoughtless  words  of 
the  streets  and  the  markets,  or  of  ordinary  life.  The  early  Waldenses, 
like  the  Friends  of  this  day,  would  take  no  oaths,  resting  their  objection 
on  the  words  of  Jesus  in  this  place. — Herzog,  vol.  xviii.  p.  508. 

To  swear  by  heaven  as  equivalent  to  swearing  by  God,  whose  name 
they  dared  not  use,  was  very  common. — Buxtorf,  p.  2441. 

0  It  was  the  same  in  ancient  Borne.    For  personal  injury  or  damage 
to  property,  the  injured  person  could,  in  lighter  cases,  demand  an  in- 
definite compensation  ;  if,  however,  a  member  of  the  body  were  lost,  the 
maimed  person  could  demand  an  eye  for  an  eye,  and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth. 
— Hommseris  Ram.,  vol.  i.  p.  153. 

P  The  zuz,  in  the  Talmud,  is  the  sixth  part  of  a  denarius,  which  was 
nominally  equal  to  l\d.  of  our  money,  but,  from  the  different  value  of 
money  then,  may  have  been  worth,  in  purchasing  power,  forty  pence  of 
our  coin. 

One  hundred  zuzees  would  thus  be  nominally  worth  nearly  £3 ;  but, 
really,  equivalent  to  nearly  six  times  as  much,  in  our  day. — Hor.  Heb., 
vol.  ii.  p.  117  ;  Tischendorf,  p.  xlvi. 

1  Buxtorf  quotes  a  Babbinical  proverb.     "  If  your  comrade  call  you 
an  ass,  put  an  ass's  saddle  on  you ; "  bear  slander  or  wrongs,  lest  by 
more  strife  there  come  more  trouble.     But  this  is  very  far  from  the 
meekness  prompted  by  love  that  seeks  to  win  the  evil-doer  to  repentance 
ior  his  own  sake. 

r  "  Coat,"  XITIJJV  (chiton),  generally  understood  of  the  tunic,  or  inner 
garment,  worn  next  the  skin,  mostly  with  sleeves,  and  reaching  usually 
to  the  knees,  rarely  to  the  ankles. — Diet,  of  Ant.,  "  Tunica."  Cloak, 
ifj.driov  (himation),  generally  understood  of  the  outer  garment,  the  mantle 
or  pallium,  and  as  different  from  the  X^WP  »ud  worn  over  it.  Dr. 
Thomson  (Land  and  Book,  p.  118)  thinks  the  coat  was  the  sultah,  an 
outer  jacket,  now  worn  in  Palestine. 

Lightfoot,  however,  says  that  the  chiton  was  the  tallith,  quoting  the 
Talmud  in  proof.  In  this  upper  garment,  or  cloak,  were  woven  the 
sacred  fringes  which  were  to  put  the  wearer  in  mind  of  the  Law.  It  was 
tb  us  a  dishonour  as  well  as  loss  to  take  this. 

"  Press  thee."  The  word  is  dyyapetiw  (angareuo).  It  is  a  Persian 
word  derived  from  the  letter  furnished  by  authority,  which  empowers 
the  holder  to  press  into  his  service  persons,  conveyances,  and  beasts  for 
a  journey,  etc.  The  word  is  translated  "  compel  "  in  Mark  xv.  21.  See 
Buxtorf,  p.  132. 


NOTES.  587 

Chardin,  in  his  travels,  gives  a  different  etymology  of  the  word.  He 
eays  it  comes  from  hannar,  "a  dagger"  worn  by  Persian  couriers  as  a 
mark  of  authority. — Vol.  ii.  p.  242. 

Where  bodily  hurt  was  done,  the  Rabbis  had  established  five  different, 
fines.  For  maiming,  if  the  person  were  maimed;  tor  pain,  for  the  cure, 
for  the  reproach  brought  on  the  sufferer  by  the  indignity,  and  for  the 
time  lost  during  convalescence. — Hor.  Heb.,  vol.  ii.  p.  132. 


CHAPTER   XXXVTI. 

•  Baur  has  a  splendid  essay  on  the  preparation  of  the  world,  Jewish 
and  heatben,  for  Christ,  in  the  beginning  of  his  Geschichte  d,  Christ- 
lichen  Kirche. 

b  Some  have  been  disposed  to  ascribe  the  special  teaching  of  Jesus  to 
the  lessons  of  the  Rabbis ;  but  if  the  proofs  I  have  already  given  be  not 
enough,  let  me  quote  the  words  of  a  man  of  genius  than  whom  no  one 
was  more  entitled  to  speak,  by  his  very  antagonism  to  much  that  is 
accepted  by  the  Christian  world  at  large — Dr.  Ferdinand  Christian  Baur. 
"  If  one  considers  the  development  of  Christianity,"  says  he,  "its  whole 
historical  significance  hangs  only  on  the  character  of  its  founder.  How 
soon  would  all  that  Christianity  has  taught  of  true  and  impressive,  have 
been  relegated  to  the  roll  of  long-forgotten  sayings  of  the  noble  friends 
of  man,  and  the  thoughtful  minds  of  antiquity,  if  its  doctrines  had  not 
become  words  of  eternal  life  in  the  mouth  of  its  founder  ?  "—Geschichte, 
p.  36.  Hermann  Weiss  (Siindlosigkeit  Jesu,  Herzog,  vol.  xxi.  p.  205)  well 
says,  that  "  the  attempt  to  invalidate  the  Divine  originality  and  perfec- 
tion of  Christ  and  of  Christianity,  by  quoting  Jewish  or  Heathen  moral 
utterances  as  already  containing  the  essence  of  the  doctrine  of  Jesus, 
has  now  fairly  died  out."  It  would  be  strange,  indeed,  if  in  the  in- 
terminable dust-heaps  of  the  Talmud,  of  which  the  Babylonian  alone, 
including  the  Rabbinical  commentaries  on  it,  fill  twenty-four  volumes 
folio  (Vienna,  1682),  did  not  contain  some  stray  pearls.  Among  the 
many  Rabbis  of  successive  centuries,  whose  sayings  are  reported  in  it, 
or  whose  expositions  are  appended  to  it,  there  was  here  and  there  a  man 
of  genius,  or  of  pure  and  lofty  aspirations  who  has  left  traces  of  his  finer 
or  more  religious  nature  in  sayings  well  worthy  preservation.  Such  is 
the  sentence,  "  Number  thyself  among  the  oppressed ;  not  among  the 
oppressors :  hear  reproach  and  answer  cot  again :  do  all  from  love  to 
God,  and  rejoice  in  tribulation." — Shabhath,  Ixxxviii.  6.  Hess,  Rom 
u.  Jems.,  p.  137.  This  also  is  fine — "  The  Thora  (Law)  has  grown  to 
be  a  wide  sea,  but  it  will  some  day  shrink  into  this  one  command — 
"  Walk  before  God  and  be  holy." — Herzog,  vol.  ii.  p.  487.  But  glimpses 
of  profound  metaphysics,  stray  parables  of  real  beauty,  and  occasional 
sentiments  of  true  spiritual  breadth  and  elevation,  are  only  the  rare 
grains  of  wheat  in  mountains  of  chaff.  There  has  been  of  late  a  ten- 
dency to  exalt  the  Talmud  at  the  expense  of  the  New  Testament ;  but  let 
any  one  take  up  a  translation  of  any  part  of  it,  or  even  turn  to  the 
illustrations  of  different  laws  I  have  drawn  from  it  (chap,  xvii.),  and  the 
exaggeration  of  such  an  estimate  will  at  once  be  seen.  The  Talmud  is 
divided  into  six  great  sections,  and  of  these,  the  first — The  Seder  Seraim 
(Laws  of  seeds) — take  up  one  folio  ;  the  second,  The  Laws  of  the  Feasts, 


588  NOTES. 

three  folios ;  The  Laws  of  Women,  two  folios  ,  The  Laws  of  Inquiries, 
tbree  folios ;  The  Laws  of  Consecrations  (treating  of  sacrifices),  two 
folios ;  and  the  Seder  Taharoth,  or  Purifications,  one  folio.  Each  Seder 
is  divided  into  a  greater  or  less  number  of  Massichthoth  or  treatises ; 
these  again  into  Perakim  or  chapters,  and  every  chapter  into  more  or 
fewer  Mischnaioth  or  "  Teachings  " — the  so-called  "  Traditions  of  the 
Elders"  mentioned  in  the  New  Testament.  In  all,  there  are  seventy 
treatises,  in  525  chapters  and  4,187  sections,  or  "  Traditions  of  the 
Elders."  The  contents  of  one  treatise  may  be  given  as  a  sample  of  the 
whole.  Let  it  be  the  fourth  of  the  Seder  Taharoth.  It  treats  of  the 
"  water  of  sprinkling,"  and  is  called  "  The  Cow."  The  water  was  made 
of  the  ashes  of  a  red  cow  and  flowing  water,  and  was  used  for  tbe  purifi- 
cation of  men  and  things  that  had  been  defiled  by  the  presence  of  a  dead 
body.  The  contents  are  divided  into  twelve  chapters.  Of  these,  the  1st, 
which  is  divided  into  four  "  Teachings  "  or  sections,  treats  of  the  age  of 
the  red  cow,  of  that  of  the  young  cow,  in  Deut.  xxi.,  and  of  that  of  other 
animals  for  sacrifice.  The  2nd,  in  four  sections.  How  to  decide  if  they 
are  fit  or  unfit.  The  3rd,  in  eleven  sections.  Of  the  separation  of  the 
priest  who  is  to  kill  the  red  cow ;  of  the  leading  it  outside  the  camp  (or 
city),  the  slaughtering,  and  the  burning  it,  and  of  the  gathering  up  of 
its  ashes.  The  4th,  in  four  sections.  Possible  ways  in  which  victims 
may  be  made  unfit.  The  5th,  in  nine  sections.  Of  the  vessels  to  be 
used  for  the  water  of  sprinkling.  The  6th,  in  five  sections.  Of  the 
cases  in  which  the  ashes  or  the  water  mixed  with  them  are  unfit.  The 
7th,  in  twelve  sections.  How  the  act  (of  preparing  tbe  water  of  sprink- 
ling) must  not  be  interrupted.  The  8th,  in  eleven  sections.  Of  the  keep- 
ing of  the  water  of  sprinkling ;  of  sea-water  and  other  kinds  of  water 
in  relation  to  the  water  of  sprinkling.  The  9th,  in  nine  sections.  Con- 
tinuation of  the  same.  The  10th,  in  six  sections.  How  clean  men  and 
vessels  may  become  unclean  (in  connection  with  the  sprinkling).  The 
llth,  hi  nine  sections.  Of  the  hyssop  to  be  used  in  sprinkling.  The 
12tb,  in  eleven  sections.  Of  the  persons  who  may  be  sprinkled. — Pressel, 
Thalmud,  Herzog,  vol.  xv.  p.  637. 

Dr.  Lightfoot's  opinion  of  the  Talmud,  was  that  of  a  man  fitted 
beyond  most  by  a  life-long  study  of  it,  and  by  his  candour  and  integrity. 
He  thus  expresses  it :  "  The  almost  unconquerable  difficulty  of  the  style, 
the  frightful  roughness  of  the  language,  aud  the  amazing  emptiness  and 
sophistry  of  the  matters  handled,  do  torture,  vex,  and  tire  beyond 
measure,  him  who  reads  these  volumes.  They  everywhere  abound  in 
trifles  in  that  manner,  as  though  they  had  no  mind  to  be  read ;  with 
obscurities  and  difficulties  as  though  they  had  no  mind  to  be  understood ; 
so  that  the  reader  has  need  of  patience  all  along,  to  enable  him  to  bear 
both  trifling  in  sense  and  roughness  in  expression." — Ded.  of  Hor.  Heb. 
on  Matthew. 

c  Aurelius  and  Trajan  were  Spaniards,  and  Hadrian  was  of  Spanish 
descent.  Severus  was  an  African.  Seneca  and  Martial  were  Spaniards. 

d  Authorities  on  this  whole  subject — Hausrath,  vol.  i.  pp.  353-357. 
Meyer's  Mattliaus,  p.  158.  Hess.,  Horn.,  p.  137.  Keim,  vol.  ii.  pp.  61, 
97,  257.  Bibel  Lex.,  vol.  iv.  p.  168  ;  vol.  v.  p.  32.  Herzog,  vol.  xxi.  pp. 
206,  652.  Derenbourg,  pp.  220,  138.  Keim's  Christus,  p.  89.  Hill-l  und 
Jesw,  p.  29.  Ecce  Homo,  chap.  xii.  Elsey,  vol.  i.  p.  115,  etc.,  etc. 

•  See  note  b  in  this  chapter. 


NOTES.  589 

Illustrations  of  the  best  •  sentences  of  the  Talmud  may  be  found  in 
Hershom's  Treasures  of  the  Talmud,  Bishop  Barclay's  The  Talmud, 
R'ibbinismus  by  Pressel,  Herzog,  vol.  xii  p.  487,  etc. 

f  The  word  used  in  the  Hebrew  version  of  Matthew  was,  doubtless, 
—  Tsedakah,  "  righteousness." 


8  So  in  the  Vatican  and  Sinaitic  MSS. 

b  The  names  of  large  givers  to  the  poor  were  called  out  in  the  syna- 
gogues. —  Scpp,  vol.  ii.  p.  350. 

1  The  corruption  of  the  day  had  forgotten  the  merit  attached  to  secrecy 
even  by  the  Kabbis.  Godly  Jews  were  not  wanting  who  dropped  their 
alms  into  the  famed  "  treasury  of  the  silent  "  in  the  Temple,  and  a  Rabbi 
had  taught  that  "  He  that  doeth  his  alms  in  secret  is  greater  than  Moses 
himself."  —  Hor.  Heb.,  vol.  ii.  p.  141.  R.  Jannaeus,  seeing  some  one  give 
alms  publicly,  said  to  him,'  "  It  would  have  been  better  for  you  if  you 
had  not  given  them."  —  Buxtorf,  p.  1891.  Another  proverb  was  —  "  Char- 
ity is  the  salt  of  riches." 

k  Lightfoot  gives  illustrations  of  the  "  babbling  "  of  Roman  prayers. 
Thus  —  Antoninus  the  pious,  the  gods  keep  thee.  Antoninus  the  merciful, 
the  gods  keep  thee.  Antoninus  the  merciful,  the  gods  keep  thee,  and  so 
on. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  the  priests  of  Baal  "  called  on  the  name  of 
Baal  from  morning  to  noon,  saying,  O  Baal  hear  us  1  "  Some  phrases 
are  repeated  thirty  times  in  Mabommedan  prayers.  —  Land  and  Book, 
p.  26.  1  Kings  xviii.  26.  "  La  illalu  illah  allah,  was  repeated  over  and 
over."  —  Sepp,  vol.  ii.  p.  328.  The  Ephesians  (Acts  xix.  34)  repeated 
"Great  is  Diana,"  for  two  hours.  The  repetition  condemned  was 
"  deorum  aures  contundere,"  to  stun  the  cars  of  the  god.*,  as  if  they  could 
not  or  would  not  hear,  "  nisi  idem  dictum  sit  centies,"  unless  the  same 
thing  were  repeated  a  hundred  times.  The  Hindoos  repeat  the  name  of 
Ram,  over  and  over  thousands  of  times.  In  Rome,  no  priest  or  magis- 
trate could  pray  for  the  people  except  in  the  very  words  of  prescribed 
forms.  Some  one  always  stood  by  to  watch  that  no  word  was  omitted  or 
added,  and  that  there  was  no  interruption,  that  the  prayer  might  not 
lose  its  effect.  Among  the  Jews,  the  exact  time  for  each  prayer  was 
rigidly  fixed.  —  Schiiret  ,  p.  505.  Sepp,  vol.  ii  p.  328. 

1  It  is  always  pleasant  to  note  parallels  between  the  words  of  Jesus 
and  those  of  the  Rabbis,  though  it  is  impossible  to  say  how  far  the 
latter  are  original.  There  was  no  written  collection  of  Rabbinical  litera- 
ture for  at  least  500  years  after  Christ.  Indeed,  it  was  thought  a 
religious  offence  to  commit  any  examples  to  writing.  Moreover,  tho 
earliest  attempt  to  gather  any  body  of  tradition  together,  to  be  committed 
to  memory,  dates  only  from  the  time  of  Jehudah  the  Holy,  who  died 
about  A.D.  220.  Jost,  vol.  ii.  p.  120.  It  is  therefore  impossible  to  tell 
how  much  in  the  Rabbis  that  harmonizes  more  or  less  with  the  sayings 
of.  Jesus  may  not  have  been  borrowed  from  Christian  sources.  Yet,  with 
the  Law  and  the  Prophets,  why  should  not  gracious  souls,  here  and 
there,  have  expressed  themselves  graciously?  Gfrorer,  who  took  special 
pains  to  search  for  the  Lord's  Prayer  in  the  Talmud,  found  that  it  could  not 
be  traced  in  any  measure  to  older  Jewish  sources.  Parallels  to  detached 
phrases  may  be  discovered,  but  one  need  only  look  at  the  'illustrations 


590  NOTES. 

in  Lightfoot,  to  see  how  entirely  independent  our  Lord's  utterance  was 
of  anything  afloat  in  the  minds  of  the  nation. 

The  following  are  the  closest  analogies  in  Babbinical  expressions  to 
those  of  the  Lord's  Prayer :  "  The  necessities  of  Thy  people  Israel  are 
many  ;  may  it  be  Thy  holy  pleasure  to  give  each  what  is  needed  for  his 
support."— Bab.  Berach,  f.  29.  2. 

"  For  Thy  name's  sake,  0  Lord,  pardon  my  sin.  Forgive  all  my  sin." 
T,irg.  Ps,  xxv.  11. 

The  day  of  expiation  does  not  bring  forgiveness  unless  thou  makest 
peace  with  thy  neighbour. — Joma,  f.  85.  2. 

Babbi  Judah  was  wont  to  pray, "  May  it  be  Thy  holy  pleasure  to  deliver 
us  from  the  froward  and  from  frowardness,  from  the  evil  man,  from  the 
evil  companion,  from  the  evil  neighbour,  from  Satan  the  destroyer,  from 
the  hard  judge  and  from  the  hard  adversary." — Berach.,  f.  16.  2. 

"  Our  Father  who  art  in  heaven,  deal  so  with  us  as  Thou  hast 
promised  by  the  prophets." 

One  of  the  synagogue  prayers,  of  uncertain  age,  however,  begins, 
"  May  Thy  great  name  be  magnified  and  sanctified  in  the  world,  and  may 
He  make  His  kingdom  reign. 

"  The  wants  of  Thy  people  Israel  are  great  and  their  knowledge  small, 
so  that  they  know  not  how  to  disclose  their  necessities ;  let  it  be  Thy 
good  pleasure  to  give  to  every  man  what  sumceth  for  good.  He  who 
made  the  day  prepares  also  the  food  that  man  needs  for  it." — Keim,  vol. 
ii  p.  278.  Nork,  p.  43.  Lightfoot,  vol.  ii.  p.  150.  Sepp,  vol.  iii.  p.  203. 
Dukes,  p.  68.  Jtid.  Handwerk.  Leben,  p.  22. 

m  The  doxology  in  Luke  and  in  Matthew  is  wanting  in  the  early 
Fathers  and  chief  MSS. 

n  In  1  Chron.  ii.  24 ;  iv.  5,  there  is  a  name  Ashur ;  presumably,  as 
Buxtorf  thinks,  of  one  who  had  made  his  face  black  and  haggard  by 
extreme  fasting  (p.  234).  Chronicles  belong  to  the  post-exile  period.  The 
care  of  the  hair  and  beard  was  a  matter  of  great  importance  amongst 
the  Jews.  Not  to  dress  and  anoint  them  was  the  sign  of  the  extremest 
sorrow. — Herzog,  vol.  xiii.  p.  321 ;  vol.  xvi.  p.  321. 

0  Monobazus,  the  friend  of  Izates,  Prince  of  Adiabene  on  the  Tigris,  a 
convert,  with  his  prince,  to  Judaism,  about  the  time  of  the  death  of 
Christ,  figures  largely  in  the  Talmud.  After  wild  exaggeration  of  his 
wealth,  the  narrative  goes  on  to  say  that  his  brothers  and  friends  came 
to  him  and  said,  "  Thy  fathers  gathered  treasures  and  added  to  the 
treasures  of  their  fathers,  but  thou  scatterest  them."  He  answered 
them,  "  My  fathers  had  their  treasures  below  (that  is,  says  the  Jerus. 
Talmud,  in  the  earth) ;  I,  above  (that  is,  in  heaven) ;  my  fathers  had 
their  treasures  where  the  hands  (of  men)  may  lay  hold  of  them ;  I,  where 
no  hand  can  do  so.  My  fathers  treasured  what  yield  no  fruit,  but  I 
collect  what  gives  fruit.  My  fathers  stored  away  mammon ;  I,  treasures 
of  the  soul :  my  fathers  did  it  for  others ;  I,  for  myself.  My  fathers 
gathered  them  for  the  world ;  I,  for  the  world  to  come." — Buxtorf,  p. 
1224. 

For  a  fine  account  of  Izates  and  Monobazus  and  of  Queen  Helena, 
mother  of  Izates,  see  Kenan's  Apotres,  pp.  256  ff. 

The  Kabbis  held  the  very  commendable  opinion,  though  they  were 
far  from  always  carrying  it  out,  that  to  marry  for  money  was  sure  to 
bring  the  displeasure  of  God  on  a  family. — Buxtorf,  p.  148. 


NOTES.  591 

P  Buxtorf,  Lex.  Thai,  p.  1217,  flDO  (Mamon).  "  Wealth,  riches."  The 
3-reek  and  Latin  have  "mammon."  The  Talmud  says  well,  "The  salt 
of  riches  (mammon)  is  almsgiving." 

Mammon  was  a  Syrian  idol,  the  God  of  Eiches,  like  the  Greek  Plutus. 
—  Vailiinger  in  Herzog,  vol.  viii.  p.  775.  The  love  of  money  is  thus  per- 
sonified in  the  text. 

Milton  says  of  Mammon  : — 

"  The  least  erected  spirit  that  fell 

From  heaven  ;  for  even  in  heaven  his  looks  and  thoughts 
Were  always  downwards  bent,  admiring  more 
The  riches  of  heaven's  pavement,  trodden  gold, 
Than  aught  Divine  or  holy  else  enjoyed 
In  vision  beatific." — Paradise  Lost,  i.  678. 

i  In  the  Talmud  we  find  the  following  :  "  Hast  thou  seen  a  bird  or  a 
beast  of  the  wood  that  got  its  living  by  toil  ?  God  feeds  it  with  its 
labour,  and  yet  it  is  made  only  to  serve  man.  Does  it  then  become  man, 
who  knows  his  higher  calling — to  serve  God — to  be  the  only  creature 
who  cares  for  his  bodily  wants  ?  " — Kiddusch,  iv.  14. 

r  Dry  weeds  and  grass  are  used  in  Palestine  as  fuel. — Land  and  Book, 
p.  341. 

8  He  who  has  what  he  needs  for  to-day,  and  says,  "  What  shall  I  eat 
to  morrow?"  has  not  faith.  He  who  creates  the  day,  creates  the  food 
for  it. — Talmud,  in  Buxtorf,  p.  2017. 

*  This  was  a  Jewish  proverb.     See  Buxtorf,  p.  2080 ;  Hor.  Heb.,  vol. 
ii.  p.  158. 

u  "  The  masterless  dogs  are  countless,  as  they  have  been  from  the 
earliest  times  in  Eastern  towns.  They  are  hateful-looking,  yellow  beasts, 
with  sharp  muzzles.  The  prophet  vividly  describes  their  mode  of  life 
by  day,  as  I  often  noticed  it :  '  They  are  dumb,  they  do  not  bark,  they 
dream  and  lie  about  and  like  to  sleep.'  Isa.  Ivi.  10.  After  sunset, 
however,  they  are  active  enough,  and  swarm  through  the  streets,  break- 
ing the  quiet  of  the  night  with  their  dissonant  noise.  At  the  same  time 
they  act  like  sanitary  police.  Whatever  is  unclean,  useless,  or  unholy 
according  to  Jewish  (or  Eastern)  ideas,  is  thrown  out  on  the  streets. 
(The  heads  and  offal  of  animals,  for  example.)  The  dogs  come  and  eat 
all  this  up." — Furrer's  Palastina,  p.  31. 

Every  Oriental  city  and  village  abounds  with  troops  of  hungry  and 
half-savage  dogs,  which  own  allegiance  to  the  place  rather  than  to  per- 
sons, and  wander  about  the  streets  and  fields,  howling  dismally  at  night, 
and  devouring  even  the  dead  bodies  of  men  when  they  can  reach  them. 
Ps.  lix.  14, 15.  1  Kings  xxi.  19,  23,  24.  Ps.  xxii.  16.  Phil.  iii.  2.  Rev. 
xxii.  15. — Tristram's  Nat.  Hist,  of  Bible,  p.  79. 

Swine  and  dogs  were  the  ideal  of  uncleanness.  Swine  were  eaten  and 
even  offered  in  sacrifice  by  the  Canaanites,  and  though  the  Jews  them- 
selves did  not  keep  swine,  they  were  largely  kept  by  others  for  the 
heathen  market.  The  population  of  Galilee,  and  of  the  districts  beyond 
Jordan,  were  largely  foreign  and  heathen,  and  created  a  demand  for  the 
flesh  of  swine.  The  herds,  fed  on  the  hills  and  wastes,  seem  often  to 
have  become  half  wild,  like  pigs  fed  in  the  bush  in  Canada. 

*  An  incidental  allusion  like  this  shows  that  bread  and  fish  were  the 


592  NOTES. 

staples  of  food  in  Galilee.  Near  the  lake,  fish  was,  in  fact,  the  flesh  used 
by  the  community  generally. 

There  is  an  ancient  Greek  proverb,  "  to  give  a  scorpion  for  a  perch," 
which  may  have  been  current  in  Palestine,  in  our  Lord's  day. 

Scorpions  are  so  common  in  Palestine,  that  every  stone,  however 
email,  must  be  turned  over  before  a  tent  is  pitched,  to  guard  against 
thfir  presence. 

y  Philo's  words  are -A  ns  iraOfiv  tySalpei  fir]  iroie~v  avrov. — Eustt, 
I'ratp.  Ev  ,  viii.  7.  6.  The  date  of  Tobit,  according  to  Ewald,  is  s.c.  333. 

z  The  characteristic  of  these  men  is  an  impure,  but  often  zealot-like 
heroism  of  faith,  which  made  them  capable  of  outward  miracles,  but 
remained  without  influence  on  their  inner  spiritual  life,  as  Paul  describes, 
1  Cor.  xiii.  2.  Men  of  the  same  class  are  found  at  all  times,  especially  in 
those  of  unusual  religious  excitement. — Meyer,  Matthaus,  in  loc.  See 
also  De  Wette,  in  loc. 

"  I  have  united  the  parallel  passages  in  Matthew  vii.  24-27,  and  Luko 
vi.  47-49. 


CHAPTER  XXXVHI. 

•  Wieseler  (Herzog,  vol.  xxi.  p.  546)  supports  Purim ;  so  also,  do 
Olshausen,  Farrar,  and  others.  Sepp,  Andrews,  Lightfoot,  and  many 
more  favour  the  Passover  ;  Neander  and  Ewald  (vol.  v.  p.  370)  the  Feast 
of  Tabernacles ;  while  Vaihinger  thinks  he  can  prove  it  to  have  been 
Pentecost.—  H erzog,  vol.  xi.  p.  483.  It  is  useless  to  trouble  the  reader 
with  the  rival  arguments.  The  article  is  wanting  in  the  received  text, 
so  that,  as  it  stands,  the  words  are  "  a  feast  of  the  Jews."  Had  it 
been  "the  least,"  it  would  have  meant  the  Passover.  —  Winer,  p.  118. 
Tischendorf  inserted  the  article  in  his  second  edition,  but  not  in  his 
seventh,  and  yet  Davidson  has  adopted  it  in  his  English  version  of 
Tischendorfs  latest  text  (New  Test ,  1875).  The  Sinaitic  MS.  has  it, 
and  there  are  many  other  MSS.  in  its  favour. 

Hofmann  (Leben  Jesu,  p.  356)  states  the  reasons  for  its  rejection  very 
forcibly. 

b  The  cisterns  hewn  out  in  the  rock  of  the  Temple  hill,  under  the 
courts  of  the  Temple,  held  ten  millions  of  gallons.  One  alone  would 
contain  2,000,000  gallons.  The  sacrifices  entailed  endless  cleansings,  to 
remove  the  blood,  etc.,  of  countless  slaughtered  animals. — Hecovcry  oj 
Jerusalem,  p.  17. 

«  Arnold  (Herzog.  vol.  ii.  p.  117)  derives  Bethesda  from  the  Aram. 
tnpH  TV?}  (Beth  Hesda) — "  The  house  of  mercy."  He  identifies  it 
apparently  wrongly  with  the  Birket  Israel,  at  the  north-east  angle  of  the 
Temple  enclosure.  That  pool  is  360  English  feet  long,  130  broad,  and 
75  to  80  deep.  At  the  south-west  two  huge  vaults  have  been  found  hewn 
130  feet  down  into  the  rock. 

Sepp  gives  other  derivations,  vol.  iv.  p.  38.  See  also  Etcald,  vol.  v. 
p.  370.  The  Sinaitic  MS.  reads  Bethzatha,  which  is  very  like  Bezetha, 
"  the  new  town  "  in  which  the  "  twin  pools  "  stood.  Indeed  it  is  called 
Bezetha  by  Eusebius. —  Winer,  R.  W.  B. 

The  altered  binaitic  and  the  Alexandrian  read  "  in  the  sheep  market, 


NOTES.  593 

a  pool."  In  verse  3  the  Sinaitic  and  the  Vatican  omit  •'great."  The 
biuaitic,  Vatican,  and  later  altered  Alexandrian  omit  "  waiting  for  the 
moving  of  the  water." 

The  Sinaitic  aud  Vatican  omit  the  fourth  verse  entirely.  In  other 
versions  it  is  marked  as  doubtful.  It  seems  to  have  been  a  gloss  or 
explanation  written  at  first  on  the  margin  of  some  MS.,  and  after  a  timo 
incorporated,  by  mistake,  with  the  text.  The  Alexandrian  Fathers  re- 
jected it,  and  even  so  cautious  a  writer  as  Sepp  regards  it  as  spurious. — 
Vol.  ii.  p.  38. 

d  Robinson  (vol.  i.  p.  341)  himself  noticed  the  intermittent  character 
of  this  fountain.  He  was  informed  that  it  "  bubbled  up  at  irregular 
intervals,  sometimes  two  and  three  times  a  day,  and,  in  summer,  some- 
times once  in  two  or  three  days." 

Captain  Wilson,  R.E.  (Recovery  of  Jerusalem,  p.  25)  says,  "  At  intervals 
the  water  rises  with  some  force,  aud  runs  through  a  rock-hewn  passage 
to  Siloam.  These  intermittent  flows  appear  to  be  dependent  on  the 
rainfall.  In  winter  there  are  from  three  to  five  a  day ;  in  summer, 
two  ;  later  on  in  the  autumn,  only  one,  and,  after  a  failure  of  the  early 
rains,  but  once  in  three  or  four  days."  He  adds,  "  The  taste  of  the 
water  is  decidedly  unpleasant  and  slightly  salt,  arising  from  its  having 
filtered  through  the  mass  of  rubbish  and  filth  on  which  the  city  stands." 

I  should  certainly  prefer  the  "troubling"  from  the  red  sediment 
brought  into  Bethesda  by  heavy  rains  to  any  possible  ebb  and  flow  of  its 
waters. 

8  Curious  legends  were  told  of  the  fabulous  spring  of  Miriam.  See 
Nork,  Rabbinische  Quellen,  p.  172.  Hofmann's  Leben  Jesu,  p.  356.  In 
John  v.  4,  to  means  into,  as  in  the  English  version. — Winer,  p.  385. 

1  Palestine  abounds  in  sufferers  from  rheumatic  diseases  and  palsy. 
The  scanty  clothing  worn  in  the  heat  of  the  day,  and  the  sleeping  by 
night  on  the  roofs,  or  in  the  open  air,  with  little  if  any  extra  covering, 
in  the  frequently  cold  nights,  is  perhaps  the  cause.  See  Krankheit, 
Herzog,  vol.  viii.  p.  40. 

«  This  explains  why  those  who  were  not  in  immediate  danger  came  to 
Jesus  after  sunset  on  Sabbath ;  that  is,  when  the  Sabbath  was  over. — 
Marki  32. 

h  The  German  Jews  will  not  carry  a  walking-stick  on  the  Sabbath.  To 
walk  on  grass  is  forbidden,  as  it  is  a  kind  ot  threshing.  A  handkerchief 
is  a  burden  if  carried  in  the  pocket,  but  not  if  it  be  tied  round  the  waist 
as  a  girdle. 

1  iraTtpa.  ISiov.  His  father  in  a  special  sense,  thus  marked  with 
emphasis. 

k  This  is  Tischendorf's  rendering.  Ewald  makes  it  the  second  Sabbath 
after  the  one  that  followed  the  second  day  of  the  Passover.  The  Sab- 
baths from  the  Passover  to  Pentecost  were  known  as  the  first,  second, 
etc.,  the  first  being  counted  from  the  second  day  of  the  feast.  Light- 
foot's  explanation  is  the  same.— Vol.  ii.  p.  194. 

1  A  Sabbath  day's  journey  was  2,000  cubits,  which  were  reckoned 
equal  to  six  stadia.  A  stadium  was  606  feet  6  inches  x  6  =  3, 639  feet  = 
1,'213  yards.  No  distance  was  spoken  of  by  Moses,  but  it  was  com- 
manded that  no  one  should  go  outside  the  camp  to  get  manna.  Tha 

VOL.   II. 


594  NOTES. 

Levitical  towns  were  to  have  a  district  of  2,000  cubits  in  breadth  on  all 
Bides  (Num.  xxxv.  5),  and  there  was  to  be  the  same  distance  between  the 
ark  and  the  people  of  Israel  in  their  march  behind  it.  From  this  the 
Babbis  concluded  that  that  was  the  distance  between  the  Tabernacle 
and  the  edge  of  the  camp,  out  of  which  no  one  was  to  go. — Winer. 
Sabbathweg,  Bibel  Lex.,  vol.  v.  p.  125.  Buxtorf,  vol.  ii.  p.  582. 

m  Hor.  Heb.,  vol.  ii.  p.  196.  Orientals  rise  very  early,  and  the  morn- 
ing service  was  not  over  till  the  third  hour,  nine  a.m. 

n  The  Jews  could  not,  on  the  Sabbath,  even  lift  up  and  eat  fruit  which 
bad  fallen  from  a  tree. — Lightfoot. 

0  The  punishment  for  Sabbath-breaking  was  death  by  stoning. — Exod. 
xxxi.  14  ;  xxxv.  2.  Num.  xv.  32.  Mishna  Saiihed.,  vii.  8.  Jesus  was, 
thus,  in  imminent  peril. 

P  How  closely  this  answer  pressed  the  Eabbis,  may  be  judged  by  the 
following  extract  from  the  Jalkut  Rubeni,  fol.  127,  col.  2:  "Where 
David  found  nothing  but  the  shewbread,  he  said  to  the  priest,  '  Give  me 
of  this  that  I  may  not  die  of  hunger ; '  for  where  life  is  in  danger,  the 
strictness  of  the  Sabbath  is  no  longer  in  force." 

fl  It  had  been  a  great  subject  of  discussion  whether  the  Passover  lamb 
could  be  slain  on  the  right  day,  if  that  day  .chanced  to  fall  on  a  Sabbath. 
Hillel  had  carried  the  lawfulness  of  slaying  it  by  reminding  them  that 
the  daily  sacrifice  was  offered  on  Sabbaths,  but  especially  by  quoting  in 
his  support  the  testimony  of  Schemaia  and  Abtalion,  two  famous  Eabbis 
of  the  preceding  generation.  That  he  should  have  been  able  to  do  so  not 
only  settled  the  matter  as  he  argued,  but  raised  him  by  acclamation  to 
the  rank  of  Nasi,  or  head  of  the  Sanhedrim. — Derenbourg,  p.  178. 
"  There  was  no  Sabbath  rest  in  the  Temple." — Maimonides,  in  Nork,  p. 
70. 

r  The  Herodians  were  such  Jews  as  favoured  Herod  Antipas,  and 
thus,  outwardly  at  least,  were  friends  of  Kome,  whose  vassal  Antipas 
was.  He  had  seen  Judea  and  Samaria  made  a  Koman  procuratorship, 
and  longed  to  get  them  back  for  himself,  as  a  son  of  Herod,  of  whose 
kingdom  they  had  been  part.  Intrigues  to  gain  this  end  led  to  standing 
enmity  between  him  and  the  rest  of  the  family  on  the  one  side,  and  the 
procurators  on  the  other. — Luke  xxiii.  12.  Disappointment  at  the 
results  of  annexation  to  Borne  had  made  some  look  with  kindlier  feeling 
on  the  Idumean  dynasty,  which  in  its  turn  felt  itself  endangered  by  the 
claims  of  Jesus  to  set  up  a  new  kingdom.  Th,e  Herodians  in  the  end 
pot  their  wish,  when  Agrippa  I.  (A.D.  37)  was  appointed  king,  and  a 
Herod  kingdom  was  thus  again  set  up  for  a  time.  Even  the  Pharisaic 
or  national  party,  indeed,  came  ultimately  to  favour  this  scheme,  in 
their  deadly  hatred  of  Borne.  The  alliance  with  the  Herodians  against 
J«eus  was  the  first  step  in  this  new  political  path. 


CHAPTEB  XXXIX. 

•  Mommsen  (Geschichte,  vol.  ii.  p.  79)  says,  that  all  the  miseries  of 
negro  slavery  were  a  drop  to  the  ocean,  compared  to  those  of  the  slaves 
of  antiquity.  See,  also,  Dollinger,  Gentile  and  Jew,  etc.,  vol.  ii.  pp.  230, 
231.  Eliot's  History  oj  Liberty,  vol.  ii.  pt.  1,  pp.  185  fi.  LiddelTs 


NOTES.  595 

J?om?,  p.  303.  Aristotle,  Ethics,  viii.  xi.  6  (Sir  A.  Grant's  edition,  vol. 
ii.  p.  273),  ranks  a  slave  as  a  thing,  not  as  a  person,  and  prescribes  the 
same  kind  of  attention.  "The  instrument,"  he  says,  "receives  just  so 
much  care  from  its  master  as  will  keep  it  in  proper  condition  for  the 
exercise  of  its  functions." 


b  Elders  —  irpeffpvrtpoi.  Heb.  D\3j?.I  —  Zekanim.  They  were  the  same 
as  the  "  rulers,"  "  the  rulers  of  the  synagogue."  Mark  v.  22  ;  Luko  vii. 
3  ;  Acts  xiii.  15.  They  were  also  called  Parnasim,  or  shepherds,  a  title 
employed  of  Christian  elders,  by  implication,  in  Acts  xx.  28  ;  1  Pet.  v.  2. 
They  formed  the  governing  body  of  the  synagogue,  under  the  "  chief 
ruler  of  the  synagogue"  (Luke  viii.  41,  49  ;  xiii.  14),  having  the  care  of 
ecclesiastical  order  and  discipline,  including  the  infliction  of  civil  punish- 
ments, such  as  excommunication  (John  ix.  22  ;  xii.  42  ;  xvi.  2).  They 
also  attended  to  the  charities  of  the  synagogue.  They  were  apparently 
ex-officio  members  of  the  local  Sanhedrim,  which,  however,  included 
others  also.  Thus,  they  formed  —  in  a  nation  where  Church  Law  was 
also  Civil  Law  —  the  bench  of  magistrates  of  the  locality. 

By  some  strange  slip,  Dr.  Farrar,  in  his  learned  and  admirable  Life  of 
Christ,  has  confounded  the  elders  of  the  synagogue  with  the  "  Batlanim," 
who  were  a  body  of  ten  men  paid  by  the  synagogue  to  attend  every 
service,  that  the  legal  number  required  for  worship  might  be  always 
present.  They  were  apparently  poor  men,  past  work,  to  whom  the  duty 
was  a  pretext  for  giving  charity.  —  I^eyrerin  Herzog,  Synagogen  d.Juden, 
vol.  xv.  p.  313.  Buxtorf,  Lex.,  p.  291. 

c  Disease  was  regarded  as  the  result  of  direct  agency  of  evil  spirits. 
Luke  xiii.  11.  "A  spirit  of  infirmity."  The  same  idea  explains  St. 
Paul's  threat  of  delivering  offenders  to  Satan  for  the  destruction  of  the 
flesh.  1  Cor.  v.  5.  See  Winer,  R.W.B.,  Art.  Satan.  Bibel  Lex.,  vol.  i. 
p.  414.  It  pervades  the  whole  of  the  Gospels,  as  any  one  may  see  who 
examines  for  himself. 

d  The  Talmud  says,  "  Whosoever  sees  a  dead  corpse  and  does  not 
accompany  it  to  its  burial,  is  guilty  of  that  which  is  said,  «  He  that 
mocketh  the  poor,  reproacheth  his  neighbour  '  —  for  no  man  is  so  poor  as 
the  dead."—  Bab.  Berach.,fol.  6.  1. 

8  Burial  followed  almost  immediately  after  death.  Mill  (Nablus,  p.  150) 
says,  that  a  woman  who  died  at  eleven  in  the  forenoon,  was  buried  at 
three  in  the  afternoon.  Even  in  England,  the  fear  of  pollution  by  having 
a  corpse  in  a  house  on  the  Jewish  Sabbath,  often  causes  Jews  who  have 
died  at  six  on  Friday  evening,  to  be  buried  about  half-past  seven  of  the 
same  day.  One  witness  before  the  London  United  Synagogue  Council, 
deposed  (1876)  that  he  had  seen  "  corpses  "  move  their  hands  and  feet, 
and  that  he  had  seen  bodies  buried  while  still  warm.  —  Daily  Telegraph 
Report,  April,  1876. 

*  Keim  thinks  six  months.    Ewald  (vol.  v.  p.  428)  over  a  year. 

8  The  Rabbis  understood  such  passages  of  Isaiah  to  refer  to  the  timea 
of  the  Messiah,  and  hence  John  would  at  once  perceive  the  force  of 
Christ's  quotation  and  symbolical  acts.  The  Pesichta  Rabbathi,  p.  29  c., 
and  Jalkut  Schimeoni,  i.  p.  78  c.  say,  that  "  When  the  Messiah  comes, 
'  The  eyes  of  the  blind  will  be  opened,  and  the  ears  of  the  deaf  un- 
stopped.' (Isa.  xxxv.  5,  6.)  This,  indeed,  happened  of  old,  for  it  is 
written  in  Exodus  xix.  8  :  '  And  all  the  people  answered  and  said,'  etc., 


596  NOTES. 

therefore  there  were  no  deaf  or  dumb  among  them.  Again,  Exodus  xx, 
18  :  •  And  all  the  people  saw  the  lightnifig.'  Hence  there  were  no  blind. 
So,  also,  Exodus  xix.  17 :  '  Moses  led  the  people  out  of  the  camp,'  etc. 
This  shows  there  was  no  lame  person  in  Israel !  "Under  the  Messiah,  the 
tongues  of  the  dumb  will  sing  (Isa.  xxxv.  6).  This  also  happened  of  old, 
Exodus  xix.  8  :  '  And  all  the  people  answered.'  "  Jonathan,  the  student 
of  Gamaliel,  gives  the  passages  of  Isaiah  a  spiritual  rendering.  "  Then 
will  the  eves  of  the  House  of  Israel,  which  had  been  blind  to  the  Law,  be 
opened,  and  their  ears,  which  had  been  deaf  to  the  words  of  the  prophets, 
will  hear."  Elias  had  not  died,  and  it  was  therefore  expected  that  he 
would  come  to  call  Israel  to  repentance — for  he  was  the  greatest  preacher 
of  repentance  under  the  Old  Economy — and  that  he  would  then  die,  as 
all  men  must.  The  belief  in  his  appearance  was  as  wide-spread  as  that 
of  the  Messiah.  Jesus  pointed  to  John  as  the  Elias  to  come ;  but  a 
spiritual  appearance  like  John's  did  not  satisfy  them,  and  hence,  believing 
that  the  great  prophet  had  not  come,  they  concluded,  and  still  believe, 
that  the  Messiah,  also,  is  yet  future.  See  Langen,  Judenthum,  p.  491. 

h  "  The  reed  of  Egypt  and  Palestine  is  the  Arundo  donax,  a  very  tall 
cane,  growing  twelve  feet  high,  with  a  magnificent  panicle  of  blossom  at 
the  top,  and  so  slender  and  yielding  that  it  will  lie  perfectly  flat  under  a 
gust  of  wind,  and  immediately  resume  its  upright  position.  It  grows  in 
great  cane  brakes  in  many  parts  of  Palestine,  especially  on  the  west  side 
of  the  Dead  Sea,  where,  nourished  by  the  warm  springs,  it  lines  the  shore 
for  several  miles  with  an  impenetrable  fringe — the  lair  of  wild  boars  and 
leopards — to  the  exclusion  of  all  other  vegetation.  There,  it  attains  a 
gigantic  size.  On  the  banks  of  the  Jordan  it  occurs  in  great  patches, 
but  is  not  so  lofty." — Tristram,  A'at.  Hist,  of  Bible,  p.  437. 

1  6  Si  fUKpyrfpos.  The  comparative.  It  never  stands  for  the  super- 
lative, as  it  is  made  to  do  in  the  English  version.  See  Winer,  p.  216. 

k  The  reappearance  of  Elijah  before  the  Messiah  was  a  settled  article 
of  Kabbinical  faith.  Thus,  in  the  Mishna,  we  read,  "B.  Josua  said, 
I  have  received  the  tradition  from  B.  Jochanan  Ben  Zakkai,  and  he 
received  it  from  his  teacher  in  unbroken  and  direct  transmission,  as  a 
tradition  which  Moses  received  at  Sinai,  that  Elias  will  come,  etc." — 
Edijvth,  viii.  7,  quoted  by  Schurer,  p.  580. 


CHAPTER  XL. 

•  It  hag  been  thought  that  this  "  feast "  was  the  same  as  the  one 
mentioned  in  Matt.  xxvi.  6,  in  the  house  of  Simon  the  Leper.  The 
name  was,  however,  a  very  common  one,  for  Josephus  mentions  about 
twenty  Simons,  and  there  are  nine  mentioned  in  the  New  Testament. — 
Trench  on  the  Parables,  p.  289.  It  was  the  same  with  Jude,  for  there  are 
nine  of  that  name  in  the  New  Testament. — Robinson's  Lex.  The  mere 
similarity  of  name,  therefore,  amounts  to  no  more  than  the  occurrence 
of  Smith  or  Brown  with  us,  on  different  occasions. 

b  In  the  room  where  we  were  received  (at  dinner),  besides  the  divan 
on  which  we  sat,  there  were  seats  all  round  the  walls.  Many  came  in 
and  took  their  place  on  these  side  seats,  uninvited  and  unchallenged. 


NOTES.  597 

They  spoke  to  those  at  table  on  business  or  the  news  of  the  day,  and  our 
host  spoke  freely  to  them. — Narrative  of  a  Mission  to  the  Jews,  vol.  i.  p.  92. 

c  It  was  not  unusual  to  pay  this  mark  of  profound  respect  to  Eabbis. 
—  Wetstein,  in  loc. 

d  Nicodemus,  Joseph  of  Arimathea,  he  on  whose  ass  Jesus  rode  into 
Jerusalem,  the  host  at  whose  house  Christ  celebrated  the  Passover,  the 
friendly  Samaritans,  and  many  others,  are  examples. 

6  See  page  191.  tf>v\aKT-f]piov,  "a  protection,  an  amulet."  Heb.  Tota- 
photh,  "  bands,  fillets  ;"  later  Heb.  Tephillin,  from  the  verb  "  to  pray." 
--Buxt.  Lex.,  p.  1743.  On  the  whole  subject  of  the  private  life  of  Jesus 
with  His  disciples,  see  Keim,  vol.  ii.  pp.  280-286,  to  whom  I  am  largely 
indebted. 

f  The  words,  "  and  of  an  honeycomb,"  are  wanting  in  the  Alexandrian, 
Vatican,  and  Sinaitic  MSS. ;  but  they  are  supported  by  witnesses  like 
Justin  and  Athenagoras,  who  are  older  than  our  oldest  MSS.  In  the 
Talmud  the  Galilaeans  are  represented  as  poor ;  sparing  of  their  wine  and 
milk,  mixing  their  eye-paint  with  water,  and  thinking  even  a  wick-end 
worth  saving. — Easchi  on  Sabbath,  78a  and  47a. 

s  Delitzsch  evidently  takes  the  "  seven  devils  "  as  a  Hebraism  for 
special  sinfulness.  Evil  desires  were  often  figuratively  spoken  of  as 
demons.  Many  cases  occur  in  the  Talmud.  See  Nork,  p.  135.  Liyht- 
foot,  vol.  iii.  p.  87.  Sepp,  vol.  iii.  p.  244.  But  this  is  common  to  all 
languages,  for  we  speak  of  the  "  demon  of  drink,"  etc.,  etc. ;  and  yet  it 
is  contrary  to  the  whole  tenor  of  the  New  Testament  to  understand  the 
"seven  devils  "  as  a  mere  figure  of  speech.  Heller,  in  Herzog's  Ency., 
Art.  Maria  Magdalena,  supports  Delitzsch's  opinion,  but  Dr.  Herzog 
himself,  in  a  note,  questions  its  correctness.  Sepp,  as  might  be  expected, 
agrees  with  Heller ;  but  the  great  body  of  scholars  reject  the  idea  of 
Mary  having  been  a  "  Magdalene."  The  Talmud  derives  her  special 
name  from  "  Migdala  " — a  plaiting  or  curling  of  the  hair  usual  with 
abandoned  women,  and  speaks  of  Mary  Magdalene,  "  the  plaiter  of 
women's  and  of  young  men's  hair,"  as  a  married  woman  who  had  com- 
mitted adultery.  But  there  is  every  reason  to  believe  that  this  was  only 
done  to  depreciate  her  as  one  of  the  women  who  waited  on  our  Lord, 
against  whom  no  slander  is  too  gross  to  be  retailed  by  the  Eabbis. 

h  This  is  one  of  the  best  attested  sayings  of  Jesus,  not  in  the  New 
Testament.— Anger's  Synopsis,  pp.  204,  274,  xxxi.  See,  also,  Westcott's 
Intro.,  pp.  4,  25. 

1  Some  of  the  forms  of  expression  used  by  Jesus  are  peculiar  to  Him, 
and  are  not  found  in  the  whole  range  of  Jewish  literature.  Thus, 
"  Amen,  amena,  lechon."  "  Amen,  amen,  I  say  to  you,"  is  His  alone  so 
completely  that  the  Apocalypse  can  speak  of  Him  as  "  The  Amen,  the 
faithful  and  true  witness"  (iii.  14).  "  He  who  has  ears  to  hear,  let  him 
hear,"  is  also  His  alone.  Many  sayings  of  Jesus  have  no  doubt  found 
their  way  into  the  Talmud,  as  those  of  some  one  else. 

Like  the  Kabbis,  Jesus  made  His  disciples  sit  round  Him  (Mark  iii.  34) 
when  teaching,  so  that  each  mij,rht  see  His  face  and  hear  His  words. — 
Maimonides,  in  Nork,  p.  cxciii.  The  phrase,  "  I  say  unto  you,"  was  a  form 
in  vogue  with  the  Eabbis.  So,  also,  "  It  has  been  said."  But  while  the 
Eabbis  always  sought  to  give  weight  to  what  they  said  by  introducing  it 
as  the  saying  of  some  earlier  Eabbi  whom  they  reverently  named,  Jesus 


598  NOTES. 

rests  on  the  direct  authority  of  God  alone.     "  I  have  spoken  to  you  (not 
in  the  name  of  any  Babbi),  but  in  the  name  of  MY  FATHEB." — John  v.  43. 


CHAPTER  XLI. 

•  The  descent  of  the  Messiah  from  David  was  a  prominent  feature  in 
the  National  Ideal.  It  was  based  on  passages  like  Isa.  xi.  1,  10.  Jer. 
xxiii.  5  ;  xxx.  9  ;  xxxiii.  15,  17,  22.  Ezek.  xxxiv.  23 ;  xxxvii.  24.  Hosea 
iii.  5.  Amos  ix.  11.  Micah  v.  2.  Zech.  xii.  7,  8  ;  and  was  universally 
acknowledged.  Thus,  in  the  Psalms  of  Solomon,  xvii.  5,  23 :  "  Thou, 
0  Lord,  hast  chosen  David  to  be  king  over  Israel,"  etc.  "  Behold,  Lord, 
and  raise  up  to  them  (Israel)  their  king,  the  Son  of  David,  at  the  time 
which  Thou,  0  God,  knowest,  to  reign  over  thy  cbild  Israel,"  etc. 
4  Esdras  xii.  32  (Greek) :  "  This  is  the  Christ  who  will  rise  from  the  seed 
of  David,"  etc.  The  Targum  of  Jonathan  also  uses  the  same  language 
frequently.  "  The  Son  of  David  "  is,  therefore,  a  very  common  title  for 
the  Messiah.  It  even  occurs  in  the  "  daily  prayers  " — the  Schmone 
Esra.  To  this  day,  all  Jews  in  their  daily  service,  public  or  private, 
speak  of  the  Messiah  they  expect  as  "  The  Son  "  or  "  The  Branch"  of 
David,  and  in  the  Talmud  we  read  of  the  Messiah — that  "  the  Son  of 
David  will  not  come  till  wickedness  has  spread  over  the  whole  earth." 

b  Kesbeel  is  changed  into  Beqa  by  some  kabhalistic  art  of  the  Eabbis. 

0  The  formula  used  to  drive  out  the  evil  spirit  which  caused  epilepsy 
was — "  Thou  who  art  hidden — hidden,  thou  who  art,  cursed,  crushed, 
and  anathematized  be  the  devil,  the  son  of  dung,  the  son  of  impurity, 
the  son  of  filth,  like  Schamgas,  Marigas,  and  Isternaa." — Shabb.  Balb., 
p.  67a. 

The  Talmud  contains  copious  details  respecting  magical  formulas,  etc., 
etc. 

d  Beelzebub  seems  to  mean,  The  Fly  God,  like  Zeus  Apomyios  of  the 
Greeks,  and  Myiagrus  of  the  Eoman  Mythology. — Gesenii  Thesaurus,  p. 
225.  Beelzebul,  which  is  the  reading  in  some  MSS. ,  is  thought  by  Hil- 
genfeld  to  mean  the  "  Lord  of  the  (heavenly,  or  infernal)  habitation  " 
(The  palace  royal  of  the  devils).  See  p-l^f  (Zebul),  in  Gesenii  Thesaurus, 
p.  803. 

8  These  words  of  Christ  seem  to  have  been  a  common  proverb  of  the 
day.  The  Talmud  has  them  almost  exactly.  "  Every  house  divided 
against  itself  will,  in  the  end,  be  destroyed  and  made  desolate." — 
Buxtorf,  p.  819. 

1  The  pbrases,  Tbis  world,  and  The  world  to  come,  were  the  current 
ones  of  the  day  for  the  present  and  future  developments  of  the  kingdom 
of  the  Messiah.     The  expectation  of  a  renewing  of  the  heavens  and  the 
earth  was  based  on  Isaiah  Ixv.  17  :  Ixvi.  22,  and  a  distinction  was  made, 
in  consequence,  between  the  present  and  the  future  world.     In  the 
Talmud  the  phrase  is  very  frequent.     This  world  and  the  coming  world, 
Hjn  D^tt'n,  Ha  Olam  hazeh  ;  X2H  D^fl'n,  Ha  Olam  haba. 

It  is  very  frequent  also  in  the  New  Testament. — Matt.  xii.  32.  Mark 
X.  30.  Luke  xviii.  30. 

It  was  a  question,  however,  whether  the  new  world  would  begin  at  the 


NOTES.  599 

opening  of  the  Messianic  kingdom,  or  at  its  close.  In  the  Book  of  Enoch 
xlv.  1-4,  we  find  the  former  idea  ;  in  the  4th  Book  of  Esdras  vii.  30,  31, 
we  find  the  latter.  The  world  to  come  was  more  and  more  understood, 
however,  as  the  period  beginning  wi.h  the  last  judgment,  at  the  close  of 
the  kingdom  of  the  Messiah. — Light/out,  vol.  ii.  p.  207.  Schiirer,  p.  593. 
Herzog,  vol.  ix.  p.  434.  Gf rarer,  vol.  ii.  p.  213.  In  the  mouth  of  Christ 
it  is  equivalent  to  the  eternal  world. 

8  Jesus  was  only  one  day  and  two  nights  dead,  but  the  Jews  were 
accustomed  in  their  common  speech  to  call  parts  of  a  day  as  a  whole 
day,  and  Jesus  was  dead  part  of  the  first  and  part  of  the  third  day.— 
Meyer,  in  loc.  "  It  is  a  common  expression  among  the  Greeks  to  say, 
'  Such  a  thing  happened  three  days  ago,'  when  they  mean  that  only  a  day 
intervened.  They  include  the  two  extreme  days  as  if  they  had  been 
complete." — Narrative  of  a  Mission  to  the  Jews,  pp.  341,  342. 

The  phrase  "  the  heart  of  the  earth  "  does  not  mean  "  the  grave,"  but 
Hades,  the  "  death  kingdoms." 

Lightfoot  (vol.  ii.  p.  211)  gives  many  illustrations  of  parts  of  a  day 
being  spoken  of,  in  popular  language,  among  the  Jews,  as  a  day.  Jesus, 
of  course,  speaks  with  a  recognition  of  the  custom  of  the  people  in  this 
respect. 

h  Luther  strikingly  says  that  Jesus  did  with  miracles  as  parents  do 
with  pears  and  apples,  which  they  throw  before  weary  children  to  tempt 
them  home.  On  this  subject  see  Weidemann,  p.  93. 

1  Solomon's  glory  had  become  in  Christ's  day  the  subject  of  boundless 
exaggeration.  The  Book  of  Wisdom,  in  the  second  century  before  Christ, 
says  of  him,  "  He  hath  given  me  certain  knowledge  of  the  things  that  are 
— to  know  how  the  world  was  made,  the  beginning,  ending,  and  midst  of 
the  times  ;  the  turnings  of  the  sun,  and  the  change  of  the  seasons  ;  the 
circuits  of  the  years,  and  the  position  of  the  stars  ;  the  natures  of  living 
creatures  ;  the  violence  of  winds  and  the  reasonings  of  men  ;  the  diversi- 
ties of  plants  aud  the  virtues  of  roots,  and  all  things  that  are  either  secret 
or  known — them  I  know"  (vii.  17,  21).  He  had  gradually  come  to  be 
regarded  as  the  prince  of  magicians,  skilled  in  the  secret  knowledge  which 
expelled  demons,  cured  diseases  by  mysterious  spells,  etc — Jos.,  Ant., 
viii.  2.  5.  That  Jesus  should  set  Himself  above  Solomon  before  a  Jewish 
audience  was  to  set  Himself  above  all  men. 

k  The  following  extracts  from  Buxtorf  respecting  the  Pharisees  are 
curious : — 

K'-'nS  Separatus,  abstinens,  continens,  temperans.  Pharisaeus,  vita 
sanctitate  eultu  et  moribus,  ab  aliis  hominibus  separatus. — R.  David 
Soph.,  1.  8. 

Quidam  cxplicant,  esse  homines  qui  ostendunt  seipsos  separates  (pios)  et 
sanctos,  ac  vestiunt  se  veste  peregnna,  diversa  ab  aliis  hominibus,  ut 
agnoscant  eos  ex  vestibus,  quod  Scrip.  D'E^VlD,  separati  (id  est,  qui  ab 
aliis  hominibus  externa  sanctitate  separati)  cum  tamen  via  ipsorum  sint 
males. 

Aruch.  "  P.  est  qui  separat  seipsum  ab  omni  immunditia  et  ab  omni 
cibo  immundo,  et  a  populo  terrse  qui  non  habet  accuratam  rationem 
ciborum." — Buxtorf,  p.  1852. 

Ne  metuas  a  Pharisasis  neque  ab  illis  qui  non  sunt  Pharissei,  sed  a 
pigmentatis,  sive  tinctis,  aut  coloratis  (id  est,  hypocritis)  qui  similes  sunt 
Pharisffiis. — Talmud,  quoted  by  Buxtorf,  p.  1853. 


600  NOTES. 

Pharush — separate,  abstinent,  chaste,  temperate — a  Pharisee,  separata 
from  men  at  large  by  the  holiness  of  his  life,  religious  strictness  and 
manners. — Bab.  David  Soph.,  1,  8. 

Some  explain  them  to  be  men  who  show  themselves  to  be  separated 
(pious)  and  holy,  and  clothe  themselves  in  a  strange  dress,  different  from 
that  of  other  men,  that  all  should  know  by  their  dress  that  they  were 
Pharushim,  or  separated  ones  (that  is,  holy  men,  separated  from  others 
by  outward  purity),  though  their  lives,  notwithstanding,  might  be  bad 
enough. 

Aruch.  A  Pharisee  is  one  who  separates  himself  from  every  (Levitical) 
impurity,  and  from  all  "  unclean"  food,  aud  from  the  Am-ha-aretzin  (01 
common  Levitically  unclean  people),  who  have  not  an  accurate  knowledge 
of  (the  Kabbinical  laws  of)  food.  (The  minute  regulations  about  Teru- 
mah,  tithes,  etc.,  etc.,  see  page  250,  and  note  °  below.) 

You  need  not  fear  either  (real)  Pharisees  or  those  who  are  not  Phari- 
sees, but  only  the  sham,  painted,  dyed,  coloured  (pretenders) — that  is, 
hypocrites,  who  are  like  Pharisees. 

1  The  ariston  (&PHTTOV),  the  breakfast,  originally  taken  at  sunrise ; 
later,  the  midday  meal.  Winer  thinks  the  ariston  was  the  breakfast, 
after  synagogue  service,  and  that  the  dinner  was  at  noon. 

m  The  word  is  ^cnrTiffdrj,  1  aor.  pass.,  used  for  middle.  "  Baptized," 
or  bathed  "  himself." 

n  Of  course,  I  have  paraphrased  the  words  of  Jesus  throughout,  em- 
bodying the  hints  of  De  Wette,  Meyer,  and  many  others. 

0  The  tithing  question  was  one  which  caused  great  inconvenience  to 
the  people  at  large,  though  the  Rabbis  themselves,  whose  lives  were  spent 
in  their  schools,  bad  to  bear  none  of  the  weary  annoyance  their  endless 
prescriptions  laid  on  others.  "  The  requirement  to  separate  from  all 
productions  of  the  soil  an  undefined  gift  for  the  priests  (Therunia),  and 
the  tithes  for  the  Levites  and  priests,  and  every  third  year  a  tithe  for  the 
poor,  caused  no  little  trouble.  There  were  guilds  of  all  who  bound 
themselves  to  observe  the  whole  Law,  and  the  members  of  these  kept  a 
diligent  watch  over  all  such  matters  to  see  that  they  were  attended  to. 
These  tithes  and  gifts  touched  the  life  of  every  household,  for  part  of 
them  were  holy,  and  the  use  of  holy  tilings  was  a  deadly  sin.  Every 
purchaser  had  therefore,  to  make  himself  sure,  beforehand,  whether  they 
had  been  taken  from  what  he  bought  or  not.  This  was  far  from  easy, 
for  produce  was  largely  imported  from  abroad,  or  was  sold  by  those  who 
were  not  Jews,  and  so  on,  and  to  pay  the  tithes  and  gifts  over  and  over 
would  have  been  a  great  loss.  A  rule  was  therefore  proclaimed,  that  the 
assurance  of  an  owner  was  only  to  be  taken  when  he  could  prove  big 
trustworthiness.  In  any  other  case,  all  produce  and  preparations  from 
it,  such  as  bread,  wine,  oil,  etc.,  was  to  be  regarded  as  doubtful,  and  one 
part  from  the  hundred  to  be  taken  as  Theruma,  and  then  the  second 
tithe,  before  it  could  be  used.  This  second  tithe  could  be  changed  into 
money,  to  be  spent  on  food  at  the  feasts  in  Jerusalem.  The  first  tithe 
and  the  tithe  for  the  poor  were  not,  however,  to  be  taken  from  it,  as  the 
case  was  doubtful,  and  the  Levite  or  the  poor  had  to  prove  their  claim 
to  it  in  each  instance.  The  whole  question  caused,  of  course,  an  increase 
of  the  price,  and  made  many  pious  Jews  shrink  from  buying  from  an  uu- 
certificated  seller,  or  from  eating  with  any  who  were  not  of  the  strict 
guilds.  Sellers  of  produce  and  food  were,  hence,  also  very  anxious  to  b« 


NOTES.  601 

certificated — which  was  done  on  the  testimony  of  three  Eabbis,  or  three 
members  of  a  guild — that  the  applicant  would  have  nothing  to  do  with 
anything  that  was  not  duly  tithed.  He  was,  henceforward,  counted 
conscientious  and  reliable,  and  this  trustworthiness  was  held  to  extend 
to  all  his  family  and  even  to  his  posterity,  so  long  as  no  suspicion  rose 
against  his  wife,  children,  or  slaves. 

This  was  the  origin  of  the  division  of  the  nation  into  Haberim, 
"Leaguers,'  and  Am-ha-aretzin,  "common  people,"  not  pledged  to  ob- 
serve all  the  details  of  tithing  and  priestly  gifts. — Jost,  vol.  i.  pp.  201-203. 

P  To  pass  over  or  touch  a  grave,  or  to  touch  the  dead,  or  even  a  dead 
person's  bones,  was  a  special  defilement.  He  who  was  so  unfortunate  as 
to  be  made  unclean  in  this  way  continued  so  for  seven  days,  and  had  to 
go  through  a  tedious  and  costly  purification.  He  could  not  for  that  time 
enter  his  house,  or  unite  in  a  religious  service.  To  avoid  such  a  calamity, 
graves  were  carefully  whitewashed  when  known,  but,  of  course,  subter- 
ranean tombs  might  be  overlooked. 

4  The  different  titles  used  in  this  incident  refer  to  the  same  great  class. 
Any  one  might  be  a  Pharisee,  whether  a  layman,  a  priest,  or  a  Eabbi,  as 
any  of  these  might  be  a  Sadducee.  A  scribe  and  a  lawyer  were  different 
names  for  the  same  order — the  clergy  of  the  day.  They  were  the  authori- 
ties for  the  expositions  of  the  Law  ;  they  copied  the  sacred  manuscripts, 
and  devoted  themselves  as  the  work  of  their  life,  to  Babbinical  studies 
and  employments. — Godwyn,  Aaron  and  Moses,  p.  27.  Witier,Bibel  Lex., 
etc.,  etc. 

r  There  is  no  such  passage  in  the  Old  Testament,  so  that  this,  appar- 
ently, must  have  been  au  earlier  utterance  of  Jesus. 


CHAPTER 

a  The  fertility  of  Palestine  makes  a  return  of  even  one  hundred-fold, 
possible.  Tristram  says,  "I  have  often  counted  sixty  grains  in  an  ear, 
and  even  a  hundred  is  sometimes  reached." — Nat.  Hist,  of  the  Bible, 
p.  489. 

Keim  quotes  a  case  of  an  Englishman  who  got  seven  crops  of  potatoes 
in  a  year  a  little  south  of  Bethlehem  (vol.  ii.  p.  448).  See  also  Arnold  in 
Herzog,  vol.  xi.  p.  24.  Any  one  who  wishes  to  see  what  the  fancy  of  the 
Kabbis  could  invent  respecting  the  fertility  of  Palestine,  may  do  so  in 
Derenbourg,  p.  111. 

b  In  Succah,  fol.  46.  2,  we  find  the  following  :  "  God's  measure  is  not 
like  the  measure  of  flesh  and  blood.  The  measure  of  flesh  and  blood  is 
this.  An  empty  vessel  is  free  to  receive,  but  a  full  one  can  take  in  no 
more,  But  God's  measure  is  this.  The  full  measure  can  receive  more, 
but  the  empty  vessel  receives  nothing,  as  it  is  said,  '  If  hearing  thou 
shalt  hear,'  that  is,  'If  thou  hearest  thou  shalt  hear,  but  if  thou  dost  not 
hear,  thou  sbalt  not  hear.'  The  gloss  is,  '  If  thou  accustom  thyself  to 
hear,  then  thou  shalt  hear,  and  learn,  and  add.'  "  So  in  Berachoth,  f.  55. 
1,  "  God  doth  not  give  wisdom  but  to  him  with  whom  wisdom  is  already." 

c  The  common  mustard  of  Palestine  is  the  same  as  our  own  mustard, 
but  grows  to  a  much  greater  size  than  in  this  country,  especially  in  tha 
richer  soils  of  the  Jordan  valley. — Tristram,  p.  473.  It  is  Siiwpis  nigra, 


602  NOTES. 

of  the  order  Cruciferse.  Thomson  (p.  414)  has  seen  mustard  plants  on 
the  rich  plaiu  of  Acre  as  tall  as  a  horse  and  its  rider.  Lightfoot  (vol.  ii. 
p.  216)  quotes  the  following  from  the  Eabbis :  "  There  was  a  stalk  of 
mustard  in  Sichin  from  -which  sprang  out  three  boughs,  of  which  one 
broke  off,  and  covered  the  tent  of  a  potter,  and  produced  three  cabs  cf 
mustard  (nearly  six  quarts)."  B.  Simeon  Ben  Cbalaphta  said,  "  A  stalk 
of  mustard  was  in  my  field,  into  which  I  was  wont  to  climb,  as  men  are 
wont  to  climb  into  a  fig-tree."  These  extracts  are  also  given  in  Buxtorf 
(p.  823).  He  adds  that  an  instance  is  given  by  the  Eabbis,  of  the  fertility 
of  Palestine,  to  the  effect  that  one  man  got  three  hundred-fold  increase 
on  the  grain  he  sowed. 

d  Thomson  (Land  and  Book,  p.  421)  thinks  the  incident  of  sowing 
tares  among  wheat  by  design  a  mere  imaginary  incident,  but  Eoherts 
(Oriental  Illustrations,  p.  521)  says  that  it  is  a  common  practice  of  a 
man's  enemies,  in  Judea;  and  Trench  says  (Parables,  p.  89)  that  "in 
Ireland  he  has  known  an  outgoing  tenant,  in  epite  at  his  ejection,  sow 
wild  oats  in  the  fields  he  was  leaving.  These,  ripening  and  seeding  them- 
selves before  the  crops  in  which  they  were  mingled,  it  became  next  to 
impossible  to  get  rid  of  them." 

The  tares  (ftfdwa)  are  the  Lolium  temulentum  or  bearded  darnel,  a 
kind  of  rye-grass.  It  is  the  only  species  of  the  grass  family,  the  seeds  of 
which  are  poisonous.  They  produce  nausea,  convulsions,  and  diarrhoea, 
which  frequently  end  in  death.  The  plant  is  exactly  like  wheat  till  the 
ear  appears.  Dean  Stanley  observed  the  women  and  children  picking  out 
the  tall  green  stalks,  which  the  Arabs  still  call  Zawan,  in  the  great  corn- 
fields of  Samaria,  but  they  are  sometimes  left  till  the  harvest,  and  then 
separated  by  the  fan  and  sieve. — Tristram,  p.  488.  The  Tahnudists  made 
the  natural  error  of  supposing  darnel  "  a  kind  of  wheat  which  is  changed 
in  the  earth,  both  as  to  its  form  and  nature  ; "  but  it  is  a  distinct  plant. 
— Lightfoot,  vol.  ii.  p.  215. 

"  A  narrow,  steep  path,  evidently  little  travelled,  led  down  into  the 
valley.  When  we  were  half-way  down,  it  led  along  the  east  slope  of  the 
hill.  What  an  amazing  number  of  olive  and  fig-trees  on  every  knoll 
around,  and  in  the  depths  of  the  valley  !  A  brook  gurgled  briskly  down 
the  face  of  the  hill,  Over  against  us  a  village  enlivened  the  woody  land- 
scape. Some  peasants  were  at  work  on  the  ground  on  the  terraces,  under 
the  shade  of  the  trees.  A  turn  of  the  road  soon  brought  the  village  of 
Dscheba  before  us.  On  the  steep  hill-side  the  houses  rose  in  terraces  one 
over  the  other,  so  that  the  roofs  of  one  street  seemed  as  if  they  were  the 
street  of  that  above  it.  We  went  over  to  it,  crossing  the  broad,  flat 
valley.  Grain  fields  covered  the  whole  surface ;  but  the  crops  were  very 
unequal ;  part  thick,  shrunk,  and  almost  dry ;  part  full,  and  stately. 
Men,  women,  and  children  were  busy  in  many  of  the  fields  pulling  out 
the  weeds,  which  they  gathered  in  heaps  and  bound  into  bundles,  to  burn 
them." — Furrer's  fl  andenuigen,  p.  255.  See  also  Buxtorf,  p.  681. 

8  The  great  drag  net  is  that  which  "  gathered  of  every  kind."  Some 
row  the  boat,  some  cast  out  the  net,  some  on  shore  pull  the  rope  with  all 
then?  strength,  others  throw  stones  and  beat  the  waters  at  the  ends  of  the 
net,  to  frighten  the  fish  from  escaping  there.  When  it  is  drawn  to  the 
shore,  the  fishermen  sit  down  and  gather  the  good  into  vessels,  but  cast 
the  bad  away.  I  have  watched  this  operation  a  hundred  times  along  the 
shore  of  the  Mediterranean. — Thomson,  p.  402. 

The  word  used  is  Sagene  (ffay-^vi)),  "  a  drag  net,  a  seine."  Vulg.  Sagena. 


NOTES.  603 

Can  this  word  come  from  the  same  root  in  spite  of  its  having  also  a  Saxon 
equivalent?     See  Trench  Si/non.,  vol.  ii.  p.  58. 

The  Sagene  was  leaded  and  buoyed,  and  then  drawn  in  a  circle,  so  as 
to  enclose  a  great  multitude  of  fishes. — Tristram,  p.  289. 

f  Palestine  had  been  so  wasted  by  war,  age  after  age,  that  treasures 
hidden  in  the  ground  by  tLeir  owners,  at  the  approach  of  danger,  must 
have  been  often  found.  In  India,  during  the  mutiny,  treasures  were 
hidden  in  the  strangest  places.  At  Lucknow,  a  tank  was  dug  and  a  vault 
constructed  below  it,  into  which  the  treasures  were  put,  and  the  water 
was  then  let  in,  over  it.  A  box  of  magnificent  jewels  was  hidden  in  a 
hole  at  the  top  of  a  palm-tree.  Immense  hoards  were  built  into  walls,  or 
buried  in  fields  and  sown  over  with  thick  crops. 

Furrer,  Wanderungen  (p.  73).  "  There  is  a  piece  of  good  road  near 
the  Jaffa  gate  at  Jerusalem,  which  owes  its  existence,  as  I  have  been 
most  credibly  informed,  to  the  belief,  that  a  great  treasure  had  been 
buried  in  this  part,  and  to  obtain  this,  the  Greeks  made  a  pretence  of 
wishing  to  form  a  road.  This  very  speculative-looking  undertaking  has 
more  reason  in  it  in  the  East  than  with  us.  The  oppressions  and  rob- 
beries of  government  often  lead  the  natives  to  bury  their  treasures 
secretly.  As  in  Christ's  time,  it  is  nothing  unusual  to  find  a  treasure  hid 
in  a  field." 

8  A  passage  in  Sohar  Chadash,  fol.  61,  col.  1,  illustrates  Jewish  ways 
in  this  particular  very  strikingly.  B.  Bun  was  once  accosted,  when 
travelling,  by  a  young  man  who  had  given  himself  to  the  study  of  the 
Law — "  Master,  will  you  let  me  follow  you  on  your  way,  and  put  myself 
at  your  service  ?  "  The  E.  answered,  "  You  may,"  and  so  the  scholar  of 
the  Law  went  after  him.  As  they  went  on  in  this  way,  B.  Chija,  son  of 
Abba,  and  B.  Juda,  son  of  Joses,  met  them,  and  asked  B.  Bun,  "Have 
you  no  companion?  "  B.  Bun  answered,  "  I  have  accepted  a  young  man 
for  my  companion."  But  B.  Chija  replied,  "  It  is  a  sin  for  which  you 
have  to  answer,  that  you  have  not  him  at  your  side,  that  you  could 
discuss  respecting  the  Law  with  him.  When  the  company  had  sat  down 
to  rest  under  the  shade  of  a  tree,  B.  Chija  commenced  as  follows,  on  the 
words  (Prov.  iv.  18),  "  The  path  of  the  just  is  as  the  shining  light,  which 
shines  brighter  and  brighter  to  the  perfect  day  :  " — "  If  any  one  has  to 
travel,  let  him  take  care  that  he  join  himself  as  companion  to  some  one 
wise  in  the  Law.  The  just,  who  walk  in  the  light,  act  thus,  for  they  have 
the  light,  i.e.  the  Law,  ever  before  them.  The  words  'even  to  the 
perfect  day '  mean,  till  the  Shechina  joins  them,  for  we  know,  through 
the  traditions,  that  wherever  the  Law  is  the  subject  of  conversation  the 
Shechina  is  also  there,  for  it  is  written  (Exod.  xx.  24),  « In  all  places 
where  I  record  my  name,  I  will  come  unto  thee  and  will  bless  thee.'  " 

h  Neander's  commentary  on  the  words  is  beautiful.  "  Let  those  who 
are  themselves  dead,  who  know  nothing  of  the  higher  interests  of  the 
kingdom  of  God  or  the  Divine  life,  attend  to  the  lifeless  clay.  But  thou, 
upon  whom  the  Divine  life,  which  conquers  all  death,  is  opened,  thou 
must  devote  thyself  wholly  to  propagate  it  by  preaching  the  Gospel.  It 
is  for  the  dead  to  care  for  the  dead ;  the  living  for  the  living." — Life  oj 
Christ,  p.  341. 

1  irpoffK€<f>d\ai.ov,  "  pillow  for  the  head."  "  A  part  of  the  boat  was  used 
for  the  boatman's  lying  or  sitting  on,  and  was  provided  with  a  (coarse) 
leather  cushion  "  (of  some  kind). — Meyer,  Markus,  p.  61. 


604  NOTES. 

Matthew  uses  the  word  a-eir/ubs  (seismos),  -which  is  usually  the  term 
for  an  earthquake.  It  means  here  a  commotion,  a  storm.  Mark  and 
Luke  use  Aat'Xa^  (lailaps),  which  Passow  (Handworterb.)  explains  as  a 
storm  wind  with  heavy  clouds,  rain,  and  darkness,  and  as  a  whirlwind 
raging  from  below  upwards.  Hesychius  explains  it  as  a  whirlwind  with 


-fivr)  (galene),  "  Peace  in  the  air  and  on  the  waters  "  (Passow).  By 
some,  from  yeXdw,  "  to  laugh."  By  others,  from  yd\a  (gala),  "  milk  "  — 
of  the  milky  smoothness  of  the  untroubled  sea.  The  wind  ceased 
(enoiracrev,  ekopasen),  from  Koirafa  (kopadzo),  "  when  one  ceases  from 
weariness  "  (Passow).  "  Nor  weary  worn  out  winds  expire  so  soft." 

Winer  (Grammatik,  p.  295)  remarks  that  the  address  to  the  winds  and 
sea  is  equivalent  to,  Peace  (and  remain)  still  ! 

m  Gadara  is  from  the  same  root  as  "  Cadiz  "  (Gades).  In  Hebrew  and 
Phenician  it  is  from  the  root  Gader,  "  a  walled  place."  —  Gesenii  The- 
saurus. Gadara  was  a  famous  fortified  city  on  the  east  of  the  Jordan,  on 
the  steep  edge  of  the  valley  of  the  Jarmuk.  It  was  one  of  the  cities  of  the 
Decapolis  (league  of  ten  cities),  and  was  about  8  miles  south-east  from 
Tiberias,  across  the  lake  (60  stadia),  a  stadium  being  606  feet  9  inches. 
It  was  reckoned  the  capital  of  Perea,  and  had  coins  of  its  own.  The 
great  roads  from  Tiberias  and  Scythopolis  passed  through  it  to  the 
interior  of  Perea  and  to  Damascus.  It  was  destroyed  by  Alexander 
Jannseus,  after  a  ten  months'  siege,  but  had  been  rebuilt  by  Pompey,  two 
generations  before  Christ.  It  had  belonged  to  Herod  the  Great's  kingdom, 
but  after  his  death  was  taken  from  Archelaus,  and  joined  to  the  Province 
of  Syria.  It  was  stormed  and  burnt  to  the  ground  a  generation  later, 
in  the  great  Jewish  war,  by  Vespasian,  its  youth  all  slain,  and  its  other 
inhabitants  carried  off  as  slaves.  The  population  must  thus  have  been 
largely  Jewish.  —  Jos.,  BellJud.,  iii.  7.  1  ;  iv.  7.  3. 

n  Some  of  these  tombs  are  now  used  as  houses  by  the  Arabs.  "  We 
arrived  before  sunset  at  Um  Keis  —  the  ancient  Gadara.  We  were  kindly 
received  by  the  sheikh  of  the  natives  who  inhabit  the  sepulchres.  The 
tomb  we  lodged  in  was  capable  of  containing  between  twenty  and  thirty 
people.  It  was  of  an  oblong  form,  and  the  cattle,  etc.,  occupied  one  end, 
while  the  proprietor  and  his  family  lodged  in  another.  The  sepulchres, 
which  are  all  underground,  are  hewn  out  of  the  live  rock,  and  the  duors, 
which  are  very  massy,  are  cut  out  of  immense  blocks  of  stone.  Some  of 
these  are  now  standing  and  actually  working  on  their  hinges,  and  used  by 
the  natives.  Of  course,  the  hinge  is  nothing  but  a  part  of  the  stone  left 
projecting  at  each  end,  and  let  into  a  socket  cut  in  the  rock.  The  faces 
of  the  doors  were  cut  in  the  shape  of  panels."  —  Irby  and  Mangles'  Travel*, 
pp.  297,  298. 

There  is  still  a  population  of  about  200  souls  in  these  tombs. 

0  The  present  name  of  Gadara  is  Um  Kes,  "  the  Mother  of  Cunning." 
There  is  confusion  about  the  reading  of  the  text  in  the  different  MSS., 
but  it  is  not  worth  while  troubling  the  reader  with  it.  Um  Kes  is  the 
supposed  scene  of  Christ's  visit.  SeeBibel  Lex.,  Keim,  Winer,  Hausrath, 
Herzoy,  Smith's  Diet.,  Art.  Gadara.  Thomson  (Land  and  Book),  how- 
ever, thinks  Khersa,  opposite  Tiberias,  the  place  (p.  376).  So  Ewald,  vol. 
v.  p.  416.  So,  also,  Fiirrer,  D.  Bedeutung  d.  Bib.  Geog.  p.  19. 

P  Eobinson  saw  madmen  sitting  before  the  walls  of  Jerusalem,  clanking 
their  chains. 


NOTES.  605 

(abyssos),  lit.  "without  bottom."  It  is  used  here,  and  in 
Horn.  x.  7,  without  distinct  definition  of  its  meaning.  Elsewhere  it  is 
found  only  in  the  Apocalypse,  where  it  is  used  seven  times  of  the  penal 
dwelling  of  evil  angels. 

r  laeiros  (Ideipos),  "whom  God  enlightens."  Lightfcot  quotes  from 
the  Talmud,  "  The  ruler  of  the  synagogue  is  he  by  whose  comujand  the 
affairs  of  the  synagogue  are  appointed ;  namely,  who  shall  read  the 
Prophets,  who  shall  recite  the  phylacteries,  who  shall  pass  before  the  ark." 
—Vol.  ii.  p.  171. 

8  Even  a  poor  Israelite  was  required  to  have  not  fewer  than  two  flute 
players  and  one  mourning  woman  at  the  death  of  his  wife  ;  but  if  he  be 
rich,  all  things  are  to  be  done  according  to  his  quality.  Talmud,  quoted 
iu  Buxturf,  p.  766.  See  also  Horce  Heb.,  vol.  ii.  p.  172.  Nork,  p.  61. 
Gudwyn,  p.  244. 

*  The  Sappedans,  or  public  mourners,  among  the  Jews,  were  either  men 
or  women.  Some  are  specially  mentioned  in  the  Talmud  for  the  beauty 
of  their  spoken  lamentations.  The  humbler  artists  among  them  ex- 
pressed their  grief  by  sighs  and  ejaculations,  with  the  repetition  of  com- 
monplaces of  tenderness  and  regret,  but  others  lamented  in  songs  and 
poetical  elegies.  Thus  Bar  Abbin  began  his  lament  thus :  "  Weep,  in 
your  sorrow,  but  not  for  the  dead,  for  he  has  departed  into  peace ;  weep 
for  us  who  remain  in  tears  and  sadness." — Buxturf,  pp.  1522-5. 

Dukes  gives  a  great  many  examples  iu  his  Rabbinische  Blumenlese,  pp. 
246-263.  He  traces  the  rise  of  the  custom  of  elegies  to  that  of  David 
over  Jonathan. 

u  Death  is  spoken  of  hundreds  of  times  in  the  Talmud  as  sleep. 
"  When  N.  slept,"  that  is,  when  he  died,  recurs  constantly. — Lightfoot, 
vol.  ii.  p.  175.  So  also  in  Old  Testament :  Ps.  xiii.  4.  Job.  iii.  13.  Jer. 
Ii.  39.  Dan.  xii.  2. 

1  It  will  be  noticed  that  Jesus  uses  the  form  of  words  of  physicians  to 
the  sick  in  vogue  at  the  time.  See  below. 

y  A  glimpse  at  Jewish  medical  practice  is  supplied  by  the  following 
from  Sabbath,  f.  4.  2.  It  refers  to  the  use  of  amulets  as  means  of  cure, 
etc.  "  It  is  permitted  (even  on  the  Sabbath)  to  go  out  with  the  egg  of  a 
grasshopper,  or  the  tooth  of  a  fox,  or  the  nail  of  one  who  has  been  hanged, 
as  medical  remedies." 

z  rt>  Kpaaire5oi>  (kraspedon). 


CHAPTEE  XLIII. 

•  I  am  indebted  for  the  following  paragraphs  to  Ein  Tag  in  Capernaum, 
by  Dr.  Delitzsch,  pp.  68,  69. 

b  This  is  the  text  of  the  Sinaitic  and  Vatican  MSS.  St.  Luke  quotes 
it  freely  from  the  Septuagint.  It  is  from  Isaiah  Ix.  1,  2. 

c  The  houses  stand  on  the  under  part  of  the  slope  of  the  west  hill, 
which  rises  high  and  steep  above  them. — Robinson,  vol.  iii.  p.  419. 

The  rock  is  40  or  50  feet  perpendicular  near  the  Maronite  church.— 
Robinson,  vol  iii.  p.  423.  See  also  Land  and  Book,  p.  431. 


606  NOTES. 

d  Discipulus,  a  disciple,  is  "  one  who  is  learning,"  "  a  scholar." 
the  Greek  word  for  disciple,  also  means  a  scholar.  Talruid,  "Pp?D, 
the  Hebrew  word  for  disciple,  means  also  the  same.  "  The  scholars  of 
the  wise  "  was  the  phrase  for  the  "  disciples  "  of  the  Eabbis.  The  Arabic 
and  Hebrew  words  are  the  same. 

6  The  word  "  apostle,"  dirJoroXos,  "one  sent  forth,"  is  the  equivalent  of 
the  Talmudic  HvE^  (Sheliach).  It  carries  with  it  the  idea  of  representa- 
tion of  the  authority  by  which  the  "  apostle  "  is  sent.  "  The  '  Sheliach  ' 
of  a  man  is  as  if  he  himself  who  sends  were  there." — Buxtorf,  p.  2411. 
Liyhtfoot,  voL  ii.  p.  176.  Nork,  p.  61. 

f  "  At  the  sprinkling  of  the  blood  the  work  of  the  priest  began  ;  the 
slaying  of  the  victims  may  be  done  by  any  one." — Talmud.  HOT.  Heb. 
vol.  iii.  p.  139.  Hence  only  the  very  poor  killed  their  own  sacrifices. 

8  In  accordance  with  the  Mosaic  doctrine  of  temporal  rewards  and 
punishments,  the  Jews  looked  on  all  striking  calamities,  and  congenital 
diseases  or  afflictions,  and  visitations,  like  demon  possession,  as  punish- 
ment for  the  sins  of  parents,  or  for  sins  committed  by  the  sufferers  them- 
selves in  a  previous  state  of  existence. — Schneckenburger,  p.  249. 

h  Barren  fig-trees  are  still  common.  Trees,  neglected  when  young,  are 
often  so.  To  bear  fruit  well,  a  fig-tree  needs  to  be  manured  freely,  and 
ploughed  and  dug  about  frequently.  Even  the  stones  in  the  orchard  are 
carefully  gathered  and  removed. — Land  and  Book,  p.  350. 

"  They  lay  dung  to  moisten  the  earth  ;  they  dig  about  the  roots  of  the 
trees ;  they  pluck  up  the  suckers ;  they  take  off  the  (dead)  leaves ;  they 
sprinkle  ashes,  and  they  smoke  under  the  trees,  to  kill  worms." — Talmud, 
Hor.  Heb.  vol.  iii.  p.  146. 

*  The  Law  (Deut.  xx.  19,  20)  forbade  the  cutting  down  fruit-trees, 
except  in  special  circumstauces.  Hence  the  Rabbis  said,  "  Cut  not  down 
the  palm-tree  that  bears  a  cab  (two  quarts)  of  dates,  or  the  olive,  that 
bears  but  the  fourth  part  of  a  cab  (a  pint)." 

"  My  son,"  said  one  Eabbi,  "  had  not  died  had  he  not  cut  down  a  fig- 
tree  before  its  time." — Hor.  Heb.,  vol.  iii.  p.  139. 

k  In  Pirke  Aboth,  c.  2.  19,  there  is  a  passage  strikingly  parallel.  R. 
Tarphan  said,  "  Short  is  the  day,  the  work  is  great,  the  labourers  idle,  the 
reward  great,  and  the  Lord  of  the  harvest  presses." 

1  This  seems  a  better  sense  of  the  words  than  their  usual  explanation 
of  giving  "  without  return  " — that  is,  without  payment.  The  disciples 
were  to  take  their  lodging,  etc.,  as  a  free  gift  for  their  spiritual  labours, 
and  so  did  the  Eabbis.  Many  passages,  however,  show  how  strictly 
leceipt  of  payment  for  religious  teaching  was  forbidden.  "Make  the 
Sabbath  your  working  day  rather  than  ask  anything  from  the  peopie," 
says  the  Talmud.  (B.  Pesachim,  112a.)  "  Work  to  your  uttermost  rather 
than  ask  from  the  people,"  says  another  passage.  (B.  Bathra,  llOa.) 
So  Paul  did  (Ephes.  iv.  28),  though  he  claimed  support  as  a  right. 
(1  Thess.  ii.  9.  2  Thess.  iii.  8.)  But  he  knew  a  trade,  which  the  fisher 
Apostles  did  not.  Deut.  iv.  5,  where  Moses  speaks,  is  explained  "  As  I 
have  taught  you  without  reward,  so  must  you  spread  my  teaching  without 
money,  for  God  gave  me  the  Law  without  asking  a  reward,  and  I  follow 
His  example,  and  expect  that  you  will  follow  mine." — Bcchoroth^ 
iv.  6. 


NOTES.  607 

m  The  "  wallets"  or  "scrips  "  now  in  use  are  only  the  skins  of  kids, 
stripped  off  whole,  and  tanned  by  a  Tery  simple  process. — Thomson, 
p.  345. 

"  The  peasant  puts  on  over  his  shirt  only  a  white  and  black  striped 
over-garment  of  camel  or  goat's  hair.  It  has  no  sleeves.  He  girds  in 
his  shirt  as  the  fishermen  did  in  Peter's  time,  and  carries  in  the  leathern 
belt  all  the  money  he  has." — Furrer,  Wandennigen,  p.  27. 

The  wallet,  in  the  Talmud,  is  a  leather  pouch  (as  above)  which  shep- 
herds hang  about  their  necks,  and  in  which  they  put  their  victuals. — Hor. 
Heb.,  vol.  ii.  p.  183. 

John  had  counselled  those  who  had  two  undercoats  to  give  to  him  that 
had  none. — Luke  iii.  11. 

Sandals  were  made  of  leather  or  of  rushes,  or  of  the  bark  of  palm-trees. 
"  A  shoe,"  aays  the  Talmud,  "  was  of  softer,  a  sandal  of  harder  leather." 
Some  had  wooden  soles  and  leather  uppers. — Hor.  Heb.,  vol.  ii.  p.  18-1. 

E.  Chija  says,  "  It  is  not  fitting  that  a  scholar  of  the  wise  should  wear 
shoes." — jVor/c,  p.  62.  Pious  Jews  usually  travelled  as  Christ's  disciples 
did,  with  girdle,  wallet,  etc. ,  and  also  with  a  book  of  the  Law  slung  round 
their  neck. 

n  When  a  Persian  enters  an  assembly,  after  having  left  his  shoes  with- 
out, he  makes  the  usual  salutation,  "Peace  be  unto  you,"  which  is  ad- 
dressed to  the  whole  assembly,  as  if  it  were  saluting  the  house. —Morier's 
Second  Journey,  p.  142.  Godwyn,  p.  87. 

0  Great  care  was  taken  with  imported  fruit,  lest  the  diist  of  a  heathen 
country  might  be  on  it,  and  thus  the  land  of  Israel  be  defiled.  It  might, 
in  such  a  case,  be  dust  from  a  grave  !  All  heathen  countries,  moreover, 
were  as  unclean  as  a  burial-place. — Hor.  Heb  ,  vol.  ii.  p.  185. 

The  dust  of  a  heathen  country  denied  the  Jew  of  Palestine. — Nork, 
p.  63. 

P  See  Jost's  translation  of  the  Mishna  Sota,  ix.,  in  which  the  Eabbia 
used  language  of  the  signs  of  the  approach  of  the  Messiah  almost 
identical  with  that  of  Jesus  in  this  passage. — Scliurer,  p.  580.  Schleier- 
macher's  Prediytcn,  vol.  ii.  p.  69. 

«  In  verse  27,  "  What  ye  hear  in  the  ears,"  refers  to  the  habit  of  the 
Babbi  in  his  chair  whispering  into  the  ear  of  the  interpreter,  who  re- 
peated in  a  loud  voice  what  he  had  thus  received  — Hor.  Heb.,  vol.  ii. 
p.  187. 

"  The  housetops,"  which  are  flat,  are  still  used  for  public  announce- 
ments. It  was  from  a  housetop  that  the  trumpet  was  sounded  each 
Friday  evening  to  announce  the  approach  of  the  Sabbath. — Hor.  Heb., 
vol.  ii.  p.  173.  Land  and  Book,  pp.  40,  41.  Lack,  in  Bibel  Lex.,  vol.  i. 
p.  555. 

A  passage  in  the  Talmud  is  a  fine  illustration  of  verse  29.  Simon,  the 
son  of  Jochai,  once  stood  at  the  entrance  of  the  cave  in  which  he  concealed 
himself  from  his  enemies  during  the  persecutions,  for  thirteen  years. 
As  he  did  so,  he  noticed  a  birdcatcher  who  was  watching  a  bird.  Sud- 
denly, however,  the  Bath  Kol  sounded  from  heaven  "  Have  pity,"  and 
the  bird  escaped.  Then  the  Kabbi  cried  out — "  If  even  a  bird  is  not 
taken  without  the  will  of  God,  how  much  less  a  man !  " — Bereshith  Rab, 
t.  88,  c.  4. 

Sparrows,  that  is,  finches  generally,  are  still  sold  for  eating,  in  strings, 


608  NOTES. 

at  a  very  cheap  rate. — Tristram,  pp.  161,  201.     Land  and  Bool:,  p.  43. 
Godwyn,  p.  264. 

r  Anointing  with  oil  was  a  practice  among  Jewish  physicians.  B. 
Simeon  Ben  Eliezer  says,  "E.  Meir  permitted  the  mingling  of  wine  and 
oil,  and  to  anoint,  the  sick  on  the  Sabbath.  But  when  he  once  was  sick, 
and  we  would  do  the  same  to  him,  he  would  not  allow  it." — Talmud,  in 
HOT.  Heb.,  vol.  ii.  p.  415.  This  explains  James  v.  14.  In  the  miracles  it 
stands  on  a  similar  footing  with  Christ's  anointing  the  eyes  of  the  blind 
with  clay,  etc.  It  could  not  in  itself  cure,  in  many  cases,  but  the  super- 
natural grace  imparted  with  it  secured  the  desired  result.  The  Jews 
anointed  the  head  with  oil  for  the  headache  — Pliny,  23,  38.  Oil  is 
still  used  in  the  East  for  boils,  etc. — Rusegger's  Travels,  vol.  i.  p.  247. 

8  A  denarius  or  penny  was  worth  about  7%d.,  but  its  purchasing  value 
was  equal,  apparently,  to  about  forty  pence  now. — Dr.  Davidson,  New 
Test.,  p.  xlvi. 

*  irpao-tal,  trpacrial,  "  areolatim."  The  prasiai  are  the  square  garden 
plots  in  which  herbs  are  grown.  St.  Mark,  who  used  the  word,  doubtless 
expresses  the  feelings  of  St.  Peter  as  an  eye-witness.  One  in  the  Talmud, 
speaking  of  barley  bread,  says,  "  There  is  a  fine  crop  of  barley."  Another 
answers,  "  Tell  this  to  the  horses  and  asses."  A  Eoman  soldier,  who 
had  quitted  his  ranks,  had  for  part  of  his  punishment  that  he  received 
barley  bread  instead  of  wheaten. — Suetonius,  August.,  24. 

u  The  Mislma  speaks  of  the  usual  blessing  of  bread  and  fish,  but  says 
that  the  blessing  for  the  former  was  omitted  when  the  latter  was  salt  fish, 
because  the  bread  was  regarded  as  an  appendix  to  the  fish.  The  blessing 
was  therefore  asked  only  on  the  salt  fish  !  The  Talmud  says,  "  It  is  for- 
bidden to  take  food  into  the  mouth  without  having  previously  thanked 
God  for  it  as  His  gift." — Beraclioth,  i.  35.  1. 

Jesus  asked  Philip  about  supplying  the  multitude.  "  Perhaps,"  says 
Bengel,  "  he  had  charge  of  providing  for  the  daily  wants  of  the  disciples 
and  of  Jesus." 

Liicke  (Commentar,  vol.  ii.  p.  62)  says,  "There  can  be  no  doubt  that 
both  expressions  '  to  bless '  and  '  to  give  thanks '  were  the  usual  terms  for 
the  '  grace '  common  among  the  Jews."  The  formula  is  given  in  full, 
Acts  xxvii.  35.  ei>xa.plffrr)<re  r<£  Qe$—Kcd  K\d<ras — "He  took  bread  and 
gave  thanlcs  to  God,  and  when  he  had  broken  it."  See  also  Pressel's 
Leben  Jesu,  p.  136. 

In  John  vi.  16,  it  is  said  that  "  when  even  was  come,  the  disciples  went 
down  unto  the  sea."  In  the  other  Gospels,  however,  evening  is  spoken 
of  as  having  already  come,  or  being  near,  before  the  multitude  was  fed. 
The  explanation  is  that  while  John  has  followed  the  usual  Greek  mode 
of  speaking,  the  others  make  use  of  the  Hebrew,  or  rather  the  Pharisaic 
way  of  reckoning  the  day.  By  this,  there  were  two  evenings :  the  first 
corresponding  to  our  afternoon,  from  three  to  six,  the  other  from  six  to 
nine,  after  which  came  "  the  darkness." — Liicke,  vol.  ii.  p.  66.  De 
Wette,  Archdologie,  214.  note  d. 

x  The  Roman  satirists  note  this  wallet  or  basket  as  a  characteristic 
of  the  Jews. — Juvenal  Sat.,  iii.  14;  vi.  541.  It  was  of  osiers  or  twigs 
— "  virgulta."  Luthardt  (Das  Joh.  Evangelism,  vol.  ii.  p.  44)  finds  in 
the  twelve  basketsfull  one  for  each  Apostle,  a  mystical  reference  to  the 
twelve  tribes  of  the  ancient  Israel  and  to  the  future  of  the  new  Israel  I 
The  "  baskets  "  were  specially  designed  to  provide  the  Jew  with  Leviti 


NOTES.  609 

oally  clean  food,  when  travelling  through  Samaria,  or  in  heathen  parts. 
—  Wahl,  Clavis,  278  b. 

oi>  yap  ffwijKav,  "  they  considered  not,"  rather,  "  did  not  understand, 
rhnd"  "  "  "  " 


CHAPTER  XLIV. 

•  The  Jerus.  Talmud  (Sanhed.,  i.  18)  asks  "What  is  the  seal  of  God?' 
E.  Bibai,  in  the  name  of  B.  Eeuben,  answers,  "  The  Truth "  (nDK). 
"  But  who  is  the  Truth  ?  "  B.  Bon  say?,  "  The  Living  God,  the  Eternal 
King."  E.  Lakisch  notes  that  in  J1EN  (the  Truth),  K  is  the  first  letter 
of  the  alphabet,  D  the  middle  one,  and  H  the  last,  which,  therefore, 
means  "  I,  Jehovah,  WAS  the  First ;  besides  me  there  is  no  God,  and  I 
SHALL,  also,  BE  the  Last." 

Had  Jesus  any  allusion  to  such  a  meaning  of  the  expression,  "  sealed," 
etc.,  since  it  was  current  in  His  day?  Comp.  John  xiv.  6. 

(ff<f>pdyiffev  (esphragisen),  "  sealed,  attested,  confirmed,  established,"  as 
men  do  in  the  East,  by  affixing  a  seal.  The  writing  of  a  document  may 
be  done  by  any  one  ;  the  seal  affixed  is  the  mark  of  authenticity.  This 
is  still  the  universal  custom  in  all  written  transactions. — Lane's  Modern 
Egyptians,  vol.  i.  pp.  35,  36.  Perkins'  Persia,  p.  421.  Narrative  of  a 
Mission,  p.  256. 

b  &  Ka.Ta.j3a.iv uv — refers  to  6  dpros.  It  is  wrongly  applied  to  Jesus  in 
the  English  version.  It  is  not  "  he,"  but  "  it  "  in  our  idiom. 

c  Both  the  word  "I  KG  (Bashar),  flesh,  and  7DK  (Achal),  "  to  eat,"  were 
familiar  as  figures  to  Christ's  hearers,  even  in  the  Scriptuies.  "  To  eat 
my  flesh  "  (Ps.  xxvii.  2)  was  a  metaphor  for  fierce  and  cruel  enemies 
thirsting  for  one's  blood.  The  fool  devoured  with  envy  is  said  (Eccl.  iv. 
5)  to  eat  his  own  flesh.  Oppressive  rulers  were  said,  in  Ps.  xiv.  4 ; 
Prov.  xxx.  14 ;  Hah.  iii.  15,  "  to  eat  up,  or  devour,  the  people."  So 
Mic.  iii.  3. 

d  I  have  put  together  the  meanings  attached  to  the  expression  by 
different  expositors,  ancient  and  modern. 

6  tK  TOITOV.  So  De  Wette  and  Liicke.  But  Meyer,  "  on  this  account," 
viz.,  the  discourse. 

f  This  is  the  true  reading,  &e  shown  by  B,  C*,  D,  L,  Nonn.  Cosm.,  and 
received  by  Griesbach,  Lachmann,  and  Tischendorf. 

The  Holy  One  of  God  is  equivalent  to  "Him  consesrated  by  God." 
See  John  x.  36.  1  John  ii.  20.  Mark  i.  24.  Luke  iv.  34.  Acts  iv.  27. 
Eev.  iii.  7.  Langen  points  out  (Judenthum,  p.  413)  that  this  is  in  reality 
the  same  name  as  "  The  Elect  One,"  so  frequently  used  of  the  Messiah  in 
the  Book  of  Enoch,  6  Styios  (ho  hagios)  stands  for  6  Tjyia.fffj.evos  (ho  hegias- 
menos),  "  the  sanctified  one,"  or  "Him  set  apart" — in  John  x.  36.  To 
sanctify  or  to  set  apart  for  Himself,  and  to  choose  for  Himself,  thua 
spoken  of  God,  are  identical  conceptions. 

s  The  quantity  named  was  40  seah,  and  the  Eabbis  give  the  seah  at 
nearly  a  gallon  and  a  half — Weights  and  Measures,  Dicty.  of  the  Bible. 

h  Corban  (J?"!^),  from  Carab  (U~lp),  "he  drew  near"  (God) — was  the 


610  NOTES, 

Hebrew  -word  for  anything  vowed  and  presented  to  God  as  an  offering  or 
sacred  gift.  Jewish  creditors  were  quick-witted  enough  to  turn  the 
"  corbau"  to  a  good  account,  by  frightening  payment  from  their  debtors 
by  the  statement  that  the  money  owed  was  "  corban." — Winer t  Darlchen. 
'  This  is  involved  in  the  Hebrew  word  "133  (Kabad). 


CHAPTEE  XLV. 

•  t£e\0ov<ra.  (exelthousa).  In  Mark  vii.  21,  the  words  "  and  Sidon  "  are 
rejected  by  Tischendorf.  Phenicia  is  from  <f>owi!;,  "  a  palm,"  the  country  of 
palms.  Elsey  (vol.  i.  p.  265),  makes  it  from  aijuo£at,  an  ancient  Greek 
verb,  "  to  slay,  to  murder,"  a  meaning  apt  enough,  as  the  early  Pheniciaus 
were  the  pirates  of  the  Mediterranean.  See  Mommsen's  Geschichte, 
passim.  But  the  simpler  etymology  seems  the  better,  and  has  its  analogue 
in  the  "  Morea,"  from  fj.avpos  (mauros),  "  a  mulberry." 

b  ^ix'<5"  (psichion),  dim.  from  ^/£  (psix),  "  a  fragment  of  bread,  flesh," 
etc. — Passow. 

0  Tradition  makes  the  name  of  the  woman  Justa,  and  that  of  her 
daughter  Berenice,  and  adds  that  her  husband  repudiated  both  her  and 
her  daughter  for  their  faith  in  Jesus. — Sepp,  vol.  iv.  p.  201.     Canaanite 
meant  originally  "  a  lowlander,"  but  it  came  to  mean  "  a  merchant," 
from  the  commercial  fame  of  the  Pheniciaus. 

The  Talmud  has  copied  the  incident  of  the  "  children's  crumbs,"  and 
used  it  of  a  supplicant  for  grain  in  a  time  of  famine. — Nork,  p.  75. 
Sepp,  vol.  iv.  p.  197. 

Pressel's  commentary  on  the  woman's  words  is  fine.  Leben  Jesu,  p. 
174.  So  also,  as  usual,  is  that  of  Hess. — Leben  Jesu,  vol.  i.  p.  412. 

d  This  is  the  meaning  of  the  word  /cuXXofo,  translated  in  our  version, 
"  maimed."  Tischendorf  rejects  it  on  the  authority  of  the  Sinaitie  version, 
but  Scrivener  retains  it. 

6  a-n-vpiSas  (spuridas).  The  spuris  only  is  mentioned  in  this  case, 
instead  of  the  cophiuus  of  the  former  miraculous  feeding.  Both  were 
small  baskets,  of  which  every  Jew  of  the  humbler  class  seems  to  have 
carried  one  for  his  provisions,  etc.  See  p.  632.  Yet  the  spuris  was 
tometimfs  large  enough  to  hold  a  man.  Acts  ix.  25.  Trench  on  Miracles, 
p.  356,  note. 

1  Lachmann,  Tischendorf,  and  Tregelles  read  Magadan,  a  name  which 
is  not  otherwise  known. 

Mark  gives  the  name  of  Dalmanutha,  "  the  shady  place  "  ;  but  this 
also  is  unknown. 

8  Manasseh  obtained  from  Sanballat  permission  to  build  a  rival  temple 
at  Shechem.  Meuelaus  was  a  time-serving  friend  of  Greek  customs  and 
of  the  Syrian  kings.  Onias  built  a  rival  temple  in  Egypt. 

h  The  Pharisees  as  a  body  were  poor,  and  lived  with  a  modest  sim- 
plicity, often  earning  their  bread  by  a  laborious  occupation.  The  Sad- 
ducees  were  spoiled  children  of  fortune.  Yet  Pharisees  were  not  wanting 
whose  epicureanism  rivalled  anything  said  of  their  rivals.  "  Eat  and 
drink,  for  the  world  we  are  soon  to  leave  is  like  a  marriage  feast,"  said 


NOTES.  611 

Samuel  to  Eabbi  Jehuda  Chimena.  "  My  son,"  said  Eab.  to  E.  Hamen- 
ana,  "  if  you  have  anything,  make  merry,  for  there  is  no  more  pleasure 
under  the  ground,  and  death  gives  no  respite.  Do  you  intend  to  leave 
money  to  your  son  ?  Who  will  tell  you  about  it  when  you  are  in  the 
grave  ?  Men  are  like  the  flowers  of  the  field :  those  of  to-day  give  place 
to  those  of  to-morrow."  These  are  sayings  of  two  famous  Eabbia  of  the 
Pharisaic  party. — Dereribourg,  pp.  131,  132. 

1  The  south  wind  is  the  Samum  or  Simoom,  which  blows  from  the  hot 
deserts  of  Africa,  and  brings  overpowering  heat.  It  blows  up  the  gorge 
of  the  Jordan,  and  sweeps  like  a  furnace-blast  over  the  plains  of  Gen- 
nesareth.  The  west  wind  brings  the  clouds  from  the  Mediterranean. 
The  east  wind  from  the  table-land  of  the  Hauran  brings  dry  weather. 


CHAPTEE  XLVI. 

•  Cheselden,  in  his  account  of  the  restoration  of  sight,  by  an  operation, 
to  a  youth  who  had  been  born  blind,  says,  "  When  he  first  saw  he  knew 
not  the  shape  of  anything,  nor  any  one  thing  from  another,  however 
different  in  shape  or  magnitude ;  but,  being  told  what  things  were,  whose 
forms  he  before  knew  from  feeling,  he  would  carefully  observe  that  he 
might  know  them  again." — Anatomy,  p.  301.  1768,  London. 

b  Tischendorf,  following  the  Sinaitic  and  Vatican  MSS.,  omits  the  last 
clause  of  the  verse.  Meyer  retains  it. 

0  The  Jews  expected  the  reappearance  not  only  of  Enoch  and  Elijah, 
but  also  of  Moses  and  Jeremiah.  Moses  was  believed  to  have  been  taken 
to  heaven  like  Elijah. — Jos.  Ant.,  iv.  8.  48 ;  i.  3.  4  ;  ix.  2.  2.  I  have 
quoted  (page  364,  vol.  i.)  the  legend  (2  Mace.  ii.  1)  elsewhere,  of  the 
concealment  of  the  ark  by  Jeremiah  at  the  taking  of  Jerusalem  by  the 
Chaldeans. 

A  similar  legend  rose  in  the  Christian  Church  respecting  Joseph.  He 
died,  it  was  said,  but  his  body  was  not  allowed  to  see  corruption,  and  he 
would  be  raised  again  at  the  marriage  supper  of  the  thousand-year  reign. 
He  would  have  been  carried  to  heaven  in  a  chariot  of  fire,  like  Elijah, 
but  died  as  a  tribute  to  original  sin,  derived  from  Adam. — Hist.  Jos., 
26.  28. 

See  Langen's  Jiulenthum,  pp.  491,  493.  Godwyn's  Aaron  and  Moses, 
p.  38. 

d  iKK\r)ffia  (ecclesia).  The  word  comes  from  the  verb  <-K/ca\<?w,  "  to  call 
out,  to  call  together,"  and  is  equivalent  to  the  Heb.  ?nj5  (Kahal),  "con- 
gregation," "  assembly." — Judges  xxi.  8.  1  Chron.  xxix.  1.  2  Chron. 
xxiii.  3.  Exod.  xvi.  2.  In  Acts  xix.  32,  39,  it  is  translated  "  assembly." 

«  That  Peter  was  the  rock  on  which  the  Church  was  to  be  built  up,  see 
Bruch,  Bib.  Lex.,  vol.  v.  p.  55.  Meyer,  in  loc.  Holtzmann,  Bib.  Lex., 
vol.  iv.  p.  482.  Pressel,  p.  181,  Hoss,  vol.  ii.  p.  103.  Ewald,  vol.  v. 
p.  461. 

Paulus  (vol.  ii.  p.  2)  paraphrases  the  words  thus—"  Thou  art  a  true 
Peter — a  rock-like  man — to  Me  !  and  on  this  rock,  upon  the  foundation 
held  so  firmly  by  thee, — that  I  am  the  true  Messiah,— on  the  rock  of  thy 
eonfcssion  will  I  build  up  those  called  from  the  world  to  be  my  spiritual 


612  NOTES. 

Temple.  With  this  I  lay  on  thee  a  great  office.  Thou  shalt  be,  in  that 
spiritual  Temple-palace,  the  keeper  of  the  keys,  who  admits  those  allowed 
to  enter.  Lead  in  as  such,  the  worthy,  who  are  fit  for  the  heaven-like 
kingdom.  A  great  task  will,  however,  lie  on  thee  in  this  matter.  Thou 
Bhalt  diligently  explain  to  men  what  the  Divine  commands  forbid  or 
permit.  And  know  thou  that  what  thou,  here  below,  declarest  permitted, 
must  be  of  that  nature  only  which  is  permitted  in  heaven,  where  the  will 
of  God  reigns  supreme." 

*  "  To  bind  and  loose,"  as  shown  by  a  great  many  illustrations  in 
Lightfoot's  Hor.  Heb.,  vol.  ii.  pp.  238-241,  was  a  phrase  of  every-day  use 
among  the  Jews,  for  forbidding  or  permitting.  It  was,  in  fact,  the 
common  expression  for  the  decisions  of  the  Eabbis  on  any  of  the  count- 
less points  submitted  to  them.  They  "bound" — forbade — this;  and 
"  loosed  " — permitted — that.  Doors,  in  antiquity,  were  fastened  by  cords, 
in  tying  and  loosing  which  keys  were  used.  Hence,  instead  of  speaking, 
as  we  do,  of  opening  and  shutting  a  door,  they  spoke  of  binding  and 
loosing  it.  See  Pratt's  Foxe's  Martyrs,  vol.  viii.  p.  772. 

8  Dr.  Aug.  Wiinsche  has  published  a  series  of  extracts  from  the  Eabbis, 
under  the  name  of  Die  Leiden  des  Messias  (Leipzig,  1870),  to  show 
that  they  taught  the  doctrine  of  a  suffering  Messiah  ;  but  it  is  certain 
that  the  traces  of  their  having  done  so  are  indecisive.  This  is  my 
opinion,  at  least,  after  having  read  the  book. 

h  ?\ewy  <rot,  sc.  IOTW  6  9e6j,  "  God  be  merciful  to  thee"  "  God  forgive 
thee — Be  it  far  from  thee." 


CHAPTER  XLVH. 

»  The  appearance  of  Moses  at  the  coming  of  the  Messiah  was  taught 
by  the  Rabbis.  "  God,  the  Ever-Blessed,  said,  '  0  Moses,  as  thou  gavest 
thy  life  when  thou  wert  alive,  for  Israel,  so,  also,  in  the  times  of  the 
Messiah,  when  I  shall  send  Elijah  the  prophet  to  them,  you  also,  shall 
come,  at  the  same  time.'  " — Debarim  Babba,  §  3,  255.  2. 

b  The  Rabbis  had  disfigured  and  distorted  the  Scripture  record  of 
revelations  by  the  voice  of  God,  from  heaven.  They  spoke  of  a  "  BATH 
KOL,"  that  is,  the  daughter,  or  Echo,  of  the  voice  (of  God).  "  From  the 
time  that  Haggai,  Zacharias,  and  Malachi  died,"  says  the  Talmud,  "  the 
Holy  Spirit  was  taken  away  from  Israel.  Nevertheless,  the  Bath  Kol  was 
granted.  For  once,  when  the  Rabbis  were  consulting  in  the  chamber  of 
the  house  of  Gorijah,  the  Bath  Kol  came  from  heaven  and  said,  '  There 
is  a  man  among  you  who  is  worthy  that  the  Divine  majesty  should  rest 
on  him,  but  tbe  age  is  unworthy  of  him.'  Then  the  eyes  of  all  were 
turned  on  Hillel,  the  old,  whom,  when  he  died,  they  mourned  as  a  holy 
man,  and  a  true  scholar  of  Ezra."  So,  at  the  choice  of  R.  Samuel. 
Many  more  details  are  given  in  Buxtorf,  pp.  320-322.  See  also  Relaud's 
Antiquitates  Sac.  Heb.,  p.  259. 

c  "With  tears"  is  wanting  in  A*,  B,  C*  and  A,  and  several  versions, 
and  is  therefore  rejected  by  Lachmann,  Tischendorf,  and  Tregelles. 
"  Lord  "  is,  in  the  same  way,  wanting  in  the  Sinaitic,  Vatican,  Alexan- 
drine, and  other  MS-.,  and  is  also  rejected  by  the  same  authorities. 


NOTES.  613 

a  ffwapd^at,  "  tore  "  means  not  only  "  rending,"  but  "  convulsing." 
The  word  is  used  four  times  in  the  New  Testament.  In  Mark  i.  "26, 
Schleusner  translates  the  passage  "  et  totum  ejus  corpus  convulsit  et 
distorsit" — "and  convulsed  and  distorted  his  whole  frame." 

In  the  present  passage  the  Vulgate  translates  it  "  conturbavit  eum." 
In  verse  20  it  is  translated  "  tare,"  and  so  in  the  fourth  instance,  in  Luke 
ix.  39.  But  in  all  these  cases  "convulsed"  is  the  true  meaniug. 

6  Lachmann,  Tischendorf,  and  Tregelles,  on  the  authority  of  the 
Sinaitic  and  Vatican  MSS.,  and  of  many  versions,  read  6\iyoTri<rricu>, 
instead  of  airiffriav.  But  Meyer  and  De  Wette  retain  the  latter.  I  have 
incorporated  both. 

f  It  was  a  familiar  expression  among  the  Jews  for  an  eminent  Eabbi, 
that  he  was  a  '•  rooter  up,  or  a  remover  of  mountains,"  One  was  called 
so  from  his  skill  in  clearing  up  difficulties ;  another,  from  "  his  piercing 
judgment ;  "  of  a  third,  who  taught  in  the  streets  of  Tiberias,  it  was  said, 
there  was  no  such  "  rooter  up  of  mountains  "  in  his  day  as  he. — Light- 
foot,  Hor.  Heb.,  vol.  ii.  p.  283. 

The  grain  of  mustard  seed  was  another  proverbial  expression  for 
exceeding  minuteness. 

8  Tischendorf  omits  "  and  fasting,"  but  Meyer,  De  Wette,  Messner, 
and  others  retain  it. 


CHAPTEB  XLVIII. 

•  From  rkw,  "  to  send. "  The  Jews  called  the  messengers  Shelahim :  the 
Hellenists  (Jews  of  foreign  birth)  used  the  Greek  equivalent  dir6<TToXot 
(apostoloi).  , 

Buxtorf  translates  IV?^,  Sheliach  (the  singular  of  Shelihim),  as  a 
Nuncius,  or  apostle ;  that,  is,  a  messenger  of  the  Sanhedrim.  The  word 
was  also  used  for  an  ecclesiastical  servant  who  helped  Levites,  Priests, 
or  the  Head  of  the  Synagogue,  and  also  as  the  verger  or  caretaker  of  the 
synogogue,  p.  2411. 

b  The  aggregate  from  the  whole  world  may  be  judged  from  the  fact, 
that  the  contributions  from  the  Jews  in  Babylon  alone  had  to  be  guarded 
across  the  desert  by  a  force  numbering  thousands,  for  fear  of  the 
Parthians. 

c  The  plural  "  sons  "  is  used  by  Jesus  as  identifying  Himself  with  Hia 
disciples  in  ordinary  conversation,  but  the  application  can  only  be  made 
to  Jesus,  not  to  Peter,  for  Jesus  alone  was  "the  Son  of  G-od"  in  the 
sense  implied  in  the  argument.  Curiously,  this  passage  is  used  by  the 
Roman  Church  to  support  the  immunity  of  the  clergy,  as  descended 
from  Peter,  from  all  taxation,  or  at  least  from  ecclesiastical  taxes. 

d  There  had  been  a  fierce  controversy  between  the  Sadducees  and  the 
Pharisees  about  the  didrachma.  The  Sadducees  contended,  from  .the 
words  of  the  Law,  Numbers  xxviii.  4,  that  the  daily  morning  and  evening 
offerings  should  be  paid  from  free  contributions,  not  from  the  Temple 


614  NOTES. 

treasure.  The  Pharisees,  on  the  other  hand,  likewise  appealed  to  the 
Law,  to  prove  that  these  offerings  were  the  concern  of  the  people  as  a 
whole.  They  carried  their  point,  ard  instituted  a  special  Temple  tax — 
the  tax  now  demanded.  To  mark  their  victory,  they  would  receive  no 
coin  except  the  old  half-shekel  of  Simon  the  Maccabee  (Dicty.  of  the 
Bible,  vol.  ii.  p.  410),  which  flattered  the  national  feeling  as  a  Jewish 
Bilver  coin — the  only  silver  coin,  indeed,  struck  in  their  long  national 
history.  See,  also,  Jost,  vol.  i.  pp.  217,  218. 

Wieseler  (Beitrage,  pp.  104-126)  has  a  learned  chapter  in  which  he 
urges  that  the  tax  demanded  was  the  Roman  poll-tax. 

•  A  stater  was  four  drachmas,  and  it  is  very  noteworthy  that  we  know 
from  other  sources,  that  at  this  period  it  was  almost  the  only  Greek 
imperial  coin  in  circulation  in  the  East,  the  didrachma  being  probably 
unknown,  or  very  little  corned. 

1  SI&KOVOS  (diaconos),  "  the  deacon."  It  means  in  the  New  Testament : 
1st.  A  slave  who  waits  at  table. — Matt.  xxii.  13.  2nd.  One  whose 
services  are  used  by  or  for  another — the  magistrate  (for  God).  3rd. 
Ministers,  as  diaconoi  of  God  and  of  Christ,  and  also  of  men  who  serve 
the  will  of  the  devil. — Rom.  xiii.  4.  1  Cor.  iii.  1.  2  Cor.  xi.  15.  4th. 
"  Deacons  "  in  the  early  Church. 

8  When  Jesus  elsewhere  says,  "  He  who  is  not  with  me  is  against  me, 
and  he  who  gathers  not  with  me  scatters  abroad,"  it  is  no  contradiction 
to  the  opposite-sounding  words,  "  He  who  is  not  against  me  is  for  me." 
That  was  spoken  of  His  deadly  enemies  ;  this,  of  His  friends. 

h  juuXos  owxis  (mulos  onikos),  a  mill-stone  turned  by  an  ass.  It  was 
much  larger  and  heavier  than  the  stones  of  hand  mills. — Furrer,  p.  122. 
Buxtorf,  p.  2252.  This  was  not  a  Jewish  punishment  (Land  and  Book, 
p.  642),  but  it  was  in  use  among  the  Greeks,  Romans,  Syrians,  and 
Phenicians. — Casaub.  ad  Sttet.  Oct.,  p.  67,  quoted  by  Meyer. 

i  Amidst  the  countless  explanations  of  this  difficult  passage,  I  have 
given  what  seems  to  me  most  in  keeping  with  the  context. 

k  The  next  verse,  the  12th  of  Matt,  xviii.  is  wanting  in  B,  L*,  1*,  13, 
33,  and  many  versions,  and  is  omitted  by  Lachmann,  Tischendorf,  ami 
Tregelles.  Some  such  words,  however,  being  necessary  to  maintain  the 
connection  of  the  text,  I  have  used  them. 

1  The  simple  rules  of  discipline  instituted  by  Jesus  were,  apparently, 
those  already  in  practice  in  the  synagogues.  Even  at  this  day  it  is 
required,  on  the  day  before  the  great  Day  of  Atonement,  that  Israelites 
who  have  a  difference  seek  reconciliation.  *  The  offender,  not  as  in  Christ's 
case  the  injured,  is  to  go  to  him  whom  he  has  wronged,  and  seek  for- 
giveness. If  not  thus  obtained,  he  is  to  take  three  persons  with  him, 
and  go  again.  If  the  injured  person  will  not,  after  all,  forgive,  the 
contrite  offender  is  to  take  with  him  ten  persons — reckoned  "  a  congre- 
gation," or,  in  our  use  of  the  Greek  word,  "  ecclesia,"  which  is  the 
equivalent  of  the  Hebrew  "  congregation  " — "  a  church,"  and  in  their 
presence  say—"  Sirs,  I  have  wronged  this  person,  and  now  implore  his 
pardon  and  forgiveness."  If  the  offended  one  still  refuse  to  forgive,  the 
witnesses  are  to  hold  the  offender  clear  in  the  sight  of  God  and  man.— 
MiW  Jews,  p.  170.  See,  also,  Nork,  p.  81. 

The  promise  of  Jesus  to  be  with  any  two  or  three  of  His  Apostles 
gathered  in  His  name,  must  have  sounded  to  the  Twelve  as  a  direct 


NOTES.  615 

cl<um  of  supreme  divinity,  for  it  was  an  assumption  for  Himself  of  what 
the  Eabbis  taught  as  one  of  the  special  characteristics  of  God,  in  His 
relations  to  Israel.  Where  two  or  three  sit  together,  said  they,  and  read 
the  Law,  the  Shechina  is  amongst  them. — Nork.  p.  81.  Gfrorer,  vol.  i. 
p.  303. 

m  Over  two  millions  pounds  sterling.  An  Attic  talent  was  equal  to 
about  £216.  That  such  a  defalcation  was  possible,  shows  what  the  con- 
dition of  the  oppressed  nationalities  at  that  time  was.  The  rapacity  of 
Eoman  governors,  in  almost  all  cases,  may  be  illustrated  by  that  of 
Q.  Metellus  Scipio,  Proconsul  of  Syria,  B.C.  49-48,  as  painted  by  Casar. 
— Bell.  Civ.,  iii.  32. 

"  Meanwhile,  the  moneys  demanded  were  sternly  exacted  from  the 
whole  province,  and  many  additional  ways  of  gratifying  rapacity  were 
invented.  A  head  tax  was  levied  on  all  slaves  and  freemen.  Doors  and 
columns  were  taxed,  and  other  imposts  were  demanded  in  corn,  or  as 
soldier  money,  or  for  arms  ;  boatmen,  engines  of  war,  and  conveyances 
were  requisitioned.  If  a  new  tax  could  be  thought  of,  it  was  at  once 
imposed.  Military  governors  were  put  not  only  in  cities,  but  almost  in 
each  village  and  mansion,  and  he  was  thought  the  best  man,  and  the 
best  citizen,  who  used  his  position  most  harshly  and  remorselessly.  The 
province  was  full  of  lictors  and  officials,  and  swarmed  with  prefects  and 
tax-collectors,  who  added  to  the  taxes  for  their  private  gain,  pretending 
that,  being  exiled  from  home  and  country,  they  needed  to  do  so — thus 
covering  dishonest  acts  by  a  fair  excuse.  Besides  this,  heavy  usury  was 
added  to  all  the  taxes,  as  generally  happens  in  war.  Such  a  state  of 
things  can  be  only  equalled  now,  by  the  government  or  misgovernment 
of  the  Christian  states  subject  to  Turkey,  as  enumerated  in  the  following 
official  declaration  (1876) : — 

1.  The  small  farmer  complains  that  he  has  to  give  half  his  produce  to 
the  aga,  or  mayor ;  that  the  aga  pays  him  four  visits  a  year,  and  he  has 
to  maintain  him  and  his  followers  while  they  remain. 

2.  The  tithes  are  farmed,  and  the  farmers  exact  ten  times  the  amount 
prescribed  by  law. 

3.  The  rayahs  have  also  to  pay  taxes  and  personal  contributions. 

4.  The  cattle  are  counted  in  an  iniquitous  manner. 

5.  A  Christian  prosecuted  by  a  Turk,  or  who  prosecutes  a  Turk,  loses 
his  suit,  and  is  thrown  into  prison  unless  he  has  two  Turkish  witnesses. 

6.  The  Turks  employ  violence,  carry  off  wives  and  daughters,  and  force 
them  to  embrace  Islamism. 

7.  If  a  Christian  calls  for  justice  against  a  Turk,  he  is  sure  not  to  live 
more  than  three  days. 

8.  The  Turks  hate  our  priests,  churches,  etc. 

9.  We  pay  taxes  and  receive  no  education  ;  we  have  no  schools. 

10.  The  rayah  is  obliged  to  work  on  roads  for  a  week  at  a  time,  without 
pay  or  food. 

11.  When  horses  are  required  for  the  army  the  rayah  has  his  animals 
taken. 

12.  We  cannot  obtain  justice  in  a  court  composed  of  savage  Turks  and 
only  two  Christians,  who  are  forced  to  consent  even  to  the  death  of  the 
most  honest  Christians. 

13.  If  a  poor  Christian  resists  forced  labour,  or  interferes  to  prevent 
his  horse  being  taken,  he  is  sure  to  be  beaten  almost  to  death. 

14.  If  a  Christian  take  a  case  into  court,  he  can  never  get  it  settled 

77 


616  NOTES. 

without  bribing  the  judges  to  ten  times  the  value  of  the  matter  in 
dispute. 

15.  There  is  no  security  under  the  Turkish  Government. 

16.  If  an  aga  come  to  see  you,  he  blasphemes  against  the  Cross,  etc. 

17.  A  Turkish  judge  obliged  some  rayahs  to  dry  a  lake  for  him. 

18.  There  is  no  probity  in  the  Turkish  Government ;  its  agents,  being 
ill-paid,  commit  illegal  and  violent  acts. 

19.  Turkish,  which  the  rayahs  do  not  understand,  is  used  in  the  courts. 

20.  Some  rayahs  drained  a  lake,  and  the  Turks  took  away  from  them 
the  land  reclaimed. 

Substitute  Roman  for  Turk,  and  you  have  Judea  in  the  days  of  Christ. 

n  Even  among  the  Hebrews  this  could  be  done. — 2  Kings  iv.  1.  The 
debts  of  Christ's  age  were  sometimes  enormous.  Thus,  Caesar  owed 
25,000,000  sestercii  =  £285,000  beyond  his  assets.  Mark  Antony,  at  the 
age  of  twenty-four,  6,000,000  sestercii  =  £69,000,  and  fourteen  years 
later  40,000,OUO  sestercii  =  £450,000.  Curio  owed  60,000,000  sestercii  = 
£675,000,  Milo  70,000,000  sestercii =£825,000.  It  was  a  time  of  uni- 
versal corruption,  the  highest  classes  spending  on  political  bribery  as 
much  as  they  could  in  any  way  get,  to  secure  consulships,  etc.,  by  which, 
through  the  plunder  of  their  governments,  they  might  amass  stupendous 
fortunes.  The  lower  classes  catching  the  infection,  were  equally  un- 
principled, and  the  result  was  the  vanishing  of  capital,  the  depreciation 
of  real  estate,  countless  bankruptcies,  and  an  almost  universal  insol- 
vency at  every  political  crisis.  It  was  a  frequent  spectacle  to  see  debtors 
pass  into  the  position  of  dependents  on  their  creditor ;  the  humbler  ones 
following  in  his  train  like  slaves ;  the  greater  ones  watching,  even  in  the 
Senate,  his  nod  or  wink,  to  speak  and  vote  as  he  wished. — Mommseii's 
Rom.  Gesch.,  vol.  iii.  p.  511. 

"  If  a  debtor  failed  to  discharge  his  liabilities  to  the  State,  he  himself, 
and  all  that  he  had,  were  at  once  sold,  without  any  legal  process  :  it  was 
enough  to  prove  the  debt,  that  the  State  claimed  it." 

In  private  debts,  if  payment  were  not  duly  made,  "  the  king  handed 
over  the  debtor  to  the  creditor,  who  could  lead  him  off,  and  hold  him  as 
a  slave.  After  sixty  days,  during  which  the  debtor  was  exposed  thrice  in 
the  market-place,  to  see  if  any  one  would  take  pity  on  him,  the  creditor 
had  the  right  to  put  him  to  death,  and  cut  his  body  in  pieces,  or  to  sell 
him,  with  his  children  and  all  he  had,  into  slavery  to  another  State,  or 
to  hold  him  as  his  own  slave.  Creditors  had,  moreover,  private  dun- 
geons, which  were  no  better  than  living  graves,  and  in  these  they  often 
shut  up  their  debtors  for  life." — Mommsen,  vol.  i.  pp.  156, 162.  Things  were 
only  too  much  the  same  in  Christ's  day. 


CHAPTEK  XLIX. 

•  The  words  (Luke  ix.  54)  "  as  Elias  did,"  are  not  in  the  Sinaitic  or 
Vatican  MSS. 

The  fifty-fifth  verse  from  "  and  said,"  and  the  whole  of  the  fifty-sixth 
verse,  are  wanting  in  A,  B,  C,  E,  G,  H,  L,  S,  V,  X,  and  many  versions. 
They  are  therefore  rejected  by  Lachmann,  Tischendorf,  and  Tregelles. 

b  8t4  ntffov  Sa/aaptas  Ka.1  FaXiXatas,  between  the  two  countries,  with 
Samaria  on  the  south  and  Galilee  on  the  north. 


NOTES.  617 

«  A  striking  illustration  of  the  intense  hatred  between  the  Pharisees 
and  Sadducees,  was  shown  in  the  reign  of  Alexander  Jannasus  (B.C.  105- 
78).  As  one  of  the  Asmonasan  line,  Alexander  was  high  priest  as  well 
as  king,  and  being  a  Sadducee  in  feeling,  on  one  occasion  ostentatiously 
poured  the  water  brought  daily  from  Siloam  during  the  Feast  of  Taber- 
nacles, on  the  earth  beside  the  altar,  instead  of  upon  it,  as  the  Phari- 
sees, that  is,  the  Babbis,  enjoined.  Instantly  the  attendant  priests,  and 
the  multitude  around,  launched  the  citrons  in  their  hands  at  his  head. 
Enraged  at  the  insult,  Jannseus  called  in  his  soldiers,  and  slew  several 
thousands  of  the  rioters.  This  was  only  one  instance  of  the  bitterness 
of  the  feud  between  Sadducee  and  Pharisee.  On  another  occasion 
Jannasus  crucified  800  of  the  latter. — Dereubourg,  pp.  98,  99. 

4  Lightfoot's  account  is  picturesque.  "  At  the  close  of  the  first  day  of 
the  feast,  they  went  down  into  the  Court  of  the  Women,  and  there  pre- 
pared a  great  stage,  the  upper  part  of  it  for  the  women,  the  lower  for 
men.  There  were  golden  lamps  there,  fixed  to  the  wall,  with  cups  of 
gold,  below  each  of  which  four  ladders  were  now  set.  Four  young  priests 
forthwith  ascended  with  bottles  of  oil  containing  120  logs  (pints),  which 
were  emptied  into  the  golden  cup.  Wicks  had  been  made  from  the  old 
linen  robes  of  the  priests,  and  there  was  not  a  street  in  Jerusalem  that 
did  not  shine  with  the  lights." 

"  The  religious  and  devout  danced  before  the  lamps,  torch  in  hand, 
singing  hymns  and  doxologies.  The  Levites,  with  harps,  cymbals,  and 
other  instruments,  stood  on  the  fifteen  steps  leading  to  the  Court  of  the 
Men  and  sang.  Two  priests  standing  at  the  gate  at  the  top  of  the  steps, 
now  advanced,  sounding  brave  flourishes,  ever  and  anon,  till  they  reached 
the  east  gate  of  the  Temple,"  etc. — Quoted  by  Lightfoot  (vol.  iii.  p.  312) 
from  Succah,  c.  5.  hal.  2. 

6  The  Jews  settled  in  foreign  countries,  were  divided  by  their  country- 
men in  Palestine  into  two  great  classes.  The  Jews  of  Babylon — a 
general  name  given  to  all  Israelites  settled  in  the  East ;  and  the  "  dis- 
persed among  the  Gentiles" — i)  SiaffTropd,  r&v  'E\\-^vuv — the  Greek- 
speaking  Jews,  living  in  Egypt,  Asia  Minor,  and  other  countries  west  of 
Palestine.  Is  this  an  incidental  proof  that  our  Lord  spoke  Greek  as 
fluently  and  commonly  as  the  Syro-Chaldaic  dialect? 

*  The  last  day  of  the  feast  was  called  Hoshanna  Eabba,  «'  The  great 
Hosauna."  The  word  Hosanna  is  made  up  of  the  two  words,  flW&in 
(Hoshia),  "  save,"  and  fcO  (na),  "  now  ;  " — and  "  the  great  Hosanna  "  is 
thus  equivalent  to  the  great  day  of  prayer,  because  it  was  specially 
devoted  to  prayer  for  the  salvation  of  the  whole  people  and  the  remission 
of  their  sins,  and  for  their  welfare  through  the  year,  which  began  with 
the  month  Tisri.  The  prayers  at  the  feast  generally  were  hence  called 
Hosanna,  and  even  the  Lulabs  and  willows  borne  by  the  pilgrims  got  the 
ijame  name,  from  their  bearers  shouting  the  word  from  time  to  time  as 
they  went  along. — Buxtorf,  Lex.,  p.  993. 

The  last  day  of  the  feast  was  especially  great  as  that  on  which,  as  the 
Eabbis  taught,  God  made  known  by  the  look  of  the  moon  and  of  its  rays 
His  judgment  respecting  the  future  of  each  individual  during  the  new 
year  then  just  opened,  and  how  each  had  been  regarded  by  Him  on  the 
Day  of  Atonement  in  reference  to  the  sins  of  the  year  past.  Long 
details  are  given  in  the  Talmud,  of  the  astrological  signs  by  which  the 


618  NOTES. 

pardon  and  future  lot  of  individuals  might  be  read  from  the  heavens  on 
this  night. 

It  was  held,  also,  that  God  fixed  on  this  day  how  much  rain  was  to  fall 
in  the  coming  year — which  was  tantamount  to  decreeing  barrenness  or 
fertility. 

Superstition  thus  largely  increased  the  popular  excitement  as  the  feast 
closed.  See  on  this  whole  subject,  Buxtorf,  Syn.  Judaica,  pp.  446-470. 

8  In  the  Book  Sohar  we  find  the  same  metaphor,  fol.  40,  col.  4,  "When 
a  man  turns  to  God  he  becomes  like  a  spring  of  fresh  living  water,  and 
streams  flow  out  from  him  to  all  men." 


CHAPTER  L. 

•  The  narrative  of  the  woman  taken  in  adultery  (John  viii.  1-11)  is  not 
found  in  some  of  the  MSS.,  but  it  was  circulated  in  various  texts  as 
early,  perhaps,  as  the  second,  certainly  as  the  third,  century.  There  can 
be  no  doubt  that  it  is  a  genuine  fragment  of  evangelical  history,  derived 
from  some  source  which  we  do  not  now  exactly  know,  and  there  needs  be 
no  hesitation  in  adopting  it  as  the  narrative  of  an  incident  in  the  life  of 
Jesus.  For  a  full  statement  of  the  overwhelming  evidence  in  its  favour, 
I  would  refer  to  the  remarks  of  Meyer  (Evan.  d.  Johann.,  pp.  273,  274), 
and  of  Liicke  and  Eosenmiiller,  in  loc.  It  is  useless  to  trouble  the  reader 
with  dry  details. 

b  "  LIGHT  is  the  name  of  the  Messiah." — Talmud,  in  Nork,  p.  177. 
See,  also,  Bibel  Lex.,  vol.  iv.  p.  15. 

0  The  middle-age  book  Sohar,  has  a  similar  expression.  He  who 
gives  himself  to  the  understanding  of  the  Law  is  a  free  man. — On 
Numbers,  fol.  73.  291. 

d  "  Thou  art  a  Cuthite  (a  heathen  from  Cuth),"  said  B.  Nachmann  to  a 
Samaritan — "  no  one  among  us  would  believe  you  as  a  witness  in  any 
matter."—  Jevahoth,  fol.  47.  1. 


CHAPTER  LI. 

•  Ewald  and  others  have  supposed  that  Martha  was  the  widow  of 
Simon  the  Leper  (Matt.  xxvi.  6).  Others,  that  Simon  was  her  relation  or 
friend  (Grotius,  Kuinoel,  Ebrard).  Others,  again,  that  he  was  the  owner 
and  main  tenant  of  the  house.  But  all  these  conjectures  are  arbitrary 
and  unsupported. 

b  irpoffKweif,  "to  worship,"  is  used  by  John  only  of  worship  of  the 
Divine  being,  iv.  20 ;  xii.  20. 


CHAPTER  LIL 

•  It  had  been  instituted  by  Judas  Maccabseus,  in  B.C.  164,  after  hia 
great  victories,  and  was  celebrated  by  illuminations  in  every  Jewish 
household  in  the  land,  in  commemoration,  it  was  said,  of  the  legendary 


NOTES.  619 

finding,  at  the  first  celebration,  of  a  bottle  of  the  old  holy  oil,  which  had 
miraculously  sufficed  for  the  whole  week's  demands — though  it  is  more 
easy  to  think  of  such  a  display  as  the  natural  expression  of  universal 
joy.  The  Temple  and  every  private  house  in  Jerusalem  were  lighted  up, 
within  and  without,  by  lanterns  and  torches,  every  evening  during  the 
eight  days  ;  the  front  of  the  Temple  was  decked  with  crowns  of  gold  and 
golden  shields ;  no  fast  or  mourning  was  allowed,  and  the  crowds  moved 
about  in  all  the  variety  of  Oriental  gala  dress,  bearing  branches  of  palms 
and  other  trees,  and  ever  and  anon  filling  the  air  with  their  songs  and 
rejoicings. 

b  So,  in  B,  L,  X,  and  many  versions.  Adopted  by  Lachmann,  Tisch- 
endorf,  and  Tregelles. 

6  ffwi$piov=ativ,  "together,"  and  ZSpa,  "a  seat,"  "an  assembly,  a 
sitting  together." 

d  Dr.  Thomson  has  an  illustration  of  the  ideas  even  now  in  force 
among  the  Jews  as  to  Sabbath  observance.  "  A  Jew  must  not  carry  on 
the  Sabbath  even  so  much  as  a  pocket  handkerchief,  except  within  the 
walls  of  his  city.  If  there  are  no  walls,  it  follows,  according  to  their 
perverse  logic,  that  he  must  not  carry  it  at  all.  To  avoid  this  difficulty 
here,  in  Safed,  they  resort  to  what  they  call  Eruv.  Poles  are  set  up  at 
the  end  of  the  streets,  and  strings  stretched  from  one  to  the  other.  These 
strings  represent  a  wall,  and  a  conscientious  Jew  may  carry  his  hand- 
kerchief anywhere  within  them.  I  was  once  amused  by  a  devout  Israel- 
ite who  was  walking  with  me,  on  his  Sabbath,  toward  that  grove  of 
olive-trees  on  the  north  of  the  town,  where  my  tent  was  pitched.  When 
we  came  to  the  end  of  the  street  the  string  was  gone  ;  and  so,  by  another 
fiction,  he  supposed  he  was  at  liberty  to  go  on  without  reference  to  what 
was  in  his  pocket,  because  he  had  not  passed  the  wall. 

"  A  profane  and  most  quarrelsome  fellow  once  handed  me  his  watch  to 
wind  just  after  sunset  on  Friday  evening.  It  was  now  his  Sabbath,  and 
he  could  not  work." — Land  and  Book,  pp.  275,  276. 

6  Son — not  ass ;  vlbs—  not  6vos. — Lachmann,  Tischendorf,  Tregelles, 
Meyer. 


CHAPTER  Lm. 

a  The  drachma  in  circulation  in  Palestine,  was  either  the  Grecian, 
which  was  worth  7£d.,  or  the  Phenician,  which  was  worth  something 
less. 

h  In  the  vivid  words  of  St.  Luke,  they  "  turned  up  their  noses  "  at 
Him,  tK/j.vKTi]<rifeir. 

«  Michaelis  (Ein.  in  die  Schr.  des  N.  B.,  2  Th.  p.  1186),  says,  "The 
narrative  of  the  rich  man  is  not  a  mere  moral  invention,  but  refers  per- 
sonally to  the  family  of  Hannas,  the  high  priest,  and  his  five  sons.  For 
the  rich  man  with  his  five  brothers,  who,  like  himself,  believed  neither 
Moses  nor  the  prophets,  and,  as  it  seems,  had  no  fear  of  the  world  to 
come,  can  scarcely  fail  to  be  recognised  in  Jewish  history,  if  one  think  of 
Caiaphas,  the  son-in-law  of  Hannas,  and  on  the  five  sons  of  Hannas  (Ant. 
Jos.,  xx.  1)  who  in  succession  held  the  office  of  high  priest,  but  were, 


620  NOTES. 

notwithstanding,  all  of  them  Sadducees."     Striking,  if  it  be  so,  that  Jesus, 
in  this  parable,  thus  judged  His  future  judge  before  the  great  day  ! 
a  p)rr)ffovffu>,  "  seek,"  is  a  weaker  word  than  ayuvi£e<r6e,  "  strive." 


CHAPTER  LIV. 

(hypopiadzo),  fr.  v-n-6,  "  under,"  &\f/  (ops),  "  the  eye,"  "  to  hit 
under  the  eye,  to  give  a  black  eye."  The  Vulgate  has  "sugillet"  "to 
beat  black  and  blue."  Luther  has  "  iibertauben,"  "  to  talk  one  deaf." 

b  The  words  tic  veorrjTos  (tov,  "from  my  youth  up,"  are  not  in  the 
best  MSB.  and  are  disallowed  by  Lachmann,  Tischeudorf,  and  Tregelles. 

c  Buxtorf  (p.  1722)  quotes  a  proverb  of  the  Eabbis  which  compares 
an  impossibility  to  an  elephant  entering  the  eye  of  a  needle.  See  strik- 
ing illustration  in  Furrer,  p.  291.  It  is  also  noticed  in  Dukes,  p.  189. 

d  The  Sinaitic  and  Vatican  MSS.  omit  "  for  them  that  trust  in  riches." 
Lachmann  and  Tregelles  retain  these  words.  Tischendorf  omits  them. 

6  SidKovot  (diaconos),  "  servant,  minister,"  is  intensified  in  the  next 
line  to  SoDXos  (doulos)  "  slave." 

*  Otiov  "xapiav. — Josephus. 

8  Bar-Timaeus.  Bar  pi),  "  son."  Timaus  was  a  Greek  name,  though 
father  and  son  were  evidently  Jews.  The  father  must  have  been  after- 
wards known  as  a  Christian  to  cause  his  name  to  have  been  given. 

h  A  mina  (or  pound)  was  equal  to  100  drachma.  Each  of  these  was 
nominally  worth  7|d.,  but  its  purchasing  value  was  equal  to  perhaps 
3s.  4d.  of  our  money.  The  sum  given  would,  thus,  be  about  £3  2s.  6d., 
though,  in  reality,  it  was  of  as  much  value  then  as  about  £17  now.  See 
Dicty.  of  Bible  (Weights  and  Measures),  and  Robinson's  Lexicon  (Art. 


CHAPTER  LV. 

»  The  Rabbis,  in  their  extravagance,  maintained  that  the  Messiah 
would  ride  on  the  same  ass  as  carried  the  wood  of  Isaac's  sacrifice, 
which,  itself,  was  the  foal  of  the  ass  created  at  the  beginning  of  the 
world.  See  Eisenmenger,  vol.  ii.  p.  697. 

b  Quoted  as  usual  from  the  Greek.  I  give  Augusti  and  De  Wette's 
translation. 

c  Etjeavia— Bethany— ^H  H3.  Bethphage— K33  D3or  39  D3.  The 
33  (Pag)  is  the  unripe  fig  which  hangs  on  the  tree  over  winter.— Cant. 
ii.  13.  There  are  three  kinds  of  figs  in  Palestine : — 

1.  The  early  fig.  The  Bekurah  (Bikurim,  the  first-fruits,  Dn33). 
After  a  gentle  winter  it  ripens  at  the  end  of  June,  but  perhaps 
earlier,  round  Jerusalem. 

-«  The  summer  fig  (Kermus— Arab.).  It  ripens  in  August,  and 
is  dried  and  made  into  cakes,  etc.,  to  preserve  it.  It  forms  the 
main  crop. 


NOTES.  621 

3.  The  Pag  (the  winter  fig,  or  unripe  fig).  It  ripens  only  after  the 
leaves  have  fallen,  and  after  gentle  winters  hangs  on  the  tree 
till  next  spring. —  Winer,  Real  W.  B.,  Art.  Feigeribaum.  Tobler, 
Denkblatter  aus  Jerus.,  pp.  101-103.  Ewald,  vol.  v.  p.  523. 
Bleek,  p.  312.  Land  and  Book,  p.  349.  Tristram,  p.  352. 

*  Force  of  the  word  used,  Xt/c/tow. 


CHAPTEB  LVI. 

8  Tischendorf  rejects  the  words  "  and  with  all  the  soul."    Lachmann 
puts  them  in  brackets. 


CHAPTEB  LVH. 

*  The  lepton  was  the  eighth  of  an  as ;  the  as,  the  tenth  part  of  a 
denarius. 

b  At  that  time  wars  will  rise  on  the  earth  ;  nation  will  be  against 
nation  and  city  against  city ;  many  troubles  shall  come  on  the  enemies  of 
Israel. — Sohar  Chadash,  f.  8.  4. 

If  thou  seest  kingdoms  rising  against  kingdoms,  then  watch  and  look 
for  the  footstep  of  the  Messiah. — Beresh.  Rabba,  42  f.  41.  1. 

0  Deceitful  and  designing  men,  under  the  pretence  of  inspiration, 
plotted  innovations  and  revolutions  in  the  government  of  the  country, 
and  misled  the  multitude,  till  they  got  them  worked  up  to  behave  like 
madmen. — Jos.  Bell.  Jud.,  ii.  13.  4. 

d  "  Hie  locus  est,  partes  ubi  se  via  findit  in  ambas 
Dextera,  quse  Ditis  magni  sub  mcenia  tendit ; 
Hac  iter  Elysium  nobis  :  at  laeva  malorum 
Exercet  pcenas,  et  ad  impia  Tartara  mittit." 

— Virg.  JEn.  vi.  542-545. 


CHAPTEB  LVHL 

•  Three  hundred  pence  is  the  very  sum  stated  by  Pliny  (Nat. 
Hist.,  xii.  12).  At  six  times  their  nominal  value  in  that  day,  which 
would,  perhaps,  be  near  their  equivalent  now,  thre§  hundred  pence  would 
be  equal  to  about  £60. — Lightfoot,  Hor.  Heb.,  vol.  ii.  p,  448.  Winer, 
rt.  Narde. 

b  ytvofj-tvov  —  in  B,  L,  X,  etc.,  adopted  by  Tischendorf  and  Tregelles. 
The  present  participle  harmonizes  the  account  with  that  of  the  other 
Evangelists. 

«  Charoseth  (npnn)  was  a  dish  composed  of  dates,  figs,  etc.,  of  a 
brick  colour,  to  remind  them  of  the  bricks  and  mortar  of  Egypt.  Bux- 
torf  says  it  was  of  dry  dates,  or  figs,  or  dried  grapes,  and  the  like, 
pounded  and  made  up  with  vinegar,  etc. — Lex.  Talm.,  p.  831.  The  dish 
itself  (rpvp\iov)  was  for  liquids,  and  held  about  half  a  pint. — Diet,  of 
Antiquities. 


622  NOTES. 

CHAPTER  LIX. 

Ter  limen  tetigi,  ter  sum  revocatus ;  et  ipse 

Indulgens  animo  pes  mihi  tardus  erat. 

Saspe,  valedicto,  rursus  sum  multa  locutus, 

Saspe  eaderu  mandata  dedi." — Ovid.  Trist.,  i.  3.  55  f. 

b  The  Greek  words  translated  in  our  version  "  because  I  go  to  th« 
Father,"  are  omitted  by  Tischendorf  and  Tregelles.  They  are  wanting 
in  B,  D,  L,  and  in  many  versions. 


CHAPTER  LX. 

•  If  the  name  Zion  be  correctly  given  to  the  hill  west  of  Moriah. 
Lieut.  Conder  thinks  it  was  a  hill  one  and  three  quarter  miles  west  from 
the  Jaffa  gate. — Pal.  Repts.,  January,  1877,  p.  21. 

Dean  Stanley,  also,  has  questioned  the  correctness  of  the  present  use 
of  the  name. 

b  A  cohort  was  500  men.  A  "  band  " — possibly  a  maniple,  the  third 
of  the  cohort,  though  the  name  is  sometimes  given  to  even  a  smaller 
number— is  named  by  St.  John,  xviii.  3. 

A  chiliarch — the  title  used  by  Sti  John — is  the  Greek  equivalent  of  a 
"  tribune  of  the  soldiers" — tribunns  militum.  It  means,  literally,  "  the 
commander  of  a  thousand."  There  were  six  in  a  legion  of  from  five  to 
six  thousand  men,  so  that  a  chiliarch  or  tribune  was  equivalent  to  our 
lieutenant-colonel. 

It  is  to  be  noted,  however,  that  the  word  <nre1pa  (speira)  translated 
"  a  band  "  in  our  version,  is  generally  used  as  the  equivalent  of  the  term 
"  cohort,"  so  that  it  is  not  impossible  that  a  large  force  was  sent  to  Geth- 
semane,  under  a  superior  officer,  in  case  of  an  attempt  at  rescue.  See 
Diet,  of  Antiquities,  Axi.  Exercitus.  Also  Wahl,  Schleusner,  and  Robin- 
ton't  Lexicons  of  the  Greek  Test. 


CHAPTER  LXL 

•  So  translated  in  the  Vulgate,  in  Luther's  German  version,  and  in 
Davidson's  Tischendorf.  In  the  translation  used  in  our  own  version, 
however,  it  is  the  common  Rabbinical  form  of  clear  affirmation.  The 
Divine  Majesty  is  spoken  of  by  Jesus  as  "  The  Power  " — an  abstraction 
current  among  the  Rabbis,  and  seen,  yet,  in  the  Talmud. — Luxt.  Lex., 
p.  385. 


CHAPTER  LXH. 

•  There  is  thought  to  be  a  difficulty  in  connection  with  John's  words 
(xviii.  28),  which  seem  as  if  the  Passover  had  not  yet  come.  The  fullest 
and  best  discussion  of  the  point,  so  far  as  I  have  seen,  is  that  in 
McClellan's  New  Testament,  pp.  486  ff.  (Macmillan,  1875.)  Strange  to 
say,  Paulus  (vol.  iii.  p.  220)  takes  the  view  I  have  given,  though  Meyer 
and  De  Wette,  not  to  mention  Alford,  and  Canon  Westcott,  think  the 


NOTES.  623 

Passover  was  yet  future.  The  old  Law  required  those  who  were  to  par- 
take of  a  feast  to  be  Levitically  clean  for  three  days  before,  but  the  three 
days  had  been  latterly  shortened  to  one. — Ewald's  Alterthumer,  p.  143. 
LutliardVs  Evan.  Joh.,  vol.  ii.  p.  392. 

b  Herod  raised  his  "judgment  seat"  in  the  theatre. — Jo*.  Ant.,  xvii. 
6.  3.  Philip,  on  the  highways. — xviii.  4.  6.  Agrippa  I.  before  the  people. 
— Acts  xii.  4.  Pilate,  in  the  circus. — Bell.  Jud.,  ii.  9.  3.  Florus,  before 
the  palace,  in  Jerusalem. — ii.  14.  8. 

«  From  &O??,  "  a  hill."  Buxt.,  p.  377.  Compare  our  English  word, 
gibbous,  "  convex,  hump-backed."  The  name  "  Pavement  "  (Xt0u<rrpwroi»), 
was  a  tesselated  pavement  of  different  colours,  on  which  Koman  praetors 
and  procurators  had  their  Bema  (firma),  or  official  chair,  as  judges,  set. 
Caesar  carried  with  him,  on  his  campaigns,  such  a  pavement. 

d  The  word  is  Xcywrprfs— which  is  translated,  in  our  version  (Luke  xxiii. 
11),  gorgeous.  Of  angels'  robes  and  of  the  morning  star  (Acts  x.  30 ; 
Rev.  xxii.  16),  bright.  James  ii.  2,  goodly  apparel.  James  ii.  3,  gay 
clothing.  Eev.  xv.  6 ;  xix.  8,  white  linen.  Rev.  xviii.  14,  goodly  fruits. 
Rev.  xxii.  1,  clear  as  crystal. 

e  Bar  Abbas.     The  Son  of  a  Father,  i.e.  of  a  Rabbi. 

*  In  the  Vatican  and  corrected  Sinaitic,  the  word  iKSfoavres,  "  stripped, 
put  off,"  is  rightly  changed  into  evStiaavres,  "  clothed,  put  on."  He  had 
been  entirely  stripped,  to  be  scourged. 

K  Matthew  (xxvii.  45),  Mark  (xv.  25),  and  Luke  (xxiii.  44)  agree  in 
saying  that  it  was  the  third  hour  (from  6  a.m.)  when  Jesus  was  finally 
given  up  for  execution.  John,  on  the  other  hand  (xix.  14),  says  it  was 
about  the  sixth  hour  (12  noon).  But  without  any  laboured  theory  about 
difference  of  calculation,Jiow  easily,  as  Liicke  remarks  (vol.  ii.  p.  488), 
might  the  Greek  numeral  F  (7')  =  3  have  been  changed  by  accident  into 
5^  =  6 — in  the  MSS.  of  John's  Gospel,  from  which  ours  have  been 
copied.  But  even  this  is  not  needed,  for  as  Ewald  (vol.  v.  p.  574)  points 
out,  John  perhaps  speaks  of  the  tune  of  the  actual  nailing  to  the  cross, 
the  other  evangelists  of  the  starting  to  it.  The  preparations,  the  march, 
etc.,  etc.,  may  well  have  taken  up  the  interval  till  noon. 


CHAPTER  LXHI. 

*  In  Acts  i.  18,  it  is  said  that  Judas  bought  the  field ;  in  Matthew, 
that  the  priests  bought  it.  The  apparent  difficulty  is  simply  a  mis- 
translation of  the  word  {xTr/varo  in  Acts.  Schleusner  (Lex.)  and  Rosen- 
muller  (Scholia— Acts  i.  18)  rightly  explain  it  as  meaning  "Judas,  by  his 
unholy  reward,  afforded  the  means  of  buying  the  spot."  Schleusnei 
quotes  an  apt  illustration  from  Josephus. — Ant.  Jud.,  ix.  8.  3. 

b  (The  Jews)  first  put  the  condemned  person  to  death,  and  then 
hanged  him  on  a  tree,  but  the  custom  of  the  (Roman)  Empire  is  first  to 
hang  (crucify)  them,  and  then  put  them  to  death. — Sanhed.  in  Gemara, 
quoted  by  Lightfoot,  vol.  ii.  p.  365. 

c  Quinct.  Decl.,  p.  274.  Thus,  when  we  crucify  criminals,  the  most 
frequented  roads  are  selected,  where  the  multitude  may  see  everything, 
and  be  struck  with  fright  at  the  lesson.  See,  also,  Matt,  xxvii.  39. 


624  NOTES. 

d  Hase  and  Meyer  distrust  the  proofs  of  any  covering,  and  the  Fathers, 
Athanasius,  Ambrose,  and  Origen,  speak  of  entire  nudity.  The  body- 
cloth  seems  to  have  been  restricted  to  inflictions  of  death  by  the  Jews. 
The  Eomans  had  no  such  tenderness.  Polycarp  was  martyred  entirely 
naked. — Eus.,  iv.  5.  The  soldiers  would  hardly  lose  any  part  of 
their  perquisites  of  the  clothes  for  the  sake  of  delicacy.  The  Jews,  like 
the  Eomans,  stripped  those  about  to  be  put  to  death  ;  but  the  Mishna 
prescribes  that  a  person  crucified  is  to  wear  a  cloth  round  his  loins. — 
Sepp,  vol.  vi.  p.  330.  Schenkel  (p.  306)  thinks  that  Jesus  was  stripped 
entirely  naked.  Hug,  quoted  by  Winer,  was  of  Sepp's  opinion. — Kreu- 
zigung,  R.  W.  B.  Keim  (vol.  iii.  p.  415)  also  thinks  crucified  persons 
were  stripped  entirely  naked. 

6  The  triple  inscription  on  the  Cross  was,  probably,  very  nearly  as 
under.  The  Aramaic — JESUS,  THK  NAZAKENE,  KING  OF  THE  JEWS.  The 
Greek — THIS  is  JESUS,  THE  KING  OF  THE  JEWS.  The  Latin — THE  KING 
OF  THE  JEWS. 


OYTOS  ESTIN  IHSOYS  O  BA2IAEYS  TflN  lOYAAIftN. 
BEX  JUD^OEUM. 


*  It  is  impossible  to  know  in  what  sense  our  Lord  used  this  word. 
The  dying  thief,  however,  would  doubtless  understand  it  in  the  sense  in 
which  his  nation  then  employed  it.  • 

8  It  is  impossible  to  explain  the  origin  of  this  darkness.  The  Pass- 
over moon  was  then  at  the  full,  so  that  it  could  not  have  been  an  eclipse. 
The  earlier  Fathers,  relying  on  a  notice  of  an  eclipse  that  seemed  to 
coincide  in  time,  though  it  really  did  not,  fancied  that  the  darkness  was 
caused  by  it,  but  incorrectly.  Paulus  thinks  it  was  the  darkness  pre- 
ceding an  earthquake.  Meyer,  that  it  was  supernatural. 

&  For  ^N.  He  uses  the  Aramaic  *r6&.  For  'jn;iTg,  He  uses  the 
Aramaic 


*  Dr.  Walshe,  quoted  by  Sir  James  T.  Simpson,  in  Hanna,  p.  337. 
See,  also,  Sepp,  vol.  vi.  p.  394.  F.wald's  GescMchte,  vol.  v.  p.  584. 
stroud  on  The  Physical  Cause  of  the  Death  of  Christ,  London,  1847,  pp. 
04  ff  ,  and  399  ff. 

k  \U?\V  JVJJ  (Baith  Olamo)  "  his  everlasting  house."  —  Eccles.  xii.  5. 
D/ltf  V.D»  "  everlasting  life."  Dan.  xii.  2. 


CHAPTEE  LXIV. 

•  The  words  "  and  of  a  honeycomb  "  are  omitted  by  Tischendorf  and 
Lachmann,  and  put  in  brackets  by  Tregelles. 


INDEX. 


Abia,  the  priestly  course  of,  i.  89. 

Abib,  the  month,  i.  409. 

Acre,  i.  22 ;  bay  of,  154. 

Actium,  battle  of,  i.  44. 

Active  virtues,  benedictions  on  the, 

ii.  57. 
Adam,  fables  of  Kabbis  respecting, 

i.  241,  242. 
Adultery,  the  woman  taken  in,  ii. 

279. 

Age,  respect  for,  i.  548. 
Agrippa,  i.  52 ;  gate  of,  in  the  temple, 

i.  121. 

Ahriman,  i.  129,  130. 
Akra,  199. 

Alexander  Jannasus,  i.  27,  545. 
Alexander,  son  of  Aristobulus,  i.  28. 
Alexander  and  Aristobulus,  sons  of 

Mariamne,  i.  53 ;  put  to  death, 

by  Herod,  56. 
Alexandra,  Queen,  i.  27. 
Alexandrian  Jews,  i.  142. 
Almsgiving,  Jewish  and  Christian 

doctrines  of,  ii.  75. 
Altar  of  burnt  offering,  i.  91. 
Amestris,  wife  of  Xerxes,  i.  408. 
'  Am-ha-aretzin,'  the,  i.  62,  238. 
Amos,  date  of,  i.  247. 
Amphitheatre  in  Jerusalem,  i.  198. 
Andrew,  St.,  call  of,  i.  439 ;  cha- 
racter of,  ii.  46. 
Angel,  appearance  to  Zacharias,  i. 

94 ;  to  Mary,  100. 
Angels,  seen  over    Bethlehem,    i. 

117;    hymns    of     the,    539; 

secret  names  of,  ii.  131. 
Anna,  reputed  mother  of  Mary,  i. 

105  ;  legends  respecting,  126. 
Annas,  the  high  priest,  i.  215. 
Annunciation,  the,  i.  100. 


Anointing  oil,  i.  81. 

Anointing  head  and  feet,  ii.  117 
sick  with  oil,  ii.  608. 

Antigonus,  son  of  Aristobulus,  i. 
29,  35,  37,  38. 

Antipas,  i.  248 ;  goes  to  Eome, 
251;  revenue  of,  252;  at 
Machaerus,  397;  at  Eome,  404 ; 
reference  of  Christ  to,  405 ; 
long  reign  of,  407 ;  birthday 
of,  407  ;  ii.  172,  173,  201,  343, 
471. 

Antipater,  father  of  Herod,  i.  27- 
32. 

Antipater,  son  of  Herod,  54 ;  plots 
against  Herod,  56 ;  death  of, 
57. 

Antonia,  the  fortress  of,  i.  200. 

Antony  and  Cleopatra  in  Egypt,  i. 
35 ;  death  of,  44. 

Apocrypha,  Christian,  i.  532 ; 
Jewish,  559. 

Apologue,  Jewish,  i.  173. 

Apostles,  call  of  first  four,  ii.  1, 40  ; 
Christ's  demand  from  those 
called  to  be,  41 ;  why  taken 
from  children  of  the  people, 
43  ;  names  of  the  twelve,  44  ; 
human  weakness  of  the,  47 ; 
choice  of  the  twelve,  50  ;  edu- 
cation of  the,  161,166 ;  sending 
forth  of  the  twelve,  169 ;  in- 
structions to  the,  170  ;  earthly 
ambition  of,  359-361 ;  gross 
ideas  of  the,  218,  246,  252, 
416,  572  ;  taught  the  need  of 
humility,  253,  254  ;  to  judge 
the  Tribes  of  Israel,  356. 

April  in  Palestine,  i.  469. 

Archelais,  i.  260. 


626 


INDEX. 


Archelaus,  i.  148 ;  hatred  of  Jews 
to,  248;  territory  left  to,  by 
Herod,  248  ;  revolt  against,  at 
his  father's  death,  250 ;  goes 
to  Rome,  250 ;  deputation  of 
Jews  protest  against,  at  Eome, 
251 ;  gets  his  kingdom,  252 ; 
revenue  of,  252  ;  exile  of,  260 ; 
282. 

Aretas,  i.  257, 284. 

Argob,  i.  304. 

Aristobulus,  son  of  Queen  Alexan- 
dra, i.  27,  28, 29,  41 ;  drowned 
by  Herod,  42. 

Ascension,  the,  ii.  571. 

Asceticism,  its  principle,  i.  342 ; 
in  various  religious,  342-350  ; 
not  favoured  by  the  Jews, 
389. 

Asmoneans,  chronology  of  later,  i. 
520. 

Ass,  said  to  be  worshipped  in 
Temple,  i.  311 ;  Jewish  honour 
paid  to  the,  ii.  372. 

Astrology,  early,  i.  134-5  ;  Jewish, 
136-7 ;  mediaeval,  137. 

Athronges,  the  Zealot,  i.  256, 
257. 

Atonement,  great  day  of,  i.  95, 210, 
223. 

Augustine,  sermon  of,  i.  541. 

Augustus,  the  emperor,  i.  23  ;  uni- 
versal power  of,  24,  45,  108 ; 
in  Syria,  47. 

B. 

"  Baal,"  meaning  of,  i.  134. 

Babylonian  Jew,  pride  of,  i.  131. 

Baca,  Valley  of,  i.  Ill ;  Mizpeh,  i. 
111. 

Bagoas,  plot  of,  i.  54. 

Balaam,  i.  138,  140,  141. 

Balsam  plantations  of  Jericho,  i. 
43. 

Banus,  an  anchorite  described  by 
Josephus,  i.  357. 

Baptism,  made  prominent  by  John, 
i.  374  ;  how  far  known  to  the 
Jewish  Church,  374  ;  signifi- 
cance of,  375  ;  of  Jesus,  im- 
portance of,  in  His  great  work, 
411.  413 ;  not  administered  by 
Christ  but  by  His  disciples, 


483 ;  the  significance  of,  484, 
485;  mode  of  John's,  605; 
place  of,  566. 

Baptist,  the,  his  birth  foretold,  i. 
94 ;  arrest  of,  485  ;  at  Enon, 
486;  humility  of  the,  487; 
excitement  at  fate  of,  511 ; 
teaching  of,  contrasted  with 
that  of  Christ,  513;  birth- 
place of,  525 ;  in  prison,  ii. 
107,  108 ;  mission  to  Jesus, 
108-111 ;  Christ's  eulogy  on, 
109  ;  hatred  of,  by  the  Eabbis, 
111. 

Barabbas,  ii.  511. 

Bar  Cochba,  i.  136. 

Barley,  ears  of,  disciples  pluck,  on 
Sabbath,  ii.  97,  190. 

Barren  fig-tree,  parable  of  the,  ii. 
167,  377-381. 

Barren  fig-trees,  ii.  606. 

Bashan,  i.  303,  305. 

Baskets,  Jewish,  ii.  608,  610. 

Bath  Kol,  the,  ii.  612. 

Bathing  as  a  means  of  cure,  ii.  87. 

"  Batlanim,"  the,  i.  179. 

Bazaar  in  Jerusalem,  i.  212. 

Beast,  the  number  of  the,  i.  554. 

Beelzebub,  ii.  598;  Christ's  mir- 
acles attributed  to,  133,  161, 
273,  305. 

Bees,  wild,  in  desert,  i.  355. 

Bethabara,  i.  388. 

Bethany,  family  of,  ii.  291-293; 
the  village  of,  292;  Christ 
summoned  to,  309 ;  Jesus  at, 
368, 370. 

Bethesda,  pool  of,  ii.  87,  592,  593. 

Bethlehem,  journey  of  Joseph  and 
Mary  to,  i.  109 ;  road  from,  to 
Jerusalem,  120 ;  slaughter  of 
innocents  at,  141. 

Bethphage,  ii.  372. 

Bethsaida,  ii.  219. 

Bethshean,  i.  291. 

Betrothal  in  England  in  Shak- 
spere's  day,  i.  99  ;  Jewish,  <J'J, 
529. 

Bible,  a  book  for  all  lands,  i.  16. 

Bigotry  condemned  by  Christ,  ii. 
80. 

"  Bill  of  divorcement,"  i.  99. 

"  Binding  and  loosing,"  i.  72, 163 
ii.  612. 


INDEX. 


627 


Birthday  rejoicings  at  Machaerus, 

i.  407. 
"  Black  death,  the,"  supposed  to  be 

caused  by  the  stars,  i.  137. 
Blasphemy,  Christ  charged  with,  ii. 

307. 

Blind  Bartimeus,  ii.  3C3. 
Blind  man,  cure  of,  at  Capernaum, 

ii.  160  ;  cure  of,  at  Bethsaida, 

220 ;  cure  of,  on  Sabbath,  298  ; 

brought    before    the    council, 

300. 

Blind  men  cured  at  Jericho,  ii.  2C3. 
Blindness  in  the  East,  ii.  363. 
Bottles,  skin,  ii.  580. 
Boyhood,  precocity  of  Jewish,  i. 

213. 

Bread  of  Heaven,  the,  ii.  182. 
Bride,  dress  of  Eastern,  i.  418. 
Brotherhood,  of  man,  unknown  to 

antiquity,  ii.  71,  72 ;  taught  by 

Christ,  73  ;  to  Christ,  138. 
Burial,  modern    Jewish,    i.    193 ; 

Jewish,  ii.  595. 
Burying  the  dead,  a  sacred  duty 

among  the  Jews,  ii.  595. 

C. 

"  Cabul,"  given  to  Hiram  of  Tyre, 

i.  29  i. 

Caesar,  helped  in  Egypt   by  Anti- 
pater,   i.   29 ;    in  Africa,   31 ; 

murder  of,  32 ;  "  should  tribute 

be  paid  to  ?  "  ii.  393. 
Cassarea,    description    of,    i.    48, 

571. 
Cflesarea  Philippi,  i.  306  ;  Christ  at, 

ii.  207,  221 ;   scenery  round, 

222. 
Caiaphas,  high  priest,  i.  277;  ii. 

316,  430,  472,  489. 
Calendar,  Jewish  ecclesiastical,  i. 

189. 
Caligula,  barbarity  of,  to  a  slave,  i. 

409. 

Callirhoe,  i.  395. 
Camels'  hair,  dress  of,  i.  372. 
Cana  of  Galilee,  i.  446;  Jesus  at 

marriage  at,  450,  507,  572. 
Capernaum,  i.  458-464 ;  houses  of, 

466 ;  reasons  forChrist's  choice 

of,  467  ;  healing  of  ruler's  son 

at,  508 ;  Christ  again  at,  512  ; 


town  of,  573;  Christ  returns 
to,  ii.  17, 104, 124, 130  ;  Christ 
at,  156 ;  discourse  of  Christ 
at,  179-185;  Christ  leaves, 
218. 

Caravan,  description  of  a,  i.  215. 

Carmel  range,  i.  154. 

Carlyle,  on  Christ,  i.  2. 

Cassius,  i.  32. 

Cato,  ideas  of  morality  of,  i.  26. 

Cave  dwellings,  i.  114. 

Caverns  at  Nazareth,  i.  152. 

Caves  in  Palestine,  i.  536. 

Census,  Koman,  i.  108 ;  of  Quiri- 
nus,  rebellion  against,  270; 
the  Koman,  533,  534 ;  Jewish, 
534. 

Centurion's  slave,  cure  of  the,  ii. 
104,  105. 

Channing,  on  Christ,  i.  2. 

Gharoseth,  i.  206 ;  ii.  621. 

Chief  corner  stone,  the,  ii.  386. 

Chief  priests  at  time  of  Christ's 
death,  ii.  473. 

"  Chief  seats,"  i.  177. 

Child,  spirit  of  a  demoniac  cast  out 
by  Christ,  ii.  253. 

Childbirth,  purification  after,  rules 
for,  i.  120. 

Childlessness,  grief  for,  among 
Jews,  etc.,  i.  81. 

Childlike  spirit,  need  of,  ii.  351. 

Children,  Jewish  love  of,  i.  159; 
Christ  blesses,  ii.  350. 

Chorazin  and  other  towns  de- 
nounced, i.  219;  ii.  112. 

Christ,  lofty  claims  of,  i.  5 ;  unsel- 
fishness of,  5 ;  characteristics 
of  religion  of,  5  ;  character  of, 
5  ;  only  by  degrees  estimated 
aright  even  by  Mary,  102 ; 
birth  of,  peace  at,  25 ;  birth  of, 
season  of,  114 ;  legends  re- 
specting, 115;  carried  to  Egypt, 
126 ;  contrast  of  natures  in, 
147  ;  life  of,  at  Nazareth,  154, 
156 ;  influence  of  Nazareth  on, 
155  ;  shows  influence  of  syna- 
gogue, 187 ;  youthful  beauty 
of,  216 ;  youth  of,  220 ;  His 
knowledge  of  the  Scriptures, 
226,  227  ;  close  observation  of 
life  and  nature  by,  229 ;  de- 
velopment of  higher  nature 


628 


INDEX. 


of,  at  Nazareth,  230;  con- 
trasted with  the  Rabbis,  245 ; 
"  brothers  of,"  331 ;  descen- 
dants of  family  of,  under  Do- 
mitian,  331;  portraits  of, 
427 ;  appearance  of,  428-432  ; 
statue  of,  alleged  to  have 
been  at  Panias,  428 ;  returns 
to  John  after  the  temptation, 
435;  character  of,  its  many- 
sidedness,  453 ;  teaching  of, 
originality  of,  482  ;  opposition 
to,  485,  489;  leaves  Judea, 
489,  want  of  success  of,  490 ; 
goes  to  Samaria,  490  ;  preach- 
ing in  Judea,  burden  of,  486 ; 
preaching  of,  514 ;  at  Sea  of 
Galilee,  515  ;  family  of  Mary, 
mother  of,  529 ;  genealogies 
of,  531 ;  date  of  birth  of,  537 ; 
Rabbis  believed,  would  come 
from  David,  544 ;  forms  of 
worship  in  days  of,  549; 
stature  of,  568;  appearance 
of,  568 ;  names  given  to,  by 
contemporaries,  570 ;  address 
in  synagogue  of  Capernaum, 
ii.  3  ;  miracles  of,  6-8  ;  sym- 
pathy and  goodness  of,  6  ;  self- 
sacrifice  of,  8 ;  nights  spent  in 
prayer,  10,  16 ;  popularity  of 
preaching  of,  11,  18  ;  exhaust- 
ing labours  of,  17  ;  opposition 
to,  19  ;  sinlessness  of,  24 ;  and 
Rabbis,  contrast  between,  25 ; 
lowliness  of,  39 ;  human  edu- 
cation of,  52  ;  not  a  scholar  of 
the  Rabbis,  52 ;  addresses  of, 
characteristics  of,  53  ;  law  of 
oaths  of,  66  ;  disdain  of  ritual 
observances,  121 ;  discourse 
of,  127 ;  dress  of,  127  ;  crowds 
attending,  129 ;  thought  to  be 
beside  Himself,  138 ;  popular- 
ity of,  129-142  ;  discourses  of, 
145  ;  sent  away  from  Gadara, 
155;  rejected  at  Nazareth, 
164 ;  missionary  tour  of,  165  ; 
hears  news  of  death  of  the 
Baptist,  173;  daily  life  of, 
119,  121-1-23;  in  the  storm, 
152 ;  interview  of,  with  His 
mother,  162 ;  kingdom,  spiri- 
tuality of,  195;  opposed  to 


ceremonialism,  196,  199,  223 ; 
ideas  of  people  respecting,  201 ; 
announces  to  the  Twelve  His 
approaching  death,  203;  crisis 
in  life  of,  222  ;  habitual  com- 
munion with  His  Heavenly 
Father,  225;  ideas  of  His 
contemporaries  respecting, 
225 ;  predicts  His  own  violent 
death,  230 ;  undesigned  temp- 
tation of,  by  Peter,  231 ; 
suffering  the  condition  of  dis- 
cipleship  of,  232 ;  forced  to 
move  with  caution,  245  ;  again 
predicts  His  violent  death, 
246 ;  kingdom  demands  hu- 
mility, 251 ;  goes  up  to  Jeru- 
salem, 264;  opinions  respect- 
ing, 269;  present  at  Feast  of 
Tabernacles,  270 ;  confusion 
of  authorities  regarding,  270  ; 
want  of  rabbinical  training  of, 
271 ;  the  council  tries,  for 
Sabbath  breaking,  277;  sub- 
limity of  language  and  claims 
of,  285 ;  charged  with  having 
a  devil,  288 ;  claims  equality 
with  God,  274;  age  of,  289; 
Divine  claims  of,  '290 ;  crowd 
threatens  to  stone,  307 ;  at- 
tractiveness of,  326 ;  on  His 
own  kingdom,  340 ;  coming 
of,  341 ;  predicts  His  own 
death,  359 ;  kingdom,  prece- 
dence in,  361 ;  determines  to 
enter  Jerusalem  publicly,  371 ; 
enters  Jerusalem  on  Palm 
Sunday,  373-377  ;  conspiracy 
against,  382 ;  violence  at- 
tempted against,  388 ;  serenity 
of,  amidst  danger,  390 ;  all 
parties  unite  against,  396 ; 
character  of,  406;  last  inter- 
cessory prayer  of,  466 ;  burden 
on  soul  of,  before  His  death, 
476 ;  arrest  of,  480 ;  charges 
against,  488;  Jewish  trial  of, 
489-495  ;  condemnation  of,  by 
priests,  495 ;  maltreatment 
of,  495 ;  mocked  by  Pilate's 
soldiery,  516 ;  before  Pilate, 
500-522 ;  addresses  the  women 
on  the  way  to  the  cross,  520  ; 
died  of  a  broken  heart,  oil ; 


INDEX. 


629 


burial  of,  544 ;  His  teaching 
not  derived  from  the  Babbis, 
587 ;  phrases  peculiar  to,  597. 

Christianity  is  spiritual,  ii.  51 ; 
moves  in  a  sphere  distinct 
from  that  of  the  State,  395. 

Church  and  State  identical  in  an- 
tiquity, ii.  395. 

Circumcision,  i.  118 ;  on  eighth 
day,  118,  528. 

Cisterns,  underground,  i.  153. 

Civil  wars  of  Home,  i.  25. 

Classes,  no  proscribed,  in  Christi- 
anity, ii.  33. 

Claudius,  on  Christ,  i.  2. 

"  Cleanness,"  ceremonial,  .i  121, 
221 ;  illustrations  of,  234  ;  ii. 
31,  32. 

Cleopas,  i.  562. 

Cleopatra,  ambitious  designs  of,  i. 
26,  42,  43,  44. 

"  Cloak,"  the,  ii.  586. 

Clopas,  i.  331. 

Clothing,  ii.  586. 

Coasts  of  Tyre,  Christ  visits  the, 
ii.  204. 

"  Coat,"  the,  ii.  586. 

Coins,  Roman,  i.  556. 

Cold  water,  the  cup  of,  ii.  256. 

Commandments,  Christ  on  the,  ii. 
352,  400 ;  "  great  and  small," 
399. 

Conscience,  Christ's  teaching  re- 
specting, i.  10. 

Coponius,  Procurator,  i.  264,  276. 

"Corban,"  i.  281;  ii.  196,  585, 
609. 

Courtesy,  Eastern,  ii.  116. 

Courts,  different,  of  the  Temple,  i. 
89. 

Crassus,  i.  28  ;  head  of,  shown  at 
a  Parthian  banquet,  409. 

Creation,  Rabbinical  fables  respect- 
ing, i.  244. 

Creditor  and  debtor,  parable  of,  ii. 
118. 

Cross,  title  on  the,  ii.  624. 

Crucifixion,  punishment  of,  i.  258  ; 
origin  of,  ii.  525 ;  mode  of, 
under  the  Romans,  526 ;  the, 
of  Christ,  531-541,  623,  624. 

Cubit,  the,  i.  525. 

Cyrus,  i.  59. 


D. 

Daily  religious  life,  Jewish,  i.  167. 
Dancing,  public,among  the  Romans, 

i.  407. 

Daniel,  visions  of,  i.  310. 
Darkness  at  the  crucifixion,  ii.  624. 
David,  well  of,  at  Bethlehem,  i.  112 ; 

youthful  beauty  of,  216. 
Day.Babylonian,  i.  543 ;  Jewish,168. 
De  Wette,  on  Christ,  i.  3. 
Deacon,  meanings  of  word,  ii.  614. 
Deaf  man,   cure  of,  near  Cassarea 

Philippi,  ii.  208. 
Death,  ceremonies  at  a  Jewish,  and 

burial,  ii.  310. 
Debtor,  liable  to  be  sold  as  a  slave, 

ii.  616. 
Debts,  private,    of   great  men    in 

antiquity,  ii.  616. 
Decapolis,  i.  283,  302 ;  ii.  207. 
"  Dedication,"  Feast  of  the,  i.  177 ; 

ii.  306. 
Delitzsch,  imaginary  description  of 

Christ's  appearance  by,  i.  432. 
Demoniac  boy,  disciples  fail  to  cure, 

ii.  242 ;  Christ  cures,  243-245. 
Demoniacal  performances  of  fan- 
atics at  Algiers,  ii.  576. 
Denarius,  the  Roman,  ii.  394. 
Devil-dancer,  Indian,  ii.  573. 
Devils,   spells  for  casting  out,  ii. 

575,  598. 
Diabolic  possession,  ii.  4 ;  cure  of 

a  man  with,  5. 
Dining,  Eastern,  ii.  115 ;  Jewish, 

customs,  319. 
Diploiis,  the,  i.  567. 
Disciples,  first,  of  Christ,  i.  438 ; 

simple  children  of  the  people, 

439;     Christ's    strictness    re- 
specting   admission    of,  476 ; 

second  call  of,  by  Christ,  517 ; 

applicants  to  be,  ii.  151 ;  great 

secession    of,     from     Christ, 

185. 
Discipleship,    marks   of    true,   ii. 

261 ;  conditions  of,  265,  325. 
Disease  ascribed  to  devils,  ii.  595. 
"  Dispersion,"  the  Jewish,  i.  195 ; 

in  Rome,  311. 
Dives  and  Lazarus,  parable  of,  ii. 

335. 
Divisions  of  Jewish  Scriptures,  ii. 

664 


630 


INDEX. 


Divorce,  Rabbis  on,  ii.  65,  347; 
Christ's  law  of,  65,  348. 

Dogs,  street,  i.  149  ;  ii.  206,  591. 

Doves,  sale  of,  in  Temple,  i.  122, 
216,  540,  574. 

Doxology,  i.  210. 

Draught  of  fishes,  miraculous,  i. 
516. 

Dreams,  i.  259,  260. 

Dress,  ancient  Jewish,  i.  179,  180  ; 
at  Nazareth,  151,  152  ;  in  Es- 
draelon,  152. 

Drunkenness,  Hebrew  opinion  re- 
specting, i.  451. 

Dumb,  cure  of  man  who  was,  ii.  160. 


E. 

East,  Conservatism  of,  i.  166. 

"  Eating  the  flesh,"  metaphor  of, 
ii.  184. 

Eder,  tower  of,  i.  116. 

Edom,  hatred  of,  by  Jews,  i.  246  ; 
denounced  by  prophets,  247 ; 
conquered  by  John  Hyrcanus, 
247. 

Edomites,  forced  to  submit  to  cir- 
cumcision, i.  247 ;  Book  of 
Jubilees  on,  247. 

Education,  advances  most  in  in- 
fancy, i.  160  ;  of  Jewish  child- 
ren, 161,  164. 

Egg,  when  unclean,  i.  240. 

Egypt,  ritualism  in  ancient,  i. 
240. 

Egyptian  idolatry,  i.  144. 

Elders,  Jewish,  ii.  595. 

Elijah,  reappearance  of,  Jewish 
belief  in  the,  ii.  241,  596 ;  pan- 
egyric on,  by  Son  of  Sirach, 
109. 

•  Elizabeth,  mother  of  the  Baptist, 
i.  88. 

Emmaus,  appearance  of  Christ  to 
disciples  going  to,  ii.  555-558. 

Emperors,  Roman,  who  were 
foreigners,  ii.  588. 

Endor,  i.  291. 

Enemy,  Roman  idea  of  an,  ii.  71. 

Engedi,  i.  353. 

Enoch,  the  Book  of,  i.  317. 

Enon,  i.  389. 

Ephraiin,  Christ  at,  ii.  317. 


Esdraelon,  plain  of,  i.  21, 110,  151, 

291,  519. 

Esdras,  visions  of,  i.  310,  322. 
Essenes,  the,  i.  30,  342-350,  354 ; 

compared    with    the    Rabbis, 

349. 

Eternal  life,  how  to  secure,  ii.  293. 
Ethnarch,  the  title,  i.  545. 
Evening  sacrifice,  i.  211. 
Evil  spirits,  "  possession  "  by,  ii. 

572. 
Exile,  return  of  Jews  from,  i.  59  ; 

date  of,  60 ;  number  who  came 

back  from,  60. 

Exodus,  Egyptian  version  of,  i.  144. 
Exorcisms,  Jewish,  ii.  131. 

F. 

Faith,  power  of,  ii.  381 ;  prayer  of 
Apostles  for  increase  of,  338. 

Family  life  in  Israel,  i.  156. 

Fasting  among  the  Jews,  i.  347, 
ii.  34,  Christ  on,  36 ;  Jewish 
and  Christian  doctrines  of, 
77. 

Fasts,  public,  i.  220. 

Fatherhood,  the,  of  God,  Jewish 
idea  of,  ii.  69,  82;  heathen 
idea  of,  70,  82 ;  Christ's  doc- 
trine of,  74,  82. 

Feasts,  Jewish,  times  of,  i.  220; 
fifty -nine  in  the  Jewish  year, 
226. 

Feet,  woman  washes  Christ's,  ii. 
116. 

Festivals,  Jewish,  i.  162. 

Figs,  ii.  620. 

Firstborn,  redemption  of  tLe,  i. 
122,  123. 

Firstfruits,  feast  of,  i.  221. 

"  First  sheaf,"  cutting  of,  i.  201. 

Fish,  the,  as  a  Christian  symbol,  i. 
581. 

Fisherman,  Jewish,  ii.  581. 

Five  thousand,  feeding  of  the,  ii. 
174. 

Flowers  in  Palestine,  i.  519. 

"  Fool,"  meaning  of  word,  ii.  585. 

Forgiveness,  of  sins  by  Christ,  ii. 
24,  118 ;  Jewish  doctrine  of, 
24  ;  Christian  law  of,  259, 338. 

"Foster-brother,"  the  phrase,  i., 
580. 


INDEX. 


Foulque  de  Neuilly,  i.  387. 
Frank  Mountain,  i.  ill. 
Freedom,  spiritual,  ii.  287, 
Fringes  of  the  tallith,  i.  180. 


O. 

Gabinius,  i.  276,  557,  560. 

Gadara,  i.  301 ;  ii.  153,  604. 

Galileans,  liberality  of,  295  ;  fidel- 
ity of,  to  the  Law,  296  ;  morals 
of,  296 ;  bravery  of,  296 ;  in- 
tellectual  vigour  of,  297 ;  blood 
of,  mingled  with  their  sacri- 
fices by  Pilate,  i.  511 ;  mas- 
sacre of,  in  Temple,  by  Pilate, 
ii.  166. 

Galilee,  i.  21 ;  hills  of,  21 ;  popu- 
lation of,  110;  Lake  of,  288, 
460-465,  573 ;  products  of,  289, 
292  ;  trades  in,  289 ;  origin  of 
name,  294 ;  mixture  of  races 
in,  295 ;  literature  of,  297  ; 
prophets  of,  298 ;  Apostles, 
men  of,  298 ;  Lake  of,  morning 
at,  515;  fishermen  of,  517; 
population  of,  546 ;  size  of, 
558 ;  distance  from  Jerusalem, 
558 ;  fertility  of,  288 ;  towns  of, 
290,  291 ;  population  of,  291 ; 
life  in,  292 ;  fishing  on  Lake 
of,  ii.  573. 

Gamaliel,  i.  215,  272. 

Gaulonitis,  i.  302,  465. 

Gauls  in  Cleopatra's  service,  i.  44. 

Gehenna,  ii.  584. 

Genealogies,  registers  of  national, 
burned  by  Herod,  i.  51. 

Gennesareth,  i.  461 ;  the  name, 
573. 

Gentiles,  converts  to  Judaism 
among  the,  i.  65. 

Gerasa,  i.  299. 

Gerizim,  Mount,  i.  492, 493 ;  sacred- 
ness  of,  to  Samaritans,  499. 

Gethsemane,  ii.  477 ;  agony  of, 
478,  479. 

Gibeon,  i.  111. 

Gideon,  battle  field  of,  i.  291. 

Gilboa,  i.  153 ;  hills  of,  291. 

Gilead,  i.  154,  301. 

Glaphyra,  i.  259. 

"Glory  of  the  Lord,"  the,  i.  539. 

78 


God,  Christ's  teaching  respecting, 

i.  C. 

Goethe,  on  Christ,  i.  1. 
Golgotha,  ii.  530. 
"  Governor  of  the  feast,"  the,  i. 

572. 

Grave,  defilement  by  a,  ii.  601. 
Great  families,  decay  of,  i.  98. 
Great  men,  opinions  of,  respecting 

Christ,  i.  1. 

Great  Synagogue,  the,  i.  62. 
Great  Teacher,  Christ  as  the,  ii. 

83,  85. 

Greece,  size  of,  i.  14. 
Greek  language  in  Palestine,  i.  47 ; 

manners  in  do.,  47. 
Greek  proselytes  seek  Christ,  ii. 

409. 

H. 

"  Haberim,"  the,  i.  237,  238. 

Haifa,  i.  154. 

Hallel,  the  Great,  ii.  373. 

Hallelujah,  the  Great,  i.  207. 

Handwashing,  ii.  116,  139. 

Hannas,  i.  274,  277 ;  ii.  472,  483 ; 
family  of,  619. 

Hauran,  the,  i.  303,  305. 

Hazan,  the,  i.  178. 

Heathenism,  legends  of  fall,  of,  i. 
336. 

Heaven,  voice  from,  to  Christ,  ii. 
411. 

Heavenly  bodies,  Eastern  worship 
of,  i.  134. 

Hebrew,  Gentiles  not  allowed  to 
learn,  i.  61. 

Hebron  in  autumn,  i.  96,  209. 

"Hedge  of  the  Law,"  i.  66, 
233. 

"  Hem  of  the  garment,"  i.  180. 

Herder,  on  Christ,  i.  2. 

Hermon,  i,  154. 

Herod  the  Great,  i.  30-58 ;  brothers 
of,  31 ;  flight  of,  to  Bcme,  36 ; 
made  king  of  Judea,  37 ;  war 
against  Antigonus,  37 ;  prose- 
cutes his  enemies,  38 ;  state  of 
Palestine  at  his  final  triumph, 
40 ;  false  position  of,  41 ;  wives 
of,  41, 47 ;  court  of,  46 ;  troops 
of,  48 ;  patronage  of  heathen- 
ism by,  50;  terrible  reports 
respecting,  51 ;  kindness  during 


632 


INDEX. 


famine,  52;  fatal  illness  of,  57; 
death  ot,  58,  142 ;  dependence 
of,  on  Augustus,  108-9;  last 
years,  of,  138 ;  character  of, 
compared  with  that  of  other 
historical  personages,  138 ;  plot 
of  Bagoas  against,  139 ;  palace 
of,  at  Jerusalem,  198 ;  division 
of  kingdom  of,  at  his  death, 
218 ;  incidents  following  death 
of,  2-19 ;  funeral  of,  249 ;  sons 
of,  revenues  of,  252 ;  family  of, 
282,  403;  treatment  of  Jews 
by,  325 ;  feeling  at  his  death, 
325 ;  martyrs  under,  326,  328 ; 
wives  of,  555  ;  family  of,  mar- 
riages of,  555  ;  palace  of,  471. 

Herod  Agrippa  II.,  i.  523. 

Herod  Antipas,  i.  282;  at  Eome, 
283  ;  age  of,  on  accession,  283 ; 
dominions  of,  283 ;  ambitious 
schemes  of,  284. 

Herodians,  the,  i.  65 ;  unite  with 
Pharisees  against  Christ,  ii. 
392;  594. 

Herodias,  i.  401 ;  her  intrigue  with 
Antipas,  402. 

Hesbon,  i.  300. 

High  priest,  appointment  of,  by 
Herod,  i.  40 ;  bad  character  of 
the,  83 ;  vestments  of  the,  85  ; 
description  of,  as  seen  on  the 
Day  of  Atonement,  95  ;  defile- 
ment of,  197,  277 ;  robes  of, 
200;  duties  of,  209;  prepar- 
ations of  for  Day  of  Atone- 
ment, 224 ;  degradation  of,  by 
Bomans,  277 ;  unpopularity  of 
the,  327;  vices  of  the,  327; 
robes  of,  by  whom  kept,  524. 

Highest  seats,  the,  ii.  320. 

Hillel,  i.  187,  215,  261,  553. 

Hlndooism,  ritualism  in,  i.  240. 

Hinnom,  i.  201. 

Holiness,  grades  of  ceremonial,  i. 
239. 

Holy  days  free  from  work,  i.  162. 

Holy  Ghost,  doctrine  of  the,  i.  437 ; 
sin  against  the,  ii.  135. 

Holy  of  Holies,  the,  i.  90 ;  entered 
by  high  priest,  224. 

Holy  place,  the,  i.  89,  90,  91. 

Holy  Spirit,  gift  of,  to  Apostles,  ii. 
661,  569. 


Horns  of  Hattin,  ii.  49. 

Hospitality,  religious  merit  of,  ac- 
cording to  the  Kabbis,  i.  113 ; 
in  the  East,  113 ;  praise  of,  536. 

Houses,  publicity  of  Eastern,  ii. 
'  116  ;  Eastern,  484,  578. 

Humanity,  brotherhood  of,  Greek 
idea  of,  i.  8;  Koman  idea  of, 
8 ;  Christ's  idea  of,  9 ;  Christ's 
Divine  enthusiasm  for,  ii.  34. 

Hundred  sheep,  parable  of  the,  ii. 
328. 

Husbandmen  and  vineyard,  parable 
of  the,  ii.  385. 

Husbands,  supposed  case  of  woman 
with  seven,  ii.  397. 

Hyrcanus,  John,  i.  27-44,  200; 
conquers  Edom,  247. 


Illuminations,  Jewish,  ii.  618. 

Immorality  of  ancient  lioman  re- 
ligion, i.  26. 

Immortality,  Christ's  teaching  re- 
specting, i.  7 ;  Julius  Cassar  on, 
26. 

Incarnation,  the  idea  of,  foreign  to 
Jewish  mind,  i.  101. 

Incense,  use  of,  i.  91. 

Incense  offering,  the,  i.  92,  210. 

Infancy  of  Christ,  legends  respect- 
ing the,  i.  144. 

Inheritance,  decision  respecting  an, 
asked  from  Christ,  ii.  142. 

Injuries,  compensation  for,  ii. 
586-7. 

Innocents,  Chapel  of  the,  at  Beth- 
lehem, i.  128. 

Inns,  Eastern,  i.  113 ;  Jewish,  i. 
536. 

Insurrections  against  Roman  taxa- 
tion, i.  212. 

Interpretation,  Jewish,  i.  85. 

Irving,  Edward,  on  John  the  Bap- 
tist, i.  359,  406,  410. 

Iturea,  i.  303. 

Itureans,  the,  i.  37. 

J. 

Jacob,  legend  of  death  of,  i.  246; 
well  of,  i.  493 ;  interview  of 
Christ  with  woman  at,  494- 
505. 


INDEX. 


633 


Jairus,  cure  of  daughter  of,  ii.  156, 
605. 

James  and  John,  characters  of,  ii. 
46. 

James,  St.,  call  of,  i.  412. 

Jean  Paul,  on  Christ,  i.  1. 

Jeremiah,  legend  of  the  hiding  of 
_  the  Ark  by,  i.  364. 

Jericho,  rebuilt  by  Archelaus,  i. 
260 ;  plain  of,  i.  371  ;  city  of, 
ii.  361. 

Jerome  at  Bethlehem,  i.  62. 

Jerusalem,  fancied  to  be  the  centre 
of  the  world,  i.  14 ;  Greek 
manners,  etc.  in,  48  ;  theatre 
in,  52 ;  approach  to,  from 
Bethlehem,  120 ;  supposed 
Ilabbinical  purity  of,  192 ; 
appearance  of  ancient,  196 ; 
heights  of  localities  in,  196  ; 
trades  in,  197  ;  walls  of,  197  ; 
Herod's  towers  in,  197,  199 ; 
streets  of,  199  ;  environs  of, 
200 ;  morning  in,  211 ;  classes 
of  citizens  of,  212 ;  religious 
world  of,  213  ;  appearance  of, 
during  a  feast,  222  ;  taken  by 
Varus,  258 ;  during  the  Pass- 
over, 469  ;  Christ  revisits,  ii. 
86 ;  springs  in,  86 ;  water 
supply  of,  87  ;  Christ  must  die 
at,  229 ;  lament  of  Christ 
over,  34-1,  405 ;  Christ  weeps 
over,  375. 

Jesus,  carried  off  to  Egypt,  i.  141 ; 
brought  back  to  Palestine  from 
Egypt,  148 ;  childhood  of,  165  ; 
boyhood  of,  262;  at  John's 
baptism,  389,  392 ;  appearance 
of, when  baptized,  389;  receives 
messengers  from  John,  401 ; 
life  of,  before  His  baptism, 
412 ;  and  John,  contrast  be- 
tween, 414;  retires  to  the 
wilderness  after  His  baptism, 
414;  age  of,  on  His  entrance 
on  His  public  ministry,  455 ; 
character  of  preaching  of,  468 ; 
the  name,  531. 

Jesuits,  passive  obedience  of,  i.  554. 

Jewish  literature,  post  exilic,  i. 
133 ;  forms  of  trial  in  capital 
cases,  ii.  487  ;  literature,  Pre- 
christian,  582 ;  courts,  584. 


Jews,  privileges  granted  to,  by 
Julius  Caesar,  i.  30 ;  hated  by 
Greeks,  53 ;  isolation  of, 
among  nations,  61 ;  Tacitus  on 
the,  61 ;  Juvenal  on  the,  61 ; 
hatred  of  Greeks  by,  61 ;  pride 
of,  61 ;  titles  given  to,  by 
God,  77 ;  special  favour 
shown  to,  by  God,  78 ;  classical 
authors  on  wide  dispersion  of, 
132 ;  religious  fanaticism  of, 
in  Christ's  day,  133  ;  exagger- 
ated pride  of,  137  ;  numbers 
of,  in  Egypt,  142 ;  hatred  of, 
in  Egypt,  143;  Roman  con- 
cessions to,  276 ;  hatred  of, 
by  Eomans,  278,  311 ;  national 
character  of,  308  ;  bigotry  of, 
309  ;  hatred  to  other  races,  of 
the,  ii.  72 ;  spiritual  pride  of, 
312. 

Jezreel,  i.  291. 

Joel,  date  of,  i.  247. 

John  the  Baptist,  Moses,  and  David, 
early  seclusion  of,  i.  219  ;  the 
Baptist,  birth  of,  337 ;  his 
training,  337  ;  at  the  Temple, 
338  ;  parents  of,  338 ;  a  Naza- 
rite,  339 ;  influence  of  his  age 
on,  351 ;  in  the  desert,  351 ; 
his  dress,  355  ;  his  occupations, 
356  ;  a  strict  Jew,  357  ;  strug- 
gles of  soul,  357  ;  his  love  of 
the  prophets,  359 ;  not  an 
Essene,  360 ;  his  self-denial, 
360 ;  state  of  Judea  in  the 
lifetime  of,  361 ;  Messianic 
hopes  of,  362  ;  his  conception 
of  the  Kingdom  of  God,  363 ; 
events  and  personages  of  his 
time,  367 ;  state  of  Palestine 
in  his  tune,  368 ;  scene  of  first 
preaching  of,  371,  372,  373, 
376,  383  ;  appearance  of,  371 ; 
the  baptism  of,  374,  385  ;  ex- 
citement  produced  by  preach- 
ing of,  376,  385;  deputation 
from  Jerusalem  to,  378 ;  secret 
of  his  success,  378  ;  character 
of  preaching  of,  379,  380,  381  ; 
Messiah  proclaimed  by,  as  at 
hand,  380;  fidelity  of  his 
preaching,  382,  388 ;  humility 
of,  381 ;  narrow  views  of,  385 ; 


634 


INDEX. 


greatness  of,  385 ;  legalism  of, 
385;  Jewish  authorities  visit, 
388  ;  baptises  Christ,  390 ;  tes- 
timony of,  to  Christ,  394  ;  im- 
prisonment of,  395 ;  treatment 
of,  as  a  prisoner,  399  ;  offends 
Antipas,  399  ;  wavers  respect- 
ing the  Christ,  400 ;  before 
Antipas,  401 ;  execution  of, 
408;  disowns  being  "the 
Christ,"  434 ;  partial  reve- 
lations to,  437 ;  character  of 
preaching  of,  467 ;  baptism  of, 
time  of,  564. 

John,  St.,  call  of,  i.  439. 

John,  and  James,  wish  a  curse  on 
the  Samaritans,  ii.  264 ; 
Gospel  of,  i.  569. 

Jordan,  the,  i.  22;  the,  near  Jericho, 
370  ;  meaning  of  name  of  the, 
519;  circle  of  the,  564;  de- 
scription of  the,  564  ;  sources 
of  the,  ii.  207. 

Joseph,  brother  of  Herod,  death 
of,  i.  37. 

Joseph,  husband  of  Mary,  legends 
respecting,  i.  105. 

Joseph,  of  Arhnathffia,  ii.  543. 

Josiah,  death  of,  i.  2.0. 

«•  Jot  or  tittle,"  ii.  583. 

Jubilees,  Book  of,  i.  118,  540. 

Judaism,  wide  spread  of,  after 
return,  i.  131,  132;  Christ's 
relation  to,  ii.  36 ;  effects  in 
Christ's  day,  407. 

Judas,  ii.  432-434,  437,  441,  479, 
481,  522,  623. 

Judas  the  Galilsean,  i.  257,  271, 
283,  297  ;  and  his  sons,  275. 

Judas  Maccabeus,  i.  253 ;  indiffer- 
ence of  Rabbis  to,  254. 

Judas  Thaddaeus,  ii.  454. 

Judea,  physical  characteristics  of, 
i.  20;  ancient  population  of, 
20 ;  size  of,  82 ;  southern,  in 
autumn,  96 ;  appearance  of, 
111 ;  a  Persian  province,  129 ; 
a  Roman  province,  211 ;  Rabbis 
in  towns  in,  241 ;  at  death  of 
Herod,  246 ;  made  a  Roman 
province,  261 ;  state  of,  in 
Christ's  youth,  268;  Jews  of, 
bigotry  of,  207  :  wilderness  of, 
352;  extent  of,  483. 


Judgment,  ancient  Persian  day  of, 
i.  130 ;  last,  picture  of,  by  Christ, 
ii.  426. 

Juvenal,  i.  26;  on  the  Jews, 
61. 

K. 

Khans,  i.  113. 

King,  Christ  refuses  to  be  made  a, 

ii.    176 ;    who   sent   to   get   a 

kingdom,  parable  of  the,  367. 
Kingdom  of  heaven,  the  phrase,  i. 

373 ;      spiritual      nature      of 

Christ's,  ii.  187. 
Kishon,  i.  290. 
Koran,  a  local  book,  i.  16. 

L. 

Lake  of  Galilee,  east  side  of  the, 
ii.  150  ;  storms  on  the,  152. 

"  Lamb  of  God,"  the  phrase,  i. 
391,  436;  Christ  recognised 
by  John  as  the,  436. 

Lamps,  the  ever-burning,  i.  92. 

Lancashire,  population  of,  i.  110. 

Law  ;  Christ's  relation  to  the  Moral 
Law,  ii.  59  ;  formal  honour  of, 
by  Rabbis,  i.  71 ;  "  Hedge  " 
about  the,  62 ;  learned  early, 
161 ;  knowledge  of,  among 
Jews,  163 ;  life  under  the, 
169 ;  roll  of  the,  1 77  ;  Rabbi- 
nical, touched  every  detail  of 
life,  233 ;  the  treatment  of,  by 
the  Rabbis,  ii.  61  ;  "Hedge" 
round  the,  61 ;  denies  him  who 
touches  it,  62 ;  zeal  for,  after 
return,  i.  60. 

Lawyer  "  not  far  from  the  king- 
dom," ii.  400. 

Laying  on  of  hands,  i.  549. 

Lazarus,  illness  and  death  of,  ii. 
309  ;  resurrection  of,  309-314  ; 
legends  respecting,  314. 

Learned  classes  among  the  Jews, 
ii.  189. 

Lentulus,  alleged  description  of 
Christ  by,  i.  432. 

Leper,  cure  of,  ii.  12-16. 

Lepers,  cure  of  ten,  ii.  268. 

Leprosy,  ii.  268,  578 ;  laws  respect- 
ing, 12 ;  purification  from, 
priestly,  14. 


INDEX. 


635 


Light,  Christ  the,  of  the  world,  ii. 

281. 
Like  for  like,  Jewish  doctrine  of,  i. 

262. 
Literature,  Jewish,  of  the  century 

before  Christ,  i.  315. 
Little  ones,  the,  of  Christ,  ii.  257. 
Living  water,  Christ's  discourse  on, 

ii.  277. 

Locusts  as  food,  i.  354. 
"  Lord,"  the  word,  ii.  578. 
Lord's  Prayer,  the,  and  the  Talmud, 

ii.  589  ;  the,  76,  77. 
Lord's  Supper,  institution  of  the, 

ii.  447. 
Lost  piece  of  money,  parable  of 

the,  ii.  329. 


M. 

Maccabees,  the.  i.  27. 
Machaerus,  i.  284,  325-397. 
Mackintosh,   Sir  J.,  on  Christ,  i. 

4. 
Madmen   of  Gadara,   cure   of,   ii. 

154. 

Madness  in  the  East,  ii.  153. 
Magdala,  i.  289  ;  ii.  120. 
Magi,   the,  i.  135  ;   in  Jerusalem, 

139,  140  ;  legends  respecting, 

144;   altar  of  the,   128;  visit 

of  the,  329,  521,  537. 
Magic,  belief  in,  among  the  Jews, 

i.  348. 

"  Magicians,"  Jewish,  i.  137. 
Magnificat,  the,  i.  103  ;  the  mental 

and  spiritual  characteristics  it 

implies  in  Mary,  104. 
Mahomet,  descendants  of,  i.  98. 
Mamea,  legends  of  the,  ii.  181. 
Mammon,  Milton  on,  ii.  591. 
Man,  Christ's  teaching  respecting, 

i.  6. 
Manger,  the  reputed,  of  Christ,  i. 

128. 

Mangers,  i.  539. 

Manners,  ancient  English,  i.  505. 
Manuscripts  of  New  Test.,  i.  529. 
Mariamne,  i.  41,  45  ;  married  to 

Herod,  i.  38. 
Mark  Antony,  i.  28-44. 
Marriage,  early,  i.  213.     an  Eas- 
tern, 447;  Christ  on,  ii.  350; 


doctrine  of  the  Eabbis  respect- 
ing,  64 ;  doctrine  of  Christ 
respecting  64;  sanctity  of  Jew- 
ish,  156 ;  supper,  parable  of 
the,  322 ;  feast  and  wedding 
garments,  parable  of  the,  388  ; 
for  money,  590. 

Mary,  the  Virgin,  i.  451 ;  relation- 
ship to  Elizabeth,  532 ;  an- 
nunciation to,  101 ;  journey 
to  Hebron,  101 ;  develop- 
ment of  religious  life  in  her 
mind,  102 ;  family  circle  of, 
331 ;  legend  of  infancy  and 
youth  of,  106-7 ;  legendary 
appearance  of,  107 ;  in  the 
Temple  at  her  purification, 
120  ;  return  to  Nazareth,  i05  ; 
father  and  mother  of,  105 ; 
visit  of,  to  Jesus ;  ii.  138. 

Mary  Magdalene,  ii.  124-127,  597  ; 
anoints  Christ,  ii.  431. 

Masada,  i.  353. 

Matthew,  Gospel  of,  aim  of,  i.  145  ; 
call  of,  ii.  28  ;  a  shock  to  the 
ideas  of  the  day,  29 ;  feast  in 
house  of,  30. 

Meat  offering,  i.  210. 

Medicine,  ancient,  ii.  157-8 ; 
Jewish  ideas  of,  605. 

Megiddo,  i.  290. 

Memory,  feats  of,  shown  by 
Babbis,  i.  242. 

Menahem,  foster  brother  of  Anti- 
pas,  i.  283. 

Merom,  Lake,  i.  287. 

Messiah,  the  name,  i.  559  ;  texts 
respecting,  in  Old  Testament, 
559;  the,  of  Virgil,  46;  de- 
scent of,  from  David,  ii.  598  ; 
expectation  of,  by  heathen,  i. 
542  ;  Eabbis  on  times  of  the, 
ii.  595-6 ;  spiritual  concep- 
tion of  by  some,  i.  75 ;  in- 
auguration of  Jesus  as,  at  His 
baptism,  393  ;  Jewish  idea  of, 
74 ;  prophets  spoke  of,  74 ; 
when  expected,  74 ;  Jewish 
titles  of,  75;  birthplace  of, 
76  ;  to  be  hidden  before  His 
manifestation,  76  ;  victories  of, 
76 ;  kingdom  of,  76  ;  Jerusalem 
under,  77  ;  Palestine  under, 
77;  Jewish  expectation  of, 


636 


INDEX. 


133,  134;  Jewish  ideas  re- 
specting the,  ii,  274,  277 ; 
Jewish  ideas  of,  i.  323 ;  ii.  263  ; 
Pharisaic  idea  of  the,  i.  65; 
Jewish  hope  of  the,  315  ;  Jew- 
ish opinions  on  lineage  of,  139 ; 
on  birthplace  of,  140  ;  Jewish, 
to  be  hidden,  140 ;  pointed 
out  by  John,  377,  384  ;  repent- 
ance necessary  before  His 
appearance,  373 ;  Eabbinical 
exposition  of  texts  respect- 
ing the,  576 ;  recognition  of 
Jesus  as,  by  Apostles,  ii.  226  ; 
idea  of  a  suffering,  230;  a 
suffering,  i.  435;  Samaritans 
.  of  the  present  day  wait  for, 
563. 

Messiahs,  false,  i.  340,  372,  417; 
pretended  miracles  of,  ii.  136  ; 
pretended,  before  Christ,  i.  133; 
belief  in  two,  435  ;  sixty  false, 
ii.  107. 

Messiahship,  confession  of  Christ's, 
by  Apostles,  ii.  224. 

Migdal  Eder,  i.  538. 

Millennium,  Persian;  i.  129. 

Miracle,  Brahminical  apologue 
respecting  a,  i.  454. 

Miracles,  on,  i.  454 ;  subordinate 
to  teaching,  ii.  7. 

Missionary  circuits  of  Christ,  ii. 
11. 

Mithridates,  i.  29. 

Moab,  mountains  of,  i.  112,  302. 

Moloch,  i.  201. 

Money,  value  of,  in  Christ's  day,  ii. 
295  ;  payment  for  injuries,  ii. 
65. 

Monks  of  the  early  centuries,  i. 
351. 

Monobazus,  ii.  590. 

Months,  the  Hebrew,  i.  550 ;  ii. 
262. 

Moon,  new,  watching  for,  i.  189  ; 
time  of,  sacred,  190. 

Morality,  Christ's  standard  of,  i.  6. 

Morals,  precepts  on,  i.  171. 

Morning  prayer,  i.  211. 

Morning  and  evening  prayers,  i.  93. 

Morning  and  evening  sacrifice,  i. 
529. 

Moses,  grandson  of,  i.  98,  529; 
btar  said  to  have  marked  birth 


of,  138 ;  wife  of,  not  an 
Ethiopian,  243. 

Mothers,  praise  of  Jewish,  i.  160. 

Mouvners^public,  ii.  605. 

Murder,  Christ's  teaching  respect- 
ing, ii.  63. 

Mustard  plant,  the,  ii.  601. 

Mustard  seed,  parable  of  the,  ii. 
148. 

N. 

Nabatea,  i.  284. 

Nablus,  i.  21. 

Nain,  i.  291 ;  ii.  106 ;  raising  of 
the  young  man  at,  106. 

Name,  when  given  to  a  child,  i. 
1J8;  changes  of,  445;  giving 
of,  to  a  child,  528. 

Names,  Hebrew,  i.  540,  560,  570 ; 
ii.  292. 

Napoleon  I.,  on  Christ,  i.  2,  12. 

Nathanael,  i.  572  ;  call  of,  443-5 ; 
same  as  Bartholomew,  445. 

Nativity,  Cave  of  the,  i.  127 ;  Church 
of  the,  127. 

Natural  phenomena,  Jewish  ex- 
planations of,  ii.  88. 

Nazareth,  i.  98,  148-155,  174; 
the  name,  545  ;  bad  name  of, 
443  ;  journey  of  Christ  to,  ii. 
162  ;  Christ  again  at,  510 ;  life 
of  Christ  at,  i.  330,  352 ;  a 
house  in,  219. 

Nazarite,  requirements  from  a,  i. 
339-40 ;  vows,  317. 

Nazarites,  Kt.  James  and  St.  Mat- 
thew, ii.  33. 

Nehemiah,  i.  129. 

"  Neighbour,"  Jewish  definition  of, 
ii.  73,  81. 

Nero,  the  number  "  666,"  i.  554, 

Net,  parable  of  the,  ii.  149. 

Nets,  ii.  602. 

Nethinim,  i.  66. 

New  kingdom,  the,  h,  1. 

New  moon,  sacredness  of,  i.  524. 

Nicanor's  Gate,  i.  121. 

Nicodemtis,  i.  477,  575  ;  discourse 
of  Jesus  with,  478-482;  ii. 
475. 

Numbering  of  the  people,  aversion 
to,  i.  264. 


INDEX. 


637 


o. 

Oath,  sacredness  of    an,   i.   567 ; 
Oaths,Kabbison,ii.65;  586;  Christ 

on,  66. 

Obadiah,  date  of,  i.  247. 
Offences,  law  respecting,  ii.  258. 
Old  Testament,  number  of  quota- 
tions from,  in  the  Gospels,  i. 

228. 
Olives,  Mount  of,  ii.  373;  discourse 

of  Christ  to  disciples  on  the 

Mount  of,  ii.  425. 
Ormuzd,  i.  129,  130. 
"  Our  Father,"  Jewish  idea  of,  i. 

518. 
"  Outer    darkness,"    meaning    of 

phrase,  ii.  389. 


P. 

Palestine,  size  of,  i.  14;  central 
position  of,  in  ancient  world, 
14 ;  physical  features  of, 
15 ;  coveted  by  ancient  na- 
tions, 15  ;  variety  of  climates 
in,  16  ;  botany  of,  17  ;  moun- 
tains of,  18 ;  valleys  of,  18 ; 
plains  of,  81 ;  Jewish  part 
of,  a  tableland,  19 ;  general 
characteristics  of,  19  ;  deserts 
of,  20  ;  terrace  cultivation  in, 
20;  former  fertility  of,  20; 
coasts  of,  22 ;  civil  war  in, 
27-39 ;  heathenism  in,  under 
Herod,  49 ;  Persian  rule  in, 
59  ;  birds  of,  149, 150 ;  diseases 
of,  151 ;  ii.  593  ;  love  of  Jews 
for,  i.  193 ;  revolt  in,  during 
absence  of  Archelaus  at  Rome, 
252 ;  condition  of,  in  Christ's 
day,  ii  326  ;  fertility  of,  C01. 

"  Palm,"  the  measure  called  a,  i. 
568. 

Palsy,  man  with  the,  cure  of,  ii. 
21-26. 

Panias,  temple  at,  i.  47. 

Parable,  the  Jewish,  ii.  144. 

Parable  of  the  pitiless  creditor,  ii. 
260. 

Paralytic  at  Bethesda,  cure  of,  ii. 
88 ;  opposition  roused  by,  89. 

Paralyzed  man  cured  in  the  syna- 
gogue on  the  Sabbath,  ii.  100. 


Parental  responsibility  for  a  son,  i. 

214. 
Parents,  relation  of  Jewish  children 

to,  i.  158. 

Parseeism,  not  the  source  of  Juda- 
ism, i.  131. 

Parthians,  the,  i.  28,  29,  35,  36, 37, 
41;  dreadful  cavalry  of  tho. 
36'J. 

Passive  virtues,  praise  of,  ii.  55. 
lassover,  foreign  Jews  at,  i.  1^2, 
134,  190 ;  eaten  only  by 
males,  191 ;  attended  by 
childien,  191 ;  public  prepara- 
tions for,  203 ;  selection  of 
victims  for,  203 ;  number  of 
victims  slain  at,  205 ;  mode 
of  slaying  victims  at,  205; 
number  of  each  company  at, 
205 ;  roasting  of  victims  at,206; 
ceremonies  of  206  ;  lamb,  210  ; 
festivities  after,  207 ;  Christ's 
first  journey  to,  445,  468 ; 
characteristics  of  the  tune  of, 
469,  536;  the,  551;  at  Jeru- 
salem at  this  day,  551 ;  the, 
ii.  434 ;  Christ  orders  pre- 
parations for  the,  435;  hos- 
pitality shown  at  the,  435 ; 
preparations  for  the,  436 ; 
ceremonies  of  the  slaughter  of 
the  lamb  at  the,  436;  the 
last,  438 ;  discourses  of 
Christ  at  the  last,  440,  442, 
450—465 ;  night  in  Jerusalem, 
450  ;  close  of  our  Lord's  last, 
475. 

Paul,  St.,  birthplace  of,  i.  457. 
"  Pavement,"  the,  ii.  623. 
Pearl,  parable  of  the,  ii.  149. 
Peccability,  possible,  of  Christ,  i. 

416. 

Pella,  i.  300. 

Penitent  thief,  the,  ii.  534. 
Pentecost,  i.  255. 

Perea,  i.  298,  558 ;  Christ  in,  ii. 
309, 317,  324  ;  Christ's  journey 
from,  358. 

Persia,  ancient,  religion  of,  i.  129 ; 
and  Judea,  resemblances  in 
their  religions,  121). 
Peter,  tall  of,  i.  441 ;  character  of, 
ii.  45  ;  the  rock,  611 ;  Christ's 
commission  to,  in  His  king- 


638 


INDEX. 


dom,  228 ;  bravery  of,  482  ; 
denies  Christ,  496 ;  cure  of 
wife's  mother  5 ;  last  commis- 
sion to,  from  our  Lord,  568. 

Pharisaism,  decay  of,  i.  66,  67,  68. 

Pharisee,  and  publican,  parable  of 
the,  ii.  346 ;  meaning  of  name, 
599. 

Pharisees,  i.  27 ;  classes  of,  66 ;  the 
mechanical  piety  of,  ii.  60 ; 
conception  of  righteousness 
among,  61 ;  name  of,  62;  i.  63, 
64 ;  proselytism  by,  i.  65 ; 
great  influence  of,  66 ;  oppo- 
sition of,  to  Herod,  138  ;  rise 
of  the,  237-239;  the,  253; 
aims  a  century  before  Christ, 
254,  260,  342  ;  the  name,  521 : 
pretend  friendliness  to  Christ, 
ii.  139  ;  denounced  by  Christ, 
140 ;  self-righteousness  of,  32  ; 
minute  ceremonialism  of,  192  ; 
popularity  of  the,  214 ;  alliance 
with  Sadducees  against  Christ, 
215 ;  and  Sadducees  unite 
against  Christ,  275  ;  denunci- 
ation of,  by  Christ,  334;  ar- 
raigned by  Christ,  387  ;  their 
poverty,  610. 

Phasael,  death  of,  i.  35,  197. 

Pheroras,  i  54  ;  death  of,  56. 

Philadelphia,  the  ancient  Ammon, 
i.  299. 

Philip,  son  of  Herod,  i.  248,  305. 

Philip,  Apostle,  ii.  452. 

Philippi,  battle  of,  i.  33. 

Philistia,  plain  of,  i.  519. 

Phoanix,  the,  i.  335. 

Phylacteries,  i.  181,  214 ;  ii.  121, 
293. 

Pilate,  Pontius,  i.  279  ;  introduces 
Roman  standards  to  Jerusa- 
lem, 279;  Jews  passively  resist, 
279  ;  raises  Jerusalem  against 
him  again.  280, 281 ;  aqueduct 
built  by,  280 ;  massacre  of 
Jews  in  Temple  by,  281,  361, 
395.  402  ;  ii.  471. 

Pilgrimage  to  Feast  of  Weeks,  i. 
169,  221. 

Pilgrims,  return  of,  from  Passover, 
i.  214. 

Planets,  conjunctions  of,  i.  137, 
138. 


Plantagenets,  the  last,  i.  98. 

Polycarp,  on  Christ,  i.  4. 

Polygamy,  dislike  of,  i.  158. 

Pompey  storms  the  Temple,  i.  27  ; 
enters  Holy  of  Holies,  27  ; 
death  of,  29,  569  ;  war  with 
Cajsar,  28,  276,  560. 

Poor,  the  treatment  of,  in  anti- 
quity, i.  11 ;  teaching  of  Christ 
regarding,  11. 

Portraits  of  Christ,  i.  428. 

Possession,  diabolic,  ii.  572 ;  Dr. 
Tristram  on,  577, 

Prsetorium,  the,  i.  264. 

Prayer,  daily,  times  of,  i.  100; 
morning,  i.  121 ;  Jewish  and 
Christian  doctrines  of,  ii.  76; 
Christ  on,  295,  344;  Jewish, 
35 ;  Jewish  ground  for,  i. 
548. 

Prayers,  Jewish,  i.  167,  168,  180, 
182-3,  190;  multiplication  oi 
Jewish,  186;  repetition  in, 
ii.  589. 

Preaching,  the  great  agency  used 
by  Christ,  ii.  10;  of  Christ, 
scenes  of  the,  38. 

Precedence,  Jewish  ideas  of,  i. 
66. 

Prepossessions,  influence  of,  i.  102. 

Priesthood,  corruption  of  higher 
orders  of,  at  Christ's  death,  ii. 
474. 

Priests  secondary  to  Eabbis,  i.  66  ; 
courses  of  the,  80  ;  the  poverty 
of  many  of  the,  82 ;  higher 
classes  of,  82 ;  character  of, 
83 ;  age  of  consecration  of,  84  ; 
mode  of  consecration  of,  84 ; 
dress  of,  85  ;  duties  of,  86 ;  the 
ceremonial  "  cleanness "  of. 
what  it  implied,  86  ;  genealo- 
gies of  the,  87  ;  towns  assigned 
to,  87  ;  provision  for  support 
of,  87 ;  duties  of,  at  Temple, 
81 ;  number  of  the,  81 ;  social 
position  of,  82,  84  ;  classes  of, 
82  ;  the,  523  ;  consecration  of, 
523,  524 ;  high,  depravity  of, 
356. 

Procurators,  Roman,  dates  of,  i. 
277,  556. 

Prodigal  son,  parable  of  the,  ii. 
329. 


INDEX. 


639 


Prophecy,  ascribed  to  the  Essenes, 

i.  347. 
Prophet,  the,  in  reality  a  preacher, 

i.  373  ;  without  honour  in  his 

own  country,  458,  580. 
Prophets  born  in  Galilee,  i.  457  ; 

ii.  278. 

Proselytism,  Jewish,  i.  132. 
Proverbs,"  date  of,i.  546 ;  Jewish, 

170,  172. 
Providence,  Christ's  doctrine  of,  ii. 

167;  Talmud  on,  591. 
Publicans,   the,    i.    265;    ii.    27; 

hatred  of,  i.  273  ;  ii.  32,  115. 
Purgatory,  ancient  Persian,  i.  130. 
Purification.  Feast  of,  i.  225  ;  the, 

120,  122 ;  of  women,  540. 
Purifications,    Jewish,  of   vessels, 

etc.,  i.  204. 
Puriin,  feast  of,  i.  225. 

Q. 

Quirinus,  P.  S.,  i.  263,  269,  272 ; 
census  by,  264,  557. 

B. 

Rabbi,  the  title,  i.  522. 

Rabbis,  the,  i.  62,  69;  patri- 
archs claimed  as,  69 ;  dignity 
claimed  for,  69 ;  above  the 
Law,  70,  71 ;  miracles  said  to 
be  wrought  by,  70  ;  vices  of, 
70 ;  angels  said  to  be  instructed 
by  a  Rabbi,  71 ;  power  of,  71, 
72 ;  received  no  salaries,  72 ; 
means  of  living,  72 ;  belonged 
to  trades,  73 ;  marriage  of, 
73 ;  office  open  to  all,  73 ; 
teaching  of,  respecting  the 
Messiah,  73 ;  fables  of,  re- 
specting kingdom  of  Messiah, 
76,  77,  188 ;  power  of,  169  ; 
good  and  bad,  170  ;  schools  of, 
215 ;  contemporary  with  Christ, 
215,  216  ;  trades  which  some, 
followed,  228 ;  position  of,  231 ; 
any  one  might  enter  the  order 
of,  231 ;  above  high  priest,  232 , 
above  fathers,  232 ;  discourse 
of,  reverenced  like  "  the  Law," 
232 ;  passive  obedience  to,  de- 
manded, 232  ;  fables  of,  241, 
mode  of  teaching  of,  242 ; 


qualifications  demanded  from, 
242 ;  as  both  jurists  and 
teachers,  242 ;  followers  of 
the,  438 ;  hospitality  shown 
to,  440;  sermons  of  the, 
ii.  4;  the,  19;  hesitation 
respecting  Christ,  31 ;  exclu- 
siveness  and  harshness  of  the, 
32;  the,  129,  134;  exclusive- 
ness  of  the,  130 ;  denounced 
by  Christ,  141 ;  scholars  of 
the,  151;  watch  Christ,  195: 
denounced  by  Him,  197-8 ; 
opposition  of,  to  Christ, 
202 ;  hated  by  the  common 
people,  328 ;  names  given 
to,  in  Gospels,  578 ;  things 
unbecoming  in,  579 ;  their 
grossness,  585 ;  disciples  of  ,603. 

Rabbinical  sophistry,  ii.  196,  197  ; 
rules,  puerility  of,  i.  224 ;  pre- 
cepts, gradual  accumulation  of, 
233. 

Rabbinism,  i.  166 ;  comprehensive 
rules  of,  169  ;  ii.  191. 

Rab  Mag,  i.  135. 

Raca,  meaning  of  word,  ii.  584. 

Rachel's  tomb,  i.  112. 

Ramah,  i.  111. 

Reader,  the,  i.  179. 

Reappearance  of  eminent  saints, 
expectations  respecting  the,  ii. 
611,  612. 

Reeds,  ii.  596. 

Reformations,  rise  of,  ii.  113. 

Reformers  alwayspersecuted,ii.392. 

Registers  of  descent,  burned  by 
Herod,  i.  325. 

Registration  of  Jews  by  Herod  for 
Augustus,  i.  109. 

Religions  of  antiquity,  i.  25  ;  effeto 
at  Christ's  birth,  25. 

"  Repentance,"  words  for,  i.  565. 

Resurrection,  Jewish  doctrine  of 
the,  ii.  321,  240;  Christ's 
teaching  respecting  the,  397  ; 
Ewald  on  the,  of  Christ,  548 ; 
witnesses  to  the,  548-572. 

Retaliation,  rabbinical  law  of,  ii. 
67  ;  Christ  on,  68. 

Rich  man,  parable  of  the,  ii.  143. 

Riches,  danger  of,  to  spiritual  life» 
ii.  355. 

"  Righteous,"the  word,  i.  562. 


640 


INDEX. 


Bites,  Christ's  depreciation  of,  ii. 
323. 

Ritual,  Christ's  relation  to,  ii.  36. 

Ritualism,  minute,  characteristic  of 
all  theocracies,  i.  240. 

Road,  Roman,  in  North  Palestine, 
i.  155. 

Robbers,  the,  suppressed  by  Herod, 
i.  31,  255. 

Roman  eagle  in  the  Temple,  i.  121, 
122  ;  empire  at  Christ's  birtb, 
23,  24;  empire,  division  of, 
threatened  by  Cleopatra  and 
Antony,  43 ;  imperial  survey 
of,  103;  taxes  in  Judea,  2t>5  ; 
in  Syria,  267 ;  in  Cilicia,  267  ; 
tax,  opposition  of  Jews  to,  273, 
274 ;  peace,  the,  368 ;  taxation, 
ii.  615 ;  military  terms,  622. 

Romans,  hatred  of,  by  Jews,  i.  269  ; 
struggle  of  Jews  against, 
274;  Jewish  hatred  of  the,  30j, 
312 ;  fiscal  system  of,  556. 

Rome,  size  of,  i.  23  ;  deputation  in 
A.D.  17,  of  Jews  to,  278 ;  Jews, 
in  A.D.  19,  driven  from,  278; 
strength  of  its  empire,  308 ; 
preparation  of  the  world  by,  for 
Christ,  337. 

Roofs,  Eastern,  ii.  21 ;  opening  in 
house,  in  Palestine,  579. 

Rousseau,  on  Christ,  i.  2. 

Royal  Porch,  the,  i.  90,  120. 

Ruth,  i.  112. 

S. 

Sabbath  breaking,  Christ's  defence 

against  charge    of,  ii,  93-96, 

97,  273,  318. 
Sabbath,  the  Jewish,  ii.  2,  6,  90, 

92,  299,  593,  619;  97;  Christ 

on  the,  98 ;  things  lawful  to  do 

on,  99. 
Sabbath  day's  journey,  ii.  92,  593, 

594. 

Sabbath  year,  i.  38. 
Sabinus,  tyranny  of,  in  Jerusalem, 

i.  255. 

Sackcloth,  i.  562, 565. 
Sacred  fire,  the,  i.  526,  527. 
Sadducee,  the  name,  i.  521. 
Sadducees,    i.   63,   61,   201,    253 ; 

origin  of  the,  ii.  209  ;  opposi- 


tion of  Pharisees  to,  210, 211 ; 
harshness  of,  211 ;  doctrines  of, 
213  ;  self-indulgence  of,  213.  . 

Safed,  i.  154. 

St.  Antony,  i.  358. 

St.  Bernard,  mother  of,  i.  352. 

Salome,  mother  of  James  and 
John,  i.  442. 

Salome,  sister  of  Herod,  i.  31,  277, 
403. 

Salome's  request  for  her  sons,  ii. 
359. 

Salt,  losing  its  savour,  ii.  582. 

Samaria,  characteristics  of,  i.  21, 
257,  258 ;  rules  of  Jews  in 
travelling  through,  111 ;  hills 
of,  30o  ;  fertility  of,  306  ;  route 
from  Judea  to,  490 ;  country 
of,  491;  city  of,  110,  507; 
heathen  temple  in,  47;  des- 
troyed by  John  Hyrcanus,  521. 

Samaritan,  parable  of  the  Good,  ii. 
234. 

Samaritans,  the,  i.  38 ;  defile  the 
Temple,  276  ;  Messianic  hopes 
of,  3o5  ;  massacre  of,  by  Pilate, 
366 ;  origin  of,  495  ;  hatred  of, 
to  Jews,  495 ;  hatred  ol,  by 
Jews,  261,  495,  496,  535 ;  re- 
fuse to  receive  Christ,  ii.  264. 

Sanhedrim,  the,  ii.  315. 

Saved,  number  of  the,  ii.  342. 

Schleieruiacher,  on  the  Virgin  and 
her  Child,  i.  117. 

Schools,  i.  162-164. 

Scourging,  Roman,  ii.  515. 

Scribes,  the,  i.  554  ;  and  Pharisees, 
denunciation  of,  by  Christ,  ii. 
402. 

Scripture  taught  thoroughly  to 
children,  i.  161,  227,  520; 
manuscripts  of,  among  Jews, 
227 ;  Rabbinical  interpretation 
of,  243 ;  early  Christian  inter- 
pretation of,  244  ;  reading  of, 
in  synagogue,  184 ;  version  of, 
used  by  Christ,  553 ;  ii.  607, 
608. 

Secret  alms,  ii.  589. 

Sejanus,  i.  279,  334. 

Self-denial  demanded  by  Christ,  ii. 
256,  354. 

Semicha,  the,  i.  549. 
Seneca,  ii.  70. 


INDEX. 


641 


Sepphoris,   i.   154,  257,  258,  283, 

447. 

Sepulchre,  precautions  against  de- 
filement from,  i.  121. 
Sermon,  ancient  Jewish,  i.  185. 
Sermon  on  the  Mount,  ii.  48 ;  ig- 
nores ritualism,  51. 
Servants,  truthful  and  unfaithful, 

parable  of  the,  ii.  423. 
Beth,  Book  of,  i.  145. 
Seventy,  sending  out  of  the,  ii.  267  ; 

return  of  the,  296. 
Sexes,  relations  of  the,  among  the 

Jews,  i.  503. 
Shammai,  i.  187,  262. 
Sharon,  plain  of,  i.  21. 
Shechem,  i.   110,  577;  Christ  at, 

492  ;  description  of,  492,  500. 
Shekel,  the,  i.  541. 
"  Shephelah,"  the,  i.  22,  579. 
Shepherd,  the  Good,  ii.  302. 
Shepherds  at  Bethlehem,  i.  117. 
Shiloh,  i.  111. 
Sign,  demand  for  a,  ii.  137,  180, 

215. 

Siloam,  i.  202. 
Simeon,  the  aged,  i.  124. 
Simon  Maccabasus,  i.  74. 
Simon  Peter  at  the  last  Passover, 

ii.   440 ;  his  denial   of  Christ 

predicted,  444. 
Simon  the  Cyrenian,  ii.  528. 
Simon  the  Just,  i.  341,  521,  527, 

577. 

Simon  the  Leper,  ii.  291. 
Simon  Zelotes,  ii.  47,  256,  581. 
Simoom,  the,  ii.  611. 
"  Sin,"  ancient  world  had  no  idea 

of,  i.  7,  519. 
Sincerity  demanded  by  Christ,  ii. 

57. 
"Six     hundred     and    sixty-six," 

meaning  of   the   number    in 

Revelation,  i.  244. 
Slavery,  Christianity  opposed  to,  i. 

10 ;    in    Roman   empire,    10 ; 

ii.  594. 

Slaves,   sale   of    citizens    of    con- 
quered cities  as,   i.  32,  258 ; 

branding  of,  558. 
Sleep,  Jewish  ideas  on,  i,  167. 
Social     proscription     of     certain 

classes  in  Christ's  day,  ii.  327. 
Solomon,  fables  of  Rabbis  respect- 


ing, i.  242 ;  Psalms  of,  28, 
312,  318 ;  Jewish  ideas  of  his 
wisdom,  ii.  599. 

Solomon's  Porch,  ii.  306. 

Son  of  David,  how  David's  Lord  ? 
ii.  401. 

Son  of  God,  the  phrase,  i.  437. 

"  Son  of  Joseph,"  name  of  tho 
Messiah,  i.  578. 

Son  of  man,  phrase,  i.  454,  571. 

"  Son  of  the  law,"  a,  i.  214. 

Sons,  the  two,  parable  of  the,  ii. 
384. 

"  Sorcerers,"  in  New  Testament,  i. 
136. 

Sower,  parable  of  the,  ii.  145-148. 

Sparrows,  ii.  607. 

Spinoza,  on  Christ,  i.  1. 

Spring  in  Palestine,  i.  535. 

Stadium,  a,  i.  580. 

Star  expected  by  Jews  at  birth  of 
Messiah,  i.  140;  at  birth  of 
Moses,  544. 

"  Star  in  the  East,"  what  was  it? 
i.  138 ;  legends  respecting, 
144,  145. 

Stars,  Jewish  science  of  the,  i.  543  ; 
ominous,  136 ;  temporary,  544. 

Stoicism,  i.  25. 

Stole,  the,  i.  568. 

Storm  on  the  Lake,  Apostles  in  the, 

ii.  177. 

!   Streets,  Eastern,  darkness  of,  by 
night,  ii.  389. 

"  Strong  drink,"  i.  562. 

Superstition  of  the  Rabbis,  ii. 
132. 

Susa,  sculpture  over  Temple  gates 
of,  i.  129. 

"  Susanna,"  Book  of,  i.  547. 

Swine,  destruction  of  the,  ii.  155. 

Synagogue,  rise  of  the,  i.  81,  174  ; 
number  of,  in  Jerusalem, 
175 ;  description  of,  175-7 ; 
Scriptures  read  in,  184 ;  ad- 
dresses in,  185  ;  prayers  of,  in 
vernacular,  186 ;  Scriptures 
translated  as  read  in,  186  ;  in- 
fluence of,  187 ;  worship  in, 
168,  174,  176-186;  one,  said 
to  be  in  heaven,  71 ;  the  Great, 
550  ;  elders  of  the,  178 ;  morn- 
ing service  of  the,  ii.  3  ;  Christ 
in  the,  of  Nazareth,  163. 


642 


INDEX. 


Synagogues  in  Palestine,  i.   548 ; 

discipline  of,  ii.  614. 
Syrophenician  woman,  the,  ii.  205. 

T. 

Tabernacle,  vessels  of  the,  legend 
respecting  the,  i.  364. 

Tabernacles,  Feast  of,  i.  225 ;  ii. 
269,  276,  279,  617. 

Tabor,  i.  153. 

Tacitus,  on  the  Jews,  i.  61. 

Talents,  parable  of  the,  ii.  367. 

Tallith,  the,  i.  180,  549. 

Talmud  set  above  the  Scriptures, 
i.  71 ;  learned  by  heart,  242  ; 
the,  ii.  687. 

Tares,  parable  of  the,  ii.  149 ;  sow- 
ing, amongst  wheat,  602. 

Taxation,  Roman,  hatred  of,  i.  264. 

Taxes  of  Jewish  princes,  i.  269. 

Temple,  heathens'  gifts  to,  i.  48 ; 
Herod  proposes  to  rebuild  the, 
51 :  it  is  opened,  51 ;  golden 
eagle  over  gates  of,  riot  about 
the,  57 ;  second,  the,  81 ; 
courts,  imposing  substructures 
of  the,  89;  routine  of  daily 
service  in  the,  91 ;  courts  of, 
122 ;  supposed  holiness  of, 
192;  contributions  to,  from 
foreign  Jews,  194  ;  love  of,  by 
Jews,  195  ;  daily  duty  of  priests 
in,  208  ;  singers,  209  ;  service, 
daily,  209 ;  pilgrims  to,  the 
revenue  of  Jerusalem,  212 ; 
Christ  in  the,  217  ;  stormed 
tinder  Sabinus,  256;  the, 
during  the  Passover  time,  470 ; 
defilement  of,  by  trading,  etc., 
470 ;  cleansing  of,  by  Jesus, 
472  ;  irritation  against  Christ 
for  cleansing  of  the,  473-475  ; 
Christ's  word  respecting  the 
destruction  of  the,  of  His  body, 
475 :  grounds,  size  of,  525 ; 
defilement  of,  by  traffic,  574  : 
treasury  plundered  by  various 
Romans,  ii.  248 ;  tax  de- 
manded from  Christ,  248-250 ; 
how  collected  from  all  Jews, 
219  ;  the,  from  Mount  Olivet, 
374;  Christ  enters,  376;  second 
cleansing  of  the,  378 ;  Christ 


predicts  destruction  of,  415; 
omens  of  destruction  of  the, 
428 ;  Christ  leaves  the,  429  ; 
veil  of,  rent,  549. 

Temporal  prosperity,  not  promised 
by  Christ,  ii.  66. 

Temporal  rewards  and  punish- 
ments, Jewish  ideas  on,  ii.  297. 

Temptation,  locality  of  the,  i.  415  ; 
exposure  of  Christ  to,  415 ; 
the,  417-426. 

Tephillin,  i.  181,  214. 

Terrace  cultivation,  i.  112,  153. 

Teruma,  the,  i.  237,  238. 

Testament,  Old,  quotations  from, 
in  New,  i.  146. 

Theatre  in  Jerusalem,  i.  198. 

Theocracy,  the,  under  Moses,  i. 
78 ;  under  the  judges,  79 ; 
under  the  kings,  79 ;  under 
the  priest-kings,  79  ;  spiritual 
conception  of,  under  Christ, 
80. 

Therapeutffi,  the,  i.  342. 

Theudas,  i.  372. 

Thomas,  ii.  451,  452,  562. 

"  Three  days,"  meaning  of  words, 
ii.  599. 

Threshing  floors,  i.  565. 

Tiberias,  city  of,  founded,  i.  285  ; 
palace  at,  286. 

Tiberius,  i.  277  ;  anecdote  of,  278, 
334. 

Tithes,  i.  83,  237,  238  ;  ii.  60. 

"  To  him  that  hath  shall  be  given," 
Jewish  parallel  to  words,  ii, 
601. 

Tower,  fall  of,  at  Siloam,  ii.  167. 

Towers,  Herod's,  i.  120. 

Trachonitis,  i.  304. 

Trade,  in  Jerusalem,  i.  212  ;  know- 
ledge of  a,  required  from 
Rabbis,  228;  proscribed,  539. 

Trades  unions,  Jewish,  in  Egypt, 
i.  143. 

"  Tradition,"  origin  of  Jewish,  ii. 
193 ;  supreme  importance  at- 
tached to,  194. 

Transfiguration,  the,  ii.  235-240. 

Treasure,  parable  of  the,  ii.  149 ; 
hidden,  603. 

Trial  of  Jesus  illegally  conducted, 
ii.  484-487. 

Triclinium,  a,  ii.  438. 


INDEX. 


643 


Tribes,  surviving,  in  Christ's  day, 

i.  541. 
Trophies,  Jewish  hatred  of  heathen, 

i.  199. 
"  Troubling  the  water,"  Jewish  ex- 

planation  of,  ii.  88. 
Trumpets,  Feast  of,  i.  223, 
Trust  in  God  demanded,  ii.  79. 
Truth,  Jewish  eulogy  on,  ii.  609. 
Turkish  taxation,  ii.  615. 
lyre,  manufactories  in,  i.  290. 

U. 

Ulysses,  ii.  71. 

Uncleanness  by  contact  with  the 

dead,  i.  285. 
Unfading   youth,   fountain   of,   ii. 

182. 
Unjust  Steward,  parable  of  the,  ii. 

331. 
Unleavened  bread,  Feast  of,  i.  190, 

203,  ii.  434 ;  preparation  of,  i. 

204. 

V. 

Valerius  Gratus,  i.  277. 

Varus,  Quintilius,  i.  255,  257,  283. 

Veil  of  Temple,  i.  90,  526. 

Vernacular,  use  of,  in  Public  Wor- 
ship, i.  186. 

Vine,  golden,  in  Temple,  i.  526. 

Vine,  the  True,  ii.  456. 

Vineyard,  parable  of  labourers  in 
the,  ii.  356. 

Virgil,  fourth  eclogue  of,  i.  335. 

Virgin  Mary,  had  she  other  children 
than  our  Lord?  i.  561. 

Virgin,  Persian  prophet  to  be  born 
of  a,  i.  130. 

Virgins,  wise  and  foolish,  parable 
of  the,  ii.  423. 

W. 

War,  Christianity  opposed  to,  i.  10. 

Washings,  ceremonial,  i.  209,  451 ; 
"  the  hands,"  i.  236  ;  ii.  191 : 
of  Apostles'  feet  by  Christ,  ii. 
439  ;  the  hands  as  a  symbol  of 
innocence,  514 ;  rules  of,  for 
the  person,  i.  167. 

Water  into  wine,  change  of,  at 
Cani,  i.  451,  455. 


Water-pots,  Jewish,  i.  451. 

Water  supply  of  Palestine,  i.  153. 

Water,  when  "clean,"  i.  235. 

Waves,  Christ  walks  on  the,  ii.  177. 

"  Way  of  the  Sea,"  the,  i.  155. 

Wealth,  Christ  on,  ii.  143. 

Weather  in  Palestine  in  spring  i. 
546. 

Weather-signs,  i.  465  ;  ii.  216. 

Welsh,  a  Scotch  minister,  anecdote 
of,  i.  406. 

Whitfield,  i.  387. 

Whole  burnt  offering,  i.  210. 

Widow,  importunate,  parable  of 
the,  ii.  345. 

Wife,  ideal  of  a  good,  in  Proverbs, 
i.  157  ;  treatment  of,  Jewish 
ideas  on  the  proper,  i.  158. 

Wine,  Hebrew  opinions  respecting, 
i.  450 ;  sanction  of  use  of,  by 
Christ,  i.  573. 

Woman,  position  of,  in  antiquity, 
i.  11 ;  position  of,  under  Chris- 
tianity, 11 ;  position  of,  among 
ancient  Germans,  12  ;  position 
of,  among  the  Jews,  503-4 ; 
with  issue,  cure  of  the,  ii. 
157-9  ;  bowed  down,  cure  of, 
317  ;  obligations  of,  to  Christ, 
349. 

Women  attending  Christ,  ii.  119, 
120  ;  praise  of  Jewish,  i.  160 ; 
rules  for  Rabbis  respecting, 
503. 

"  Word,  The,"  a  Jewish  name  for 
the  Messiah,  i.  75. 

"  Word  of  God,"  phrase,  i.  566. 

Wordsworth,  sonnet  of,  on  the 
Virgin  Mary,  i.  60. 

World,  age  of,  according  to  Rabbis, 
i.  243  ;  the  expected  end  of 
the,  in  A.D.  1000,  324 ;  state 
of  things  in  the,  in  Christ's 
day,  336. 

Worldliness  condemned  by  Christ, 
ii.  78. 

Worship,  spiritual,  demanded,  i. 
501. 

Writing,  teaching  of,  i.  227. 

Y. 

Year,  Jewish,  i.  189. 

Young  man,  the,  who  wished  to 


644 


INDEX. 


know  how  to  gain  eternal  life, 
ii.  353. 

Z. 

Zacchanis,  ii.  364. 

s,  father  of  the  Baptist,  i 
87,  93,  94. 


Zealots,  Jewish,  political  ideas  of, 
i.  252,  270,  274,  275,  326,  328, 
557,  560,  581,  582. 

Zerubbabel,  i.  521. 

"  Zizith,"  the,  i.  180. 

Zuz,  the,  ii.  586. 


INDEX    OF    TEXTS. 


OLD    TESTAMENT. 


GENESIS. 

ii.  20-22  
vi.  2        ... 
ix.  25      
xvii.  6    
„    7     

Vol.  P. 
I.  156 
II.  131 
I.  159 
1.417 
I.  104 
I.  113 

xxi.  21    

xxiii,  4,  f>        ,.( 

Vol.  P. 

n.  67 
n.  73 

xix.  18    

Vol.  P 
II.    73 
H.    81 
1.202 
I.  159 
II.  279 
I.  403 
1.405 
I.    88 
I.    86 
I.    87 
I.    84 
I.  3  JO 
1.201 
I.  207 
T.  224 
H.    97 
I.    87 
II.    24 
I.    86 
I.    87 
I.  123 

I.  3?9 
I.  20 

I.    'JO 
I.  243 
II.  527 
I.  180 
I.  123 
I.    86 
I.    86 
I.    87 
I.  123 
1.224 
n.  543 
1.246 
I.  136 
1.140 
n.    98 
1.190 
1.207 
1.224 
I.    87 
I.  303 

[Y. 
1.161 

„     15  
xxiv.  1    
„     8    

I.  207 
I.  178 
n.  448 
I.    84 
I.    81 

',',  32    '.'. 

xx.  10      
„   21      

xxviii.  41       
xxix.  1-37     ...    ... 

„     19  
xix.  1,  5  
xx.  18      
xxiv.  15  
„      25  
„     50  
xxv.  15,  16     

I.  161 
1.113 
I.    88 
1.447 
1.113 
I.    99 
I.  303 

xxx.  11,  12    
„    13   
„    18  

n.  2»s 

1.265 
I.    91 

xxi.  1 
„    5       , 
„    7       

xxxiii.  20       ...    ... 

I.    94 

„    10     

xxxiv.  7  
„     16        
„      20         

IT.    24 
I.  243 
I.  123 

„     11     
xxiii.  5-11     
»    7 

xxix.  22  
xxx.  1,  23       
„    13    
xxxii.  ]2        
„     30        
xxxiv.  11        
xxxv.  19        
xxxviii.  14,  15 
xlvi.  29  
xlviii    12 

I.  449 
I.    88 
I.  103 
I.  261 
I.    94 
I.    99 
1.112 
1.447 
I.  159 
I.  150 

„     27        
xl.  13-15...     ., 
„  27       

LEVITICUS 
ii.  1  ...    ., 

H.  191 
I.    81 
I.    92 

I.    92 

I.    87 
I.    87 
I.  456 
I.    84 
1.170 
I.  179 
I.    92 
I.    84 
I.    87 

n.  212 

I.    87 
I.    81 
I.    86 
L   37 
I.  355 
I.  123 
I.  120 
1.227 

n.  13 

1.224 
I.    92 
I.    93 

n.  91 

1.15ft 

n.  400 

II.    97 
1.251 
n.    65 
H.    66 

„    26-32    
xxiv.  9    

',',    16  '.'.'.    '."    ".'. 
xxvii  

,,3,  10    
,,14        

NUMBERS 

vi.  4        
„  24-26  
x.  iO        
xii.  1        
xv.  31      
„  38,  39        
xvi.  3,  12       
,,    5        
xviii.  3    
„    14-19,  26-28 
„    15   
xix.  13     
„    17    
xx.  14-21        
xxiv.  17  

xxviii.  9  
„      11-15  ...  -  _ 
,     18       
xxix.  7-11      
xxxi.  25-47    
xxxiii.  49       

DEUTERONOa 
iv.  9,  10  

iii.  23       
iv.  3,  16  
„  15       

xlix.  11  
„    26  

EXODUS, 
ii.  20        

I.    76 
I.  493 

1.113 

I.    85 

„  16        
vi.  15       
,,20       
vii.  10     
„    21      

„  14       
i\-.  22      

II.  290 
I.  321 

„   31,33       
ix.  24      

v.  1          
x.  18        
xii.  1-28  
„  1        

1.274 
I.    87 
I.  203 
I.  20H 
1.207 
1.207 
I.  203 
1.227 
I.  123 
I.    78 
1.103 
II.  181 
1.159 
I.    77 
I.    77 
I.    86 
I.    77 

x.  6  

,,13,14  
xi.  22      
xii.  4       
„    4,6  
xiii.  9      
„    45    
xvi.  1-31        
„    12    
„    17    
xviii.  5    
xix.  3      
„   8      

„  16       

,,  26       
xiii.  7      
„  8,9  
„    13    
xv.  16     

xvi.  4      
xviii.  7    
xix.  8     
„    17     
„    22     

XX.  18       

„   9      
„    12    

646 


INDEX  OF  TEXTS. 


V.  1«           

vi.  4,  5    
„  4-10    
„  5  

Vol.    P. 
.     I.  159 
.  II.  400 
.     1.227 
.  II.    82 

i 
xxi.  1-42        
„    32     

JUDGES. 

Tol.   f. 
I.    87 
1.294 

Vol.   P. 
xxi.  27     1.372 

2  KINGS, 
i  fl                               I  372 

„  7,  21    

.     I.  1B1 

v.  15        

I.  290 

„  9-18      ...     „.     ...  II.  265 

.,  13,16...    -.    .. 

.     1.417 

„  18        

1.297 

iii.  13       I.  451 
iv.  8  I.  291 

vii.  3,  4  
„   6        
viii.  3      
„    7,8  
„    15    

xi?  13-22'."    "..    '.' 
„  18       

.     I.  213 
.    I.    78 
.    I.  417 
.  IT.  222 
.    1.354 
.    I.  467 
.     I.  227 
.     I.  227 

22       ... 
vii.  1        
xi.  12       
„  17,  18         
xiii.  15    
„     i2     
xiv.  10,  12,  15      ... 

I.    94 
I.  291 
1.451 
1.216 
I.  113 
I.    94 
I.  449 

„    23       I.  190 
„    42      II.  175 
v.  10        I.  375 
vi.  30       1.  372 
ix.  6        I.    78 
x.  1  ^     I.  178 
xi.  9         «  I.    81 
xv.  29      I.  294 

„  19       

.     I.  161 
I   417 

xix.  6      

n.  115 

x>ii.  21,  26,  33      ...    1.495 

xiii.  4      
„   9,  10        ...    . 
Xiv.  2,  21        ...     . 
„  28     
xvi.  6,  7  
xvii.  5-26       ...     . 

.     I.  417 
.  II.  280 
.    I.    78 
.    I.    87 
.    1.206 
.     1.365 

„    16     
„    20,  25      
xxiv.  25  

RUTH, 
i.  22  

1.113 
I.  113 
I.  113 

I.  201 

xxii.  6    I.  143 

1  CHRONICLES. 

xi.  17      ...    ...    ...    1.  118 
xxiii.  24  I.    81 
xxiv.  1-8        I.    80 

„    6     
7    

.  n.  280 

ii.  2  

n.  97 

xxix.  5    1.143 

„    8    
„    10   
zviii.  15  

.     I.    86 
.    I.    70 
.    I.  316 
.     I.  378 

„  23  

1  SAMUEL, 
i.  1,  19     

I.  201 
H.  542 

2  CHRONICLES. 

xix.  15    

.  n.  258 

„  3     

I.  Ill 

xxiv.  6    II.  218 

xxi.  17            ..    . 

.  n.  329 

,,  11 

I.    88 

20          II.  405 

„    18-21      ...     . 

.    I.  159 

ii.  4,  8,  6  

I.  103 

xxx   17            ..      ..    I-  205 

„    23    

.  H.  540 

„  24  

I.    78 

xxxv.  5    ..              .    I.  205 

xxii.  9     
„    12  

.    1.203 
.     I.  180 

iv.  20       
vii.  16       

I.    88 
I   111 

,     6,  14    1.  205 
22-25             .     I.  290 

„    24  

.  n.  211 

x.  8     

I.  Ill 

.  II.  279 

xii.  12      

I.    78 

EZRA. 

xxiii.  3    

.    I.  243 

xiv.  25       

I.  491 

„     10  
,      21  

.     1.354 
.  H.    66 

„    47     
xvi.  4      

I.  247 
I.  178 

ii.  36-39  I.    80 
„  64  I.    60 

„     25  
xxiv.  1    

..  n.  97 

.     I.  105 

n   65 

„    6       
„     11     

I.    79 
I.  216 

vii.  24     I.    87 
ix.  2  H.  210 

„    19-22     ...    . 

..  n.  97 

.    I.  402 

xx.  5,  24  
xxi.  1                .    ... 

n.  115 
n.  97 

NEHEMIAH. 

„    6,6  

..    I.    88 

xxiii.  19,  24   

1.352 

viii.  15,  16     I.  44« 

„    6     

.    I.    88 

xxiv.  2      

I.  353 

ix  7  12                         I.  182 

„    9     

.  n.  212 

xxxi.  8,  12      

L  291 

x  32                            II.  243 

xxvi.  3,  10    ...    . 
„     12  
„     19  

.    I.  223 
..    L    87 
..    I.    78 

2  SAMUEL, 
i.  12  ... 

I.    78 

xiii.  7      n.  210 
ESTHER. 

xxvii.  16        ...     . 

..    I.  159 

ii.  i  

I.  103 

„    21         ...     . 
„     26  
xxviii  
xxx.  6     
xxxi.  28  

..  n.  327 
..  n.  531 

..  II.  355 
..    I.  '80 

..    1.178 

vi.  21       
xvi.  16    
xviii.  6    
xix.  11     
„    22    

I.    78 
1.451 
1.491 
1.178 
I.  451 

JOB. 

i.  10,  22,  21    I.  978 
xii.  10      I.     6 

xxxii.  3  

..    L  184 

xxi.  9      

1.201 

xvi.  15    I.  S72 

::  ,2:::  :::  : 

..    I.    78 
..    1.469 
..    I.    77 

xxiv.  1    
1  KINGS. 

1.264 

xxiv.  21  I.    88 
xxxi.  29,  30   II.    73 
„    32  I.  113 

„     39  

zxxiii.  10 

JOSHUA 

U.  1  ...    . 
xx.  7       

..  n.  94 

..    L    92 

..    I.  113 
..     L  294 

i.  3  
viii.  63    
ix.  11,13  
xiii.  20    
xvii.  18  
xviii.  29,  36  
xxi.  13    

1.291 
I.    15 
1.294 
II.  115 
1.451 
I.    92 
II.  527 

PSALMS. 

ii.9  1.320 
vii.  6        II.    73 
„   6,7  II.    73 
viii.  3      11.  378 
xvi.  8      1.167 

INDEX   OF   TEXTS. 


647 


rvi.  10    ...    ~ 
xix.  4,  5  

Vol.    P. 
...  II.  551 
...     I.    99 
...  II.  53  i 

Vol.    P. 
xxiii.  1    ...     „    ...  II.  115 
xxiv.  17  n.    73 

i 
xxxv.  5,  8     ... 
xl.  19       

Pol.  P. 
I.    77 
1.143 
1.143 
I.  3:9 
I.  103 
1.359 
11.  103 
I.  508 
1.384 
II.  276 
1.143 
1.190 
1.190 
1.359 
1.443 
1.309 
I.  435 
1.427 
II.      7 
1.451 
I.  43H 
I.    77 
If.  183 
II.  27B 

n.  32 

1.383 
II.  379 
1.383 
1.359 
II.  276 
1.359 
I.  185 
1.421 
1.144 
I.  185 
1.393 
n.  108 
I.  401 
1.185 
I.  448 
1.449 
L  185 
1.427 
11.256 

1.448 
I.  480 
I.  3f>9 
If.  379 
1.4*9 
I.  4fO 
I.  371 
I.  4J9 
I.    08 
1.    98 
1.449 
I.    88 
11.542 
II.    24 
I.  319 
I.  340 
I.    S3 

n.  24 

I.  135 
1.247 
1.371 
1.371 

xxv.  21    

H.    73 

„   20      ...    ...    ., 

xxv.  22  ...     „ 
„     22    
xxvi.  6    ...     M 
zxx.  4     
xxxii.  2,  5 
xxxiv.  3  
xxxv.  9  
„      19  
xli.  9       
„    11     

...     I.  104 
...     I.  314 
...  H.  614 
...    I.  103 
...  II.    24 
...    I.  103 
...    I.  103 
...  n.  460 

...  n.  4« 

...     I.  222 

xxxi.  10  I.  156 

ECCLESIASTES. 
viii.  13    I.  232 

CANTICLES, 
iii  «                            T    01 

„   21       
xli.  8       
„   15       
xlii.  1-3  
„    7      
xliv.  3     
.,     3     .       .. 

„    12    

„  11      

I.  448 
I.  449 
1.300 
II.  2>l 
1.193 

II.  295 
I.  100 
I.  376 
1.359 
I.  162 
1.297 
I.  437 

xlvi.  3      
xlvii.  13  
xlviii.  14  
xlix.  18    
Iii.  5         
„   )3        
„   14        
liii.  4        
„    7       
„    7,  11,  12  
liv.  12 
„    13      
Iv.  1  
„  5  
„  7  

xlv  

...     1.  429 

vii.  4       
tt  4        

8      ...    ... 
U.  2  

...    L  44* 
...    I.  375 

10    

.     I.  4SO 

ISAIAH. 

i.  6 
„  15         
„  16         
„  31  
ii.  3  
„  3  
„  34        

15  .. 

...    I.  183 

liv.  7       
Iv.  17      
Ixix.  4     
Ixxi.  19  
Ixxii.  16  
„    16   
Ixxiii.  13  

...  H.    73 
...    I.  100 
...  II.  460 
...    I.  103 
I.  76,  77 
...  H.  181 
...  II.  514 
.     I.  161 

Ixxix.  1  
Ixxxii.  6  
Ixxxix.  10 

...     1.309 
...  II.  308 
...    I.  103 

iii.  14      

n.  385 

Ivi.  7       

v.  1          

n.  144 

11.385 
1.359 
1.359 
1.512 

Iviii.  6-9  
„    7     
„    11  
lix.  6        
„    17      

1  

xci.  11     

...    I.  417 

„  7  

„    13     

...  II.  297 

„  24  

xciii.  1     ...     ... 
xcvii.  12  ...    „ 

...     I.  185 
...    L  103 
...     I.  103 

vi.  1  

„    3  

1.181 
I.    91 

Ix.  1,  5     
„   l-G     

>f    6    

ciii.  17       .      .. 

..     I.  103 

,     13       

1.359 
II.    58 

Ixi  

civ.  1       
„    15     

...     I.  185 
...     I.  450 

viii.  12    

„  1  

ix.  1  

I.  155 

„   1         

cvi.  40,  41 

...    I.  309 

„    1  

1.294 

„   1,  6    

ex.  1,2,  5,  6  ... 

...     I.  422 

„    1  

1.457 

„    10        

cxi.  9       ~    ... 

...  H.  412 
...    I.  103 

„    1  
„    1  

1.459 
I.  512 

„   10      
„   10      

I.  103 

„    1  

11.194 
1.291 
H.  385 
1.359 
I.  491 
1.359 
1.359 
I.    76 

Ixiii.  2     ...    ...     ... 
Ix'vi.  24   '.'.'.    ...     '.'.'. 

JEREMIAH. 

ii.  32  
iv.  4  

1-8 

...  II.  373 
...     I.  103 

„    3  
„   10  

„       22 

...  H.  3S6 
...     I.  222 

„  18  
„  18  

I.  197 

x.  15        

cxxvi.  2,  3     ... 

...     I.  103 
...    I.    88 

„  17  
xi.  1  

cxxxii.  11,  12... 

..      I.  319 
...     I.  193 

„    1  
„    2  

1.139 
1.393 

„  28        
vii.  2       

cxli.  2     ...     ~. 

...    L    97 

„    3  

1.372 

„  34       

...    I.  183 

„    4  

1.320 

is.  13       

...     L      6 

„    4        

1.323 
II.  3(58 
1.426 
II.    53 
11.421 
1.359 
I.  359 

xii.  5        ...     ...     ... 
xvi.  9       
xvii.  10   
xviii.  30  
xxv.  10    
xxix.  32  
xxx.  40   ... 

cxlvi.  10  
cxlix.  6-9 
nl. 

...     1.184 
...     1.325 
..     I.  222 

xii.  1,  9-11     
„  27       
xiii.  4      
„  9,  10  
xviii.  33  
xxi.  10    

PROVERBS. 
i.  8   ..,                    .    1.  159 

xxviii.  1  
„       7  

1.491 
1.450 
1.359 
If.  198 
I.  359 
H.  475 
1.383 
1.401 
11.108 

xxxiii.  8  
„      17   

iv.  1  

...     I.  159 

vi.  20      
vii.  1        

...     I.  159 
I.  159 

„       27  
xxix.  13     .    ... 

xxxv.  6,  7      
„      19  
„     34  
xxxix.  3  ...     ...    ... 
xlix.  7-22       
„    19    
1.44  

x.  27  

...     I.  3'<!8 

xxx.  2i  
„      29   
xxxiii.  24       
xxxv.  4,  5      ...     ... 
„      6   

xi.  16       
xiv.  1      

XX.  1          

„  20      

...    I.  156 
...     I.  156 
...     I.  450 
...     I.  159 

648 

LAMENTATIONS. 
Vol    P. 
li.10  1.178 

INDEX   OF   TEXTS. 

VoL  P. 
ix.  21       I.    94 
„   21       I.  100 
„  27       H.  419 

MICAH. 
i.7   

Tol.  P. 

n.  i2« 

I.    76 
1.339 

I.  130 
I.    51 
11.543 

r. 

I.    77 

n.  372 

II.  377 
1.139 
I.    76 
1.371 
1.290 
II.  276 
II.  276 
I.    77 
I.    77 
1.472 

1.159 
I.    82 
I.    86 
I.    99 
1.384 
I.  371 
I.    82 
I.  371 
I.  310 

EZEKHEL. 

iii.  12 
xiii.  11    
xiv.  1      
xxiii.  10  
xxvi.  1    
xxix.  17  
xxxi.  1    
xxxv.  13  
xxxix.  29       
xl.  46       
xlvii.  1,  12     
„    12   

DANIEL, 
ii.  2  ...    . 

1.184 
11.144 
1.120 
1.375 
I.  190 
1.190 
1.190 
I.  247 
1.384 

n.  209 

H.  276 
I.   77 

1.135 
H.  412 
1.135 
H.  294 
I.  100 
1.185 
1.412 
1.315 

n.  213 

H.  412 
1.373 
1.315 
1.310 
I.  315 
1.362 
1.    94 

x.  8  
xi.  36       
xii.  7        

HOSEA. 
i.  10  

I.    94 
1.315 
1.362 

1.264 
1.190 
1.450 
n.    98 
1.490 
I.   88 

1.348 
I.  3S3 
I.    77 
H.  570 
H.  276 
1.247 
H.421 

1.512 
1.247 
1.341 

n.  115 

1.512 
1.247 

vi.  8  

HAGGAI. 
i.  1      

ii.  3,9     
13 

ii.  13  

ZECHARIA* 
ix.  1  

iv.  11       
vi.  6        

„  9  

ix.  14       

JOEL, 
ii.  28 

„  9  
„  9    

x.  3     

„  3,  4     

xi.  3           

»   2S... 

xii.  11,  12      
xiii.  1      
xiv.  8      ...     ,w    ... 
„     10     
„    20    
„    21     

MALACHI. 
i.  6   .., 

111.  1  
1   2 

,,44  
iv.  7  
vi.  6  

„  1-23    ...    ., 
„  19       
iii.  15      

AMOS. 

„  11       
vii.  9       
„  13      
„   13,14       
„   14      ...    ., 
„  14     

„  11,  12  
ii.  11  

„  8,  14    
ii.  7  

„  18,  22-27  ... 
„  19      
„  23      
„  25      
Viii.  16    

vi.  4,  7   
vii.  14     

OBADIAH. 
v.  10  

iii.  i           

„  1-3,5  
„  9  

iv.  1  

„  5  

APOCRYPHA. 


n.  ESDRAS 

ECCLESIASTICUS. 

L  MACCABEES. 

Vol.   P. 

Vol.   P. 

Vul.     P. 

U.  38-46  

1.311 

vii.  27,  28 

I.  159 

1.  56,  57  

...    1.227 

vi.  55,  59  

1.310 

xxi.  11    

II.  272 

ii.  27-38  

...    1.308 

ix.  24,  26        

I.  347 

xxvi.  1-4        

I.  157 

„  41  

...  II.    S»7 

xlviii.  1-11     

II.  110 

iv.  52-59  

...     I.  225 

TOBIT. 

„     10  

I.  372 

xii.  6       

...    I.  178 

„       12  

1.374 

xiv.  9      

...    1.  178 

1.  17,  19  ... 

n.  543 

iv.  15      

II.    82 

BARUCH. 

xi.  20      
xiiL  2     

1.449 
U.   94 

iv.a 
vi.63,  66  

II.    25 
II.  215 

II.  MACCABEES, 
ii.  4-8                       .    1.364 

WISDOM. 

SUSANNAH 

„  2,  17  

IX. 

...     I.    «5 
I.  475 

XTi.l!»    

U.    94 

ill.    «.    ... 

I.  163       x.  6  

...     1.223 

INDEX   OF   TEXTS. 


649 


NEW    TESTAMENT. 


MATTHEW. 

1.23  
Ii.  10,  22  

Vol.  P. 
1.146 
I.  126 

vii.  28      
viii.  2      
„  2-4     
„  4  

Vol.    P. 

...  n.  54 

...    I.  183 

...  n.  13 

_    L    86 

x.  16-26  ... 
„  38,  39  ... 
.,  17 
„  29 

Vol.   F. 
.-     ...  II.    31 
...     ...  II.  232 
II.  461 
II.  121 

15          

I.  1  6 

„   5-13  

...  n.  101 

I.  113 

„  23  
iii  6         

1.108 
I.  373 

„   11      
„   15      

...  II.  205 

...  n.  121 

„  42  
xi.  1 

II.  124 
II.  172 

6  

T.  375 

„   17      

...     I.  146 

„  2 

I.  399 

7  

I.:  57 

„   18      

...  II.  123 

„  2 

I.  400 

„  7  
„   7  

1.377 
1.383 
1.484 

„   19      
„  19      
„  20      

...  n.  si 

...  II.    41 
...  II.  122 

„  2-19  ... 
„  5  

„  7 

II.  108 
1.359 
I.  371 

,,11   

1.375 

„  20      

...     I.  227 

„  8,  19  ... 

II.  122 

,,11  
,,21  
iv.  12      
„  14  
,,14  
,,15  

1.436 
I.  102 
1.510 
I.  146 
1.457 
I.  295 

„  22      
„  22      
„  23  f.  
„  28      
„  29      
is.  1  

...     I.  514 

...  n.  53 

...  II.  152 
...     I.  301 
...     1.451 
...     I.  458 

„  9  
„  9,  10  ... 
„  11 
„  11,  18... 
»  14       ... 
„  14       ... 

1.377 
1.371 
1.380 
1.385 
1.371 
11.  -J40 

,,15  
,,17  
,,18  
„  18-22  
,,19  
22,  23  

I.  459 
1.513 
1.616 
I.  515 
II.    53 
II.    19 

„   1  
„    1  
„   2-9    
„    2,  13  
„    3  
f>  4        

...  H.  162 
...  H.  230 

...  n.  is 

...    1.514 
...     I.  188 
...     I.  481 

„  16       ... 
„  16 
„  16-30... 
„  19 
„  19       ... 
„  20-24... 

I.  227 
1.292 
II.  Ill 
1.273 
II.  121 
1.  468 

,,23  
v.  1         

I.  287 
II.    38 

„   6,  12  
,9          . 

...  n.  si 

.  .     I.  459 

»  24      ... 
„  24 

1.356 
II.    38 

„  2-11     
„  3-12     
„  5  
.,  10-12  
„  13-16  

I.  185 
II.    55 
H.  426 
II.    37 
II.    59 

„  10  
„  10  
„  10  
,,10-17  
„  11       

...    1.273 

...  n.  121 
...  n.  122 

...  U.    30 
...     1.  238 

„  25 
„  27      ... 

„  29       ... 
xii.  1 
,,18     ... 

n.  43 

H.  155 
1.185 
II.  121 
II.    96 

„  17-48  
„  20-26  
18          

H.    6t 
n.    63 
I.  332 

„  11-14  
„  13       
14 

...  II.    33 

...  II.  1!>5 
I.  399 

„  3  
„  3  

1.227 
U.    31 

.      ..     I.    87 

25        

1.268 

„  14       

...  II.  121 

7        ~. 

II.  195 

„  27-30  

II.    64 

„  14,  16,  17  ... 

...    I.  386 

„  9-14  ... 

II.    99 

„  28  

I.  514 

„  15       

...     I.  447 

„  15-21... 

II.  103 

„  31  
31,  32  

II.  317 

II.    65 

"  1*6       ..'.    .'.'. 

...    1.488 
...  II.    37 

„  19       ... 
„  21 

1.473 
II.  2">o 

„  38  
44  

vi.  1-15  !"    '.'..    '.". 
„   5  
„   6  
„   7  
„  13-20  
,,16  
„  19-23  
,,24-34  
,,28  
vii.  1-12  
,,9-11    
,,10...     ...    
,,11,17  
„  18-27  
,,20  
,,24-27  
.,26  

I.  262 
11.467 
U.    76 
I.  183 
II.    76 
II.    35 
U.  225 
11.  121 

n.  78 
n.  79 
n.  71 
n.  so 

1.229 

n.  121 

I.  514 

n.  150 

I.  103 

n.  si 

I.  292 

„  16       
,,16-17  
„  17        
„  18-26  
„  20       
,,27-31  
„  33        
„  31        
„  35        
x.  1-11     
„  3  
„  4  
„  5  
,,6  
„  8,9    
„  9  
„  10       
„  13       ...     ^ 
„  15       ...     „. 

...    1.188 
...  II.    36 
...  II.    53 
...  II.  157 
...    I.  467 
...  II.  160 
...    I.  188 
...  II.  132 
...     1.  287 
...  II.  169 
...    1.331 
...    1.  275 
...    1.295 
...    I.  514 
...  IL  123 

...  n.  122 

...  II.    48 
...  n.  146 
...     I.  366 

„  22-37... 
„  23       ... 
„  25       ... 
„  33,  39... 
„  26       ... 
„  39       ... 
„  38-45 
„  41 
„  49       ... 
„  49 
„  45-fO... 
xiii.  1-23... 
„    1,36 

,"    16    '.'. 
„    16,17 
»    29    ... 
„    34    ... 
„    3C-53 

II.  131 
1.460 
1.420 
1.514 
1.229 
1.356 
II.  137 
1.356 
II.    60 
II.    63 

n.  139 

II.  146 
~.    ...    1.458 
I.  268 
1.185 
II.  147 
I.  420 
II.  146 
11.  149 

650 


INDEX   OF  TEXTS. 


xiii.  46    

Vol.   P. 
...     1.  268 

Vol    P. 

Vol.   f. 
1.  614 

„    46     
„    62     

...     I.  465 

...     I.  227 

„     29  

xix.    1,  2 

...  II.  205 
...  n.  317 

„     16  f.     ...    ... 
„    23         

II.    66 
I.  237 

„    62     ...     „. 
„    54     

...  II.    53 

...     I.  175 

„    3      
„    H-12...     ... 

...     I.  188 
...  H.  348 

„    27  
„    27         

1.203 

„    54    

...     I.  188 

„    4      

...     1.227 

„     27          

I.  459 

„    51     

...  H.    61 

„    6       

...  II.    31 

„     28         

II.    25 

„    54-58      ... 
,,    55     
„    57    
xiv.    1    
iiv.  1      
„     1,2,  6-12 
„     4    
„      9     

...  II.  165 
...     I.  330 
...     I.  458 
...     1.406 
...     1.409 
...  H.  172 
...     1.401 
...  H.  510 

„    13    
„    13-15      ... 
„    13-15      ... 
„    10     
„    16-30      ... 
„    21-27      ... 
,,2-30      ... 
xx.    3      

...     I.  188 

...     I.  U27 

...  n.  s;,o 

...     L  188 

...  H.  351 

...  n.  123 

...  H.  354 
...    I   292 

„     34         
xxiv.  1-14      
„    2            
„    3            
„    15-42    
„    17   
„    24,20    
„    26          

11.461 
II.  414 
II.  415 
II.  416 
II.  419 
II.    21 
I.  133 
I.  372 

12    

...     I.  399 

„     8      

...     I.  292 

,,    31  f. 

11  426 

„    14    
„    13-21 

...  H.  174 

...  n.  173 

„     8       
,.  17-19  

...     I.  503 
...  II.  359 

„    33          

II.  421 

II  422 

„    18-27      ... 
„    15    

...    I.  188 
...     I.  508 

„  20       
21        

...  II.  224 

..  n.  121 

„     45           

48 

11.  422 
II  420 

„    17    
„    17    

...  n.  119 

...  II.  121 

„  20-28 
„  29-34 

...  II.  360 
...  II.  363 

„    51          

II.  423 
I.  448 

„    21     
„    22-33      ... 
„    33     
„    33    
„    68    

XV.     1       

„      1-20        ... 
„    1-20  
„    11      

'^  14    !"  '.'.'. 

...  n.  175 

...  n.  177 

...    1.486 

...  n.  227 

...  II.  492 

...  n.  121 
...  n.  188 
...  n.  197 
...  n.  195 
...  n.  199 

...     I.  356 

xxi.     1     
„     11     
„     12     
,     12,  13     ... 
„    1-11 
„    14-17       ... 
,     16,  42      ... 
„     18,  19      ... 
„    31     
„    20-32      ... 
••    22 

...  II.  124 
...     I.  457 
...     1.1^2 
...  II.  378 
...  II.  373 

...  n.  371 

...    I.  227 
...  II.  378 
...     I.  *73 
...  II.  380 
...  n.  3s6 

„     1-20       
„    5             
„     10   
„     31-46     
„     35-43     
„     36   
„     40    
xxvi.  1-16      
„    2            
„    6            
7            

II.  423 
H.  4'JO 
I.  419 
II.  425 
1.113 
I.  3S3 
II.    48 
II.  -130 
II.  291 
II.  121 
II.  292 

„    U,  20 
„    21-28 
„    L»!i  31 
„    32-33  
xvi.    1    
„     1-4  

...    I.  614 
...  H.  205 
...  n.  208 
...  II.  208 

...  n.  38 
...  n.  216 

ii    23 
„    25,26      ... 
„    26 
„    28 
„    28-32       ... 
„    32 

...    1.378 
...    1.377 
...  II.  382 
...    I.  292 
...  II.  384 
...    I.  377 

„    9,  49      
„     17-19     
„    20          
„    20,  23    
„    21-25     
„     23             .     ... 

n.  123 

11.434 
II.  438 
L  206 
11.441 

I.  207 

„     2,3       ... 
„     5,7       ... 
,     6-12      ... 
„     6     
„     6,  25      ... 
„    13,  14     ... 
„    14    

...     I.  465 

...  n.  123 
...  n.  218 

...  II.  124 
...    1.514 
...    1.188 
...     I.  434 

„    33 
„    33-16      ... 
xxii.  1-10      ... 
„    1-14 
„    4 
1,    9 
,    11 

...     1.  464 
...  II.  385 
...    1.  449 
...  11.  388 
...     1.  449 
...  H.    38 
...  If.  389 

,    28-29     
,     30,  30-40      ... 
,     31-35     
,     39           
,     45           
,    47-56    
,    47-56     

II.  446 
II.  475 
n.  413 
1.426 
1.514 
II.  480 
II.  479 

„    14    
„    18    
„    18     

...  II.  201 
...     1.486 
...  11.563 

,    15-22     ... 
,    17 
,    21    ...     ... 

...  II.  392 
...     I.  273 
...  II.    28 

,    57,   58,   69-75 
,    63          
,    65           

It.  493 
II.  493 
I.  521 

„    19    

...    I.    72 

..     I.    88 

69  73       .     ... 

I.  457 

„    21     
„    21-28      ... 
„    22    

...     1.  437 

...  II.  2>iO 

...  n.  ise 

,    23 

,    23 
,    22,  23-33 

...     1.  514 
...  II.  213 
...  II.  397 

,    73          
sxvii.  1,2,11-14... 
„      3-10     

1.295 
II.  500 
II.  623 

xvii.  1-13 
„    10  
„    11   
„    12  
„    14-21     ... 
..    17    
„    22,  23    ... 

...  II.  235 
...  II.    31 
...     I.  371 
...    1.399 
...  II.  241 
...    1.514 
...  II.  245 

,    31 
,    34-40     ... 
,    41-46     ... 
xxiii.  1-12     ... 
ii    2 

,i  a 

...    I.  227 
...  II.  399 
...  II.  401 
...  II.  -102 
...     1.  378 
...  11.  194 
..    I   233 

3-10     
„      11  
„      12  
„       12-14   
„      15-26  
„      20,  27  
„       19           .     ... 

II.  524 
II.  506 
II.  503 
II.  503 
II.  510 
II.  £02 
I.  451 

„    24   
„    24-27     ... 
„    27   
Xviii.  1    
„      1    
„     1-35      ... 
„      1-35     ... 
«      6    
„     17  

...     I.  466 
...  II.  248 
...  II.  123 
...  II.  124 
...  II.  253 
...  II.  246 
...  II.  251 
...  II.    48 
...     I.  273 

.,    5 
ii    6 
ii    5 

„    6,  25     ... 
„    8-10     ... 
„    1:1,24,28 
„    13-39   ... 

"  15...  ::: 

...    I.  181 

...  n.  121 

...     I.  211 
...  II.  122 
...    I.    10 
...  II.    61 
...  II.  403 
...  II.  141 
...     I.    66 

2t>-30  
,       31-34  
,      31-38  
,      35-33   
,      39  

61-56  '.'.'.     '.'.'. 
»      66  
„      67-66  

II.  515 
II.  528 
11.625 
II.  630 
II.  527 
11.534 
II.  539 
11.120 
11.543 

INDEX   OF  TEXTS. 


651 


Vol.   P. 

Vol   P. 

Vol.   P. 

xxvii.  54...     ...     ... 

II.  540 

iv.2t       

...  n.  147 

x.  17-31   .. 

..f  It.  351 

„      56  

1.442 

„  35-41  

...  n.  iso 

„  23-31   

...  H.  354 

„      64  

11.491 

v.  1  

...    L  301 

„  24,  32,  35    ... 

...  n.  47 

xxviii.  J6       

II.  566 

„  19  

...     I.  133 

„  33,  34  

...  n.  359 

„      16  20  

II.  569 

„  2-:-43  

...  n.  157 

„  33-45   ...     .„ 

...  n.  360 

„     18       

1.147 

„  34  

...  II.  184 

„  35  

...  II.    48 

„     18       

11.  425 

vi.  1  

...  H.    38 

,,35  

...  IL  224 

„  1-6     

...  U.  165 

„  46-52   

...  H.  363 

„  2  

...  n.  162 

xi.  1-11   

...  n.  371 

MARK. 

„  3  
,,3  

...    I.  228 
...  H.  164 

„  17       
„  12-10...     „. 

...    I.  356 
...  II.  318 

1.  4   ... 

1.385 

„  3  

...    1.174 

„  27       

...  n.  382 

,,6    

1.373 

„  3  

...    I.  330 

,,25         .    ... 

...    1.183 

„  5    

1.375 

„  3  

...    1.330 

„  20-23  

...  H.  380 

„  8    

1.375 

„  6,  36,  56    ... 

...    I.  291 

xii.  1-12  

...  II  385 

„  13  

1.415 

„  7-13   

...  n.  169 

„  9  

...    I.  291 

„  14  

1.500 

„  12       

...     I.  171 

,,13,17...    ... 

...  II.  392 

„  14  

1.513 

„  13-23  

...  II.    82 

„  18-27  

...  H.  397 

„  16-20    

1.515 

„  14-16,  21-29 

...  II.  172 

„  28        

...  n   si 

„  20  

1.442 

„  15       

...  II.  201 

„  28-34  

...  n.  82 

22  ... 

It.    54 

„  16       

...  U.    35 

„  2-1-3;  

...  H.  399 

',',  22  !!!     '.".     ".'.     '.". 

II.     4 

„  18       

...    1.  401 

„  35-37  

...  n.  401 

22  

II.    38 

„  20       

...    1.399 

„  38        

...    1.433 

,|  24  

I.  451 

„  22,  24...    ... 

...    1.407 

„  31,  39...    ... 

...  n.  402 

„  27  

1.188 

„  22,  29  

...     1.  408 

„  40       

...  H.  403 

,,29  

1.458 

„  30,  34  

...  n.  173 

„  41        

...    1.471 

„  29  

1.466 

„  36       

...  11.  124 

„  41-44  

...  H.  408 

,,32  

II.      6 

„  45-52  

...  IL  177 

xiii.  1-13  

...  n.  414 

,,35,45    ...    

1.291 

„  52       

...  n.  178 

„  9  ... 

...  n.  461 

,,39  

It.    11 

„  53-56  

...  n.  179 

„  14-37  

...  n.  419 

,,40-45    

If.    13 

vii.  1-23  

...  n.  197 

„  29       

...  n.  421 

„  44  

I.    86 

„  1-23   

...  n.  IBS 

„  35       ...     ... 

...  n.  422 

ii.l   

1.458 

,,4  

...  U.  140 

„  35       

...  U.  420 

„  1-14     

II.    18 

9  

...  n.  53 

xiv.  1-11  

...  n.  430 

„  2,  4,  13  

I.  466 

„  11       

...  n.  141 

„  3  

IL  291 

,,1,13     

H.    38 

„  15       

...  n.  195 

„  3  

...  n.  121 

14 

I  459 

„  17       

IL    48 

„  12-16  

II  434 

„  15-22    

H.    30 

„  17       ...     ... 

...     1.  453 

„  14        

...    L  114 

,,16  

1.238 

„  24-30  

...  n.  205 

„  17       

...  II.  438 

„  16-18    

II.    33 

„  3.  '-37  

...  n.  208 

„  26,  32-42  ... 

...  n.  475 

„  17  

I.  514 

,.  31       

1.453 

„  27-31  

...  II.  443 

„  18  

1.484 

viii.  1-9  

...  IL  208 

18-:1  

...  II.  441 

„  19-22    ...    ...     ... 

H.    36 

„  10-12  

...  II.  215 

„  22-25  

...  n.  446 

„  21,  22  

I.  386 

„  14-21  

...  n.  218 

„  25       

...     1.  467 

„  23  

1.291 

„  15      

...  It.      6 

„  34-36  

n.  179 

,,25-23    

II.    96 

„  17,  18,  21,  33 

...  n.  47 

„  38       

...  n.  39 

„  27  

II.  195 

„  22-26 

...  II.  220 

„  40         .     ... 

...  II.    47 

iii.  1-6     

II.    99 

„  27-30 

...  U.  225 

„  43       

...    1.178 

„  7,12  

n.  103 

„  23      

...    1.  488 

„  43-52  

...  n.  479 

,,8  

n.  19 

„  28      

...  n.  201 

„  43-62  

.  .  II  480 

,,13       

n.  40 

„  31       

...  II.  239 

„  53.54,66-72 

...  n.  498 

,,13,14  

II.    43 

„  3!-38  

...  n.  230 

„  58       

...     1.  475 

„  14       

n.  42 

„  34,  35 

...  n.  37 

„  60       

...  H.  492 

„  18       

I.  275 

„  38      

...    1.356 

xv.  1-5    

...  n.  500 

„  19-30  

n.  131 

ix.  2-13   

...  n.  235 

„  2    

...  II.  506 

,,19,31  

1.453 

„  6,  19,  32,  34 

...  LL    47 

„  3-5     ...    ... 

...  II.  508 

„  21       

n.  26 

„  12       

...     I.  371 

„  6-15  

...  II.  510 

,,22       

1.296 

„  14-29  

...  n.  241 

„  10       

...  II.  503 

„  22       

II.    38 

„  30-32  

...  n.  245 

„  15-19  

...  II.  515 

,,30       

n.  133 

„  33       

...  n.  253 

„  20-23  

...  U.  528 

„  31-35  

n.  139 

„  33        

...  II.  248 

„  20-28  

...  II.  525 

iv.  1  

1.466 

„  33-50  

...  n.  246 

„  21       

...  II.  528 

„  1-26    

n.  145 

,,33,50  

...  n.  251 

„  24-28...     ^. 

...  n.  530 

„  4  

I.  292 

„  42       

...    1.292 

„  29       

...     1.475 

„  8  

I.  291 

x  1 

...  n.  317 

29 

IL  527 

„  11,  12,  21,  23,  24, 

„  2-12     

...  n.  348 

',',  29-32'.'.'.    '.'.'. 

'.'.'.  H.  534 

33,  34     

H.  146 

„  11,  14,  32    ... 

...  IL  124 

„  38-41  

...  H.  639 

„  13       

II.    43 

„  13-16  

...  It.  350 

39         ,.    ... 

...  H.  540 

23 

U.    11 

„  17  

...  n.  39 

',',  40       ".'    ... 

...    I.  443 

652 


INDEX  OF   TEXTS. 


XT  40 

Vol.  P. 
1.442 

vi.  17 

Vol.  P. 
II.  48 

X.  38-42  

Vol.  P. 
...  II.  298 

„  42-47  
xvi  1   

II.  542 
I.  442 

„  37-42... 
„  39-41... 

n.  so 

II.  80 

„  40  
xi.  1-13  

...  II.  121 
...  II.  295 

„  5  

I.  94 

„  41-46... 

II.  82 

„  1-46  

...  II.  309 

„  14-18  
„  15   
„  19,20  

II.  559 
II.  420 
H.  672 

„  45,46... 
„  47-49... 

H.  83 
n.  84 
I.  464 

„  12   
„  14,  15,  17-23 
„  15   ...  . 

...  II.  81 
...  II.  131 
...  I.  188 

LUKE. 

„  1-10  ... 
„  6  
„  6  

n.  104 

I.  175 
I.  459 

„  15   
„  17   
„  23,  27 

...  n.  38 
...  I.  420 
...  II.  63 

La  

I.  88 

9  

I.  195 

„  24-26,  29  32 

.  n.  1S7 

,,15  
,,17  

I.  339 
I.  362 

„  18   ... 
„  18-35... 

I.  400 
II.  108 

„  27   
„  27   

...  I.  185 
...  I.  188 

„  32-36  

I.  100 

„  26   ... 

I.  398 

„  27,  28  

...  II.  139 

„  71-73  
„  74,  76  
„  76  

I.  355 
I.  356 
I.  94 

„  26,  27 
„  29-35... 
„  30   ... 

I.  371 
II.  Ill 

I.  381 

„  37   
„  37   
„  37-54... 

...  I.  188 

...  II.  121 
n  140 

,,79  

I.  356 

„  30,  33 

I.  484 

„  39   

.  I£  195 

,,80  

I.  165 

„  33   ... 

I.  382 

„  47-54  ..   .. 

...  II.  316 

,,80  

I.  191 

„  36-50  . 

...  .  II.  115 

„  52 

I.  378 

ii.  22,25  

I.  12  1 

„  36   ... 

II.  121 

„  53   ...  ... 

...  n.  144 

„  25,38  
„  46  

I.  93 
I.  242 

„  39   ... 
„  41   ... 

n.  32 

I.  263 

xii.  1   
„  13  

...  II.  144 
...  I.  188 

„  37  

I.  126 

»  44   ... 

I.  113 

„  13  f.  

...  n.  142 

„  40  

I.  191 

„  44   ... 

II.  121 

„  16  

...  n.  175 

40  

I.  200 

,,  47 

...  .  n.  53 

,,16 

I.  268 

„  40,  62  

I.  166 

viii.  2 

I.  494 

„  17,  18 

.  .  I.  292 

„  41  

J.  191 

„  1,  3  ... 

n.  123 

„  24,  27,  28  .. 

...  I.  464 

„  46...  ..  

I.  164 

„  3 

I.  298 

„  31   

...  I.  188 

„  46  

I.  215 

„  3 

I.  442 

„  38  

...  II.  420 

„  49  

I.  208 

„  3 

~.  ...  I-  6<.'8 

„  50  

...  I.  426 

„  50  
„  52  

I.  102 
I.  392 

„  4-18... 
,,  12  ... 

II.  145 
II.  118 

„  54,  55   ... 
„  54  57 

...  I.  465 

...  H.  216 

52  

I.  219 

19-21 

II  139 

53 

.  .  I.  268 

„  52  
iii.  7  
„  10   

I.  412 
I.  488 
I.  377 

„  21  ... 
„  22-25 
„  23^10 

n.  53 

II.  150 
...  ...  II.  152 

xiii.  1   
„  1-9...  _ 
„  16   .  ... 

...  I.  211 
...  H.  167 
...  I.  229 

„  12,  15  
„  16   

I.  377 
I.  375 

„  28  ... 
i.  41  ... 

I.  451 
I.  464 

„  7,  19   ... 
„  10-21   ... 

...  I.  465 

...  II.  317 

19   

I.  401 

„  41  56 

n.  157 

„  18-30  ... 

...  II.  351 

„  21   
„  21   

I.  385 
I.  389 

ix.  1-6  ... 
„  6  

II.  169 
II.  171 

„  22-30  ... 
„  22-30  ... 

...  II.  342 
...  II.  343 

I.  359 

„  7-9  ... 

II.  172 

„  25  

...  I.  292 

„  16-30  
„  16,  29  
„  22   

II.  165 
II.  38 
II.  164 

„  10-17... 
„  13-21... 
„  20 

II.  173 
II.  225 
I.  486 

„  26  
„  26  
„  31-35  ... 

...  II.  38 

...  n.  220 

...  II.  343 

„  22   
„  28,  31  

I.  188 
I.  176 

„  22-27... 
„  28-33... 

n.  230 

II.  235 

„  33  ...  ... 
xiv.  1   

...  II.  53 

...  n.  121 

„  32,  33  

n.  4 

„  31 

I.  436 

„  l-«  

...  II.  317 

„  34,  41  
„  40   

I.  486 
II.   6 

„  37-43  ... 
„  43-45... 

II.  241 
II.  245 

„  1-24  
„  8   

...  n.  319 
...  I.  449 

v.  1-11  
„  3,  4,  37   

I.  515 
I.  464 

„  46   ... 
„  46-50... 

II.  253 
II.  246 

„  13  
„  15  

...  I.  113 
...  I.  183 

;;  16..:  

„  12-16  

I.  442 

n.  13 

„  46-50... 
„  50   ... 

H.  251 
II  53 

„  15,  24  ... 
„  18  

...  n.  322 

...  I.  232 

;,  H  

I.  86 

„  52 

II.  124 

„  23  

...  I.  292 

„  17   

I.  296 

„  -'3   ... 

I.  490 

,,  25  

...  II.  331 

„  17-28  
„  27   
„  29  

n.  is 

I.  459 
I.  386 

„  60 
„  60,  62... 
„  62   ^. 

II.  151 
II.  42 
I.  292 

„  2.V35   ... 
„  29  
30   

...  II.  324 
...  I.  268 
...  I.  292 

„  29-39  

II.  30 

x.  13,  IS  . 

I  468 

33 

n.  59 

„  30-33  
„  33  
„  34-39  

II.  33 
II.  121 
II.  36 

„  1-16  ... 
„  17-24  ... 
„  23  

II.  262 
II.  296 
I.  185 

XV.  1    

„  1-32  
„  2  

...  II.  331 
...  II.  328 
...  I.  238 

vi.  1-6  

II.  96 

„  24  

n.  48 

,,4  

...  I.  461 

„  6-11  
„  12   
„  13   
„  17   

II.  99 
II.  43 
II.  40 
U.  42 

„  25-37  ... 
„  30  
„  HO  
„  31  

II.  293 
-.  ...  I.  275 
I.  600 
I.  87 

„  10   
„  12   
„  25   
„  31,32  

...  I.  94 
...  I.  227 
...  I.  293 
...  I.  4uJ 

INDEX   OF  TEXTS. 


653 


Kvi.  1-13       ... 
,,    3      

Tol.  P. 

...  n.  331 

...    I.  291 

xxii.  19,  20    
„    21-23     
„    25  
„    28  

VoL   P. 
n.  446 

n.  441 

1.465 
H.    48 

ii.10  „ 
„  11  
„  12  

„  12,  13,  25    ... 

VoL    P. 
...    I.  410 
...    I.  392 
...     1.  458 
...     I.  468 

„    6       

*,'.  wif.!..  '." 

„    22     

...    I.  268 
...  II.  333 
...  H.  335 
...    I.    94 

„    31-38     

.  11.443 

„  2,  12,  13     ... 

...    L  465 

„    36  
„    35-38     
„    43  
„    47-53     
„    47-53     
„    64-62     
xxiii.  1-5       
„     2    
„     2    

"     2    '.'.'.     '.'.'.    '.. 

,     4,  6       ...     . 
,     6-12     ...    M 
,     8    
,      13-25     . 

II.  123 
H.  448 

.  n.  479 

.  II.  479 
.  11.480 
.  II.  498 
.  n.  500 
.  H.  377 
.  II.  491 
.  11.506 
.  11.606 
.  II.  507 
.  II.  508 
.    1.401 

.  n.  sio 

„  17  
„  19  
„  20...    „    ... 
,,23  
„  25  
iii.  i   

...    I.  473 
...  EL239 
...    L  456 
...    1.483 
...    1.  411 
...    1.412 
...    I.  412 
...    I.  481 
...    I.  274 
...    I.     6 
...  II.  440 
...  n.  182 
...    1.440 
...    I.  394 
...    I.  484 

xvii.  1-4  
„    5-10      ... 
„    7    
„    11-19    ... 
„    11-19    ... 
„    15  
„    20  
„    20,  21    ... 
„    20-37    ... 
„    29  
„    33  
xviii.  1    
„    1-8  
„    2,5       ... 

;;  S  :::  ::: 

...  II.  337 
U.  338-9 
...    I.  292 
...  II.  262 
...  U.  267 
...    I.  600 
...    I.  486 

...  n.  74 

...  II.  339 
...    I.  293 
...    I.  418 
...  II.  420 
...  II.  345 
...  II.  491 
...  U.    25 
...  II.    33 

„  6  
„  10-21  
„  12       
„  16       
„  18       
„  19       
„  23       
„  24-26  
„  26       

,     26-38    ...     . 
,      27-32    ...     . 
,     33,34,38    . 
34 

.  n.  525 

.  IL  528 

.  n.  530 

.  n.  467 

„  25-38  
„  2B       
„  2C-32  
„  29       

...    I.  487 
...    I.  400 
...    1.489 
...     I.  447 

„    9-14      ... 
„    11  
xviii.  11  
„     14  
„      15-17  ... 
,      16  
„     30  
,     31-31  ... 
'  „     35-43   ... 
xix.  1      
„    2-28  
„     6      

...  II.  346 
...    I.  183 
...    I.  381 
...    I.  172 
...  II.  350 
...    1.  402 
...  II.  354 
...  H.  359 
...  n.  363 
...  II.  363 
...  H.  361 
...  II.  119 

,     35-37,  39-43 
„     39-46    ...     . 
,     45,  47-49     .. 
„     47  
„     60-56    ...     . 
xxiv.  21,  25   
„     26  
,     36-49    ...     . 
„     42  

II.  534 

.  n.  475 

.  H.  639 

.  n.  540 

.  H.  642 
.     I.  102 

.  n.  230 

.  II.  659 

.  n.  121 

„  32       
„  32       
„  32       
iv.  1  
„  1  
„  8  
„  9-30    
„  35,45  
„  42       

...  n.  IBS 

...    I.  490 
...    1.600 
...    1.484 
...    1.490 
...  H.  119 
...    1.  498 
...    I.  489 
...  H.  469 

„     51  
xxv.  3     

JOHN. 

i.  11  ... 

„  14  

.  n.  672 
.    1.266 

.  H.  182 
.    1.476 

„  45       
,,45,54  
„  1,  52   
„  64       
v.  1  

...     I.  507 
...    I.  508 
...    I.  510 
...     I.  433 
...  n.  188 

„    8      

...    I.  274 

„    9      
„    11,27      ... 
„    12    
„    18    
„    23    

...    I.  229 
...    I.  259 
...  11.420 
...  H.  294 
...     I.  268 

,,1-47    
,,19  

...  n.    88 
...  H.    93 

„    29-44      ... 
„    45-48      ... 

...  H.  371 
...  n.  378 

,,15  
„  16,  19  

.    1.392 
.     1.381 

„  22-27  
,,31  

...  II.  425 
...  II.    53 

XX.  1  f.    

„    1-8  
„    6       

„    9-19  

...  n.  382 
...  n.  380 
...    1.376 
...  II.  386 

„  19  
,,19  . 
,,19,24  
„  28,  45  

.    1.377 
.    1.382 
.    1.484 
.     1.  388 

„  35  
,,35  
„  33  
,,36  

...  n.  109 

...     1.  394 
...  II.  180 
...    1.451 

„    14,29 
„    20-26 

...  n.  122 

...  II.  392 

,,  27,  29   
„  29  

.    1.391 
.     I.  434 

„  40  
vi.  2    

...  H.  182 
...    I.  286 

„    22     
„    27-10 
„    41-14 
„   45,46 
„    47     
xxi.  1      
„     1-1  
„    6      
„    6-19  
„     12    
„    20-36      ... 
„    30    
„    36    
„    37,  38     ... 

...     1.  273 

...  n.  397 

...  II.  401 
...  II.  402 
...  H.  403 
...    1.471 
...  II.  408 
...     I.    48 
...  II.  414 
...  11.461 
...  II.  419 
...  II.  421 
...  II.  422 
...  II.  3SO 

,,32  
„  32  
„  33,  34  
,,31  
,,35  
,,35  
„  39  
,,42  
,,44  
,,45  
,,46  
,,46  
„  47  
„  47  

.  n.  204 

.    1.393 
.    1.  393 
.    1.437 
.    I.  386 
.    1.433 
.  H.  364 
.  n.  568 
.    1.442 
.    1.443 
.    I.  155 
.     1.457 
.    I.  125 
I  295 

„  7  
„  11       

",  15-21  '.'.'.    '.'.'. 
„  18       
„  22-59  
„  4,  23   
„  28       
„  23,  35,  39,  40 
„  35       
„  39       
„  47        
„  61,65  
59       

...  II.  175 
...  II.  175 
...    I.  456 

...  n.  177 

...  11.  152 
...  11.  179 

...  n.  173 

...  II.  180 
...  II.  182 
...  II.  176 
...  II.  481 
...  II.  183 
...    I.     8 
.  .  II.  183 

„    38    II.  382 
xxii.  1-6  II.  430 
„    7-13       H.  434 
„    8     1.203 
„    11   1.114 
„    14  II.  122 
„    14-18,  24-30...  H.  438 

,,47  
„  60  
,,51  
ii.  1,  13,  61     ...     . 
„  4   
„  8,  21-23      ...     . 
„  9,  10     

.    I.  297 
..  II.  227 
..    I.  412 
..    1.412 
..    I.  102 
..    1.476 
..    1.419 

„  62        
„  63        
„  69        

vii.  1       ..,    ... 
1       

,,    1       

...  11.410 
...  II.  419 
...    1.488 
...  II.  227 
...  II.  179 
...  II.  188 
...  n.  203 

654 


INDEX  OF   TEXTS. 


vii.  1-10  ... 
„  2-10... 
»  6 

Vol.  P. 
H.  264 
II.  262 
I.  102 

xiii.  21  
„  21-35  

VoL  P. 

n.  203 
n.  411 

I.  207 

xix.  19  
„  19-23   ... 
»  25 

Vol  P. 
...  I.  457 
...  n.  5J9 
I  102 

„  7 

n.  201 

„  26-37  

n.  411 

„  25  ...  . 

...  I.  412 

„  15   ... 
„  20,25 
„  22,  23 

II.  51 
II.  273 
I.  119 

',',  29  '.". 
„  33  

II.  119 

II.  123 
II.  48 

„  25  
„  25-30  ... 
„  31-42 

...  n.  120 
...  n.  534 
n  540 

,  27  ... 
,  27  ... 
,  31   ... 
,  37  .- 
,  41,52 

1.140 
II.  183 

n.  130 

II.  269 
I.  295 

„  36  
xiv  1-31   
„  5  
„  8  
„  9  

n.  451 

II.  450 

n.  451 

II.  452 
II.  183 

„  38-12   ... 
„  39  
XX.  8   
,,  22  

,,  2-t-';9 

...  n.  542 
...  I.  473 
...  n.  551 

...  n.  561 

TT  563 

,  46   ... 
,  49   ... 

H.  54 
I.  521 

„  10,  20  
„  12  

II.  441 
II.  452 

xxi.  1-24... 
7 

...  n.  560 
II  45 

,  50  ... 

1.478 

„  17  

H.  453 

„  13 

n  121 

,  51  ... 

II.  487 

„  18  

n.  453 

TC-sii  22 

jj  228 

,  52  ... 
viii.  1  11... 

I.  457 
II.  278 

„  19  
,,  20-22 

II.  454 
II  454 

„  6   ... 

I.  332 

»  21  . 

n.  553 

ACTS 

„  8   ... 

I  227 

„  23-27  .  .  .. 

II.  455 

,,  14  ... 
»  21  ... 

„  46  ... 
..  47  ... 
»  47  ... 
,,  48  ... 
„  67  ... 
ix.  7  

...  II.  53 
II.  283 
I.  147 
n.  183 
H.  183 
1.497 
1.456 

n.  144 

„  29,  30  

XV.  1    

„  3  
„  3,  4,  5  
„  7,  9,  11,  12  ... 
„  14,15  
„  16  
»  16 

H.  456 
n.  456 
H.  440 

n.  457 

n.  458 

n.  48 
n.  151 

II  459 

i.  3  ... 
„  3-8   
,,6  
„  9-11  
,,15  
„  15  
,,15  
„  18,  19  ...  ... 

...  n.  564 

...  n.  670 
...  H.  565 
...  II.  572 

...  n.  229 

...  H.  373 
...  n.  563 
...  n.  523 

„  22,34 
„  22,  34 
„  1-41  ... 
X.  2  

II.  203 
H.  461 

n.  297 

n.  306 

„  18-23   
xvi.  1-4  ...  
„  5  
„  8-13 

II.  460 

n.  461 

H.  462 
II  4<>3 

„  18,  19  
ii.  7  
„  7,8  
„  9  

...  II.  524 
...  I.  457 
...  I.  295 
...  I.  66 

>,  7,  9  ... 
„  15,  16... 

II.  451 
II.  409 

„  12  
„  14-19  ...  . 

II.  564 
II.  464 

„  9,  11  
„  9-12  

...  I.  195 
...  I.  132 

»  16   ... 
„  20   ... 

»  2'2 

H.  469 

n.  133 

I.  177 

„  23-29  
„  30-33  

II.  465 
n.  466 
II  466 

„  14,  37,  33  ... 
„  15   
„  16   

...  n.  229 

...  I.  100 

...  n.  570 

„  22-42... 
xi.  27   ... 
„  33   ... 

...  H.  306-309 
n.  431 
II.  292 

„  4-9  
„  5  

„  5  

II.  467 
H.  443 

n.  410 

„  22-36  
„  46   
iii.  1   

...  n.  463 
...  n.  563 
...  I.  100 

„  33   ... 

n.  431 

„  11-16  ... 

IE.  468 

„  1,4,12  ... 

...  n.  229 

„  38   ... 

II.  292 

„  12  

n.  48i 

„  14,  2G   ... 

...  n.  463 

„  43,44 
„  55   ... 
„  55,  56 
„  55-57 
Xii.  1   ... 
»  1 
„  2,  3  ... 
»  2-8  ... 
»  6 
„  16-19 
„  20-33 

II.  314 
I.  204 
I.  203 
H.  368 
II.  119 
II.  291 
n.  292 
II.  430 

n  119 
n.  371 

II.  409 

„  17-24  
„  25,  26  
xviii.  1,  2   
„  2-12  
„  3-12  
„  6  
„  12  
„  13-18,  25-27 
„  28  
„  28-38  
„  23  

H.  469 
II.  470 
II.  475 
II.  480 
n.  479 
I.  339 
II.  480 
n.  498 
I.  204 
II.  500 
I.  203 

„  17  

iv.  1-3  
„  6    
„  8,  19  
„  32   
„  36   ...  ~. 
v.  3,  29  
„  17   
„  37   
vi.  7  
„  7  

...  n.  499 
...  n.  210 
...  n.  474 
...  n.  229 

...  n.  356 
...  I.  445 

...  n.  229 
...  n.  210 

...  I.  272 
...  I.  83 

...  II.  215 

„  26  ... 
„  27  f. 
,.  34  ... 
„  34  ... 

n.  459 

II.  410 
H.  186 
II.  412 

„  29,  30  
„  31,  32  ...  . 
„  31  
„  36  . 

II.  f03 
II.  504 
II.  505 
n.  48 

„  7  
„  9  
„  11   
„  13   

...  II.  540 
...  II.  528 
...  II.  59 
II.  492 

„  35-43 

II  412 

„  36  

I.  486 

„  14   

...  I.  475 

„  42  ... 

I.  83 

»  36 

I  366 

vii.  51,  57   ... 

II.  95 

„  42  ... 
„  44-50 

n.  203 

II.  414 

,  30,  37  ...  . 
„  33  

II.  506 
II.  507 

„  55  
„  5S   

...  I.  94 
...  II.  280 

»  43  ... 

„  58  ... 

I.  477 
I.  274 

„   39,  40  
six.  1-3  

n.  510 

II.  515 

„  58  

viii.  9   ... 

...  II.  527 
.  I.  138 

riii.  1-20 

n.  438 

„  4-16  

H.  513 

„  20  

...  II.  229 

»  4,6,12 
„  7  ... 

I.  206 
II.  4*1 

„  7  
„  14  

II.  521 
I.  203 

ix.  2.  20  
„  23   

...  I.  175 
...  I.  311 

„  13  f. 
.,  16  ... 

II.  459 
n.  460 

„  16,  17  
„  16-22  

II.  528 
H.  625 

x.  5  
,,9  

...  II.  229 
...  II.  33 

i.  20  ... 

n.  441 

„  18-24  

II.  530 

„  9,  30  

.  I.  100 

INDEX  OF   TEXTS. 


655 


r.  35       ...    i.    .. 
,,3-,  33  
„  37        

Vol.  P. 
II.    34 
1.411 
1.483 

1.  412 

VoL  P. 
i.  23  ...    „  I.  436 
ix.  5  H.  350 

HEBREWS. 

iv.  15 
„   15      
v.    7       
„    7 
vii.  3       
„  26       
„  26       ...     ^.    ... 
x.  4  
g 

VoL  P. 
1.147 
1.415 
I.  4L5 
n.  478 
11.183 
I.  147 
n.  463 
n.  649 
II.    33 
n.  529 

L  125 

n.  410 

I.  147 
H.  238 
H.    63 

n.  225 

N. 

n.  563 
I  3<>o 
I.  320 
I.    88 
I.    94 
I.  3B9 
I.    36 
I.  372 
H.  425 
I.  365 
1.320 
1.306 
1.420 
I.  290 
1.488 
I.  447 
I.    74 
I.  3  0 
L  448 
1.450 

xi.  5  ...     ..     I.  180 
„  10        I.    94 

,,  38        ...    ...    ... 

xi.  2  

n.  229 

„  10        I.  448 

xii.  4       _    
„    5        

II.  532 
II.  229 

„  23-25  H.  446 
„  25        IL  447 

„  12        
xiii.  1      
1 

H.  435 
1.283 
1.508 

xii.  10      n.  561 
XV.  6        II.  373 
„  8       II.  569 

i     5 
„     6      

1.175 
I.  136 

„   5        H.  554 
„   7        H.  570 

xii.          

JAKES, 
iv.  8        

1  PETER, 
i.  11  , 

„    45,60  

I.  311 

„  £2       n.  421 

xiv.  1       
„     15      
XV.  10      

I.  311 
H.  393 

n.  is 

I  175 

2  CORINTHIANS, 
v.  13        n.    26 

„     19    

I.  311 

„  14        II.  225 

xvii.  17  
n       6   
„       6    
xviii.  2,  4       
„    4    
„  12     ...    ...    ... 
xx.  2       
xxi.  23,   24    
„      28    
„     30     
„     31   
xxii.  3     ... 
,,      3     ...    ...    ^. 
xxiii.  8    ... 
„     12    
xxiv.  1    
„     23   

1.175 
1.311 
H.    97 
1.366 
I.  175 
1.311 
1.437 
1.340 
1.269 
1.311 
L200 
I.  275 
1.354 

n.  214 

11.  519 
H.  503 

GALATIANS. 

ii.  11        n.    33 
v.  11        n.  185 

PHILEMON. 

iii.  6  n.    25 
„  6  H.  213 

ii.  22       

2  PETER. 
i.17,18  

1  JOHN, 
iii.  15 

iv.  12       n.  122 

COLOSSIANS. 
L19  „.    1.476 

iv.  19       

REVELATIO 
i  in 

,,26  I.    78 
ii.9  1.476 
„  16        L  190 

iL17        
„  27        
iv.  10      
viii.  3      ... 
ix.  14      
„  17       _.    —    ... 
xi.  3        
„  15        „.    ...    ... 
„  19        
xii.  5       

„     23   ...    ^    .  . 

n.  107 

1  THESSALONIANS. 
iv.  15,  16  n.  421 

1  TIMOTHY, 
iii.  2                             I  126 

„     21    
xiv.  13   
xxvi.24  

ROMANS. 
L4            ... 

I.  401 
1.401 
IL    26 

H.  463 

I   313 

n    35 

,,26,  27   
xiv  17 

„  16        IT.  463 

„  6,  14  
„  9  

xvi.  13    

n.  628 

„  10       L  113 

xvi.  8      
xix.  7      
„    8       

::  11  :::  :::  ::: 

xxi.  2      
Xiii.  29,  30    ...    _ 

1  CORINTHIANS. 

i.  17  ;„    I.  481 
„  22  H.  13'i 
„  23  ...    «.    ».    ...  n.  18? 

2  TIMOTHY. 

5.615                       ,.    1.161 
iii.  15      I.  1<U 
I.  i2j 

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Blackstone  a  subject  of  such  peculiar  and  unbounded  praise — a  work  closely 
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up  his  work  with  an  ideal  index  and  a  full  summary  of  his  line  of  thought,  a  very  great 
aid  to  the  ordinary  reader  in  the  attempt  to  master  an  extended  and  subtle  discussion. 
He  has  his  reward  in  the  effectiveness  of  the  book,  which  is  a  strong,  ingenious,  and  very 
destructive  inquiry  into  the  current  atheistic  and  agnostic  philosophies  as  religions. 
.  .  .  He  makes  no  extravagant  claim  for  the  Bible  nor  for  Christian  theology,  and  he 
does  not  lay  so  much  stress  on  the  postulates  and  conclusions  of  Christian  science  or 
Christian  philosophy  as  the  supreme  needs  and  responsibilities  of  human  life.  .  .  . 
We  understand  that  Mr.  Lilly  is  a  Roman  Catholic.  There  is  nothing  in  his  book  to 
suggest  any  Roman  limitations  to  his  Catholic  faith.  He  has  done  great  good  service 
to  the  cause  of  right  thinking  and  right  living."  —  New  York  Independent. 

J/f/HYNOTAND  WHY.     Short  Studies  in  Church- 
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J/J7HY  WE  BELIEVE  THE  BIBLE.     An  Hour's 
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work  of  this  scope,  to  do  more  than  to  state  dogmatically  conclusions  and  facts.  This 
has  been  fairly  done  in  the  volume.  ...  It  prepares  the  ground  for  honest  inquiry, 
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/I  CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLE  OF  UNIVERSAL 
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